Hardly anyone will be surprised to learn that Pokemon Go is raking in the money left, right, and center. In fact, it is the most popular mobile game in history, and also the app that surpassed US$600 million in revenue. This makes Pokemon Go even more popular than Candy Crush Saga, Angry Birds, or Clash of Clans.
A Brief Road to Success For Pokemon Go Developers
Ever since the Pokemon Go game was released, a lot of people knew this mobile app would become a major success. Very few people, however, had expected the game to bring in so much money in such a brief amount of time. It only took the game developers 90 days to surpass US$600m in revenue, which is quite an achievement in its own right.
Although most people enjoy the game without using microtransactions, there are plenty of paying users as well. Releasing the game on Android has been the smartest decision, as 45% of all platform-wide game time is spent catching Pokemon. Nineteen of the other most-played games combined account for 55% of play time on a mobile device.
As was to be expected, the hype surrounding Pokemon Go is far from over. In fact, it appears more and more that players are creating additional playing moments to spend time on their mobile devices. Keeping in mind how the game is still “relatively new” compared to other offerings on Android, the revenue will surpass the US$1bn mark before the end of the year at this rate.
Comparing the success rate of the game to Candy Crush Saga’s, it is clear to see its path of success. Candy Crush took nearly 200 days to surpass the US$600m revenue mark, which was quite an achievement at that time. More importantly, it still brings in a ton of revenue every day, which is positive news for the developers.
That being said, things have not always been rosy for Pokemon Go, either. Its servers were facing technical difficulties on launch date, and the global availability of the app has to be phased out through regional rollouts. Moreover, the number of fake Pokemon Go downloads laced with malware reached their peak a few months ago, indicating criminals were piggybacking on its success.
For all of its positive developments, there are still some downsides to Pokemon Go. Ever since the developers decided that rooted devices would no longer be able to run the app, there has been a lot of negative feedback. For now, though, the success of this game cannot be denied, and the future’s looking bright for the developers of this app.
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