Pokémon Go is unquestionably this season's hit game. But whether it has any staying power is a very open question, and early signs suggest it's already trailing off.
Bloomberg has published some charts by Axiom Capital Management that show daily users and engagement dropping. One chart, using data from analytics firm Apptopia, shows Pokémon Go peaking at around 45 million users in mid-July, during the week or so following its launch. It then begins a decline to somewhere above 30 million daily users last week.
Bloomberg's article also notes a surge in searches for "augmented reality" coinciding with Pokémon Go's debut.
Niantic, for its part, is "still working hard on several new and exciting features to come in the future of Pokémon Go." Meanwhile, Nintendo is releasing two new 3DS Pokémon games on November 18.
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Now that Pokémon Go has peaked, we can dig into the trough:
The Norwegian prime minister has been caught playing Pokémon Go during a debate in Norway's parliament. Erna Solberg was pictured playing the game during a debate in the Storting on Tuesday. It's no secret Solberg is a big fan of Pokémon Go. During an official trip in Slovakia, she took some time out to play the game, telling reporters she was keen to hatch some of her 10km eggs.
This isn't even the first time a Norwegian politician has been caught playing the game while in parliament.
Two economists are blaming Pokémon Go for causing traffic accidents and likely fatalities:
For a brief, shining period last summer, Pokémon Go reigned supreme. It brought obsession, joy, and, according to a new paper, injuries and death.
This working paper, appropriately and evocatively titled "Death by Pokemon Go," shows the darker side of the massively popular augmented reality game. Purdue University economists Mara Faccio and John McConnell combed through accident reports from Tippecanoe County, Indiana, in the first 148 days after the game was released in July 2016. In that county alone, the total value from injuries, damage, and the two lives lost is between $5.2 million and $25.5 million. If you scale this to cover the entire US, it would suggest that $2 billion to $7.3 billion were lost just in those few months.
The reports showed during those 148 days, 286 additional crashes occurred in the county, compared to the same period before. Of these, 134 were near pokéstops. In this scenario, it's crucial to determine that Pokémon Go caused these damages directly, as opposed to just causing people to be outside more, thus more likely to be hit by cars.
Also at PC Magazine.
Related: Peak Pokémon Go?
No Pokémon Go or Other AR Games in China
Russian Prosecutors Seek 3.5 Years for Blogger Who Played "Pokémon Go" in Church
Trial Will Decide Whether Milwaukee Can Require Permits for Using Locations in Augmented Reality
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday August 25 2016, @02:35AM
How many people have made the news, nationally and/or locally, for putting themselves in peril while playing the game? One pair of bozos walked off of a cliff, and made national if not world news. How many have done idiotic things, and only made the local news? How many more simply weren't reported?
Who authored this game? Darwin?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 25 2016, @02:44AM
Darwin didn't write The Game. He just explained the mechanics of it.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Thursday August 25 2016, @04:14AM
Niantic doesn't give a sh*t.
They don't respond to reports of private or dangerous sites in a professional manner. I have reported one site, provided web links and photos to show ongoing construction, fences, etc. and their response: "insufficient evidence".
It's just like Uber and every other rapidly growing Silicon Valley company: they plan to ignore the law now and (perhaps) sort things out later.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday August 25 2016, @04:35AM
1) Publish rumors and gossip throughout the Internet that new Pokemon Go characters are coming out that are exclusive to the "Real World".
2) Keep spreading, in the face of rebuttals (Just like how the Internet already works), further gossip that only special places will have them
3) Hack Niantec and use new ultra-rare Pokemon to lure thousands of crazed Darwin worshipping Pokemon Go addicts to executives houses, and Niantec's head quarters. It's like SWATTING perhaphs, but with distributed effort by people slightly less nuts.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday August 25 2016, @02:07PM
How many have done idiotic things
What you really meant to ask was how many MORE idiotic things.
Something "the internet" doesn't get very well is handling fragility and death. You take someone who wasn't going to survive past next week due to poor judgment, their poor judgment leads them to walk off cliffs playing pokemon go or snort bath salts till they jump off a building or hang themselves because someone on the internet doesn't like them, any number of a million bad outcomes and the problem "on the internet" or "in the media" is the immediate proximate cause of death, not that the victim was a hopeless case.
I suspect the type of dude who walks off a cliff is very much the "hold my beer and watch this" type who jumps in large animal zoo enclosures and similar class of behavior.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 25 2016, @02:42AM
Most games are like that. After a couple of months people have got what they want out of it. Why should this one be any different? To keep people interested they will need to infuse more interesting bits into the game on a continuing timeline.
Oh there will be a dedicated group that keeps going. But most people will leave. The only games that I know of that have lasted and still continue to go on and on are Counter Strike, Starcraft 2, and WoW. Oh sure something like diablo 2 still has a dedicated following. But the manufacture has abandoned it long ago...
http://store.steampowered.com/stats [steampowered.com]
Take for example something like the recent 'no mans sky'. It was well over 200k on the first few days. It is falling off quick down to 15k just today. Some of the games my wife plays the stats are in the 15-20 people per day.
(Score: 1) by helel on Thursday August 25 2016, @03:16AM
I think it would be more accurate to compare Pokémon Go to to other games strongly tied to large online player-base such as DotA 2, League of Legends, or World of Warcraft. In this arena successful games generally hit their peak years after release. Games that don't last that long are generally seen as flops, whether or not they're profitable.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 25 2016, @04:22AM
Games that don't last that long are generally seen as flops
You just described 99.99999% of the games out there. Very very very very very few stick around a long time. Pokemon has a bit of nostalgia wrapped around a decent game mechanic (egress). But almost all games have a 2 week 'wooot' then a 2 months slide. To basically slide into oblivion and gamers move onto the next best thing. That is the way of games no mater how much you want it to be different.
It is a bit early to be comparing it to MMOs. Most of the games you listed have some sort of group play mechanic (usually core to the game). Pokemon does not really have that. It may be more fair to compare it to plants vs zombies 2 which had well over 20 million downloads. Yet the numbers have walked off a cliff on that. Same with angry birds.
Once you get over the 'collect a bunch of them' and figure out it zorches through your battery. You probably will uninstall it and move on.
For a game like this they will want to figure out who the whales are and harpoon them for all then can get out of them. Probably a good percentage of the people playing are not spending anything. You want them to get bored and leave anyway as they basically cost you money. The whales though you want to get them to buy things. Remember this is a game with a pay to play mechanic. So that will not last long for many either.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday August 25 2016, @02:17PM
It is a bit early to be comparing it to MMOs.
Hey AC compare it to real world human social games for a good time. Even if I'm wrong its at least interesting to think about.
First thing that came to mind is "is everyone still playing werewolf?" or its 500 ripoff semi-copies and varieties?
I'm so old I remember playing assassination. Thats where the survivors draw names out of a hat and the object is to get them alone and squirt them with a squirt gun. Lots of sneakiness "hey come along with me so I can't get shot" little do they know I have their name on a slip of paper... You wouldn't think theres much glory or triumph in squirting a squirt gun at some idiot in a toilet stall but it is surprising fulfilling. The next day the survivors draw names out of a hat, until eventually its 1 x 1 squirt gun fight, you get the idea. Anyway no one plays assassination anymore.
In comparison something that never dies yet also nobody seems to participate in, is the eternal "host a murder in a box" party game variety of which there must be thousands. I'm not sure that genre will ever commercially die. For those unfamiliar with it, its basically LARP version of Risk, or maybe LARP of a Sherlock Holmes novel. I've done this and its fun and way too few people do this.
(Score: 3, Informative) by NCommander on Thursday August 25 2016, @08:09AM
I played Go a fair bit as I had fun hunting and exploring. However, Niantic made it that once you get up to about level 15+, everything starts breaking out of pokeballs very very easy, and you could never get enough balls unless you either bought them or camped on a spot. I can accept the fact that high level cP pokemon could (and should) escape, but a cheap pidgey?
I could buy balls, but at 20 balls per .99c (which wouldn't last even one pokemon), it simply wasn't worth it for me personally. I know quite a few people on reddit have complained about this after dropping several hundred dollars on the game(!)
Still always moving
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Thursday August 25 2016, @01:59PM
Niantic made it that once you get up to about level 15+
About two or so weeks ago, right? There was a patch released that made it miserable for everyone around then. I was at level 5 at the time fighting a ratatata and it escaped like ten time and I'm thinking Holy Cow I've found the worlds first 1000 CP ratatata and ... no it was just a plain old rat. And thats just how it is now, it costs like 3 to 7 balls on average instead of 1 on average.
Note that they're not monetizing very well, thus the incredible spike in stock price followed by the incredible collapse. I'm not buying pokeballs so I'm merely an expense to them to be minimized, so if I think the game now sucks that's great from a business perspective. They've advanced past the "first hit is free" stage and now its time to jack the prices and revenue up on the victims who are addicted...
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday August 25 2016, @07:09PM
Yeah, right about then. That's when the game was last opened on my Galaxy S6 Active.
/r/pokemongo was full of rants. I'm still subscribed to that sub because its fun watching people think the world is ending.
Still always moving
(Score: 1) by driven on Thursday August 25 2016, @05:26AM
I suspect PMG is the "1.0" game of a new genre. Someone is bound to do it better - I'd say in the next year or so.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday August 25 2016, @08:19AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Thursday August 25 2016, @04:03PM
I think this is the reason it's declining. It's just not a Pokémon game. There's no PvP. Capturing pokémon doesn't involving weakening them first. Does it even have the element system? An element system? Any strategy in gym fights? Anything?
I'm kind of surprised it was popular for as long as it was in spite of all that. If somebody would publish an AR version of Pokémon, it would be a blast to play.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 25 2016, @07:35PM
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday August 25 2016, @06:58PM
It's the normal curve, indeed.
It has also attracted a lot of people who were not going to play any game more than a few days, but wanted to know what the buzz is about.
(some people may have noticed how expensive their July data plan was)
It's also the end of summer vacation, so people's ability to roam around for hours is getting dramatically cut.
(Score: 2) by everdred on Thursday August 25 2016, @09:36PM
This is exactly what I suspect it is, based on how popular it was among the "normal" people I know. What makes Pokémon Go exceptional was that it managed to hold the attention of these folks for weeks, not days.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 25 2016, @02:49AM
Probably walked off cliffs, got lured into armed robberies, were eaten by alligators, etc.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Thursday August 25 2016, @04:02AM
I wonder how many were drove off by consistant stability issues. I stopped playing because I couldn't stay logged in. They were reluctant to increase capacity because it is that initial fad stage, but it pushed away people who might have actually been longer term players.
When there are less people playing I will sink a lot more hours into it, but not until then.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 25 2016, @04:03AM
Natural selection in action.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Jiro on Thursday August 25 2016, @04:11AM
I'm not surprised the game has passed its peak. It's really not all that good.
Characters in actual Pokemon games go around fighting wild Pokemon and NPCs, and catching the wild Pokemon. One would expect an AR Pokemon game to do the same thing. Instead, you can't fight except at a gym, and you gain experience by catching lots of Pokemon of the same type instead of fighting, which is a very non-Pokemon-ish thing to do. And since Pokemon get more powerful on a per-species basis, rare Pokemon are also useless since only common Pokemon can get more powerful reasonably fast. Also, you don't get more experience for catching Pokemon that are hard to catch, making rare ones doubly useless.
Also, even the gym fights lack any strategy.
And it *is* a freemium game which makes money off of microtransactions, and those are designed so that it is hard to advance past a certain point without paying.
(Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Thursday August 25 2016, @06:55AM
I haven't tried it yet, but I suspect they could adopt a "seasons" structure where substantial rule changes are introduced periodically (probably with major updates to coordinate with the 3DS titles).
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.
(Score: 1) by helel on Thursday August 25 2016, @10:32AM
The difficulty with this approach is that the game is just broken on such a fundamental level. It's not impossible but the game needs to have it's core mechanics striped out and replaced to make it any good at fulfilling the core fantasy of pokémon at which point it really wouldn't be the same game.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Thursday August 25 2016, @08:11AM
The freemium part of Go is bloody insane. Certain items are only obtainable on level-up, but the game is setup once you get to a mid-level (15 or so), everything starts escaping or breaking out of balls. While you can get balls for free at pokestops, you'll never get enough to always have them on hand when something you want shows up.
Happy I got out without spending anything on the game; I'd been tempted to buy some incumbators or lucky eggs, but making a core mechanic require money like that. Fuck that.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by tibman on Thursday August 25 2016, @09:24PM
I agree that a lot of the basics seem broken. Gyms are easy to take and difficult to defend. Higher level players have difficulty capturing even the most worthless of pokemon (constantly escaping). You can't actually hunt down any specific pokemon even if it is near you. The game feels like a polished alpha version. Most of the features are missing and the ones that are there aren't balanced.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 25 2016, @04:40AM
...they caught them all
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Thursday August 25 2016, @07:39PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 26 2016, @01:18AM
Hey! There are countries in the southern Hemisphere and summer is coming you insensitive clod!... Well, ok, there's just Australia here.
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Friday August 26 2016, @01:53AM