Pokemon Go
What is Pokemon Go?
What are the goals?
Why was it so popular?
price
health
characters
difficulty
AR
How does it make money?
Players can buy items:
We can also get free items at Pokestops. Many of them are sponsored by companies.
Why do these companies pay to be in the game?
Part 2 - the DEEP DIVE
Niantic charges between $0.15-$0.5 per visit to a sponsored Pokestop and they strongly promote this service to companies:
Q: Why did they choose to promote these figures?
Match the annual player spending to the year:
$590 million
$830 million
$900 million
$1.3 billion
2016 (launch year)
2017
2019 (before pandemic)
2020 (pandemic year)
65 million
153 million
166 million
232 million
Match the year to the number of users:
answers below…
users in millions
2016 - 232
2017 - 65
2019 - 153
2020 - 166
How do you think Niantic changed the game to respond to the pandemic?
public events
pokestop distance
number of pokemon in your house
Other changes:
you can buy remote raid passes - to join battles from home
a battle league was created - so you can battle other players from your house
Which country has the most pokemon go players?
answers below
Match the country to the total game revenue in the top 3 countries:
$1.5 billion (36%)
$1.3 billion (31%)
$240 million (6%)
Germany
Japan
US
Japan spends the most money per player. Why do you think so? Are people lazy to walk around?
Britain has a lot of players but they don’t spend much money. Why do you think so?
Why do you think Pokemon Go isn’t popular in China?
Total game revenue:
U.S. - $1.5 billion
Japan - $1.3 billion
Germany - $239 million
China banned Pokemon Go in 2017. Why?
Pokemon Go uses google maps (google sites are often banned in China - after google refused to share user data and censor anti-China content)
China didn’t want a foreign company have geographical data of China
Tencent made a similar version of the game called “Let’s hunt monsters”
Dortmund
In 2019, Niantic held 77 live events in 32 countries. Why do cities like hosting these events?
Niantic said it drove more than $249 million in tourism revenue for the cities on its event list for 2019 - Visitors spent money on hotels, flights, restaurants and shopping
Which app do people spend the most time using on their iphones?
Facebook - Instagram - Pokemon Go - Twitter
Are you surprised by the results?
Why do you think people spend more minutes per day on Facebook than Instagram?
messages
age
business
Harry Potter: Wizards Unite
After Pokemon Go, Niantic announced their next game was a similar game but with Harry Potter characters.
The game followed a story.
Players used magic spells to battle enemies and collect magical creatures.
What are the advantages of each game?
Which game do you think will be more successful?
Harry Potter advantages:
less childish than Pokemon
newer game - it can add more advanced / fun features
the books and movies are probably more popular globally than Pokemon
Pokemon Go advantages:
characters are cuter
popular with gamers already
not scary
original AR game
Pokemon Go is still the only successful location based AR game
It was released in June 2019 and 1 year later had made $37 million. In the same period Pokemon Go made $1 billion
Harry Potter: Puzzles and Spells
In September 2020, Zynga, the makers of candy crush, released a Harry Potter game similar to Candy Crush
The difference is the game follows the stories of the movie. For example, if Harry fights a troll, that troll appears on your screen kicking jewels.
Do you think this was MORE or LESS popular than Niantic’s AR Harry Potter?
Puzzles and Spells overtook Wizard’s Unite’s revenue in just 4 months ($37.4 million). It was much more successful than Niantic’s game.
sources:
https://venturebeat.com/2020/01/22/niantic-drove-249-million-in-tourism-revenue-with-its-walking-events-in-2019/
https://sensortower.com/blog/pokemon-go-five-billion-revenue
https://www.polygon.com/pokemon-go/2020/7/24/21337512/pokemon-go-fest-changes-pandemic-niantic-interview
https://financesonline.com/pokemon-go-statistics/