The latest game from developer Game Freak, Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On, was released last month exclusively on Apple Arcade. It’s a remake of the cult favorite 3DS horse racing / solitare mash-up. In an interview with Axios, Ride On’s Game Director Massao Taya echoed Game Freak’s development department General Manager Masafumi Saito statements that the studio plans to keep making other games besides Pokemon. Talking with VGC, Saito said, “It is very important to Game Freak to keep taking on the challenge of creating original games.”
“We believe that it is very important for the studio to continue making and releasing titles outside of the Pokémon series,” Taya said. “In recent years, the resources needed for game development have grown and grown, so Development Department One has been trying out a style of development where it works with external studios.”
Gear Project is an internal initiative Game Freak set up a decade ago where developers can pitch original game ideas during quieter periods where they don’t have to put all the focus on Pokemon. Alongside Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On, they have released smaller games such as HarmoKnight, Tembo the Badass Elephant, and Giga Wrecker.
“I think that creating a game from scratch, putting it out there, and getting a good reception is a great motivator for creators and is also very significant in terms of its meaning for the growth of the company,” Saito said. With that said, we do not think in terms of limiting original games to small-scale projects. It has been ten years since we established a department that deals with original games.”
“Initially, team members did the same thing while also developing Pokémon, so it was hard to concentrate on developing original games. Now we work with external companies so that we can start experimenting with moving on projects on a similar scale simultaneously. We want new titles to come out of Gear Project that are beloved by lots of people across the world, like the Pokémon series has been.”
Despite Game Freak saying that they want to keep making other games, they will still be making Pokemon titles if the numbers are any indication. The recent set of games, Pokemon Scarlet & Violet became part of the top ten best-selling Nintendo Switch games of all time reaching 20.61 million units sold. When the games released back in November, Pokemon Scarlet & Violet sold 10 million copies in its first three days setting new Nintendo record with the largest worldwide launch weekend sales in Nintendo history.