Nintendo fans hit the Play Store in droves when Miitomo dropped, creating and decking out Mii avatars and taking Miifotos with their friends. Some who may not have even owned a Wii U or 3DS, but had been longtime Nintendo fans wound up creating a Nintendo account just for Miitomo. Many people went in with skewed expectations, though, or not knowing what to expect at all. This translated to waning engagement and an eventual violent churn, dropping Miitomo from a number one app on iOS and Android to a ghost town. A social app without many users isn’t worth much to anybody, which means the sudden churn as people realized that Miitomo really was just all about answering questions, dressing your Mii and taking Miifotos may spell the end for Nintendo’s first app, or at least a distinct fall from grace.
According to data gathered by SurveyMonkey, at this point, roughly one fourth of the users who originally downloaded Miitomo still use the app regularly, and even among those, it tends to be used half as often as big competitors like Clash Royale, usually about two days a week. This brought Miitomo’s weekly churn figure to about 48 percent. Since Miitomo is a social app, this heavy churn is a definite signal of a sinking ship. Miitomo’s weekly active user count nosedove about 72 percent in the short time since its launch at the end of March. In less than two months’ time, Miitomo has managed to lose over half of its user base.
Expectation management and continued engagement were handled poorly, which is what did Miitomo in. A few key features were missing, such as the ability to add friends manually without having to be physically near them or friends with them on Facebook and Twitter. The app itself was rather shallow, relying on user-generated content, being interesting answers to questions and memorable Miifotos, to keep users hooked. Naturally, such a strategy normally doesn’t end well. The only gamelike element of Miitomo is the Mii Drop minigame used to win new clothing items, a rather shallow affair. All of these factors together drove away many of the loyal fans who were curious what Nintendo would do in the mobile space. In the future, Miitomo may see a resurgence, if Nintendo manages it correctly. Adding in features, such as more games, and perhaps making Miitomo a hub for Nintendo’s upcoming mobile games, would be a few examples of places to start. For now, at least, Miitomo is in sharp and quick decline.