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So what's the deal with Pokemon's ownership?

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Deleted member 58846

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Apparently Nintendo does not own Pokemon.

Alright.

So who does?

Nintendo owns the trademark to Pokemon as well as all the individual creatures' names
Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures each own a third of Pokemon
The Pokemon Company operates and itself a joint holding between Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures.

That said, Creatures and Game Freak are listed as distinct partners by Nintendo. The Pokemon Company is listed as a first party.

This implies that Nintendo has the larger share in The Pokemon Company.

But When Pokemon GO came out, they disclosed to investors that they do not get most of the revenue generated by that game. Admittedly Pokemon GO has a fifth entity involved in Niantic.

So... which is it? Who actually owns Pokemon?
 
Velocity:Design:Comfort

Velocity:Design:Comfort

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Nov 23, 2017
4,302
TPCi is a holding company that essentially is leased the IP by Nintendo. Nintendo, GF, and Creatures own 1/3 each of it (Masuda is on the board of TPCi, for example.)
 
adumb

adumb

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Aug 17, 2019
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So do you have a predetermined list of potential threads you can work from, or is it just on a whim? Is there a quota?
 
lovecatt

lovecatt

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Nov 12, 2017
2,427
Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures each own a third of Pokemon
The Pokemon Company operates and itself a joint holding between Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures.

You literally answered your own question
 

HockeyBird

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Oct 27, 2017
12,584
Nintendo owns the trademark.

Nintendo, Creatures, and Game Freak set up the Pokemon Company to manage the brand. It's owned by all three. Not really that difficult to understand.
 
Robbin__

Robbin__

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May 26, 2018
350
Does anyone know what happened to Satoshi Tajiri? Haven't heard from him for a good while.
 
Marufuku

Marufuku

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Feb 27, 2018
802
Nintendo is the majority owner.


- Nintendo owns the Pokémon logo, the international trademarks and names.


https://www.pokemon.com/us/


DmYXVAE.jpg




- The Pokémon Company is first-party according to Nintendo:

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/events/101029/05.html

Nintendo's Satoru Iwata said:
As of the end of September this year, the number of Nintendo DS titles which had shipped more than a million units since their launches increased by one from first-party developers, which include Nintendo and the Pokémon Company, to come to a total of 46, and by 10 from third-party developers to equal 79.
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https://www.nintendo.co.jp/corporate/en/outline/index.html

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- Nintendo also owns an undisclosed amount in Creatures Inc.
 
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Nuclear Muffin

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Oct 29, 2017
4,721
Nintendo own all Pokemon related trademarks.

The Pokemon Company was set up to manage the brand on behalf of Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures. Each party (Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures) owns one third of The Pokemon Company.

As an aside, Nintendo partially owns Creatures (not sure how much of a percentage though, I think it's at least 50% though); as they helped to found the company in the first place. Creatures is the successor company to APE inc, the developer that made Earthbound alongside HAL Labs; and most of the staff from APE were absorbed directly into Creatures when Earthbound had finished development. It is run by Hirokazu Tanaka, who was previously one of Nintendo's most prolific music composers who worked on soundtracks for titles like Metroid (NES), Tetris (Game Boy) and Earthbound.

Game Freak is a 3rd party developer that Nintendo has no ownership over. They are free to work on whatever projects and platforms they wish.

Creatures co-develops the Pokemon games (its no coincidence that the series borrows a LOT from Earthbound/Earthbound Beginnings as a result), handles 3D Pokemon modelling and creates/manages/runs the Pokemon TCG.

Game Freak handles core development on the mainline Pokemon series.

Nintendo handles all network related development for every Pokemon title and provides development assistance (and obviously development tools too). They also handle outsourcing & all associated management, publishing and localisation.
 
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DoctorOak

DoctorOak

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Feb 22, 2018
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United Kingdom
The One Who Knocks said:
Apparently Nintendo does not own Pokemon.

Alright.

So who does?

Nintendo owns the trademark to Pokemon as well as all the individual creatures' names
Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures each own a third of Pokemon
The Pokemon Company operates and itself a joint holding between Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures.

That said, Creatures and Game Freak are listed as distinct partners by Nintendo. The Pokemon Company is listed as a first party.

This implies that Nintendo has the larger share in The Pokemon Company.

But When Pokemon GO came out, they disclosed to investors that they do not get most of the revenue generated by that game. Admittedly Pokemon GO has a fifth entity involved in Niantic.

So... which is it? Who actually owns Pokemon?
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The Pokémon Company does. Game Freak, Creatures and Nintendo each have control over key parts of the IP - the copyrights, trademarks and licensing - and their joint ownership (not exactly an even third each, Nintendo only owns 31%) of the Pokémon Company allows it the freedom to manage the entire Franchise without any individual party needing to be directly involved.
 

SuperL

Banned
Nov 27, 2017
891
That implies all the entities aren't in complete lock-step regarding the franchise. Nintendo's current CEO and his predecessor are ex-Pokemon Company people and THEIR predecessor helped establish it in the first place.
 
DoctorOak

DoctorOak

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SteelBeast6Beets said:
Doesn't he suffer of some form of high functioning autism? That's what I recall reading.
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Having done a lot of research into Tajiri's life in recent months, there isn't a single reliable source for that information. It all comes from a single article online that simply said he was, with no source or an interview to back it up.

Tajiri just never liked the publicity and he's opted to avoid it. Whether he *does* have any kind of autism is something we can't say because he hasn't.
 
Marufuku

Marufuku

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Feb 27, 2018
802
Also, from Hirokazu Tanaka, president of Creatures:

Hirokazu Tanaka said:
So Game Freak and Creatures are the developers, and Nintendo is the publisher. The Pokémon Company is like the producer, they're the agency of the franchise.

The Pokémon Company would be like the face of the franchise, yes. They talk with Nintendo and decide schedules and things like that.
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Source: https://nintendoeverything.com/hiro...reatures-company-starting-with-nintendo-more/
 
OP
OP

Deleted member 58846

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Nuclear Muffin said:
Nintendo own all Pokemon related trademarks.

The Pokemon Company was set up to manage the brand on behalf of Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures. Each party (Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures) owns one third of The Pokemon Company.

As an aside, Nintendo partially owns Creatures (not sure how much of a percentage though, I think it's at least 50% though); as they helped to found the company in the first place. Creatures is the successor company to APE inc, the developer that made Earthbound alongside HAL Labs; and most of the staff from APE were absorbed directly into Creatures when Earthbound had finished development. It is run by Hirokazu Tanaka, who was previously one of Nintendo's most prolific music composers who worked on soundtracks for titles like Metroid (NES), Tetris (Game Boy) and Earthbound.

Game Freak is a 3rd party developer that Nintendo has no ownership over. They are free to work on whatever projects and platforms they wish.

Creatures co-develops the Pokemon games (its no coincidence that the series borrows a LOT from Earthbound/Earthbound Beginnings as a result), handles 3D Pokemon modelling and creates/manages/runs the Pokemon TCG.

Game Freak handles core development on the mainline Pokemon series.

Nintendo handles all network related development for every Pokemon title and provides development assistance (and obviously development tools too). They also handle outsourcing & all associated management, publishing and localisation.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Thank you! This is the kind of thing I was looking for. So it seems like with everything accounted for, Nintendo would end up having the largest stake in the franchise?
 
SteelBeast6Beets

SteelBeast6Beets

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May 13, 2019
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DoctorOak said:
Having done a lot of research into Tajiri's life in recent months, there isn't a single reliable source for that information. It all comes from a single article online that simply said he was, with no source or an interview to back it up.

Tajiri just never liked the publicity and he's opted to avoid it. Whether he *does* have any kind of autism is something we can't say because he hasn't.
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I see. Thanks for clearing that up.

Guess it's one of those tidbits that eventually become a widely known fact via word of mouth despite lacking any kind of actual proof.
 
Marufuku

Marufuku

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Feb 27, 2018
802
The One Who Knocks said:
Thank you! This is the kind of thing I was looking for. So it seems like with everything accounted for, Nintendo would end up having the largest stake in the franchise?
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Yes.


Aquamarine works/worked on a bank (JPMorgan) which owns Nintendo shares and had access to internal documents, she had this to say:


Aquamarine said:
According to internal data, Nintendo owns approximately 43% of Pokemon in total, but they have full control over the direction of the IP (aka why Let's Go is on Switch only and not mobile).
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Deleted member 35204

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It's essentially a branch of Nintendo that has a lot of independence, yes technically the ownership of the whole thing is split in 3 companies but aside the fact that Nintendo itself is one of them they also have hands in the other two.
Technically not Nintendo but ultimately if needed Nintendo has the last word on everything.
 
JahIthBer

JahIthBer

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Jan 27, 2018
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Not sure, but Disney will probably own them soon like everyone else, so don't worry about it too much.
 
Atheerios

Atheerios

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Marufuku said:
Nintendo is the majority owner.
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falcondoc said:
Nintendo owns the majority as well as 100% of the trademarks
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The One Who Knocks said:
Thank you! This is the kind of thing I was looking for. So it seems like with everything accounted for, Nintendo would end up having the largest stake in the franchise?
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That's not true. Nintendo only owns 32% of TPC as they stated this year.

That leaves 68% for GF and Creatures, 34% for each if split evenly.

However, the trademarks are a little more complicated.
 
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