Pokemon GO Has The Best Year Yet, Earns $1 Billion In Player Spendings

Pokemon GO had opened to a massive opening in the gaming industry back in 2016. Four years on and the augmented reality (AR) mobile game by Niantic is still going strong, raking in an estimated $1 billion in player spendings in 2020 so far.

(Representative Image: Reuters)

The high income makes 2020 the best year for the app yet. The new sales figures have been released in a report by Sensor Tower. The report mentions the stark rise in the in-app purchases of the app since 2017.

The figures mentioned on the report reveal that the game managed to rake in $832 million in its first year of opening, i.e. 2016. It subsequently suffered a drop in revenue in 2017, with sales limited to $589 million, eventually rising back to $828 million in 2018 and rising steadily since then.

The report also highlights that the game has been ranked as the ¡°No. 3 mobile game by global player spending outside of third-party Android stores.¡± The game ranks only behind Tencent¡¯s PUBG Mobile and Honor of Kings placed at number 1 and number 2 respectively.

The pandemic impact

Part of the reason for the boost experienced by Pokemon GO is the changes introduced in the game¡¯s nature by the developers during the pandemic. While the game originally required players to visit different locations in real-time to catch virtual Pokemons, Niantic tweaked this to allow players to play from home during the pandemic.

This resulted in a rise in the number of downloads of the game as well as its active users. People who did not venture out from their homes even before the lockdown could now play the game sitting at home. At the same time, those at home during lockdown found it a way to experience the world outside in a virtual manner.

(Representative Image: Reuters)

The company has now announced that it will be rolling back some of these features considering the end of lockdowns in many cities across the world.

To date, Pokemon GO has earned around $4.2 billion in player spending globally. USA accounts for 36.3% of this total spending, with revenue from the country reaching $1.5 billion. Japan ranks at 2 with $1.3 billion and Germany ranks at 3 at $238.6 million.