Still popular after six years, Pokemon Go has generated $4.5 billion in lifetime revenue

It was the summer of 2016 when Niantic released its Augmented Reality-based Pokemon Go game for smartphones. During that summer, you would see crowds of young people walking around storefronts and parking lots staring at the screens on their handsets looking to catch certain Pokemon. Until scientists can create real Pocket Monsters, Pokemon Go is the closest thing to having the cartoon come to life.

The goal of the game is to capture as many Pokemon as possible, each with individual powers, train them, and battle other trainers who have their own Pokemon. The game, not surprisingly, was a huge hit worldwide generating $200 million after the first month of release. To put that in perspective, Fortnite brought in $25 million in its first month on mobile platforms and took in $100 million after its first 90 days on mobile.

Now, more than six years later, SafeBettingSites.com calculates that Pokemon Go has been responsible for the collection of $4.5 billion in revenue by Niantic. The new report claims that the game's best year was 2020 when Pokemon Go players spent $915.2 million on in-app items (the report cites data from Statista and App Magic). Last year, sales dropped off 3% year-over-year to reach a still more than respectable $887.5 million.

Pokemon Go is incredibly popular in the Americas as $1.86 billion has been spent on in-app items from that region over the title's first six years. That narrowly beats out the Asia-Pacific market where $1.84 billion has been spent by players. In the region called Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, $792 million has been coughed up by players during the same time period.

Pokemon Go remains popular as it is the seventh-highest grossing mobile game in the world. The six games ahead of Pokemon Go include Honor of Kings, PUBG Mobile, Genshin Impact, Candy Crush Saga, Roblox, and Coin Master.

After the first eight months of this year, Pokemon Go players have shelled out $430.6 million. If spending stays at that pace, the game will see a huge decline in revenue to $646 million for 2022. But with the holidays on the horizon, the pace of in-app purchases might pick up as players receive App Store and Play Store gift cards that can be used toward the purchase of more Pokeballs (used to capture Pokemon), clothes for their on-screen characters, and items to give them an edge in battles and when trying to capture Pokemon.

Data from Statista and App Magic also show that the game itself has been downloaded 590 million times with more than half of those downloads taking place during Pokemon Go's first year of release. In 2020, Pokemon Go was installed over 60 million times as many turned to mobile games during the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year a still solid 56 million downloads were counted, and for the first eight months of 2022, there have been 23 million downloads. That puts the game on pace to be installed 34.5 million times in 2022.

Augmented Reality (AR) places a layer of computer-generated images and data over a real-life view of the world. In the game, this manifests itself by showing wild and free Pokemon running around on the lawn in front of you, or inside a restaurant or store. Since you obviously know that Pokemon aren't real (you DO know that Pokemon aren't real, don't you?) the creatures you see on your phone screen are created by your handset and are layered on top of a real-life image from your phone's rear camera.

If you've never played Pokemon Go and you're curious about what the game is all about, you can install it from the App Store for your iPhone. If you own an Android phone, the game can be downloaded from the Google Play Store. And remember, you "Gotta catch 'em all!" There are now more than 600 Pokemon in the game.