MissingNo.

by Gabriel Orellana

"MissingNo." short of missing number, usually pronounced Miising-NO, is a Pokémon species found in the Pokemon Red and Blue video games that became famous around 1996. The species usually appears when the game attempts to access data for a nonexistent Pokémon species as a result of a glitch, which eventually became one of the most infamous in the Pokémon franchise. It's origin lies in the original title "Pokémon Red Version and Blue Version," which was published in the May 1999 issue of Nintendo Power. Described initially as a "programming quirk", it was advised to gamers to avoid the MissingNo as it would cause the game to reset in order to remove the graphical error.

Since becoming well-known among gamers in 1999, there have been many discussions of finding the Pokémon on purpose, involving a series of events as illustrated on this video:

Despite warning from Nintendo, information on how to go about finding MissingNo. was printed in several magazines due to it's possible positive effect. The positive effect it had in the Pokemon games was increasing the amount of your #6 item in your characters' bag to over 100, giving the opportunity to increase say, Rare Candy's which leveled ones Pokemon up, in order to bypass the time it takes to train Pokemon.

Additionally, in the game "Minecraft" the text "MissingNo" would appear when the certain text file had been modified or deleted without a specific folder.

IGN, a gaming review blog, listed MissingNo. in 2009 as one of the top Easter Eggs in video games due to it's perceived usefulness. As the google insight chart indicates, the popularity of "MissingNo." began in 2004 and radically increases over time spiking randomly until recently in 2010: