Answer: Collecting Insects

Pokémon, a wildly popular Nintendo game franchise, revolves around the exploits of a protagonist bent on collecting all the various Pokémon creatures, training them, and pitting them in battle against other computer and player-controlled Pokémon trainers. So where did the inspiration for the game come from?

Much like a childhood spent exploring the woods and caverns of rural Japan inspired game designer Shigeru Miyamoto in his design work, the Japanese countryside also inspired Satoshi Tajiri’s design work. Tajiri, the inventor of the Pokémon series, spent his childhood roaming the fields and woods of Japan collecting and cataloging insects. As Japan became increasingly urbanized, he was saddened by both the decline of the insect population and the lost opportunities for children to explore, discover, and collect.

Pokémon was Tajiri’s attempt to fill that niche by allowing children, regardless of their location, to explore and collect hundreds of Pokémon creatures. To that end, Tajiri was wildly successful—Nintendo has sold over 300 million Pokémon games since the series was introduced in 1995. And, to bring it full circle, the wild popularity of the mobile game Pokémon Go actually led to thousands upon thousands of players venturing back outside to collect Pokémon in the real world.