Yes, the fad may have started to dwindle as of late, but that does not mean that Pokemon GO isn’t making a pretty penny for Niantic still. According to Intelligent Slice, since the app’s boom back on July 15th, the amount of players paying for in-app purchases have dropped by 79%. It was reported that the boom settled with the amount of spenders returning to ‘pre-Pokemon’ levels.
Despite this, it was shown that in the month of August, 28% of mobile gaming revenue was credited to Pokemon GO. The second highest was Candy Crush Saga with 4.5% of the entire revenue gained for the month. Furthermore, it was discovered that as of September 3rd, up to a quarter of Pokemon GO players still purchased in-app content.
One other fascinating discovery by Intelligent Slice, was that Pokemon GO’s spike drove the sales of Pokemon related merchandise. In comparison to August 2015, the amount of revenue received from Pokemon merchandise purchases escalated to well over 233% as of August 2016. Not only was Pokemon GO’s popularity a success for Pokemon merchandise, but 3DS consoles (and Pokemon games) also saw a spike, raising to the top of the charts for hardware sale for the month of July.
Despite the playerbase dropping considerably, it still remains one of the more prevalent games I’ve seen during daily commute to work. It’ll be interesting to see if the game will still retain such a high amount of revenue gain in the months to follow. And who knows if the rumored PvP feature will inject some more life into the game.