Cheryl would like to wish all of her supporters, friends, colleagues, and fans a Happy Budew Year. Part of her 2025 was spent creating and planning the now-live Budew Year 2026 campaign for Pokémon TCG Live, which celebrates a tiny baby Pokémon who took the Pokemon Trading Card Game by storm this time last year and went on to become one of the most-played cards in the live-service mirror of the paper game that Cheryl serves as Creative Director. While Cheryl does not speak for her employer here, she is proud to add this campaign to her portfolio of past video game work – which included a custom lobby musical theme for Budew, a custom battle board, permanent new visual effects in-game, new avatar outfits, a limited time Trainer Trial, deck cosmetics, and more. Read more about the campaign in this official Pokemon.com article. While Cheryl did create this campaign, bringing it to life took a team of dozens of people coordinated in their efforts, all doing their very best too.

Putting on her video game professor hat for a second, campaigns are just a small part of any live-service video game team does, they’re just the part that are most visible since they release most frequently. Campaigns are developed on live-service games in parallel to larger, longer-term feature improvements. They complement each other: campaigns keep players engaged with the game while larger work often takes place.