Only last month we told you how people went crazy about Pokémon Go, making it the newest big thing. It took the US by the storm & users obsessed about it on social media forums. But it seems the players’ interest in the game is waning away.
In recently published charts by Bloomberg, the daily decrease in the game’s users & engagements is clearly visible. Provided by Axiom Capital Management (to Bloomberg), these charts show Pokémon Go reached its peak around 45 million users in mid-July & has since dropped off to approximately 30 million in the span of 4-5 weeks.
We all know this Augmented Reality (AR) game made a grand entry into an already saturated market, & yet managed to gather a phenomenal response. So much so that businesses in the US even put up boards claiming they have lots of Pokémon. Restaurants also purchased its lure mode & constantly put a lure on the Pokestops near them to attract more Pokémon & its hunters.
It is a given that no game will sustain player engagement for a long time, but this game losing users so quickly definitely calls for some theories – the simplest being that the momentum died. It would surely be an annoyance to walk around looking into your phones & stumbling into real humans & roads instead of running into Pokémon.
Also, since the US is experiencing an extremely hot summer, players hardly want to step out, let alone walk around finding virtual monsters. Most players have been complaining of repetitiveness as well.
BuzzFeed succinctly put it as: “Walk around. Find Pokéstops. Gather items. Catch (mostly the same frequently appearing Pokémon). Level them up. Maybe fight in a gym. Repeat.” Yawn.
Several (million) players have also been complaining of glitches like routinely crashing servers, frequent freezing & repeated requests to log-in.
However, Forbes is not ready to accept the “Pokémon is dying” lament as yet. “Dropping from 45 million active daily users to 32 million is not “dying” or a “decline.” It’s the natural progression of a game with a massive launch fueled by unprecedented hype,” the report said.
“Anyone with an eye on the video game & mobile gaming industry should know better. There was no way that Pokémon GO would ever sustain the numbers it was pulling down in its first month,” it added.
Meanwhile, Business Insider reports that there are indications of more features being added to Pokemon GO such as trading. It said phrases like “Trade_search” and “Trade_offer” were uncovered by multiple Reddit users in the game’s most recent update. This indicates that players will soon be able to offer creatures for others to browse and choose from.
Image Credit: Pokemon Go
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