PokéBase - Pokémon Q&A
1 vote
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Like, when it first came out everyone played it. You would see tons of people outside, on their phones hunting for whatever Pokemon they wanted. I was even crazy for it. But, over the past 2 years it's been sort of dying. A lot of people still play it, but not as much as it was in the summer of 2016. So, is it dead? I'm just curious.

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Well when winter came, people could not go outside as much so they could not play the game as much, and after winter it was just forgotten about.
I'm pretty sure this question isn't allowed. I'll close it for now. I'm sure one of the other editors/mods will reopen it if it isn't against the rules.

2 Answers

4 votes
 
Best answer

It's not exactly dead. Or else Niantic wouldn't be running so many events (monthly community days, nearly bi-weekly themed events, etc).

Forbes reports that Pokemon Go has made over $1.8B since its release. Go Fest 2018 was a rather large success compared to last year, with tickets pretty much being sold out upon release.

Your definition of "dying" is that less people are currently playing than the weeks following release day. But plenty of people do play, or else Niantic wouldn't be making as much money as they do now.

However, to answer to why the game has less players than release:

  • Slow implementation of promised features. The trailer for Pokemon Go specifically showed trading, player vs player, and catching legendaries together with friends. Legendaries were implemented through raids, which was implemented about a year into the game; trading was released about a month ago; PvP hasn't been released.
  • Repetitive. Niantic was not able to keep its playerbase as they got bored of the same old catching Pidgey and Rattata instead of anything exciting. Niantic has done much better at this recently with events running constantly.
  • Bugs. At release, the game was extremely buggy and Niantic took a long time to fix them.
  • Lack of a decent tracker. Niantic removed the well-liked 3-step tracker in favor of just showing the nearby Pokemon with no direction of where they are. They eventually changed this, however, but maybe a little too late.
  • Pokemon hype. Most people started playing at release because Pokemon was involved, and Pokemon has a huge fanbase. Combined with Niantic's initial poor handling of the start of the game, people slowly left when the hype died off.
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thanks!
YK here from the future... Niantic just added more Pokemon.
2 votes

Yes, it’s pretty dead. People first started playing because they were nostalgic and because of how hyped up Pokémon GO was. It started dying because the servers kept crashing, the footstep marks next to the Pokémon were out of whack, they didn’t deliver on their promises is the trailer (like trading, raids, and battling friends). They still haven’t introduced trading in Pokémon GO, after 2+ years. Pokémon GO fest made even more people stop playing because the event was a total failure and more importantly, nobody got refunds. (The tickets themselves didn’t cost that much, but many people flew far from their homes just to attend this event.)

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Trading was actually introduced.

GoFest was actually a success this year.
It was the opposite of a success last year