Even in the midst of COVID-19, Pokemon GO - a mobile game predominately played outside in public - was able to earn its second-largest single-day amount in user spending thanks to last weekend's Pokemon GO Fest event. Developer Niantic reworked this year's festival to accommodate players during the pandemic, allowing millions of players to participate virtually across over 100 countries.
Pokemon GO has been one of the most popular mobile games in the world since its release in 2016, and the recent two-day festival proved that by seeing a massive turnout, with millions of players catching over a billion Pokemon and going head-to-head with Team Rocket. Helping drive turnout and user spending were several new added details, including the addition of new shiny Pokemon, and features that have made playing the game from home all the more accomodating during the pandemic.
Whatever it was driving users beyond the typical Pokemon catching, it paid off big for Niantic. According to Gamesindustry.biz, the game brought in $8.9 million on the first day of the festival - Saturday, July 25. This makes that sum the second-largest amount the game has brought in for a single day since July 29, 2016, which brought in over $13 million. The good times kept going on Sunday when users spent about $8.6 million - making for a grand total of $17.5 million for the weekend. That number gets even bigger if you factor in the $7.8 million the game made the Friday before the festival. So far, the game has brought in $539 million this year, for a lifetime total of $3.7 billion.
News of the festival's very successful run comes on the heels of Niantic saying that - thanks to the great turnout - it would be doubling down on its initial commitment to donate millions to various charities. Initially pledging $5 million, the company announced it would be increasing that to $10 million, money that would go towards helping "organizations in the U.S. that are helping local communities rebuild, in addition to funding new projects from Black gaming and AR creators that can live on the Niantic platform, with the ultimate goal of increasing content that represents a more diverse view on the world."
It should come as no shock that Pokemon GO is still making money this far down the road, but the fact they can still pull in this kind of amount on a daily basis is impressive. More importantly, it shows they've done an excellent job navigating the pandemic, giving players much more ease of use now that going places isn't much of an option at the moment.
Source: Gameindustry.biz