What went wrong with Pokémon Go? Three lessons from its plummeting player numbers
A summer spent hunting through local neighbourhoods, parks and shops for virtual monsters is now just a hazy memory to most people who downloaded Pokémon Go. Four out of five users have long since given up trying to “catch ‘em all”, having stopped playing the mobile video game just two months after it peaked.
One year on from the game’s release, its developer, Niantic, is now trying to renew some users’ excitement with new features, new monsters to catch and live events to encourage more people to get out and log on. But even if this fails to significantly revive the game’s wider popularity, Pokémon Go actually retains a surprisingly large loyal fan base that could sustain the game for a long time to come.
Despite reaching US$1 billion in revenuefaster than any other mobile game, the initial hype around Pokémon Go rapidly gave way to a significant decline in mainstream popularity for several reasons. First, software issues and network availability problems deterred casual players. Getting booted out of the game, or failing to log in at all, turned it from a fun distraction to an irritating chore.
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