Pokemon

The game was originally released in Japan by Media Factory in 1996 as Pocket Monsters, which was based on the Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow Gameboy video games. Beginning in 1998, Pokémon trading cards were released in North America by Wizards Of The Coasts, which was known at the time for producing Magic The Gathering. Wizards of the Coast released one demo set and eight expansion sets of cards for the first generation of Pokémon as well as nine expansion sets for the second generation of Pokémon. In June 2003, publishing rights were transferred from Wizards to The Pokémon Company. Since the release of EX Ruby and Sapphire in 2003, the Pokémon Company has handled publishing for every English-language expansion of the series