Free Pokemon Go cover

Description

Investors were buoyed by the response to the initial release of Pokémon Go on July 7, with Nintendo's share price rising by an initial 10% and by July 14 shares rose to as high as 50%. Despite Nintendo only owning a 32% stake in the Pokémon franchise and an undisclosed stake in Niantic, Nintendo's market value increased by US$9 billion within five days of release of Pokémon Go. The trend continued for more than a week after the game's release and by July 19, the stock value of Nintendo more than doubled as compared to pre-release. Turnover sales reached a record-breaking ¥703.6 billion ; and trading of the stock accounted for a quarter of all trades on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's main board. The Financial Times believed that investors were speculating not on Pokémon Go as such, but on future Nintendo app releases being as successful as the company moves more into the mobile app market—an area they were historically reluctant to enter in the belief it would cannibalise its portable console and video game sales. Nintendo plans to release four more smartphone app games by March 2017, and investors remarked that Pokémon Go showed Nintendo still has some of the "most valuable character intellectual property in the world" with franchises such as Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid.By July 22, Nintendo gained ¥1.8 trillion in market capitalization since the game's launch. However, following clarification from Nintendo that the company did not produce Pokémon Go nor had tangible financial gains from it, its stock fell by 18%—equating to a ¥708 billion loss in market value—on July 25. This was the largest single-day decline for Nintendo since 1990 and the maximum one-day exchange of finances allowed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The company has an approximate 13% "effective economic stake" in the game, according to Macquarie Securities.


Other companies
The surge in stocks extended beyond Nintendo, with Tomy, TV Tokyo, and the Bank of Kyoto, among other companies, all seeing significant gains. Similarly, Zagg, which owns a company that manufactures battery cases, saw a 25% rise in its stock in relation to Pokémon Go.


Technical issues
At launch, the game suffered from frequent server outages due to extreme usage. Frequent crashes and authentication errors plagued the game's release and persisted for several days. For the first two days after launch, players were unable to access the game through their Pokémon Trainer Club accounts; only Gmail-based accounts were able to gain access to the game. Servers again suffered frequent outages in Australia on July 11; players blamed people in the United Kingdom for bypassing local servers and using Australian ones to play the game before its official release. On July 16, a few hours after the release in many European countries, the game's servers temporarily went down. The outage was claimed by a hacking group called "PoodleCorp", who said they used a DDoS attack to take them down, although the problem was fixed later that day. The next day, the servers went down again as the game was launched in Canada. John Hanke issued an apology for the server issues at San Diego Comic Con 2016, stating "we weren't provisioned for what happened".Some early iOS installs of Pokémon Go required users to provide the app with full access to their Google accounts, thereby allowing the app to "access players' Gmail-based email, Google Drive-based files, photos and videos stored in Google Photos, and any other content within their Google accounts". The Pokémon Company and Niantic responded to the concerns, recognizing that the iOS app, at the time, "... erroneously requests full access permission for the user's Google account ..." However, Adam Reeve—the person who initially made claims of the security issues in a Tumblr post—later backtracked on his claim and was not "100 percent sure" it was valid. Dan Guido, CEO of the security company Trail of Bits, analyzed the app's programming and discovered that although the game did request full account access, this did not enable third-party usage as initially conveyed. Guido found that this did enable Niantic to access people's email addresses and phone numbers unintentionally. A subsequent iOS app update reduced the scope of access. Niantic also issued a statement assuring users that no information was collected nor was any information beyond what was necessary to use the app accessed.
Alongside server issues, Pokémon Go suffered from several glitches. One of the more prominent bugs appeared in mid-July 2016 and rendered the game's tracking feature useless. Normally, this feature shows between zero and three footprints to inform the player of how close they are to a nearby Pokémon; however, it universally became "stuck" at three steps, earning it the name "three-step-glitch". Niantic removed the footstep feature altogether on July 30, sparking criticism from players. By August 1, players reported a new glitch that swaps their captured Pokémon with another creature at random. Another bug, confirmed by Niantic in August, inadvertently made capturing Pokémon more difficult. Some legendary Pokémon, which are rare and powerful versions of the creatures, were also obtained by players in a glitch, though they were later removed from the accounts of the trainers to keep the game fair.


Reception


Critical response
Pokémon Go released to "mixed or average" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. Upon release, critics called the experience enjoyable, but noted the game's technical issues.Critics praised various aspects of Pokémon Go. Oscar Dayus said that the game was an immensely enjoyable experience and continued with how "the very personal nature of catching Pokémon in your own neighborhood made me smile more than any game has for years". Jeremy Parish compared the game and its social aspects to a massively multiplayer online game. Reviewers also praised the game enabling the promotion of physical exercise. Terri Schwartz said it was "secretly the best exercise app out there" and that it changed her daily walking routine. Patrick Allen wrote an article with tips about how to work out using Pokémon Go. Julia Belluz said it could be the "greatest unintentional health fad ever" and wrote that one of the results of the game that the developers may not have realized was that "it seems to be getting people moving". Users took an extra 194 steps per day once they started using the app, which approximated to 26% more than usual. IGN named it the 100th best video games of all time in 2018.Philip Kollar and Allegra Frank both agreed that Pokémon Go was "an exciting social experience", but were not sure how long the game and its popularity would last, stating it could either last for coming years or "end up as a brush fire craze that the whole gaming world is talking about for a few weeks and then is forgotten".Other critics expressed more negative opinions of the game, with many citing frequent crashes and other technical issues, along with shallow gameplay. Kallie Plagge said that although the game lacked in polish and depth, the overall experience made up for it. Matt Peckham criticized the game for its frequent crashes. Mike Cosimano also took issue with the game, saying the original idea showed promise, but was improperly executed. Kat Brewster wrote that although she thought Pokémon Go was not a good game, it was "a great experience". The server problems also received negative press. Miguel Concepcion said that although he enjoyed the game's strong social appeal and visual design, the game's "initial iteration is a buggy mess on all levels", with one of the reasons being the constant server problems. Another glitch that appeared a few days after launch was the "three-step glitch", reviewers also gave this bug negative press. Patricia Hernandez said, "the three step glitch adds to what has been a terrible launch for Pokémon Go". Paul Tassi said that due to this bug it's "anyone's best guess where Pokémon are 99% of the time" and that it "renders almost all traditional methods of tracking pointless". Critics also emphasized on the large gap between the rural and urban players. Rural players seem to be at a major disadvantage when playing the game, while city players have access to more PokéStops and Gyms.


Downloads and revenue
Pokémon Go rapidly rose the American iOS App Store's "Top Grossing" and "Free" charts. The game has become the fastest game to top the App Store and Google Play, beating Clash Royale, and it became the most downloaded app on the App Store of any app in their first week. Within two days of release, it was installed on more than 5% of Android devices in the United States, according to SimilarWeb, According to Sensor Tower, the game was downloaded more than 10 million times within a week of release, becoming the fastest such app to do so, and reached 15 million global downloads by July 13. According to SurveyMonkey the game became the most active mobile game in the United States ever with 21 million active users on July 12, eclipsing Candy Crush Saga's peak of 20 million. By July 15, approximately 1.3 million people were playing the game in the Netherlands, despite the app not being officially released in the country at the time. On the day of release in Japan, more than 10 million people downloaded the game, including 1.3 million in the first three hours. By July 31, the game exceeded 100 million downloads worldwide, according to App Annie and Sensor Tower. On August 8, Pokémon Go reached the milestone of over 100 million downloads on Google Play alone after barely 33 days on the market.Through in-game purchases, the game generated more than US$160 million by the end of July, with App Annie reporting that Pokémon Go had generated around US$10 million in revenue every day that month. The same month, Sensor Tower reported that the game had passed more than US$200 million in worldwide revenue, beating every existing record set by Clash of Clans and Candy Crush by a wide margin. On August 12, 2016, the Financial Times reported that Pokémon Go reached US$268 million in revenue after five weeks counting only the U.S., British, and German markets. The average daily usage of the app on Android devices in July 2016 exceeded that of Snapchat, Tinder, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Due by the game's massive popularity, several app developers became focused on developing similar AR apps using available software development kits . By September 2016, Pokémon Go had generated more than $440 million in worldwide revenue, according to Sensor Tower. Pokémon Go reached the milestone of $600 million in revenue after only 90 days on the market, becoming the fastest mobile game ever to do so.The game was awarded five Guinness World Records in August 2016: most revenue grossed by a mobile game in its first month ; most downloaded mobile game in its first month ; most international charts topped simultaneously for a mobile game in its first month ; most international charts topped simultaneously for a mobile game in its first month ; and fastest time to gross $100 million by a mobile game . By September 2016, Pokémon Go had been downloaded over 500 million times worldwide, and became the fastest game to make over $500 million in revenue. Pokémon Go was awarded the App Store's breakout hit of 2016. Pokémon Go was reported to be the most searched game on Google in 2016. In February 2017, Pokémon Go was awarded being the best app at the Crunchies award event.Usage of the game in the United States peaked on July 15, and by mid-September, had lost 79% of its players there. Forbes said "the vaguely curious stopped playing and the more committed players ran up against a fairly unsatisfying endgame". In October 2016, Niantic released a Halloween-themed event, which saw a surge in revenue up to 133% as reported by Sensor Tower, placing the game back to top of the charts of highest grossing apps. It was reported that the game earned approximately $23.3 million between October 25 and 29, up from approximately $10 million between October 18 and 22. By February 2017, the game has been downloaded more than 650 million times worldwide, with a reported US$1 billion in revenue made, becoming the fastest mobile game ever to do so. By June 2017, the game was downloaded more than 750 million times, with an estimated revenue of US$1.2 billion according to Apptopia. According to mobile app research firm Apptopia, approximately 60 million users were still playing the game a year after launch. As of May 2018, the game reached over 800 million downloads worldwide.According to App Annie, Pokémon Go grossed an estimated $950 million in 2016. A report from SuperData Research ranked Pokémon Go as the 9th highest grossing mobile game of 2017, estimating its revenue throughout 2017 to be US$890 million. Bloomberg estimated that Pokémon Go generated up to $2 billion in total revenue by late 2017. Two years from its initial launch, analyst firm Sensor Tower estimated the game's revenue as $1.8 billion, reporting that players around the world continue to spend $2 million each day. SuperData Research estimated that, in May 2018, Pokémon Go grossed $104 million in monthly revenue and had 147 million monthly active players, its highest since Summer 2016. In July 2018, Pokémon Go was the top-grossing mobile app of the month.


Community and cultural impact

The game was referred to as a "social media phenomenon" which has brought people together from all walks of life. 231 million people engaged in 1.1 billion interactions that mentioned Pokémon Go on Facebook and Instagram in the month of July. Numerous media outlets referred to the surge in popularity as "Pokémon Go Mania", or simply "Pokémania". The massive popularity of the game resulted in several unusual positive effects. The Sims™ Mobile
. For example, the game enabled players to help catch criminals and to report crimes in progress, and has even aided law enforcement's community relations, albeit with caveats. Flip Master
. Businesses also benefited from the nearby presence of PokéStops with the concomitant influx of people, and the intense exploration of communities has brought local history to the forefront. Chess ∙
. The game was also seen bringing its players to places of worship, as many Pokégyms are located there. Family Feud® 2
. Despite some criticism by religious leaders, this was received positively by religious groups, who saw it as reminding adherents to come and pray. Love Balls
. Some establishments considered purchasing lures in the game to attract additional players to PokéStops on their property. Within a week of its release, a secondary market emerged for the game, both for the resell of high-level accounts on Craigslist and PlayerUp, and for the sale of expert advice on Thumbtack. Wireless provider T-Mobile US started an offer for free data for a year for Pokémon Go sessions, and Yelp added a filter that only shows businesses which have a PokéStop nearby. National parks across the United States saw an influx of visitors due to the game, with "hundreds or thousands" of people visiting the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington, D.C. on the w