0:09

Originals.

0:10

This is an iHeart original.

0:16

It was the summer of twenty sixteen,

0:18

and the whole world had gone crazy

0:21

for Pokemon Go. In

0:23

city parks and on suburban

0:25

streets, groups of geeked out

0:27

strangers clutched their phones

0:29

while chasing down virtual characters.

0:33

If you don't remember, Pokemon Go was

0:35

a legitimate cultural phenomenon.

0:38

Hundreds of millions of people downloaded

0:41

the game. There were news reports

0:43

of distracted Pokemon Go players

0:45

walking off cliffs. Highway

0:47

signs warned drive now,

0:50

catch Pokemon later. Sure,

0:53

there had been popular mobile games

0:55

before, Let's not forget they

0:57

made Angry Birds into a movie,

1:00

two of them. But there was

1:02

something different about Pokemon

1:04

Go. All you had to do was

1:06

step outside, open the

1:08

app, and your phone became a

1:11

magical window into a hidden

1:13

world. Pokemon Go is

1:15

still going today. Millions

1:17

of Pokemon trainers are still catching

1:20

Pokemon in the wild and battling

1:22

each other at poke gems. But

1:24

there was something truly special

1:26

when Pokemon Go first took

1:28

the world by storm. All

1:31

these years later, it's easy to

1:33

forget the craziest fact

1:35

about the crazy popularity

1:37

of Pokemon Go that the

1:40

whole thing began as

1:42

a joke, and not just

1:44

any joke, but in April

1:46

Fool's Joke. Welcome

1:50

to very special episodes and iHeart

1:52

original podcast. I'm your

1:54

host, Danish Schwartz, and this is

1:57

April Fool's Gold, the story

2:00

of Pokemon.

2:00

Go Happy

2:06

April Fools everybody. I'm

2:08

Jason English, welcoming you

2:10

to very special episodes. Now

2:13

we are not what you would call a timely

2:16

show. In recent weeks, we spent

2:18

time on the set of James Cameron's Titanic

2:20

the night someone poisoned the cast and crew.

2:23

We tried to track down a moon rock that went

2:25

missing in the late seventies. We

2:28

recounted an old Soviet botany rivalry

2:30

from the Stalin era. That's all by

2:32

design. I'm a firm believer

2:35

that being interesting is more important

2:37

than being timely. But on

2:39

occasion we hit on a story idea

2:42

that does line up with a specific date.

2:44

So when producer Josh Fisher and writer

2:47

Dave Russ pitched today's topic, we

2:49

realized the tenth anniversary was mere

2:52

weeks away. So this week's episode

2:54

is both interesting and timely, a two fer.

2:57

I'm gonna let Dana take it from here.

3:00

Our story begins on April first,

3:02

twenty eleven, when a young

3:05

man named Tatsuo Nomora showed

3:07

up for his first day of work at

3:09

Google Japan. Tatuo

3:12

didn't know it, but April Fool's Day

3:14

was a really big deal at Google.

3:17

For many years, Google used April

3:19

First to roll out a litany

3:21

of fake Google products.

3:24

There was Google Gulp, a quote

3:27

smart drink that enhanced

3:29

your intelligence, and Google

3:31

Romance, powered by Google's

3:33

trademarked Soulmate search

3:35

technology. There was even

3:37

a feature called ad Birds that

3:40

promised to put your ads on birds

3:43

who would then fly around. It

3:45

didn't take long for Tatuo to get

3:48

in on the fine. He was working

3:50

on Google Maps at the time, so

3:52

on April Fool's Day twenty twelve,

3:55

he came up with his first joke

3:57

product, an old school Nintendo

4:00

version of Google Maps. Here's

4:03

Tatsuo.

4:05

And I came up with this idea to turn the

4:07

Google Maps into the old

4:09

fashioned Nintendo classic Nintendo

4:11

eight bit style. And I

4:14

made a demo prototype for it and showed

4:16

it around and people really loved it.

4:18

And the following year people asked

4:21

me what I would do, and I would

4:23

come up with ideas, so I

4:26

sort of became this April

4:28

Fools Guy.

4:29

In twenty fourteen, Tatuo moved

4:31

to California to work for Google

4:33

USA. He was still on

4:35

the Google Maps team, putting in long

4:38

hours launching a new version of

4:40

the Google Maps mobile app. He

4:43

didn't really want to get involved with another

4:45

prank product because it

4:47

meant even more work creating

4:50

something that's funny for like

4:52

a day and then everyone forgets

4:54

about. But Tatuo's reputation

4:57

as the April Fools Guy followed

5:00

him to America, and the Google

5:02

Maps team roped him in. They

5:04

were looking for a new joke.

5:06

I did that.

5:07

Encouraged users to explore

5:09

the fancy new map they just

5:12

launched. Someone came up with

5:14

the idea of collecting things on

5:16

Google Maps. Okay, but

5:18

collecting what?

5:20

And some ideas we came up was,

5:22

you know, Hello Kitty, like if you

5:25

go to different places, they have that city

5:27

themed Hello Kitty, and we talked

5:29

about that. We also talked about dragon Ball.

5:31

You have you know, seving dragon Ball, you pan

5:33

around, you find them. And it was during

5:35

that brainstorming I came up with Pokemon.

5:38

I mean, what do you collect Pokemon?

5:40

Right? That's quite natural.

5:42

It was also just by chance staying

5:45

next to Pokemon Center. It's

5:47

like a Pokemon store. Every morning I go

5:49

to the office, I will pass by that store,

5:52

So it was kind of natural to come up with that idea.

5:56

Just like that, Tattoo found himself creating

5:58

a new April Fools game for Google

6:01

Maps. They called it the Pokemon

6:03

Challenge. Tattoo was

6:06

a software developer, not a game

6:08

designer, but he was also a

6:10

nineties kid who grew up playing the

6:12

original Pokemon video game on his

6:14

game Boy, so making this

6:17

fake Pokemon game was

6:19

also kind of a dream job. The

6:22

object of Pokemon is, of course,

6:24

to catch them all, so that's

6:26

how Tattuo designed the Pokemon

6:29

Challenge. He hid one

6:31

hundred and fifty Pokemon inside

6:34

Google Maps in different locations

6:36

around the globe. The hiding

6:38

spots weren't completely random.

6:40

Tattoo says, I didn't

6:43

want it to be hard, but it

6:45

had to be interesting. I

6:47

think that was what I wanted. And

6:50

just like the original Pokemon, if you wanted

6:52

to catch them all, you know, you got

6:55

to make some effort to catch them all. So

6:58

there were one hundred and fifty Pokemon in

7:00

that Pokemon Challenge, and they were located

7:03

at places like if you go

7:05

to a volcano in Hawaii, find

7:07

a Chari's art there, and if

7:09

you'll go to a power plan you can might find

7:11

a Pikachu. We really

7:14

tried to make it interesting for people

7:16

to look around.

7:19

To actually win the game,

7:22

though, Tatuo wanted that

7:24

to be a true challenge. He

7:27

knew that gamers would immediately

7:29

go online and post spoilers

7:31

with the locations of each Pokemon as

7:33

they were found, so he added

7:35

one final Pokemon who

7:38

didn't play by the rules, the

7:40

legendary Mew.

7:43

Only after a player had already

7:45

caught all one hundred and fifty Pokemon

7:48

could they start searching for Mew

7:51

to really test their catching

7:53

skills.

7:54

Tatuo hid Mew deep.

7:56

In the Amazon jungle, but

7:59

knowing that people would reveal Mu's

8:01

location online, Tatuo

8:03

programmed in an ingenious

8:05

twist.

8:06

So all other Pokemon they had static

8:09

location. This Mew is

8:11

static, but it's a different

8:14

per person, so you will

8:16

find it Mew at a different location

8:18

than other people.

8:19

When it came time to launch the game,

8:22

Google's marketing department produced

8:24

a flashy video trailer. The

8:27

joke was that Google Maps was

8:29

looking to hire an official Pokemon

8:32

Master. To weed out applicants,

8:34

they created the Pokemon Challenge.

8:39

It's always been important to us to have the most qualified

8:41

employees at Google. Now,

8:44

using the technology created by the Google Maps team,

8:47

we've prepared the most rigorous test known demand

8:50

to find the world's best Pokemon Master.

8:53

The trailer was a Hollywood style

8:56

production complete with special effects.

8:59

It showed intrepid Pokemon masters

9:01

scaling cliffs and saling the ocean

9:03

to catch rare Pokemon. But unlike

9:06

tatsu game, where Pokemon

9:08

were caught with a simple click on

9:10

Google Maps, the trailer

9:13

showed Pokemon masters using

9:15

their phones to actually see

9:17

live Pokemon in the wild and

9:19

capture them with poke balls. There

9:22

was even a shot of a man in a business

9:24

suit on a busy sidewalk, clutching

9:26

his phone and frantically waving around

9:28

at an imaginary Pokemon. Important

9:31

of things to come For

9:33

April Fool's Day twenty fourteen,

9:36

Tatsuo's Pokemon Challenge

9:38

was released to the world, and

9:41

one of the people who remembers playing

9:43

the game that day is Stephen Oz.

9:46

Stephen was just a teenager back then,

9:48

but he thought it was brilliant.

9:50

Once you updated the app, the little

9:53

guy that you drop on the pin to

9:55

see like a three D v You've seen

9:57

him dress as Professor Oak and he's all like

10:00

saying, hey, we need you to

10:02

help find all of these Pokemon spread

10:04

all over the world. And I'm like I

10:06

saw this was like the greatest day since Google

10:09

Maps did the pac Man version

10:11

of Google Maps.

10:13

Stephen played the Pokemon challenge

10:15

on Google Maps for hours and,

10:18

with the help of some online tips, found

10:21

all one hundred and fifty hidden Pokemon,

10:23

just as Tatsuo had planned. Though, capturing

10:26

the mythical Mew in the Amazon

10:29

jungle was almost impossible,

10:31

but Stephen persevered and eventually

10:34

caught him all. Winning the game

10:37

was fun for Steven, but the real prize

10:39

came a few months later. Tatsuo

10:42

and the Google Maps team decided to

10:44

reward all the winners with

10:46

actual Google Pokemon Master

10:49

business cards with their names on them,

10:51

along with a signed letter from

10:54

Tatsuo.

10:55

That was amazing. That was like being validated

10:58

for being a Pokemon fan. I never

11:00

expected that in my life of being

11:02

a Pokemon master and may and I showed them

11:05

off to everyone those

11:07

cards in my prize possession. It

11:09

felt fun, It felt like something new

11:11

and exciting in the world of Pokemon.

11:15

April Fools twenty fourteen came

11:18

and went. Tatua returned to

11:20

his day job at Google Maps, but

11:22

his mind kept coming back to the

11:24

Pokemon Challenge.

11:27

Sure, he made the game as an April Fools

11:29

joke, a one off gag, but

11:32

like Stephen, Tatuo felt

11:34

the game offered something new and

11:36

different from other Pokemon games. Could

11:39

this joke become something real?

11:42

I did think about making this a

11:44

real game. It took I

11:47

think three three four

11:49

months to prepare just for this

11:51

a few days joke, so it was a lot of

11:53

work. And every

11:56

year he makes so much effort and after a

11:58

few days people forget about it and

12:00

it's gone. So naturally, I

12:02

was always hoping, so one

12:05

of these will become something serio.

12:08

That's when Tatuo got the phone call

12:10

that changed the course of his career

12:13

and altered the course of gaming

12:15

history.

12:20

Tatsuo Nomura got a call from

12:22

a friend, Masa Kawashima. Masa

12:24

was working for a small gaming startup

12:27

called Niantic Labs. Niantic

12:29

was actually part of Google at the time.

12:32

Masa and Nyantik were making augmented

12:35

reality games, games that blended

12:37

real world and virtual elements.

12:40

Niantic's big ar game at

12:42

the time was Ingress. It

12:44

was a location based game. To

12:47

play it, you opened the app on your phone

12:49

and walked around outside. The

12:51

goal was to capture portals hidden

12:53

in real world locations and do

12:56

battle with other players. Masa

12:58

had seen the Hollywood style YouTube

13:01

trailer for the Pokemon Challenge.

13:04

He told Tatuo that the version of

13:06

the game being played in the trailer looked

13:09

exactly like a Pokemon version

13:11

of Ingris. Of course,

13:14

real world locations, capturing

13:17

Pokemon, doing battle with

13:19

other Pokemon trainers. All

13:21

the pieces started falling into

13:23

place.

13:25

Call it a Eureka.

13:26

Moment, an epiphany, a

13:29

revelation from the gaming gods.

13:32

In that moment, Pokemon Go was

13:34

born. Within weeks,

13:37

Tatsuo and Niantic were in Japan pitching

13:39

the idea to the Pokemon Company and

13:42

Nintendo. Within a few months,

13:44

Tatsuo was working full time

13:47

for Niantic. The next

13:49

year, Nyantik broke off from Google

13:51

as an independent company, betting

13:54

its future almost entirely on

13:56

the success of Pokemon Go, a

13:59

game that started as an April

14:01

fool's joke. We now

14:04

know how that future turned out.

14:06

When Poke Kimono finally launched

14:08

in twenty sixteen, it wasn't

14:10

just the biggest thing in mobile gaming,

14:13

it was the biggest thing in the world.

14:16

In just one week, the market

14:19

value of Nintendo, which owned

14:21

a stake in the game, jumped

14:23

by nine billion dollars.

14:26

With a b at the twenty

14:28

sixteen Summer Olympics in Brazil,

14:30

a Japanese athlete racked up

14:32

five thousand dollars in roaming

14:35

charges from playing Pokemon Go on

14:37

his phone. Starbucks issued

14:39

a special drink called the Pokemono

14:42

Frappuccino, featuring raspberry

14:44

syrup and freeze dried blackberries.

14:47

Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton,

14:50

attempting to piggyback on the game's

14:52

popularity, held a campaign

14:54

event at a Pokemon gym in

14:56

Ohio, where she famously

14:59

asked people to Pokemon go

15:01

to the polls. In the first

15:04

year alone, Pokemon Go was downloaded

15:06

seve one hundred and fifty million

15:09

times. The game had made billions

15:11

of dollars for Niantic, the tiny

15:14

startup that took a big bet.

15:16

On in April.

15:17

Fool's joke, John

15:21

Walker never thought he was going to be

15:23

a Pokemon Go fan. A

15:25

gaming journalist from the UK. John

15:28

was already in college when the original

15:30

Pokemon games and cartoons came

15:33

out in the nineties.

15:35

So back in twenty sixteen, I knew nothing,

15:37

absolutely nothing about Pokemon, like

15:39

I could maybe name you Pikachu, and

15:42

I had no clue at all about the

15:44

whole thing.

15:45

John didn't discover Pokemon Go

15:48

until twenty twenty, when COVID

15:50

lockdowns forced him and his very

15:52

active five year old son indoors,

15:56

and.

15:56

So we were trying to think of reasons to go out, and he

15:58

was going for a walk. Wasn't something that interested

16:01

him, nor any other five year old, And then I

16:03

remembered this Pokemon Go thing, so

16:05

I showed it to him and he instantly

16:07

loved it, and so we went out

16:09

and we walked, and it was it was just

16:12

magic. We went outside and all these Pokemon

16:14

that we didn't really know to care about at the time

16:17

were appearing in real life. And

16:20

to him this was just unbelievable.

16:22

And it ended up becoming a thing where we would don't

16:24

tell the government, but we would spend more

16:26

than an hour out. He would go for three

16:28

hour walks. A five year old going on three

16:31

hour walks. Purely motivated

16:33

by getting to the next PokeStop and the next pokeg

16:35

Gym, and the next ticking off the next

16:37

task off the list.

16:40

John says that his son Toby became

16:42

absolutely obsessed with catching

16:45

Mew two. They tried for months

16:47

to beat a character named Giovanni

16:50

who had a Mew two, but they always

16:52

came up short. John and Toby

16:54

were ready to give up after a long day

16:57

of playing in a special Pokemon Go

16:59

Live event.

17:00

I think the event came to an end at six pm, and I

17:02

remember we were sat on this chair in his room,

17:05

just having one last go because

17:07

the hot air balloon that he was in just happened

17:09

to hover into the game and we clicked

17:11

on it and we tried one more time,

17:13

and we did it. We won the mewtwo, like with

17:16

you know, it was a kind of sports movie ending

17:18

seconds to spare and we

17:20

both cried. I

17:23

remember, I just I was so relieved

17:26

for his happiness, and he was so overwhelmed

17:29

with happiness at the time. That was the most

17:31

precious thing and it was just such

17:33

an awesome moment.

17:35

Ten years ago today, Tatsuo

17:37

Nomora released an April Fool's

17:40

joke that has brought joy and

17:42

obsession and long walks

17:44

with five year olds to hundreds

17:46

of millions of people the world over. Tatsuo

17:50

still works for Niantic, where

17:52

he's created and launched other popular

17:55

AR games. One is called Pickman

17:57

Bloom, a kind of step counter

18:00

powered by Imaginary Friends.

18:03

Another is Monster Hunter Now,

18:05

in which you and monsters now

18:09

neither has been as world changing

18:11

as Pokemon Go, but that's

18:14

okay. Lightning almost never

18:16

strikes twice unless

18:18

you're PEAKACHEW. So Happy

18:20

April Fool's Day everyone, and who

18:23

knows, maybe some lame gag

18:25

you pull at work today will still be

18:27

a global phenomenon ten years

18:29

from now.

18:35

Very Special Episodes is made by some very

18:37

special people. This show

18:39

is hosted by Danish Schwartz, Zaren

18:42

Burnett and me Jason English.

18:44

This episode was written by Dave Bruce.

18:47

Our producer, editor and sound

18:49

designer is Josh Fisher. Additional

18:52

editing by Jonathan Washington, Mixing

18:54

and mastering by Bahid Fraser. Our

18:57

story editor is Marissa Brown. Original

19:00

music by Elise McCoy, Research

19:02

in fact checking by Austin Thompson.

19:05

Show logo by Lucy Kinton. I

19:07

am your executive producer and We'll

19:10

see you back here next week. If you like

19:12

this show, go give us a nice little rating

19:14

on Apple or wherever you're listening.

19:17

Very Special Episodes is a production

19:19

of iHeart Podcasts.