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Niantic

Pokemon GO keeps on trucking, as Sensor Tower reports that the game has exceeded $440 million in gross worldwide revenue on the App Store and Google Play. Niantic’s net revenue now sits at over $308 million thus far.

That’s the highlight from Sensor Tower’s report, but we also now know that global installs have surpassed 180 million worldwide. It’s estimated that the app has been installed on more than 12 percent of all active U.S. smartphones at some point. And as of August 30, active U.S. players on iOS have spent 32 minutes on Pokemon GO, which lines up closely to its launch in July. Lastly, in terms of revenue, Pokemon GO is still earning more than $4 million in worldwide net revenue each day.

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Pokemon GO has its third big partnership in Japan. Across the country, 3,700 stores from SoftBank will be either a PokeStop or Gym. This follows the deals with McDonald’s and Toho Cinemas.

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Pokemon GO data miners are once again pouring through the game’s code in hope of finding new secrets. What’s been found today may suggest that a new feature is coming.

In Pokemon GO’s latest version, there are references to a buddy system. Pokemon GO Hub summarizes what we know thus far:

  • Pokemon Buddy System is using the same server side distance calculation as the one used for Pokemon Eggs
  • Walking your Pokemon Buddy will award you with candy. The amount of candy is yet to be determined.
  • You can walk the same Pokemon Buddy multiple times, but there is likely a daily limitfor obtained candy
  • You can walk with only one Buddy Pokemon at a time
  • There are various looks of Buddy Pokemon
    • Medium size
    • Big size
    • Flying next to you
    • Rests on your shoulder

Based on these findings, we may see a buddy system added to Pokemon GO in an update soon. As always, we’ll keep you informed about future patches.

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Niantic has posted an update on the situation surrounding bans in Pokemon GO. Some accounts have been unbanned – mainly from players who were unaware about what they were getting into with add-on map apps. However, most accounts that were previously banned for violating Terms of Service will not be adjusted.

Here’s the full update from Niantic:

We continue to work to ensure the integrity of the game and the health of our servers by blocking unauthorized access and at times by banning offending accounts. This includes blocking bots, data scraping operations, and banning end user accounts associated with those activities. Some players may not have realized that some add-on map apps do more than just show you nearby Pokémon. Each end-user app can be used as a collection tool by the app creator, invisibly collecting and forwarding data to the app creator with or without the knowledge of the end user. These apps can have an effect similar to DDoS attacks on our servers. Because of this we have had to ban some accounts associated with using these add-on map tools, leading to confusion by some users about why they were banned. This is a small subset of the accounts banned.

As a result of some changes made to our infrastructure, we are now able to unban this set of accounts. Add-on maps which scrape data from our servers still violate our Terms of Service and use of them may still result in an account ban going forward. Accounts whose sole purpose was to scrape data are not being unbanned. Accounts which used apps or websites to remotely capture Pokémon, battle or deploy on Gyms, or harvest resources from PokéStops are also not being unbanned. Our main priority is to provide a fair, fun, and legitimate experience for all players, so, aggressive banning will continue to occur for players who engage in these kinds of activities.

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Eager fans have been poking around Pokemon GO’s latest update in hopes of discovering what’s to come for the game. Findings from Redditor cokuspocus may offer new insight.

A number of trading references have been detected within Pokemon GO. These include searching, offering, responding and results of a trade.

Pokemon GO’s code also mentions “Item_incense_spicy”, “Item_incense_cool” and “Item_incense_floral” as well as “activity_catch_legend_pokemon”. There’s also a hint of sponsored events or locations similar to Japan’s situation with McDonald’s.

You can read up on the full Reddit post here.

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PokemonGoChamp has recently published an unofficial spawn rate chart for Pokemon Go.

The chart, which was made from the large amount of data collected by PokeRader, lists the spawn rates for every Pokemon that can be caught within Pokemon Go.  The listed percentages are calculated on a rolling 1 week period across approximately 100 million historical data points to help ensure the highest level of accuracy.

PokemonGoChamp claims that, after doing some research, it can confirm that the data set is “highly accurate”. The chart also includes the most common time a specific Pokemon will appear at.

You can view the chart here.

Pokemon GO is the most successful mobile launch in history, according to SuperData Research. It surpassed Monster Strike as the top mobile game, and managed to take first place in top-grossing and top-download rankings for every country it launched in.

Global digital game sales in July were up 10 percent year-over-year to $5.9 billion. Thanks to Pokemon GO, the mobile category grew 16 percent from a year ago.

Pokemon GO also positively impacted Nintendo hardware and software. As SuperData notes:

“Nintendo’s mobile strategy ended up paying off exactly as intended. 3DS unit sales rose by over 50 percent from a year ago, an astonishing feat for underpowered hardware nearing the end of its lifespan. Furthermore, sales of 3DS games boomed. Combined sales of Pokémon Omega Red and Alpha Sapphire and Pokémon X and Y (2015 and 2013 releases) nearly doubled. Pokémon Go is the only factor that can explain jumps in sales of this magnitude. We are optimistic that mobile spin-offs for Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing will have a positive impact on Nintendo’s ecosystem.”

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Update (8/23): Niantic’s site post indicated that the new Pokemon GO update was available yesterday, but it looks like it took a bit longer than expected to fully roll out. It should be fully available on both iOS and Android now.


Original (8/22): A new Pokemon GO update can now be downloaded on all devices. The new version is 0.35.0 for Android and 1.5.0 for iOS.

The big addition this time around is the Pokemon Appraisal. Here’s the lowdown on that:

“Trainers will now be able to learn about a Pokémon’s attack and defense capabilities from their Team Leader (Candela, Blanche or Spark) to determine which of their Pokémon have the most potential for battle.”

Niantic also says there are “Minor bot fixes” with today’s update.

It’s also worth mentioning that the company says it’s “still working hard on several new and exciting features to come in the future”.

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Pokemon GO’s popularity has been taken to another level thanks to some craziness in Taiwan. On Saturday, what looks like thousands of players went into a frenzy after Snorlax appeared.

A video spotted by TIME shows the chaos. While it’s unverified, Chinese media reports indicate that the Xinbeitou district has become a daily focus for “thousands” of players looking to catch Pokemon. The civil-defense brigade has had to be called in, plus police reinforcements from neighboring areas.

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Bloomberg and Axiom Capital Management have provided an extended look at various Pokemon GO stats through the middle of the month. Based on data from Sensor Tower, SurveyMonkey, and Apptopia, the game’s daily active users, downloads, engagement, and time spent daily are all off their peaks and on a downward trend.

With Pokemon GO’s incredibly hot start, I think it should have been expected that it wouldn’t maintain its initial levels – especially now that the app has launched in many major countries. We’ll likely see it stabilize at a certain point, and it’ll continue to do well so long as it receives proper support.

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