Interview with Pokémon Abode
An interview with Ryan Dumlao (PokeAbode Man) from the classic Pokémon fansite, Pokémon Abode, which was online around October 1998–September 2001, covering news, official products, and fan works.
Around September 1998, Ryan Dumlao (PokeAbode Man) created a Pokémon fansite called Pokémon Abode. It hosted information on Pokémon games, products, fan works, and covered the very latest Pokémon news, even attending E3 2001 (Electronic Entertainment Expo). For three years, Pokémon Abode stood shoulder to shoulder with other large fansites such as Bulbagarden, The PokéMasters, and Universal Pokémon Network, before closing its doors for good in September 2001.
I am pleased to have had the opportunity to interview Ryan to discuss his memories of his website, community, and what Pokémon means to him all these years later.
Thanks so much for joining us for this interview, Ryan! Please introduce yourself and your old website!
Ryan:
Great to speak with you! I've worn many hats in my life and career so far, but right now I work in product management at Adobe, on Photoshop. It's a bit full circle, as my previous life running a Pokémon website got me really into Adobe's software back in my middle school years. That website was the Pokémon Abode, and it started as my little passion project as a kid and blew up into something way bigger and more enduring than I would have ever thought. The experience running that site, building its community and influence, and the highs and lows of the dot-com bubble shaped me and my journey through life, and I am forever grateful for it and excited to detail it for you.
What are your earliest memories of Pokémon that got you interested in the series?
Ryan:
The first time I saw Pokémon was sitting outside the library next to my middle school. This was in 7th grade and I was 13 years old. I grew up in the Bay Area and was surrounded by the Silicon Valley boom of the dot-com era. I remember waiting for my carpool with one of my childhood best friends, and he pulled out a beat-up Game Boy Pocket and told me about this new game he got from his cousin called Pokémon (it was the Red version). I got pretty excited and wanted to try it, and my friend had just gotten a new Game Boy to replace his beat-up one, so he lent it to me and I somehow got a copy of Pokémon Blue of my own. I started playing it all the time, in class, after school, doing link trades and battles with my friends at the same library, and the rest is history. I believe the anime had just started on TV and was taking off at the same time as the game.
Pokémon Abode originally began on a web hosting service called Tripod around October 15th, 1998. What encouraged you to create a Pokémon fan website in the first place?
Ryan:
I had been learning HTML in 7th grade (the school year prior to that) and had made a few personal sites for fun. Once I got really into the game, I decided to make a simple info-only version of the site -- with game info, a list of the 151 Pokémon, any news and rumors I had read, and more. The web as a broader medium was still in its infancy then. Everything was Web 1.0, with flame GIFs and under construction signs dotting every Tripod and Geocities hosted page.
It was just something to do for fun and experiment in my free time (or during computer lab class in my middle school). I learned HTML and JavaScript tricks quickly by copying code off other sites, and I built probably the gaudiest and loudest navigation bar possible, full of animated Game Boys and hover actions. For me, it was all about playing around for my own enjoyment, but with Pokémon as an easy focus to build around.
At some point, the website began to experience a lot more traffic, thanks to opening up a community message board. What do you think was the reason why the website started to take off?
Ryan:
Back then, Google wasn’t a thing – only Webcrawler and Yahoo!. Honestly, I do not know how my site started getting a lot of traffic, but I had a visitor counter at the bottom and it started going up by the hundreds. I do remember specifically going to Yahoo! and submitting an entry for my site, since back then Yahoo! was primarily a community-built listing service called Yahoo! Directory with categories and recommendations, not an indexed search engine. I was super excited when my site ended up listed with only a handful of other Pokémon websites at the time.
From there I saw that web forums were popping up everywhere, and I decided to create my own. At first I used a free service hosting a single forum built off the then-leading “Ultimate Bulletin Board” forum system; I can’t remember what the service was called but its use was temporary. Once I had the board up, I started seeing the traffic from my webcounter turn into real people, posting and replying about Pokémon topics. People then kept coming back to the site, not for the site’s content itself but to converse and discuss. This was a total surprise to me at the time, but looking back it makes sense. Community drives repeat visits and engagement, and with only a few Pokémon communities online at the time that were easily found and accessed, Pokémon Abode became one of those top destinations.
After moving away from Tripod, you had a short-lived partnership with someone who sponsored a domain for the website. Tell us more about that!
Ryan:
By the time the forum got popular, I realized I could try and make money with the site. At the time, banner ads were all over the place and worth a ton more than today – if I remember correctly, something along the scale of cents per view of an ad, not just clicks. So anyone viewing any page of my site would generate ad revenue. I found a 3rd party advertiser site for a few months, but when they found out I was a 13-year-old, somehow they decided they owed me nothing and cut me out. But I had a taste of the site’s potential, and wanted to grow.
At that time, someone contacted me under the handle “Mew EPM” and offered to bring my site off Tripod, and to its own official .com domain. They would pay for the domain, hosting, and host my own licensed bulletin board. In exchange, they wanted to be a partner and contribute to site and news updates. I was ecstatic, and still not quite understanding about legitimate deals and agreements, so I went ahead with it.Mew EPM quickly changed their approach and tried to take more and more control of the site and had increasingly erratic demands. They started to want to sell things through the site, like secondhand Pokémon Cards, which I didn’t agree with. The partnership quickly soured. Unfortunately, they owned the domain and hosting service, so I had to plot my escape.
In December 1999, Pokémon Abode became the second affiliate of popular entertainment media website IGN. How did that partnership come about?
Ryan:
As a result of the bad partnership, I started looking at how to move to my own hosted site, generate money to pay for it, and find more official ways to get banner ads. IGN.com was the leading video game site at the time. They had a robust affiliate program, so I applied and was accepted into their affiliate network. This time I had my dad go through all the legal paperwork and contracts with them so I could actually get paid, and then IGN’s ad campaigns were planned to [be] put on every page on my site - including, crucially, the webforums.
The only thing I needed to do was break free from the partnership. So, in secret, I registered a new domain with a dedicated host, set up the entire infrastructure of the webforum and migrated all the data over. I got the IGN banner ads tested and running, and was good to go. I picked a date in December ‘99, and sneakily coordinated redirects on every page and forum thread to the new domain without telling my partner. IGN announced that our site joined their network at the same time, and we saw a ton more traffic coming in and captured as many of our loyal members as possible. I believe the site that became our archrival, UPNetwork, joined the program around the same time as well.
The redirects from the old pokeabode.com site lasted maybe 2-3 days before they were taken down, but I didn’t notice a huge impact to traffic. Most people visited every day and knew we were moving, so the transition was pretty easy.
Around the time Pokémon Abode was created, many other Pokémon fan websites were popping up. What were some of your favourites at the time?
Ryan:
I remember being pretty friendly with a few, but the only ones that I still remember were PokéMasters and the still-going Bulbagarden. There were also a couple other affiliate sites like EAGB (East Asia Game Boy in Singapore) and our merch partner in Japan, Japanime.
Of course, my least favorite (tongue-in-cheek) was the UPNetwork, since our forums, and myself and the UPN webmaster Jaxel, had huge beef with each other. The source of this beef is lost in time, but there was no love lost between these two communities.
Eventually, you purchased your own domain and hosted the website yourself, and your community forum became even more popular. Just how much traffic was the website generating around that time?
Ryan:
I used to meticulously watch our analytics from my server, but I can’t recall what traffic was like back then. Between the main site and the forums, the frozen-in-time counters on archive.org total well over a million visitors.
Pokémon Abode was one of a handful of extremely popular Pokémon websites, with others such as UPNetwork, The PokéMasters, and Bulbagarden. You even collaborated together to form an anti-spammer alliance on each of your message boards. What was your relationship like with these websites, and others like them?
Ryan:
In the early days, every site was friendly with each other. Webrings were a huge thing, and so my relationships with PokéMasters and Bulbagarden really grew from trying to find other sites to link-share and get more visitors across. I think this helped really grow the strength of the community overall. It was much less a competitive landscape as just a giant world of Pokémon websites that likely offered very similar content but as an aggregate provided a really engaging world for anyone looking into the games.
The exception for me was UPNetwork - I always remembered them only in the context of the intense rivalry the sites and web forums had with each other, but I do remember now we had some kind of co-existence in the end (with the “Alliance” as well as both being in the IGN network). My memory is very fuzzy beyond that, but I hope all those former webmasters are doing well in their lives.
The website was kept updated by yourself, and a staff member called Raichupacabra, who was also an artist for the website. What was it like working together on Pokémon Abode?
Ryan:
The fun fact of the internet, that often still holds true today, is that I never actually met anyone that I worked with, met or talked to via Pokémon Abode in real life. The exception is one of my childhood best friends who was a board moderator. But even Raichupacabra, who I would say was my only true “staff member”, was someone I interacted with via handle only. I didn’t learn his real name until IGN set us up to go to E3 and I got him a ticket.
Raichupacabra was amazing, though. He was a crazy talented artist, and would dream up and draw any Pokémon-related scene he wanted, or that I asked. The entire site was filled with his art, from intro images and movies to the title cards for the message boards. Even the avatars of most of the forum staff were drawn by him. He was a loyal and dedicated online friend, and I really underappreciated the value he brought to giving Pokémon Abode its own unique character and aesthetic.
Where most other sites were very polished and standard designed, he and I pushed the site a bit to make it look unique (or really at the whim of whatever we were feeling). There was one period towards the end that we were both really into Metal Gear Solid, so we themed the entire site around it including the navigation menus and all the imagery. If you archive.org the site now, you’ll see all of his work all over it. Raichupacabra, if you ever read this, thank you my friend.
One of the features of your website was the NeoDex, a virtual Pokédex with pictures of Pokémon cards from the Neo series of trading cards. Tell us more about that!
Ryan:
This one I’ve wanted to dig up but it is much harder now because Macromedia Flash has been killed all across the internet. If I remember correctly, I was deep into my Flash skills building stage and wanted to see how complex a Flash app I could make. I wanted to build a Pokedex out of vector art and animate it, and making a TCG index seemed like a good start.
But this does remind me of my Pokémon Trading Card Game journey that ran concurrently with the site. A few years ago I dug up what was left of my TCG collection including a few packs of the Neo series and some holograms as well. In the first years of the TCG’s release in the US, I amassed a ton of cards, played in local tournaments in the Bay Area and even completed a first edition set of the original series (partially by wagering cards during side games). I foolishly sold that set, including of course the 1st edition Charizard holo, for several hundred dollars a few years later.
I don’t think I’ll ever get over that. But my consolation is that I kept all my remaining cards in card-protector binders and didn’t look for them for 20+ years; when I pulled them back out, they were all still pristine and some back-of-the-napkin math during 2021’s crazy price spike put my collection’s value in the tens-of-thousands. That’s of course cooled off now, and I don’t think I could ever part with them because they’re just such amazing collectibles at this point.
Pokémon Abode had an active message board, which reached over 3600 members and 57,000 total posts before its closure, according to the archives. How would you describe your community?
Ryan:
The site was an amazing close-knit community. I don’t think I fully appreciated that during its peak, though. What hammered that home was seeing random mentions of the site/board on other message boards, from previous members who reminisced on their time there. I even met a former member when I was in college, as I was describing what got me into webdesign and my past. To see that reach was quite impactful for me to understand how important the site was to many.
I would probably describe the community as playful, informal, young. We were all (or most) definitely teenagers at least at heart, talking passionately about a game we loved. But I think that was just the common denominator - the discussions and things that people cared about ranged beyond that. We had boards for fan fiction, user forums about video games, a flame board, and other completely off-topic areas. As the site grew, I recruited more moderators (or rather, members asked to become them) for more boards. Raichupacabra had a strong hand in overseeing things, and as I started to grow away from the site, the boards sustained themselves and people kept coming back.Probably the most poignant example of how strong and close-knit the community was, was a thread I saw during some archive.org exploration during the period right before I shut the site down, after I had likely disappeared in presence. Many of the top members and moderators were pleading for me to give them the site, keep it alive, or sell it to someone else. I think I was in 10th grade by then and moved on to other things, and full of teenage angst, so I don’t think I gave much empathy to them and fiercely defended myself instead. Reading that thread, I felt a lot of disappointment in what I had left behind. To anyone who may have been part of that time, I do apologize – but I was 16 at the time, so I can’t really defend any rationality there.
Pokémon Abode was even invited to attend E3 in 2001! Raichupacabra represented the website and went hands-on with Pokémon Crystal and the e-Reader. How did it feel to be recognised for a major industry event such as this?
Ryan:
I remember getting an email from IGN asking if I could go to E3, and I was ECSTATIC. I had been reading about E3 my whole life in gamer magazines (EGM and GamePlayers were my two subscriptions), and this was my chance to actually attend it and see every new video game reveal in person! There was just one problem – I was only 15, and you needed to be 16 to attend. I was crushed. E3 was an industry-only event, which meant you had to be in the press or in the video game industry to attend. I’d never get another chance. But to be deputized by IGN as their attendee covering Pokémon topics to the Mecca of video game conferences at the time was such a validating feeling. I was just too young to be allowed to go.
Luckily, Raichupacabra was old enough (I think he was in his 20s – funnily enough I don’t think I ever asked him). So, I sent the tickets to him and his father to attend instead, and had him report back what he saw and keep it updated on a subdomain of our site. I remember him coming back with photos of Pokémon Gold & Silver (US versions; Japan had already been released), another game called Pokémon Puzzle League, and a ton of other swag from the conference.
In September 2001, Pokémon Abode went down for good, after almost three years online. What was the reason for its closure?
Ryan:
That was the beginning of my sophomore year in high school, and sadly by then I had moved on from Pokémon at that stage in my life. As most adolescents can attest, your interests change quickly in those years. I had emerged a bit more socially and was hanging out with friends in real life more, had started playing and running another website for the game Counter-Strike, and other things in life.
My interest in running the site during my freshman year waned quickly, and I also decided then to invest a good amount of my website earnings into the IPO of IGN.com’s parent company, Snowball. This was right on the cusp of the dot-com bomb, and I quickly watched my investment drop and dwindle in a short span. Alongside that, server costs continued to rise and the ad revenue coming in as a result of the bomb diminished to the point that I was operating at a loss every month. By the end of that summer in 2001, I had explored a sale of the site and assets to IGN since they contractually had first-dibs on any sale offer, but they declined. So, I quietly and sadly just ended the site with a whimper. Looking back, again, I wish it had ended a little differently or definitively.
Looking back and reflecting on your time running Pokémon Abode, what are your favourite memories of your time running the website, and your community?
Ryan:
I loved the community that organically sprung up around my site – it was a unique crowd, although likely pretty representative of online Internet culture of Web 1.0 – plenty of anonymous opinions, flame wars, and rivalries alongside a budding and still not-mainstream attitude towards how we connect with each other and learn information. Our message boards were uniquely ours – UPNetwork and other sites had their own style and culture, and we had one that I think fit exactly to how I was as a young teenager and middle schooler: fierce, ambitious, outspoken and protective.
Probably the most poignant of memories was our rivalry with UPNetwork. I really can’t pinpoint why we all had so much animosity for each other, right up to between myself and their webmaster Jaxel, but it really was one of those “this town isn’t big enough for the two of us” mindsets between the two sites. I think it defined the community that Pokémon Abode embodied and also cemented the loyalty and enthusiasm our members had.
I also of course would point out that the runaway success of the site, and its financial benefits, gave me a real strong sense of importance and empowerment at how I looked at myself, which is key for someone so young. Running a successful entrepreneurial endeavor from cradle to grave really shaped how I saw myself and what I was capable of for the rest of my life.
Pokémon was obviously a big part of your childhood, so I’m curious to know if there are any Pokémon related items that you still own that mean something to you?
Ryan:
I kept a lot of stuff just packed up in my childhood room, which to my family’s credit still exists today as I left it when I was 18. A few years ago I decided to start digging through to see what I had. Way too many plushies from Japan and knockoff companies, a Burger King Pokéball golden coin, a huge trove of Pokémon TCG cards (although a mere sliver of what I used to have, sadly), and my actual games and hardware – original Pokémon Gold, Crystal, Sapphire and Stadium cartridges and other items. I honestly don’t recall where a lot of the stuff I had went, but at peak I had far more items than I could find. I remember Pokémon Polly Pockets, Pokémon Pinball, the N64 Game Boy Pak for Pokémon Stadium, and so much other stuff that is no longer there.
I always treasured my orange and blue Pokémon Center Game Boy Color, which was only sold during the game’s 3rd anniversary and was gifted to me by one of our Japanese vendor partners. That’s probably the most important one I have, alongside my sister’s original Pokémon Red cartridge which was still inside, and whose game save was still intact! I have played it through up until the Elite Four but haven’t had time to grind out enough to beat it just yet.
After Pokémon Sapphire and the Game Boy Advance, I really stopped paying attention to Pokémon, so I hadn’t picked up or played any Pokémon games since high school. I still had every Nintendo console/handheld since then, but just was into other games. But going through all this stuff a few years ago prompted me to start playing again, and I have spent a few hundred hours on Brilliant Diamond, Legends: Arceus and Violet. Not Sword/Shield yet, but maybe I’ll get there someday. I still love and gravitate to the original 151 Pokémon. I can’t resist using Squirtle or Mew in whichever game I play.
Ryan, thanks for taking the time to answer my questions, and sharing your memories of Pokémon Abode. Do you have any final comments you would like to make to our readers, and to anyone who may have visited Pokémon Abode during its time online?
Ryan:
I really treasure the memory of the Pokémon community in that time and, although I’m not any part of it these days, it’s quite inspiring to see how much the online community has flourished since then. Bulbapedia is quite an amazing site and was the first place I was able to find a record of Pokémon Abode still existing in people’s minds, and I was touched to know the impact it had on so many people.
Thank you all for continuing to bolster such an amazing franchise, and I can’t believe how easy it was for me to get sucked back into the Pokémon Universe these last few years. May it go on forever!
A massive thank you to Ryan for answering my questions, and sharing his memories of Pokémon Abode. The website had a significant presence online back then, and I’m very glad we could get this interview together!
Interview conducted on: October 26th, 2024
Interview published on: November 21st, 2024
This was such a fun read. Hope your doing well well PokeAbode Man! It's been years! ~BlueFlameCharizard