ARTICLE · · BY BOSS ROOM
From Game Boy to Grown-Up Spaces: Pokémon at 30
Pokémon turns 30, and its original players have grown up too. Celebrate the games, memories and favourites that shaped your journey as a trainer.
Thirty years is a long time to be catching them all.
Pokémon has evolved from a pair of Game Boy games into one of gaming’s most recognisable cultural institutions. There have been new regions, new generations and hundreds of new Pokémon, but perhaps the biggest change has happened outside the games.
The players grew up.
I first played Pokémon as a kid on a Game Boy Colour. Now I’m teaching my own kid how to play. Somewhere between those two moments, Pokémon stopped being something I simply played and became part of my history.
“And that’s what makes the 30th anniversary worth celebrating.”
For those of us who grew up with Pokémon, nostalgia isn't confined to Pikachu or the original 151. It might be the starter you always chose. The cartridge you took everywhere. The Pokémon generation you drifted away from, and the one that pulled you back in. Or the Pokémon that somehow remained your favourite through all of it.
So if Pokémon is going to have a place in your gaming room today, why recreate the bedroom you wanted when you were ten?
Celebrate the journey instead.
The best spaces inspired by Pokémon should not look like someone emptied a merchandise store into them. They should tell you something about the person who plays there.
That might mean turning the cartridge that started everything into an oversized 3D printed wall frame, especially if you are showcasing the original Pokémon games that defined your childhood. It might mean commissioning a custom wool rug around a favourite Pokémon, or choosing something more personal and unexpected, like the anatomical style designs that give familiar characters a completely different edge.
You can layer that story with details that feel more curated than cluttered. A shelf of high end Poké Ball replicas can bring a collector’s feel to the room, while the LEGO Poké Ball adds a playful display piece that still feels intentional. A custom neon built around your trainer name, favourite Pokédex number or an in joke only another fan would understand can do far more than another generic poster ever could.
Frame the old cards. Display the Game Boy. Put the things with memories behind them somewhere they deserve to be seen.
These pieces become something more interesting than merchandise. They become the kind of money can’t buy memorabilia that matters because nobody else has quite the same story attached to it. And a grown up Pokémon space does not need to apologise for being Pokémon.
It can be considered, beautifully designed and packed with premium technology while still featuring a giant Game Boy cartridge on the wall, a custom rug underfoot and a shelf of Poké Balls that instantly tells visitors what matters to you.
“If anything, thirty years gives us a better reason to put those memories on display.”
Pokémon has spent three decades evolving, maybe the best way to celebrate that isn't simply looking back at where it started, but showing how far you've come with it?
What did you think?
