Pokemon Go craze slows; Japan fatal blamed on game
China and other countries are still waiting for the app
Pokemon Go stories stopped being funny some time ago.
Perhaps it was the day in July when a man in Florida man opened fire on two teenagers at 1:30 a.m. while they were sitting in a car playing the game. Neither was injured.
Or maybe it was when two men fell off a cliff overlooking the Pacific near San Diego while chasing Pokemon monsters, suffering only moderate injuries despite falling between 75 and 50 feet.
Now comes a report, via The Washington Post’s Anna Fifield in Japan, of a truck driver who, distracted while playing Pokemon Go, crashed into two pedestrians, Sachiko Nakanishi, 72, and Kayoko Ikawa, 60, killing the first and severely injuring the second on Tuesday. As Fifield reported:
“Keiji Goo, a 39-year-old farmer, was playing the game while driving a small truck in Tokushima prefecture on the island of Shikoku.
“He struck two women while they were crossing the road, killing 72-year-old Sachiko Nakanishi and breaking the hip of 60-year-old
Kayoko Ikawa. Goo told Tokushima police that he had been playing the game while driving, the Kyodo News Agency reported.
“’I was playing Pokemon Go while driving, so I didn’t really see what was in front of me,’ the public broadcaster NHK quoted the driver as telling police when he was arrested.”
So perhaps it’s just as well, that, as Bloomberg reports, the game, which had the world in a frenzy, is now experiencing a decline.
“Data from Sensor Tower, SurveyMonkey, and Apptopia, however, show that Pokemon Go’s daily active users, downloads, engagement, and time spent on the app per day are all well off their peaks and on a downward trend,” Bloomberg said.
The BBC reported that data compiled by Axiom Capital Management showed that around 10 million players have given it up since mid-July.
“Pokemon Go’s Daily Active Users (DAUs) — an industry metric that determines how many people switch on an app each day — suggested that the game edged close to 45 million users on 17 July. By 16 August, that figure fell to just above 30 million,” the BBC added.
“It’s rare for games to explode in popularity like Pokemon Go has, but a drop in users was always expected after a big launch,” Craig Chapple, editor of PocketGamer.Biz, told BBC.
Part of the problem appears to be the lack of updates to the game, which players have come to expect. “There’s nothing you can do now that you couldn’t do a month and a half ago,” wrote Jacob Siegal in BGR, in a story bearing the headline, “Is Pokemon Go already dying?”
The game’s creator, Niantic, hopes to remedy that problem, announcing to developers on its Facebook page that “Pokemon GO is in the process of being updated to version 0.35.0 for Android and 1.5.0 for iOS devices.”
The best explanation comes from players themselves, in comments where some of them hang out.
“Well, of course — it’s a limited game with an even more limited appeal,” wrote Gamer Luna at mynintendonews. “The Pokemon brand name can only hold attention to it for so long before the cracks and limitations of the game in its current state reveal themselves for what they are. The game gives no true value for long play, and is essentially candy floss ... no decent content or reason to keep coming back to it for many players once the honeymoon appeal has worn out.”
Greg Warner: “Not a surprise. Nothing is going maintain a level that high for long. A severe dip was inevitable.”
Warner makes a good point. Few products that rise so fast in popularity can maintain it. And it’s still pulling in 30 million users, if the reported numbers are correct, and remains one of the top game downloads.
Potential players in countries where it’s yet to be introduced suggested room for growth.
“We are Pokemon fans from China. We would appreciate it if we could meet Pokemons in China,” someone in China wrote. “As you know, China has the largest number of population of the world. No doubt that we will absolutely have the largest number of Pokemon players if you release this amazing game in China. We are sure you will not regret for letting us join the Big Pokemon Family of the world. Thank you guys for working hard everyday and night to make this game better and better. Hope to hear from you soon.”
“Please release Pokemon GO in Sri Lanka,” wrote a fan. “We don’t have a big enough population to crash your servers and we’re a mighty bunch who love Pokemon.”