/vr/ - Retro Games

>>5276963
they are digital pets. Pokemon, along with many other "pocket monster" type series seemed to grow out of the mid to late 90's, where digital pets such as tamogatchi were wildly popular.

They may be "wild" when you encounter them, but you store them digitally in pokeballs and computers. You teach them moves with Technical Machines, which in later generations are depicted as floppy discs. IMO, it seems like they were originally meant to be some kind of digital pet.