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Speaker 1: Originals.

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Speaker 2: This is an iHeart original. It was the summer of

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Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, and the whole world had gone crazy for

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Speaker 2: Pokemon Go. In city parks and on suburban streets, groups

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Speaker 2: of geeked out strangers clutched their phones while chasing down

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Speaker 2: virtual characters. If you don't remember, Pokemon Go was a

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Speaker 2: legitimate cultural phenomenon. Hundreds of millions of people downloaded the game.

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Speaker 2: There were news reports of distracted Pokemon Go players walking

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Speaker 2: off cliffs. Highway signs warned drive now, catch Pokemon later. Sure,

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Speaker 2: there had been popular mobile games before, Let's not forget

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Speaker 2: they made Angry Birds into a movie, two of them.

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Speaker 2: But there was something different about Pokemon Go. All you

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Speaker 2: had to do was step outside, open the app, and

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Speaker 2: your phone became a magical window into a hidden world.

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Speaker 2: Pokemon Go is still going today. Millions of Pokemon trainers

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Speaker 2: are still catching Pokemon in the wild and battling each

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Speaker 2: other at poke gems. But there was something truly special

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Speaker 2: when Pokemon Go first took the world by storm. All

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Speaker 2: these years later, it's easy to forget the craziest fact

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Speaker 2: about the crazy popularity of Pokemon Go that the whole

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Speaker 2: thing began as a joke, and not just any joke,

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Speaker 2: but in April Fool's Joke. Welcome to very special episodes

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Speaker 2: and iHeart original podcast. I'm your host, Danish Schwartz, and

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Speaker 2: this is April Fool's Gold, the story of Pokemon.

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Speaker 3: Go Happy April Fools everybody. I'm Jason English, welcoming you

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Speaker 3: to very special episodes. Now we are not what you

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Speaker 3: would call a timely show. In recent weeks, we spent

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Speaker 3: time on the set of James Cameron's Titanic the night

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Speaker 3: someone poisoned the cast and crew. We tried to track

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Speaker 3: down a moon rock that went missing in the late seventies.

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Speaker 3: We recounted an old Soviet botany rivalry from the Stalin era.

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Speaker 3: That's all by design. I'm a firm believer that being

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Speaker 3: interesting is more important than being timely. But on occasion

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Speaker 3: we hit on a story idea that does line up

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Speaker 3: with a specific date. So when producer Josh Fisher and

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Speaker 3: writer Dave Russ pitched today's topic, we realized the tenth

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Speaker 3: anniversary was mere weeks away. So this week's episode is

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Speaker 3: both interesting and timely, a two fer. I'm gonna let

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Speaker 3: Dana take it from here.

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Speaker 2: Our story begins on April first, twenty eleven, when a

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Speaker 2: young man named Tatsuo Nomora showed up for his first

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Speaker 2: day of work at Google Japan. Tatuo didn't know it,

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Speaker 2: but April Fool's Day was a really big deal at Google.

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Speaker 2: For many years, Google used April First to roll out

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Speaker 2: a litany of fake Google products. There was Google Gulp,

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Speaker 2: a quote smart drink that enhanced your intelligence, and Google Romance,

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Speaker 2: powered by Google's trademarked Soulmate search technology. There was even

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Speaker 2: a feature called ad Birds that promised to put your

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Speaker 2: ads on birds who would then fly around. It didn't

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Speaker 2: take long for Tatuo to get in on the fine.

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Speaker 2: He was working on Google Maps at the time, so

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Speaker 2: on April Fool's Day twenty twelve, he came up with

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Speaker 2: his first joke product, an old school Nintendo version of

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Speaker 2: Google Maps. Here's Tatsuo.

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Speaker 1: And I came up with this idea to turn the

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Speaker 1: Google Maps into the old fashioned Nintendo classic Nintendo eight

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Speaker 1: bit style. And I made a demo prototype for it

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Speaker 1: and showed it around and people really loved it. And

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Speaker 1: the following year people asked me what I would do,

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Speaker 1: and I would come up with ideas, so I sort

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Speaker 1: of became this April Fools Guy.

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Speaker 2: In twenty fourteen, Tatuo moved to California to work for

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Speaker 2: Google USA. He was still on the Google Maps team,

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Speaker 2: putting in long hours launching a new version of the

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Speaker 2: Google Maps mobile app. He didn't really want to get

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Speaker 2: involved with another prank product because it meant even more

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Speaker 2: work creating something that's funny for like a day and

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Speaker 2: then everyone forgets about. But Tatuo's reputation as the April

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Speaker 2: Fools Guy followed him to America, and the Google Maps

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Speaker 2: team roped him in. They were looking for a new joke.

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Speaker 4: I did that.

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Speaker 2: Encouraged users to explore the fancy new map they just launched.

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Speaker 2: Someone came up with the idea of collecting things on

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Speaker 2: Google Maps. Okay, but collecting what?

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Speaker 1: And some ideas we came up was, you know, Hello Kitty,

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Speaker 1: like if you go to different places, they have that

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Speaker 1: city themed Hello Kitty, and we talked about that. We

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Speaker 1: also talked about dragon Ball. You have you know, seving

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Speaker 1: dragon Ball, you pan around, you find them. And it

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Speaker 1: was during that brainstorming I came up with Pokemon. I mean,

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Speaker 1: what do you collect Pokemon? Right? That's quite natural. It

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Speaker 1: was also just by chance staying next to Pokemon Center.

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Speaker 1: It's like a Pokemon store. Every morning I go to

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Speaker 1: the office, I will pass by that store, So it

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Speaker 1: was kind of natural to come up with that idea.

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Speaker 2: Just like that, Tattoo found himself creating a new April

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Speaker 2: Fools game for Google Maps. They called it the Pokemon Challenge.

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Speaker 2: Tattoo was a software developer, not a game designer, but

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Speaker 2: he was also a nineties kid who grew up playing

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Speaker 2: the original Pokemon video game on his game Boy, so

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Speaker 2: making this fake Pokemon game was also kind of a

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Speaker 2: dream job. The object of Pokemon is, of course, to

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Speaker 2: catch them all, so that's how Tattuo designed the Pokemon Challenge.

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Speaker 2: He hid one hundred and fifty Pokemon inside Google Maps

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Speaker 2: in different locations around the globe. The hiding spots weren't

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Speaker 2: completely random.

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Speaker 1: Tattoo says, I didn't want it to be hard, but

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Speaker 1: it had to be interesting. I think that was what

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Speaker 1: I wanted. And just like the original Pokemon, if you

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Speaker 1: wanted to catch them all, you know, you got to

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Speaker 1: make some effort to catch them all. So there were

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Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty Pokemon in that Pokemon Challenge, and

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Speaker 1: they were located at places like if you go to

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Speaker 1: a volcano in Hawaii, find a Chari's art there, and

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Speaker 1: if you'll go to a power plan you can might

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Speaker 1: find a Pikachu. We really tried to make it interesting

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Speaker 1: for people to look around.

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Speaker 2: To actually win the game, though, Tatuo wanted that to

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Speaker 2: be a true challenge. He knew that gamers would immediately

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Speaker 2: go online and post spoilers with the locations of each

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Speaker 2: Pokemon as they were found, so he added one final

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Speaker 2: Pokemon who didn't play by the rules, the legendary Mew.

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Speaker 2: Only after a player had already caught all one hundred

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Speaker 2: and fifty Pokemon could they start searching for Mew to

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Speaker 2: really test their catching skills.

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Speaker 4: Tatuo hid Mew deep.

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Speaker 2: In the Amazon jungle, but knowing that people would reveal

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Speaker 2: Mu's location online, Tatuo programmed in an ingenious twist.

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Speaker 1: So all other Pokemon they had static location. This Mew

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Speaker 1: is static, but it's a different per person, so you

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Speaker 1: will find it Mew at a different location than other people.

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Speaker 2: When it came time to launch the game, Google's marketing

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Speaker 2: department produced a flashy video trailer. The joke was that

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Speaker 2: Google Maps was looking to hire an official Pokemon Master.

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Speaker 2: To weed out applicants, they created the Pokemon Challenge.

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Speaker 5: It's always been important to us to have the most

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Speaker 5: qualified employees at Google. Now, using the technology created by

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Speaker 5: the Google Maps team, we've prepared the most rigorous test

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Speaker 5: known demand to find the world's best Pokemon Master.

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Speaker 2: The trailer was a Hollywood style production complete with special effects.

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Speaker 2: It showed intrepid Pokemon masters scaling cliffs and saling the

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Speaker 2: ocean to catch rare Pokemon. But unlike tatsu game, where

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Speaker 2: Pokemon were caught with a simple click on Google Maps,

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Speaker 2: the trailer showed Pokemon masters using their phones to actually

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Speaker 2: see live Pokemon in the wild and capture them with

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Speaker 2: poke balls. There was even a shot of a man

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Speaker 2: in a business suit on a busy sidewalk, clutching his

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Speaker 2: phone and frantically waving around at an imaginary Pokemon. Important

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Speaker 2: of things to come For April Fool's Day twenty fourteen,

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Speaker 2: Tatsuo's Pokemon Challenge was released to the world, and one

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Speaker 2: of the people who remembers playing the game that day

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Speaker 2: is Stephen Oz. Stephen was just a teenager back then,

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Speaker 2: but he thought it was brilliant.

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Speaker 6: Once you updated the app, the little guy that you

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Speaker 6: drop on the pin to see like a three D

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Speaker 6: v You've seen him dress as Professor Oak and he's

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Speaker 6: all like saying, hey, we need you to help find

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Speaker 6: all of these Pokemon spread all over the world. And

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Speaker 6: I'm like I saw this was like the greatest day

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Speaker 6: since Google Maps did the pac Man version of Google Maps.

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Speaker 2: Stephen played the Pokemon challenge on Google Maps for hours and,

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Speaker 2: with the help of some online tips, found all one

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Speaker 2: hundred and fifty hidden Pokemon, just as Tatsuo had planned. Though,

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Speaker 2: capturing the mythical Mew in the Amazon jungle was almost impossible,

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Speaker 2: but Stephen persevered and eventually caught him all. Winning the

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Speaker 2: game was fun for Steven, but the real prize came

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Speaker 2: a few months later. Tatsuo and the Google Maps team

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Speaker 2: decided to reward all the winners with actual Google Pokemon

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Speaker 2: Master business cards with their names on them, along with

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Speaker 2: a signed letter from Tatsuo.

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Speaker 6: That was amazing. That was like being validated for being

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Speaker 6: a Pokemon fan. I never expected that in my life

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Speaker 6: of being a Pokemon master and may and I showed

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Speaker 6: them off to everyone those cards in my prize possession.

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Speaker 6: It felt fun, It felt like something new and exciting

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Speaker 6: in the world of Pokemon.

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Speaker 4: April Fools twenty fourteen came and went. Tatua returned to

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Speaker 4: his day job at Google Maps, but his mind kept

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Speaker 4: coming back to the Pokemon Challenge. Sure, he made the

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Speaker 4: game as an April Fools joke, a one off gag,

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Speaker 4: but like Stephen, Tatuo felt the game offered something new

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Speaker 4: and different from other Pokemon games. Could this joke become

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Speaker 4: something real?

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Speaker 1: I did think about making this a real game. It

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Speaker 1: took I think three three four months to prepare just

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Speaker 1: for this a few days joke, so it was a

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Speaker 1: lot of work. And every year he makes so much

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Speaker 1: effort and after a few days people forget about it

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Speaker 1: and it's gone. So naturally, I was always hoping, so

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Speaker 1: one of these will become something serio.

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Speaker 2: That's when Tatuo got the phone call that changed the

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Speaker 2: course of his career and altered the course of gaming history.

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Speaker 2: Tatsuo Nomura got a call from a friend, Masa Kawashima.

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Speaker 2: Masa was working for a small gaming startup called Niantic Labs.

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Speaker 2: Niantic was actually part of Google at the time. Masa

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Speaker 2: and Nyantik were making augmented reality games, games that blended

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Speaker 2: real world and virtual elements. Niantic's big ar game at

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Speaker 2: the time was Ingress. It was a location based game.

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Speaker 2: To play it, you opened the app on your phone

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Speaker 2: and walked around outside. The goal was to capture portals

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Speaker 2: hidden in real world locations and do battle with other players.

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Speaker 2: Masa had seen the Hollywood style YouTube trailer for the

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Speaker 2: Pokemon Challenge. He told Tatuo that the version of the

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Speaker 2: game being played in the trailer looked exactly like a

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Speaker 2: Pokemon version of Ingris. Of course, real world locations, capturing Pokemon,

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Speaker 2: doing battle with other Pokemon trainers. All the pieces started

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Speaker 2: falling into place.

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Speaker 4: Call it a Eureka.

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Speaker 2: Moment, an epiphany, a revelation from the gaming gods. In

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Speaker 2: that moment, Pokemon Go was born. Within weeks, Tatsuo and

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Speaker 2: Niantic were in Japan pitching the idea to the Pokemon

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Speaker 2: Company and Nintendo. Within a few months, Tatsuo was working

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Speaker 2: full time for Niantic. The next year, Nyantik broke off

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Speaker 2: from Google as an independent company, betting its future almost

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Speaker 2: entirely on the success of Pokemon Go, a game that

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Speaker 2: started as an April fool's joke. We now know how

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Speaker 2: that future turned out. When Poke Kimono finally launched in

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Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, it wasn't just the biggest thing in mobile gaming,

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Speaker 2: it was the biggest thing in the world. In just

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Speaker 2: one week, the market value of Nintendo, which owned a

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Speaker 2: stake in the game, jumped by nine billion dollars. With

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Speaker 2: a b at the twenty sixteen Summer Olympics in Brazil,

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Speaker 2: a Japanese athlete racked up five thousand dollars in roaming

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Speaker 2: charges from playing Pokemon Go on his phone. Starbucks issued

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Speaker 2: a special drink called the Pokemono Frappuccino, featuring raspberry syrup

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Speaker 2: and freeze dried blackberries. Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, attempting to

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Speaker 2: piggyback on the game's popularity, held a campaign event at

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Speaker 2: a Pokemon gym in Ohio, where she famously asked people

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Speaker 2: to Pokemon go to the polls. In the first year alone,

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Speaker 2: Pokemon Go was downloaded seve one hundred and fifty million times.

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Speaker 2: The game had made billions of dollars for Niantic, the

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Speaker 2: tiny startup that took a big bet.

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Speaker 4: On in April.

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Speaker 2: Fool's joke, John Walker never thought he was going to

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Speaker 2: be a Pokemon Go fan. A gaming journalist from the UK.

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Speaker 2: John was already in college when the original Pokemon games

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Speaker 2: and cartoons came out in the nineties.

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Speaker 7: So back in twenty sixteen, I knew nothing, absolutely nothing

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Speaker 7: about Pokemon, like I could maybe name you Pikachu, and

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Speaker 7: I had no clue at all about the whole thing.

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Speaker 2: John didn't discover Pokemon Go until twenty twenty, when COVID

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Speaker 2: lockdowns forced him and his very active five year old

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Speaker 2: son indoors, and.

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Speaker 7: So we were trying to think of reasons to go out,

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Speaker 7: and he was going for a walk. Wasn't something that

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Speaker 7: interested him, nor any other five year old, And then

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Speaker 7: I remembered this Pokemon Go thing, so I showed it

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Speaker 7: to him and he instantly loved it, and so we

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Speaker 7: went out and we walked, and it was it was

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Speaker 7: just magic. We went outside and all these Pokemon that

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Speaker 7: we didn't really know to care about at the time

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Speaker 7: were appearing in real life. And to him this was

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Speaker 7: just unbelievable. And it ended up becoming a thing where

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Speaker 7: we would don't tell the government, but we would spend

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Speaker 7: more than an hour out. He would go for three

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Speaker 7: hour walks. A five year old going on three hour walks.

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Speaker 7: Purely motivated by getting to the next PokeStop and the

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Speaker 7: next pokeg Gym, and the next ticking off the next

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Speaker 7: task off the list.

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Speaker 2: John says that his son Toby became absolutely obsessed with

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Speaker 2: catching Mew two. They tried for months to beat a

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Speaker 2: character named Giovanni who had a Mew two, but they

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Speaker 2: always came up short. John and Toby were ready to

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Speaker 2: give up after a long day of playing in a

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Speaker 2: special Pokemon Go Live event.

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Speaker 7: I think the event came to an end at six pm,

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Speaker 7: and I remember we were sat on this chair in

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Speaker 7: his room, just having one last go because the hot

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Speaker 7: air balloon that he was in just happened to hover

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Speaker 7: into the game and we clicked on it and we

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Speaker 7: tried one more time, and we did it. We won

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Speaker 7: the mewtwo, like with you know, it was a kind

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Speaker 7: of sports movie ending seconds to spare and we both cried.

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Speaker 7: I remember, I just I was so relieved for his happiness,

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Speaker 7: and he was so overwhelmed with happiness at the time.

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Speaker 7: That was the most precious thing and it was just

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Speaker 7: such an awesome moment.

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Speaker 2: Ten years ago today, Tatsuo Nomora released an April Fool's

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Speaker 2: joke that has brought joy and obsession and long walks

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Speaker 2: with five year olds to hundreds of millions of people

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Speaker 2: the world over. Tatsuo still works for Niantic, where he's

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Speaker 2: created and launched other popular AR games. One is called

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Speaker 2: Pickman Bloom, a kind of step counter powered by Imaginary Friends.

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Speaker 2: Another is Monster Hunter Now, in which you and monsters

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Speaker 2: now neither has been as world changing as Pokemon Go,

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Speaker 2: but that's okay. Lightning almost never strikes twice unless you're PEAKACHEW.

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Speaker 2: So Happy April Fool's Day everyone, and who knows, maybe

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Speaker 2: some lame gag you pull at work today will still

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Speaker 2: be a global phenomenon ten years from now.

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Speaker 3: Very Special Episodes is made by some very special people.

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Speaker 3: This show is hosted by Danish Schwartz, Zaren Burnett and

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Speaker 3: me Jason English. This episode was written by Dave Bruce.

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Speaker 3: Our producer, editor and sound designer is Josh Fisher. Additional

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Speaker 3: editing by Jonathan Washington, Mixing and mastering by Bahid Fraser.

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Speaker 3: Our story editor is Marissa Brown. Original music by Elise McCoy,

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Speaker 3: Research in fact checking by Austin Thompson. Show logo by

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Speaker 3: Lucy Kinton. I am your executive producer and We'll see

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Speaker 3: you back here next week. If you like this show,

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Speaker 3: go give us a nice little rating on Apple or

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Speaker 3: wherever you're listening. Very Special Episodes is a production of

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Speaker 3: iHeart Podcasts.