It was the summer of 2016 when Niantic released its Augmented Reality-based Pokemon Go game for smartphones. During that summer, you would see crowds of young people walking around storefronts and parking lots staring at the screens on their handsets looking to catch certain Pokemon. Until scientists can create real Pocket Monsters, Pokemon Go is the closest thing to having the cartoon come to life.
Pokemon Go has generated global revenue of $4.5 billion in a little over six years
Pokemon Go remains popular as it is the seventh-highest grossing mobile game in the world. The six games ahead of Pokemon Go include Honor of Kings, PUBG Mobile, Genshin Impact, Candy Crush Saga, Roblox, and Coin Master.
After the first eight months of this year, Pokemon Go players have shelled out $430.6 million. If spending stays at that pace, the game will see a huge decline in revenue to $646 million for 2022. But with the holidays on the horizon, the pace of in-app purchases might pick up as players receive App Store and Play Store gift cards that can be used toward the purchase of more Pokeballs (used to capture Pokemon), clothes for their on-screen characters, and items to give them an edge in battles and when trying to capture Pokemon.
The pace of Pokemon Go downloads in 2022 suggests that the game will see 38% fewer installs this year
Data from Statista and App Magic also show that the game itself has been downloaded 590 million times with more than half of those downloads taking place during Pokemon Go’s first year of release. In 2020, Pokemon Go was installed over 60 million times as many turned to mobile games during the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year a still solid 56 million downloads were counted, and for the first eight months of 2022, there have been 23 million downloads. That puts the game on pace to be installed 34.5 million times in 2022.
