>>44471081True, but there were kids just getting into it without the internet for guidance when it first came along so they had time between first getting the game and liking it so much they paid any attention to the other stuff enough to learn all the pokemon to make a few discoveries for themselves. Especially before it got popular and someone had to be among the first in their area to tell their friends the games were awesome and totally worth doing extra chores and asking for a higher allowance so you could get it. Advertising was mostly the starters, pikachu, poliwhirl, and meowth with mewtwo and mew around the 1st movie but before that kids had to get invested to really get familiar with them all through the anime, merch, ect.