Pokémon Go Fifth Anniversary: A Look Back At The Journey’s Beginning

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Celebrating Five Years of Pokémon Go

Pokémon Go is an augmented reality mobile game developed and published by Niantic in partnership with Nintendo and the Pokémon Company in 2016. It was released on iOS and Android devices as one of the most downloaded apps in both stores during its launch week. It quickly broke records with the total amount of worldwide downloads, monthly users, and revenue collected over the five years since it hit mobile devices. The game saw some highs and lows in the early days, but dedicated players continued to battle through the game’s issues. Niantic took player feedback into account and fine-tuned the experience of exploring the real world with Pokémon — pushing the game’s reach to over 600 million downloads and 5 billion dollars in lifetime revenue as one of the most successful mobile games of all time.  

Niantic’s Biggest Success

One of Niantic’s goals as a company was to create a new way to play using mobile devices and maps based on three core principles: exploration, exercise, and real world interaction with people. These principles are part of the reason why Forbes called Pokémon Go one of the world’s most important games and why it’s been so successful. Exploration and exercise were both implemented into the main gameplay of Pokémon GO. This led to healthy lifestyle changes with increased physical activity and social interaction among players. People were actively spending more time outside everyday searching for pokémon at local parks, shopping centers, and nature.