StyM
01-18-2017, 07:32 AM
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/pokemon-go-billion-revenue-2016,33435.html
Still don't believe 2016 was the year augmented reality (AR) went mainstream? A new report from the App Annie mobile analytics firm shows that Pok?mon Go raked in $950 million from players and that people spent almost as much time with the game as the next 19 biggest titles combined.
The report said Pok?mon Go took just 110 days to reach $800 million in consumer spend. That's far less time than other popular games, such as Clash of Clans or Candy Crush Saga, and shows that developer Niantic Labs won big after it decided to finally bring Pok?mon into the real world. (Kind of.) The game likely brought in even more money thanks to partnerships with other companies to establish all-important "Pok?Stops" at their places of business.
Niantic used this two-prong approach to great effect. The game was a free download with optional in-app purchases to get more Pok?Balls, Pok?mon lures, and other consumables. Once it became a hit, businesses tried to cash in on the game's success by paying to have the Pok?Stops that distribute those in-app purchases for free in their physical locations. Pok?mon Go was basically made of equal parts nostalgia, AR, and mobile game design trends.
Turns out that's exactly what people never knew they wanted. App Annie said that people spent almost 7 million hours with the game during its Halloween event--and that's after interest had started to wane. (Pok?mon Go is a novel experience that even non-gamers can enjoy, but it lacked the depth or the technical stability to keep many of its players hooked, or at least those who expected the game to act more like its handheld predecessors.)
Pok?mon GO?s success has done more to familiarize consumers with the concept of augmented reality (AR) than perhaps any other piece of software (or hardware, for that matter). Importantly for the app space, this familiarization did not take place in living rooms with special AR devices. Instead, it happened in the real world with mobile phones. If this is any indication, the future of AR is in mobile apps.
Still don't believe 2016 was the year augmented reality (AR) went mainstream? A new report from the App Annie mobile analytics firm shows that Pok?mon Go raked in $950 million from players and that people spent almost as much time with the game as the next 19 biggest titles combined.
The report said Pok?mon Go took just 110 days to reach $800 million in consumer spend. That's far less time than other popular games, such as Clash of Clans or Candy Crush Saga, and shows that developer Niantic Labs won big after it decided to finally bring Pok?mon into the real world. (Kind of.) The game likely brought in even more money thanks to partnerships with other companies to establish all-important "Pok?Stops" at their places of business.
Niantic used this two-prong approach to great effect. The game was a free download with optional in-app purchases to get more Pok?Balls, Pok?mon lures, and other consumables. Once it became a hit, businesses tried to cash in on the game's success by paying to have the Pok?Stops that distribute those in-app purchases for free in their physical locations. Pok?mon Go was basically made of equal parts nostalgia, AR, and mobile game design trends.
Turns out that's exactly what people never knew they wanted. App Annie said that people spent almost 7 million hours with the game during its Halloween event--and that's after interest had started to wane. (Pok?mon Go is a novel experience that even non-gamers can enjoy, but it lacked the depth or the technical stability to keep many of its players hooked, or at least those who expected the game to act more like its handheld predecessors.)
Pok?mon GO?s success has done more to familiarize consumers with the concept of augmented reality (AR) than perhaps any other piece of software (or hardware, for that matter). Importantly for the app space, this familiarization did not take place in living rooms with special AR devices. Instead, it happened in the real world with mobile phones. If this is any indication, the future of AR is in mobile apps.