As the app celebrates its third anniversary, it’s revealed that Pokémon GO has already made over $2.5 billion worldwide.
Cuphead is getting its own Netflix animated show
On 6 July, 2016 Pokémon GO was released to an unsuspecting world and immediately became a global phenomenon. That initial excitement has died down now but, just as it is with the console games, Pokémon continues to be hugely successful even without all the hype.
According to analyst site Sensor Tower the game has grossed $2.65 billion (£2.12bn) over the last three years, despite being free-to-play and many never having bought so much as a single microtransaction.
When you compare it to the first three years of other major Western-made mobile games it comes in ahead of everything except for Clash Of Clans – even though Pokémon GO hasn’t launched in China yet.
There are a number of Japanese and Chinese titles, such as Monster Strike and Puzzle & Dragons, that are bigger but in terms of Western titles Pokémon GO is almost unstoppable.
It counts as a Western game because developer Niantic is based in San Francisco, with Nintendo having relatively little to do with the app – and sharing relatively little of the profits.
The U.S. is the biggest market for Pokémon GO and responsible for around 35% of gross revenues, with Japan in second on 29%, and Germany third on 6%.
Spending on the game is split pretty evenly between iOS and Android, with 54% coming from Google Play; except for 1.6% on iPads the rest are iPhone users.
Despite its age, and the lack of China, Pokémon GO was the eighth biggest earner across all mobile games globally in June and has already grossed $395 million (£317m) this year – up 19% on the same time last year.
Sensor Tower predicts the game will have passed the $3 billion milestone by the end of 2019, with players spending an average of $2.4 million (£1.9m) on the game every day since launch.
Email gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk, leave a comment below, and follow us on Twitter
