Everyone and their cat has likely heard of Pokémon GO at this stage; two years ago this week, Niantic and The Pokémon Company's monster-catching simulator took the world by storm, generating a buzz around the world that was pretty much unheard of for a video game. New estimates have now revealed that it's still going from strength to strength, with total revenue now having surpassed a whopping $1.8 billion.
The game has, of course, dwindled slightly since that initial super-launch back in 2016, but players continue to spend over $2 million every single day worldwide. Despite falling from the top spot of revenue earners, which it managed to hold for 74 consecutive days in its first summer, it's still standing strong in the top ten in 21 countries around the world.
This data comes from Sensor Tower, who also provided information on the early success of the more recent mobile hit Pokémon Quest recently, and the site has provided a breakdown of spending habits across the world. The table below shows the top five countries for all-time spending, with the US and Japan clearly standing out from the crowd.
Have you played Pokémon GO? Have you ever spent real-life money on the game, or do you prefer to play without spending a dime? Let us know with a comment below.
[source sensortower.com]
Comments 44
I've bought a few things before but not a lot. I try to keep my money for better games like the mainline Pokémon games for example.
It's nice to see Pokémon GO is still doing well. I play it for a little bit daily. Although there was a long stretch where I didn't play it so I've got some catching up to do with my best friend
I occasionally give in and spend a little real money. The game is a LOT better today than it was in the first months. Raids, research(quests), gym battles, and now trading and gifting all make the game much more worth it.
Usually, when I spend money, it's on one of those Ultra Boxes they have on occasion, which give you a way way way better deal than buying items individually on their own.
Gosh...
American gamers are even More Maniac in Pokemon games than Japanese gamers.
@Equinox I don't get it either ... such a waste of money.
I wish
they(EDIT: more of them) spent money on Pokémon games on Nintendo consolesinstead(EDIT: too).Well damn
I just started playing pokemon quest, im suprised how much fun that game is. I like it alot.
The graph shows something really interesting.
Europeans are globaly smarter than the rest of the world... LOL
@Anti-Matter Well there is more of them, the USA is huge!
The money they made in Japan is still impressive for a country of it's size though.
@Equinox @Banemus
Luckily for you, you don't have to.
@Cobalt every country on that list is spending more per person than the Unites States on pokemon go. So, if by smarter, you mean investing their money in a fun mobile game, then yes, yes they are.
While certain traditional gamers wonder how f2p games like this make money, some casual gamers wonder how those people can spend $30-$60 to play a game that have stuff like loot boxes for additional cash.
@Alikan
I think you were at the back of the class at school, isn't it ?
USA : 325M people $607M
Germany : 83M people $96M
I dunno how your mathematical skill works but if you don't see the problem right in front of you... humm, yeah maybe it's time to update your math...
@Equinox I have not problem throwing down $5-$10 every couple of months for a game that I play literally every day.
@Cobalt you win this round blue metallic color. 😝
@Alikan
@Findonovan95 I think about the lovely community and the sheer amount of time (and exercise) I’ve put into go and I’m not sure the mainline Pokemon games are even the best ones anymore.
A 20-person raid IRL is a top experience.
Anybody know how much of that Nitnedo gets? Or Gamefreak?
The question isn't why is Pokemon Go coming to Switch, it's - why didn't Nintneod make it free-to-start?
Also, from what I've read, Nintnedo didn't make much money off of the original PokePlus balls either, so my guess is they'll be getting a larger share from the new Pokeballs.
$1.8B from a free to start game. Think about that. A $60 AAA console game would have to sell 30 million copies to make that. How many console games sell 30 million copies? Adding on a $20-$30 season pass does get you down to about 20-25m, but even that is a lot.
@Anti-Matter I think we're just more horrid with disposable income
Not one cent from me and don't intend on ever changing that.
@Cobalt Well, I guess Europe needs a win against the world once in a while
@HobbitGamer
Ow ya know, if you have a minimum knowledge about history, you know from where Americans come from !
I even don't want to tell you(if you don't know that) what kind of people were the first "non native americans", better not...
@EasyDaRon I heard their working on another Pokemon game,which is most likely the REAL NON-CHEAP version:)
Nintendo already knows what you dream about:)
"I'll sell the formula and make myself zillions of bucks. That's enough money to buy my own country, or my own planet even." -James
@Spoony_Tech SAME!!!!
@Cobalt Yes, the majority of Caucasian North Americans came from Europe. That’s a given. You ruined the joke. The joke being, of course, that Europe tended to not get good deals on releases or offerings for gaming back in the day.
But now that I had to explain it, it’s boring. This is why we can’t have nice things.
@HobbitGamer
Sorry if I ruined your joke but I thought you'll be able to understand mine !
@rjejr I'll never understand why people always confuse mobile gaming and regular gaming as the same market. By and large it's two different groups of people with two different needs. Yes due to appealing everywhere to everyone it makes more money. But the gamer group tends to be uninterested in that type of product. Similarly Walmart certainly sells a lot more jewelry totaling TONS more revenue than Tiffany's, but the Tiffany's market is still profitable and the dominance of Walmart jewelry doesn't mean Tiffany's would be better off just closing their stores and stamping their name on $30 aluminum earrings in Walmart. Somehow when it comes to Nintendo and mobile, everyone from fans to investors see that last one as a winning choice.
The reason I play this game is not because it’s such a deep indulging experience but because I meet a lot of new people and use it as a form of exercise. Walking and biking to different places gives me a more interesting experience than running on a treadmill. So instead of buying a gym card I buy in-game content...
@NEStalgia "why people always confuse mobile gaming and regular gaming as the same market"
mobile gaming
regular gaming
I'm going to guess it has something to do with "gaming" being in both.
And here's the thing. Sure, you aren't going to get God of War or Uncharted on mobile. But, Nintneod releases games like Animal Crossing on regular and mobile, and Pokemon Quest on regular and mobile. So maybe for the other 2 big regular gaming companies there is a big difference bewteen mobile adn regular gaming, but Nintneod makes Pokemon, Go on mobile, Let's Go on their regular console. AC Boot Camp and AC HHD. So while their might be a huge difference between the games people play on PS4 and X1 and mobile, for Nintneod the difference isn't quite as large.
Oh, and newsflash, a few of the biggest mobile games around are Fortnite - also on regular consoles, Minecraft, also on regular consoles, PUBG, also on both (I think), Pokemon Go on mobile and soon on a console. FFXV was a AAA JRPG on consoles before moving, chibi style, to mobile.
The lines they are a blurring. Have been really since PS3 started having "Minis" for $1.99 on PSN. And Uncharted Golden Abyss on Vita. And God of War had 2 games on PSP.
So trying to declare they are two separate gaming markets is a bit behind the times. There is currently a great divide between Candy Crush players and CoD players, but they aren't two separate circles anymore, the edges are bleeding together. More and more with each mobile port to consoles. Admittedly not as many full console games going to mobile but FFXV did, it won't be the last.
And with PS5 and X2 coming, and Nintneod continuing to push it's mobile games, wont' be long now before Nintendo gamers are closer to mobile gamers than they are to Sony and MS gamers. If they aren't there already. They'll never admit it of course they'll keep making fun of mobile gamers, but the types of games they play are growing closer in similarity to mobile games than to what Sony and MS gamers are playing.
It's not cut and dry anymore. Maybe 5 years ago, but not anymore.
A $60 AAA needs to sell 30 million copies to make that much in revenue. Or those games can throw in microtransactions/loot boxes.
@rjejr Do we also start confusing it with the "gaming" going on at The Sands and The Mirage? There's a whole gaming commission! They should do something about EA... No, seriously...
Not just Nintendo, there's Fallout Shelter, and so on as well. A PC can run Angry Birds, but a phone can not run Fallout76. Just because the game runs on the hardware doesn't mean it's reaching the samemarket.
And Let's Go isn't Go. Go doesn't have proper towns, gyms, battles, etc. It's Pokemon Yellow with the Go mechanic shoehorned in for wild 'mon battles and some integration. But not close to being the same game.
Fortnite on phones is amazing, no question, though. No idea how that even functions. PUBG on phones? I'm not certain about that. FFXV mobile....that one....looks like XV should have looked from the start, and simultaneously reveals just how shallow the gameplay is Fun, but shallow.
The overall core though is mobile isn't a platform, it's a business model which informs game design overall. The types of experience the phone gamer is looking for isn't at all compatible with the experiences the gamer is looking for. All this talk of the technology "can it run on this hardware" is a side question. What is the person who wants to buy given content and given hardware looking for is what separates the market. Squeenix's history with mobile is kind of tepid in terms of actual returns. If Nintendo steers ever more toward mobile it will be the Wii again, core gamers will be pushed away from them as they chase that new mass market. Not saying it won't happen, but it indicates another instance of them favoring that market over the other, and if the content itself changes quality/business model, the core audience will abandon them a second time. They may succeed that way...or they may not. But it doesn't mean gamers are merging with mobile gamers, it just means Nintendo refocused toward mobile gamers at the loss of dedicated gamers.
Though Sony/MS gamers are ever more all about always-online shared world games. If they go that way I think I'll embrace mobile too
@NEStalgia "If they go that way I think I'll embrace mobile too"
Well you do spend more on your mobile gaming device than a PS4 Pro and X1X combined so you're ready for an all mobile gaming future.
I know Sony can't wait for an all digital future so they can say "We were ahead of our time with the PSPgo." rather than what they usually say they which is "PSPgo? Never heard of it."
Yes, today, there may be a divide between console adn mobile gamers, but kids who are 5 years old today starting out on phones and tablets, do you really think they will have that great divide in their mind 10 years from now when they are 15 years old and all game consoles are mobile devices like the Switch or built into smart gaming TVs?
There will always be soccer moms who only play match 3 games and white guys who mostly play FPS but the divide is shrinking. That's my point. It's nto all - home consoles are $60 AAA games, mobile are free-to-start anymore, there's a crossover which keeps on growing.
@rjejr Well if you trust Yves, there won't be any consoles or gaming PCs at all in a few years, we'll just blithely stream everything, input lag be darned, no unlimited data plans? Go read a book instead.
Kids starting out on phones and tablets aren't doing so because they much prefer it to gaming on a 60" plasma with HDR and 7.1 Dolby Atmos. They're doing it because that's what mummy & dadsy gave them for free. Not everyone is born to a rjejr that has reasonable gaming sense Offer the kid a PC with dual titans and an IMAX projector and watch how fast the phone is in the can There's this assumption taht because kids know mobile that's what they will prefer all their life without suspecting when they become teens they won't see cooler toys they want. I had an NES and a Gameboy....that doesn't mean that all I want to play are 8-bit retro inspired graphics (oohhhhh Octopath tomorrow! ) Kids know phone games. When they see COD87: The Geriatric Front they'll buy in.
And I have yet to spend $1 in game for Pokemon Go. I still play it for a short time almost daily, taking gyms, getting stops, etc. I'm level 32, have 2000 pokemon slots and 1900 item slots so far. I just unlocked Mewtwo in an invite only raid the other day which was a nice achievement. Just waiting for the time I can transfer several over to another game like Let's Go Pikachu.
@G-Boy Why do you think we don't spend money on real Pokémon games too? I've been a Pokémon player since the very beginning & attended events, meet ups and have a full collection of each game fully completed - even played competitively for a while until hacking become too prevalent.
However, I like Pokémon Go too.. people actually show up & you can talk to them, make friends and a HUGE amount of them like the "real" Pokémon too! Heck.. recently made a new friend at the Community Day at this weekend and we went deep into Pokémon & animé lore.
I have no idea why some people want to push this false narrative that you have to be EITHER a PoGo player OR a REAL Pokémon player... kinda makes me feel like people are calling my love for the mainline series fake.
@DanteSolablood Sorry for generalizing. I'm not talking about players like you, I'm talking about the Go players that never have heard about or played the "real" Pokémon games. Most of the people I've talked with only associate Pokémon with Pokémon Go and Pokémon trading cards, and when I tell them about the Nintendo games, they don't know anything about them.
And people still think that none of them would be thinking about to get a Switch for/with the Pokemone Game let's go Pikachu/Evee...
@G-Boy
"Most of the people I've talked with only associate Pokémon with Pokémon Go and Pokémon trading cards, and when I tell them about the Nintendo games, they don't know anything about them."
Pokemon functions as a cultural phenomenon though. I knew plenty of folks that knew who pikachu was or embraced some form of pokemon marketing (plushies, anime, card game, other merch) and never touched the games growing up. And vice versa. I played the games, never touched the card game (unless you count the mewtwo card I got when I went to the first movie) and now that those of us that started on the games are having kids or have already had kids...its becoming more of a cultural thing than a "gaming thing" .
Go allows people that aren't into the mechanics of the console/handheld games (raises hand and I fit the profile of a "core gamer" (TM)) or who are lapsed gamers due to any number of reasons to still take part. Besides you have the ability to "encounter" pokemon in real life...its a fantastic marketing premise, even if the mechanics/platform don't mesh with the core gamers. End the end it is just play, and there are a million ways to play and have fun. Most of the rest of the non self identified "gamers" don't care about all the gatekeeping of gamer culture. So they see something that they recognize, in a manner they find fun and easy to pick up or put down and they play. Technically "gamers" do the same, only they view it as a status symbol.
@NEStalgia "Kids starting out on phones and tablets aren't doing so because they much prefer it to gaming on a 60" plasma with HDR and 7.1 Dolby Atmos. They're doing it because that's what mummy & dadsy gave them for free."
Doesn't really matter WHY they do it, just that they do it. And kids are on their phones ALL THE FREAKIN TIME now so putting down one screen that is permanently attached to their hands to pick up a controller to play a game on a TV makes no sense to them. My kids have a 52" tv to play on, and I still see them taking the Switch out of the dock b/c they like playing it that way - 7 or 8 years now on DS and 3DS will do that to a brain. My son has a 32" tv in his room and he watches more stuff on his 21" PC monitor b/c he's sued to doing it that way, he's comfy in the chair. Habit, routine, whatever you want to call it, it impacts the brain long term.
How is a kids fingers trained to touch a touchscreen for his formative youth supposed to learn to use a controller? You ever see kids touching a PC monitor? Touching is what they know, not controllers.
And, why buy a console just to game, then pay $60 for games and $20 for season passes when you can just play Fortnite on your phone? Movie theaters are having trouble getting costumers in, movie screens are bigger than tvs, same thing - simplicity over size.
I'll be amazed if another console ever sells 160m like PS2 did, unless it's the last console standing. If it's a hybrid it doesn't count, that's 80m for home, 80m for handheld. PS4 could reach 100m like the Wii, PS5 news may dictate that, and how much of a loss Sony is willing to take. But even 100m, while impressive, is nowhere near 160. Switch will never catch DS either.
@rjejr "How is a kids fingers trained to touch a touchscreen for his formative youth supposed to learn to use a controller? You ever see kids touching a PC monitor? Touching is what they know, not controllers."
I present to you the new future of human evolution thanks to technology:
And didn't theaters have the best quarter on record? Go figure, show films people want to watch and you sell tickets.
No no console will sell PS2 or DS numbers, there's way more competition now with other types of entertainment including phones, sure. But the people that do buy also tend to spend more on software, which was always the real money.
@NEStalgia "But the people that do buy also tend to spend more on software, which was always the real money."
But the real money seems to be in free-to-start mobile games.
I have a chance to come full circle, I'm going to take it.
That Diddy Kong pic was perfect BTW. But have you seen today's kids? I'm afraid Diddy is a tad bit too optimistic, more like this.
@rjejr Meh, real money isn't in f2p mobile. The industry is worth tons, but individual studios keep flailing about trying to grab fistfuls of it. They love throwing out stats of the billion dollar industry, failing to mention that that's spread around half a billion vendors. Sure if you're the one that catches lightening, you get tons of money, but it's a futile industry to really compete in. Remember when K-Mart was the #2 retailer behind Walmart? That wasn't good enough for them, they wanted #1, so they cut every cost to try to compete dollar for dollar......and that led them where they are today. Chasing the mobile winners is much the same. Investors love it. Smart business avoids it. Investors don't care if the company sinks, they hop on their raft for the next ship in advance.
LOL....I believe the kids call that a "selfie" right?
@NEStalgia "Remember when K-Mart was the #2 retailer behind Walmart?"
No, no I do not.
Personally I'd be ok w/ a few billion less developers. Every week there are literally a dozen game son Switch and I've never heard of at least half of them. The list is so long I hardly even bother reading it any more, I figure if I've never heard of a game before it released it isn't worth it. And the world would survive w/ a thousand less Candy Crush and Flappy Bird clones. Though Candy Crush ripped off Bejewled, but as a Bejeweled fan CC is a bit better at sucking you in.
So yeah, most of them die, but even more of them deserve too.
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