On July 6, 2016, Pokémon Go, the first smartphone video game dedicated to Pokémon, was released in Australia, New Zealand and the United States. It took a few days to go out to the rest of the world (in Italy it arrived on July 15) but in general it took quite a little while to have a crazy success. It made people talk about itself as very few other video games had managed to do, and above all it entered the daily life of millions of people: not only for those who became passionate about it, but also for everyone else. In fact, there were a few weeks, that summer, when leaving the house in half the world, including Italy, it was inevitable to see small groups of boys (and even no longer boys) wandering through the parks with the smartphone stretched out in front of them, intent on searching and catching Pokémon. In some ways, that success is continuing.
– Read also: But Pokémon, what are they?
In itself, Pokémon Go had nothing really revolutionary, because the technology on which it was based and the game dynamics made possible by that technology had already been seen in other games. In short, it consisted of capturing strange beings thanks to augmented reality, walking around the real world: a mechanism similar to that of Ingress, a sort of giant flag-stealing developed by Niantics Labs, the same company as Pokémon Go. its success: perhaps because the game came when a significant number of people had smartphones that allowed them to play it, perhaps because Pokémon were for many more attractive than a sort of flag-stealer, or perhaps because of a fortunate combination of several factors.
The fact is that Pokémon Go (or even just Pokémon) was talked about and written a lot: on news sites, including Post, there was a period of almost daily articles on the issue, and even the president spoke about the “Pokémon hunt” of the Republic Sergio Mattarella.
– See also: People playing Pokémon Go, photographed
For many, however, Pokémon Go were a pastime of a few days, at most a few weeks and already at the end of August we were wondering if the success of Pokémon Go would go away with the summer. A year later, a headline in the Post asked “Do you remember Pokémon Go?”. But, as The Verge wrote a few months ago, “Pokémon Go never left.” On the contrary.
– Read also: A guide (from 2016) for Pokémon Go
In 2017, and so also in the years following up to this year, a considerable number of players continued to spend part of their time – and especially part of their money, making in-game purchases – with Pokémon Go, a game that continues. to be constantly updated and modified from time to time. At the end of 2018, for example, the possibility of making challenges between coaches arrived and to celebrate the four years since the release of the Pokémon Go game, it began to present a series of “weekly challenges to unlock other species of Pokémon”.
Getting an idea of how many people still play Pokémon Go is complicated: according to some recent data presented by the analysis company Sensor Tower, however, it can be estimated that in its first four years of life the game had total revenues of over 3.6 billion. of dollars, with over 905 million dollars in 2019 alone. Also according to Sensor Tower, the game has been downloaded by over 570 million users worldwide, almost a fifth of them in the United States. Nor does it appear that the coronavirus pandemic has had a particularly negative effect on the game (which has partially adapted to the limited range of movement of many of its players). For the first half of 2020, Sensor Tower reported revenue of approximately $ 445 million.
In recent years, the technology behind Pokémon Go has been used in several other games, including Niantics Labs' Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, described as a 'Pokémon Go 2.0'. Some have not been successful, others have had some; none has become anything even remotely comparable to Pokémon Go in size, speed of diffusion and pervasiveness in the “real world”. According to Sensor Tower, Pokémon Go continues to be the leading game in its category, one based on geolocation and virtual reality. The second best game in this ranking, largely thanks to players from Japan, is Dragon Quest Walk.
