It was an awesome two month run, Pokémon GO, but as people go back to school and work or just get tired of walking around for the sake of a game, usage is steeply declining:
It had almost 45 million daily users in July, but this figure appears to have sunk by more than 12 million since the start of August, to just over 30 million said to be playing Pokémon Go. Further decline is expected, as downloads, engagement, and the time users spend on the app have all also visibly flopped, according to data provided by Sensor Tower, SurveyMonkey, and Apptopia.
30 million daily users is still a very impressive figure, but based on current downward momentum, we should probably expect that to decline and settle to around 5-15 million. Even that range would be a massive figure, enough to make GO a regular reference point of contemporary pop culture, but it's doubtful the game will be further touted as the next central social/marketing platform. As Raph Koster has suggested, it will simply maintain its user base of dedicated Pokémon-ers: "Pokémon fans are hardcore, memorize giant piles of data, optimize collections, gather rates, hack and cheat, and so on. That's the core audience here and who will monetize over time."
And with such a sharp decline happening so quickly, it's difficult to imagine Pokémon GO growing the market for augmented reality apps in general:
Pokémon is a massive, massive brand for millennials who grew up on the TV show & earlier iterations of the game as kids (the larger franchise is exactly 20 years old) and now own smartphones. There hasn't been as huge a franchise linked to an AR game before, nor such a perfect fit - "catch them all" has been Pokémon's tag line/game mechanic for decades, which practically demands an AR implementation. To succeed in a truly massive way, an AR game needs to be linked with a massive, well-established brand that has a "fantastic, invisible parallel world" premise well-integrated into its branding. I believe only the Harry Potter franchise could qualify there. (And I wouldn't be surprised if a Harry Potter AR is attempted.) But with GO not going far enough into mass market territory, augmented reality games have already, it seems, reached their apex.
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This is so predictable though. The game is insanely boring and uncreative, not to mention quite different from the games we know and love. Leaving the "magic" of pokémon to another company (Niantic), who launched a barebones game with little to no incentives to keep playing was a mistake.
That being said, when they finally do come out with content worth caring about, we will see usage rise somewhat again. For now, I am extremely and sorely disappointed in Niantic. Also in my parents who spend money on pokéballs, which can be gotten for free(albeit not in our area as easily) and incense(which is such an insult that they even included incense, they barely do anything. What the hell? Did I want 50 million ratatas and pidgeys? No, thanks. There's literally no reason for me to use an incense, it's a horrible waste of time.)
Am I upset they are spending money? No, I'm upset they are supporting a game which is a horrible piece of underdeveloped junk. I don't mean to offend anyone, but the game doesn't do "game" well. It is like a 0.3 alpha, and they say it's 1.1?
Laughable. This isn't a game, it's a flower shop you pay for with time and money.
Cute, but ultimately ornamental and not captivating enough to be engaged with daily.
Posted by: Drew956 | Friday, August 26, 2016 at 05:36 PM