Is Pokemon GO Dead?

Pokemon GO took the world by storm on the 6th July 2016. The second coming of Pokefever had trainers new and seasoned roaming the streets on the search for Pokemon using the AR technology app. Visiting local landmarks turned Poke-Stops for resources. Catching the inhabitants of Pokemon’s Kanto Region in their back yard. It was all part of the fun.

To say that Pokemon GO achieved the late Satoru Iwata’s Blue Ocean dreams of making anyone and everyone gamers would be an understatement. It is reported that in its first year, Pokemon Go pulled 232 million users. So it begs the question 7 years later, after the hype has died down, is Pokemon GO dead?

Is Pokemon GO dead?

There were some who’s attention on the game waned after the first few months, as the in game bugs weren’t your average Caterpie. Not only that but the content loop was slow and unyielding. The notion that Pokemon GO had died within a year was already floating around.

Developers, Niantic struggled to anticipate how much more popular the Pokemon version of their AR map explorer game would be. Rather than asking “is Pokemon Go dead?”, players were asking “is Pokemon GO down?” because of how frequently the servers were overloaded.

It wasn’t until until February 2017 when the the bulk of Generation 2 would be added to the game. So those that set out to “catch ’em all” from July of the previous year would be sitting on completed Poke-Dexes for months. The legendries of Pokemon Gold, Silver and Crystal were noticeably absent until an update in July 2017. These fan favourite Pokemon would be available in 5 star raids.

But despite these problems, the game persisted. As one of the longest reigning gaming franchises, is it really surprising? Not to us!

How many people still play Pokemon GO?

When trying to figure out is Pokemon GO dead, the first thing to do is check the player numbers. The numbers have steadily declined over the 7 years since launch, however, they certainly aren’t bad. Activeplayers.io keeps track of a game’s active player base. It also keeps track of helpful metrics like Twitch viewership. While streaming numbers aren’t necessarily tied to players, large streamer interest tends to correlate with a healthy game scene.

32 million active players in 30 days is certainly down from the astronomical 232 million, but most games would be more than happy to have such high numbers. At the time of writing, Generations 1 through 8 are supported. Gen 7 specifically released some of its Alolan forms early to coincide with the trailers for Pokemon Sun and Moon.

Pokemon GO is now an integral part of Pokemon marketing, with its updates now doing their best to match the releases of the mainline games. System selling features like Mega Evolution from Gen 6 have also made their way into the game. The first fully 3D Pokemon was the Pokemon GO tie in: Pokemon Lets Go Eevee and Lets Go Pikachu. Remakes of Pokemon Yellow, using a brand new graphics style.

The game, like most spinoffs, didn’t sell as well as the juggernaut mainline titles. But its inclusion of familiar Pokemon GO catch mechanics instead of just menu crawling did entice in new fans that got their start in the mobile app, which included both the young, and the senior crowd, who might not be fully versed in games.

The Numbers

According to Satista, June 2022, September 2022, April, August and September 2023 all saw the player count drop significantly. The biggest crash happened in September 2023 with 2 million players not logging in. The good news is that ipdates in October and November have helped bring back new players in droves, more than making up for the loss.

Is Pokemon GO Dead? No, its certainly not at its original peak, and it likely never will be. But the numbers continue to grow with time.