Phenomenon of the summer, the mobile game has since lost a lot of users, but continues to rake in the money thanks to a base of loyal players.
This is a love story that it is hard to conclude. This summer, millions of people have had the thunderbolt for Pokémon GB. This mobile game inspired by the famous saga had it all. It was easy to approach him, everyone loved him, he fleurait good nostalgia. Some were able to quickly leave a party to go find him in the middle of the night. Others yielded to the temptation to see in the office. They did not listen to the detractors, those who predicted a passion for short-term, or who laughed at them in the street. Millions of people fell in love.
The summer came to an end. The days have shortened, the passion has faded. It is now rare to come across a player of Pokémon GO in the street. The press, long panegyric, went on to something else. Since the end of August, the articles on the end of Pokémon GO multiply. The release of an update for Halloween, announced Monday, was the occasion to reiterate the acts of death. “Pokémon GB is dying and Niantic [the game publisher] has done nothing to stop the bleeding”, as Business Insider. To support his demonstration, the specialized site has collected the grievances of the members of a sub-forum dedicated to Pokémon GO on Reddit.
Changing demographics
The first problem is the most difficult to resolve. Players of Pokémon GB feel alone. Many users of the first hour have left the game at the end of a few weeks. Niantic does not publish attendance figures for Pokémon GB. The estimates are sporadic, but the result is actually a decrease. The game had more than 94 million monthly active users in the world in early August, according to the estimates of the company Apptopia. This figure fell below the 50 million mark in October, a decrease of 47% in two months. The number of active users log in every day is increased from 14 million in the world with 6 million.
This fall is brutal, but predictable. The success of Pokémon GB is in part due to her operation of a universe well-known. No need to be addicted to video games for the fun of the hunt of Pikachu during his coffee break. Pokémon GB has also received an incredible impetus in the media, which has strongly pushed for the downloads. Today, the public is curious is gone, leaving the place to the fans of the game. The company SurveyMonkey has observed this change by comparing the demographics of Pokémon GB a few weeks after its launch in the United States and today. This summer, the average player was a woman between 18 and 29 years of age with annual incomes below $ 50,000. Today, the gender ratio is near parity, there are more players over 30 years old, and less people earning more than $ 50,000 per year. Players of Pokémon GB are not the same.
Evolution of the interest for the search “Pokémon GB” on Google, 100 is the rate of use is higher.
beyond the fashion effect, other reasons may explain the lack of interest of players of Pokémon GB. The application drains the battery quickly phones, which makes its use impractical in everyday life. She has also lost several options very popular with players in a update in early August. This is the case for the function to follow the Pokémon in the trace or the possibility for third-party applications to use the data of the game in order to offer services such as maps, where are listed the monsters.
A game is always profit
Despite these difficulties, Pokémon GB is not dying. First of all, it continues to rake in money. The game is ranked fourth in the ranking of applications the most lucrative on Google Play, and fifth on iOS, according to the site analysis AppAnnie. Its users have already spent more than $ 600 million on the game, a score that he achieved much more quickly than its competitors. Clash of Clans has made more than 500 days to reach this level, where it took just four months to Pokémon GB. Niantic has not spent a penny in advertising and is just beginning to diversify its economic model, which for the moment mainly based on the purchase of virtual items. Some stores have partnerships with the company to see the Pokémon in front of their sign, but only in Japan. Niantic has not yet been launched in some large markets, such as India, Russia or China.
Source: AppAnnie
Pokémon Gb loses a lot of players. It is a fact. Each week, more than 3.9 million players active, weekly extra light over the game, so that they can be connected up here at least once a week, according to the estimates of SurveyMonkey, which is based solely on the u.s. market. It is much more than Clash of Clans, which loses nearly 960.000 in the same period. However, Pokémon GB has a retention rate very high of 75%. This means that almost three-quarters of its active players weekly return to play the following week. This rate is similar to the one of the biggest mobile games, like Candy Crush Saga or Clash of Clans. In other words, Pokémon GB loses a lot of players, but still has a meaningful basis. A monthly audience of 30 million people in the United States is a great score. The other major names in the industry hover around 10 million. It is at this level that could stabilize Pokémon GO on the long-term, strong players are the most loyal. “We have to believe this rat e of retention, we would not be surprised to see Pokémon GO stay in one of the games for smartphone most used in the United States for a long time,” says SurveyMonkey. The love of the holidays has come to an end. But Pokémon GB still has loyal players.
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