App Annie, the App Store analytics and intelligence business, has reported that this weekend the Pokemon GO application reached 100 million global installs this weekend. Nintendo’s augmented reality game has taken the world by storm, engaging players and writers across the world. For the Google Play Store on the Android platform, the game managed to hit the 50 million downloads in just 19 days, smashing the nearest application (Color Switch at 77 days). Apple also stated that Pokemon GO was the most downloaded application on the iTunes App Store during any launch week. Interestingly enough, App Annie also stated that Pokemon GO has reached over $10 million in daily revenue for Nintendo and this prompted the business to take a look to see how the upstart game has changed the app and gaming landscape. The results are encouraging or perhaps even a relief for developers of other games.
On the face of it, Pokemon GO has proven to be quite the time sink for many players because the amount of time with the application running is high. However, despite players typically running the Pokemon GO application for relatively long periods of time, this has not made an impact on other big-name mobile games such as Mobile Strike, Clash of Clans or Candy Crush Saga. App Annie believe this is because many Pokemon GO players are playing the game as they do what was previously non-mobile gaming or use time. In other words, we are playing Pokemon GO whilst walking the dog, going shopping or during the commute to and from work.
When Pokemon Go was launched into the North American market, it did cause a short term drop in the revenue from other titles but this lasted only a few days. In the case of Australia and Japan, App Annie has seen an increase in the revenue generated by other games after the launch of Pokemon GO. For some markets, the early indications are that players are happier to spend money on their mobile gaming after experiencing Pokemon GO. However, App Annie explained that this was not a surprise as most of the revenue generated for a particular game typically comes from a small, hardcore cache of players and these people do not tend to be so engaged across multiple games. Looking to the future, the very successful introduction of the Pokemon GO game may see other developers look towards building their own augmented reality titles designed to engage with players during times that are otherwise not usually considered available for playing the game.