New Charts Detail Steady Decline in Popularity of 'Pokémon Go'

[MacRumors]

After weeks of intense usage, new data from Axiom Capital Management (via Bloomberg) paints a picture of Pokémon Go's overall waning popularity as August comes to a close. With research lead by Senior Analyst Victor Anthony, the investment advising firm collected various user engagement statistics -- and even figured out how much attention Pokémon Go brought to augmented reality gaming -- in a handful of charts.

According to Anthony, many other popular apps, which saw a decline in daily active users because of the Pokémon Go phenomenon, were scrambling to figure out ways for former reliable users to return to their app. But now the executives of Tinder, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat "can breathe a sigh of relief," since everything from daily active users, downloads, and the amount of time spent on Pokémon Go each day "are all well off their peaks and on a downward trend."

"Given the rapid rise in usage of the Pokémon Go app since the launch in July, investors have been concerned that this new user experience has been detracting from time spent on other mobile focused apps," [Anthony] writes.

If these declines prove enduring, this would cast aspersion not only on the viability and popularity of Pokemon Go, but augmented reality gaming at large, according to the analyst.

Anthony believes the fad-like quality of Pokémon Go could ultimately leave little lasting impact on augmented reality gaming "at large," due to its fleeting popularity of a few weeks in mid-to-late July. Although not mentioned by the analyst or Bloomberg, it's also worth taking into account how many players actually used the AR camera when catching Pokémon, and consequently how many considered it an "AR game," when it became widely known that turning the mode off made capturing the creatures a slightly easier task.

While it was on everyone's mind, Pokémon Go made waves in both mainstream mobile gaming, and even sent Nintendo's stock rising, despite the company's small stake in both Niantic and The Pokémon Company, the game's creators. Niantic is still pushing out updates to Pokémon Go, attempting to fix issues with the game while also introducing it into new markets like Thailand and 14 other Asian countries.

Article Link: New Charts Detail Steady Decline in Popularity of 'Pokémon Go'

 

[BrodieApple]

It's starting to get old for me too. They need to bring trading, friend battling and gen 2 Pokemon

 

[SandboxGeneral]

I guess the game hit its saturation point fairly quickly. Its lasting appeal apparently wasn't very strong, especially considering it requires users to get out and move about to play the game vs. staying stationary to play.

 

[Sasparilla]

My daughter and I still play this together & I still see people at the local stop holding their phones, but not like a month ago, the "hotness" is definitely gone. There's not alot compelling to keep you going after you've played it a while - if you don't value the exercise aspect of it. By springtime, here in the U.S., I doubt it'll be played much - after everyone is quarantined to the indoors for the winter.

 

[levitynyc]

Raise your hand if you didn't see this coming. :crickets:

Also I think all of the cheating killed the game for a lot of casual players.

 

[JohnApples]

It's starting to get old for me too. They need to bring trading, friend battling and gen 2 Pokemon

This, for sure. Maybe another "goal" to work toward too, instead of just gyms. Not sure if it's an exploit or not, but all the gyms in my area are slowly being captured by multiple 3000+ Dragonites.

At least when winter will come around, it will drastically reduce the amount of people playing, hopefully causing Niantic to churn out some content updates.

 

[penajmz]

They messed up the game with all of these updates that make you not want to play it.

 

[dazzer21-2]

Nothing to do maybe with kids going back to school after the Summer Holidays, or parents locking their phones away because they're spending too much time playing it? I did!!!

 

[Hastings101]

Pretty sure that's normal for most video games, especially a freemium mobile game. The real mystery is why Tinder and Facebook were worried about Pokémon Go. Seems kind of weird to say that instead of Clash of Clans or some other game. Some secret Pikachu dating functionality I don't know about?

 

[KidAKidB]

I'm not sure why this would even be a surprise. I was saying this since day 1. It's obviously going to get attention at first and then most people will lose interest as it's a pretty straightforward game.

 

[iLoveDeveloping]

Ye it's just getting stupid now. Everyone that cheated at the beginning own the game, they have every Pokemon with insane CP so no one who hasn't cheated can touch them. I haven't even found a single rare Pokemon, haven't played it for 4 days now, think I'll just delete it, it was really fun while it lasted but it was never made correctly for the average player and the cheating ruined it. Sad

 

[Cloudane]

Well yeah, its release was timed for the school summer break. As a result it gained an inflated initial level of interest via the summer fad factor. This is now trailing off as the kids come to the end of their break.

Meanwhile the adults (or manchildren such as myself) demand a little more from it than it offers right now. It may recover somewhat when updates and gen 2 come out - it needs to be soon though as I've chatted with many who are losing interest and the longer that interest is gone the less likely they'll be back.

Dedicated fans (I'm one of them) will no doubt stick around - besides, maybe if everyone leaves Instinct will be in with a chance haha - but it was never going to be at that "big bang" stage forever.

Unfortunately it's Niantic we're dealing with. Any Ingress player will know how slow they are at introducing features. They make Apple look quick

 

[chr1s60]

I think this is pretty much the reality of the App Store business. When an app becomes popular everyone downloads it and once it hits the peak it steadily declines over the next few weeks or months as the experimental "let's see what the hype is about" users slowly leave until it gets back to only the core users remaining. In this case, it was released and the true core players grabbed it quick, then the media attention kicked in and everyone else wanted to see what it was all about. Now all the experimental users are moving on to other apps and the ones that were there in the beginning will remain.

 

[vmachiel]

It's starting to get old for me too. They need to bring trading, friend battling and gen 2 Pokemon

Nothing else needs to be said. They are finally done with fixing the major bugs but it's too late.

 

[nburwell]

I downloaded the app, played it for a few days, didn't really get into it, then ultimately deleted the app.

But this post shouldn't really come as a surprise. It was bound to happen sooner or later.

 

[TMRJIJ]

They messed up the game with all of these updates that make you not want to play it.

You mean the bug fixes?
Not much new happened on the game since it's release

 

[earthTOmitchel]

Pretty sure that's normal for most video games, especially a freemium mobile game. The real mystery is why Tinder and Facebook were worried about Pokémon Go. Seems kind of weird to say that instead of Clash of Clans or some other game. Some secret Pikachu dating functionality I don't know about?

I think it's more about a boredom thing. Just speaking personally, but I only go on Facebook and Tinder when I pretty much have nothing else to do and want to be on my phone. Pokemon Go filled that need for me for pretty much all of July, so I'd say my usage of FB, Tinder, and Instagram went down because of it. But apps I use no matter what - like Twitter - pretty much stayed the course because they aren't normally affected by my boredom levels.

But I'm definitely one of those who have pretty much stopped playing completely, because my local park hotspot removed every pokestop and gym from the game. So now I'm just waiting for Animal Crossing

 

[Xenomorph]

There will of course be a drop in popularity for any new game. People that wanted to see what it was all about have downloaded it, seen it, and moved on. Just look at Miitomo. People jumped on that when it came out, realized it was a one-trick pony, and then have all mostly stopped playing it. People that like Mii dress-up or answering lots of questions stick around - but that's an awfully small market to go after!

It doesn't mean the game is doomed, though.

Niantic really pissed off fans, though. They don't like communicating, break & remove stuff, and seem to drag their feet on updates. Pokemon has a LOT of potential, and it easily feels like the game is barely 10-25% done. It's even regressed in some ways since launch (radar and tracking).

Once they get on the right track with the game, I could see its popularity start to increase again.

 

[RedOrchestra]

Because being outside and chasing around in all that fresh air was just too damned exhausting for the normally couch-surfing crowd.

PLUS having to keep you're phone on full bright probably caused many to have to recharge more frequently finally taking a further shine off.

 

[tonyr6]

Finally the fad is ending. I can't believe this trending crap slow summer news which is something stupid every year made me hate Pokemon which I use to love now I can't stand.

 

[nooaah]

I guess the game hit its saturation point fairly quickly. Its lasting appeal apparently wasn't very strong, especially considering it requires users to get out and move about to play the game vs. staying stationary to play.

I feel like most things that catch fire like this also tend to fizzle out just as quickly. It's novel but not revolutionary.

 

[Zwhaler]

In case anyone is wondering, the value of classic Pokémon cards went way up due to the Pokémon Go hype train.

 

[WinstonRumfoord]

THIS IS UNEXPECTED NEWS

 

[ChristianVirtual]

I installed, saw I have to share some other account information and deleted direct ... counting in the stats; but not in real world.

But yeah, faster on the down trend compared to AngryBirds.

 

[WiseAJ]

It's not as fun anymore. Can't track down the Pokémon you need to catch them all. The game has slowed to a halt. I used to spend hours playing it everyday. Now I just spend a half hour taking a couple gyms for the defender coins and that's it until they fix the game.