Pokémon Going places

Oh? It looks like the revenue books are evoloving!

 

You remember Pokemon Go, right? The ultra-popular, time-consuming, exercise-inducing, presidential campaign-sinking (allegedly) App fad of 2016? Seems that those four years back everyone and their parents were going around capturing little digital Pokemon on their phones, to the point where even the mainstream media picked up on it to characterise it as the end times. (As they are won't to do.) There were tales everywhere about people falling down potholes whilst Playing Pokemon Go, charging into churches whilst playing it, (which is disrespectful I guess) and massive trampling stampedes running about with their phones out. Truly it was the darkest of times for folk who believed that the whole 'Pokemon' craze was a shortlived fad from 16 years prior. And it should hardly be a surprise to anyone, given that Pokemon is one of the biggest brands in the entire world right now. (Honestly, it's quite amazing that Niantic thought their Harry Potter game would do better than Go, it's like they were looking at an entirely different reality.) Though what might be a bit of a surprise to hear is that as recently as this year, Niantic had their most profitable year running the Pokemon Go App. (Figure that one out.)

Yeah, you might be one of the many out there wondering how exactly that works. True, back in the day Pokemon GO was such a fact of life that it made absolute sense for everyone to chip in enough money to pay for a Niantic-funded colony on Jupiter, but this is the enlightened hell-scape of 2020! How on earth are they raking in more bank? Hell, you might even be wondering if people even play the game, or at least to the degree where they'd feel the need to spend on it, and I have news for you; they do. Personally, I actually never played Pokemon Go when it first came out (I know; what the heck!?) Well as it turns out my fandom for Pokemon had been something that I entirely worked out of my system back when I was a kid and played Pokemon Emerald to death. (Or at least I thought it was, for I'm currently grinding through the game everyday nowadays.) As such it was only this year that I jumped onto the mobile extravaganza and I can confirm; the ecosystem is still surprisingly vibrant and alive.

But let's break down the figures; according to Sensor Tower, a blog which describes itself as "Authoritative insights into global App Economy", these past 10 months have netted Niantic $1 Billion in spending for a free-to-play app; that's the sort of crazy numbers we're talking about here, people! Altogether this makes the life-time earnings of this App stretch just over the $4 Billion mark. (for contrast, 'Harry Potter: Wizards Unite', which is essentially the same App from the same Devs but with Harry Potter theming everywhere, celebrated their $160 million earnings after it's first year being live.) This year has apparently managed to surpass all others for Niantic and that's despite all of toned down press coverage of the game and the obvious restrictions that the App has to work around, so let's theorize as to how this happened.

 I think that the biggest roadblock for this year that everyone has had to work around is obviously the Pandemic and the resulting lockdown, but think about what this must have meant for an App like Pokemon Go. We're talking about the sort of App that required players to go outside and walk around to places that were usually crowed hotspots in order to spin Pokestops, catch varied Pokemon, Battle gyms and hatch eggs. All of which become a bit of a liability when you're stuck at home with the worry of a painful death hanging over you should you dare the outside. This was great for all those games and streaming services that encouraged people to be static but for one which encouraged and required movement, you wouldn't be surprised to hear that this wound up being a hellish year for Niantic. Except it didn't, rather the opposite. And you know what, I think the Pandemic helped.

Now I don't want to drag away credit for where it's due, Niantic did attempt to do the bare minimum to help people through this year on their game. They offered remote raid passes for people to participate in raids from home, (which still had the stipulation of ensuring remote players did less damage during those Raids; thanks for that, guys.) and they strung together several events which meant that all throughout the summer Eggs hatched at a fraction of the distance one would usually have to travel. (I even heard that they upped the interaction distance between Stops and Gyms, but I wasn't really effected by that anyway since I live in an area with practically no Gyms or Stops anyway. Walking is a must for me.) So why did things improve with the lockdown?

Well my theory is that this all ties into perceived value and the way how being deprived of the ability to talk a walk made us appreciate it more. Traditionally no one wants to have to walk to the shop for groceries, but when that's quite possibly the only time you will go out for that day (either due to fear or a literal goverment mandate like we had over here for a few months) then suddenly that time becomes a lot more precious to you. Now instead of grumbling you start wondering if you have everything you need to ensure that the trip is a success and you won't be out of luck until tomorrow. Suddenly you have to double check your list, confer with the shelves, peruse the stocks, and while you're at it why not pick up that Pokemon Go app that you haven't touched in months, might as well make the most of your trip. Now you're remembering how much fun you had with the game and it's only the game you can really play while you're outside so you start dedicating more time to it, and there we have it; Pokemon Go enters a renewed state or relevance in the mind.

But again, I don't believe that this rainfall has been entirely luck based, because Niantic really have thrown on all the stops to make their bank this year. For one, Niantic have really thrown their weight behind story driven quests and timed events to get players hooked for weeks at a time. Costumed mons, increased candy rates and even Mega Evolutions coming into the mix; everything has worked to improve the range of activities one can partake in that, and that's ideal for recurrent play. Top that with the sheer amount of purchase options for speeding up play and this makes the ideal ground for a money farm. The new missions are also an incentive to keep people playing, in that they all offer some grand reward in the shape of a Legendary or even mythical Pokemon and all require herculean tasks of Poke-catching to achieve. Either bagging ludicrous amounts of different species or evolving Magikarps or even just battling a simply insane amount of Team Rocket Grunts and Leaders; all of these require items that are certainly a lot easier to buy than they are to farm up.

Quite simply, Niantic have perfected their craft over the years and bought Pokemon Go ever closer to the well oiled money printing machine it seemed destined to always become. Even The Pokemon Company have seen fit to throw their weight behind it, having recently announced an initiative to unite the games and the App through Pokemon Home integrations. (Which is still rumoured to charge a little fee for shiny and legendary Pokemon transfers) Were it only that every App's pandemic story turned into a success (RIP Quibi, you abomination upon man you) Perhaps the future is looking ever more mobile for everyone's favourite battling monsters.