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The success of Pokémon GO has yet to reach its peak, as the game has made over $5 billion since its launch. Pokémon GO recently celebrated its fifth anniversary, and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere soon.
The mobile title was released in 2016 and it soon exploded in popularity, to the point where it even found fans among people who had never engaged with the Pokémon franchise in the past. Pokémon GO kicked off the second Pokémania, which is currently ongoing and affecting the Pokémon Trading Card Game, as cards have sky-rocketed in value. The people who were kids in the days of Pokémon Red & Blue are now adults, and Pokémon GO was the perfect way to bring them back into the fandom. This was also helped with the release of the first mainline Pokémon games on a home console, with Pokémon Sword & Shield on the Nintendo Switch.
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Pokémon GO is now five years old, but enthusiasm for the game hasn’t died down a bit. According to Sensor Tower, Pokémon Go has now made over five billion dollars. Pokémon GO is easily the market leader in the AR game category, with most other titles in the genre (like Dragon Quest Walk and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite) being seen as copies of Pokémon GO‘s successful formula.
In terms of spending, the bulk of it has happened in North America, with 36.6% of the game’s spending happening in the region. Japan is in second place, with 32% of the total spend taking place in the region. Pokémon GO has been downloaded over 632 million times since its launch, with the USA being the most popular region for the game, with 115.5 million downloads so far. It has already made $641 million during the first half of 2021, and the re-opening of society following the Covid-19 pandemic means that it’s on course to make a lot more.
If there was ever a time for Pokémon GO to experience its downfall, it would have been during the pandemic. After all, the game requires the player to go outside and explore, which became dangerous during the pandemic. Niantic changed the game in order to make it playable for people at home, allowing Pokémon GO to survive during the period that could very well have spelled its downfall. Five billion is an incredible amount of cash to bring in for any video game, and Pokémon GO continues to be one of the cornerstones of the most profitable media franchise of all time.
Source: Sensor Tower
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