[imagesource: Pokemon Go App]

Pokemon Go burst forth into the world in mid-2016, and it seems to have held on to its masses of fans since then.

Yep, the game that drew large crowds to the Sea Point promenade in the winter of 2016 is still very much a thing.

At around the same time, pandemonium and traffic jams struck Australia as masses attempted to catch rare Pokemon and even the Norwegian prime minister couldn’t put the game aside for a parliamentary meeting.

Some might have thought that it would just be a fad, set to fade away over time.

But no, it was actually setting itself up for long-term, major success.

Now on Pokemon Go’s fifth birthday, the app has revealed that it managed to bring in $5 billion for the company that made the game, Niantic, since its launch.

Per The Verge, that means that Niantic has been averaging around a billion dollars per year.

What’s more is that the app did its best in terms of revenue last year, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, pulling in $1,3 billion from Pokémon Go players, which overrode its record-setting 2019 revenue by around $400 million:

Sensor Tower’s data seems to indicate that the game not only survived the pandemic, but came out stronger.

Sensor Tower cites Niantic’s updates to the game as one of the reasons for the game’s 2020 success, as the company made it more suited to a world where people couldn’t necessarily go for walks or gather in large crowds.

Niantic is a visionary and will continue adapting the game to our ever-changing reality.

The company mentioned that they will likely revert the changes made during the pandemic, and could further tweak the game in new ways for the future, too.

So clearly, the game is not losing any steam.

VG 24/7 reports that even in the first half of 2021, as the world still struggles through the pandemic, the game received $641,6 million between January and June.

This could be the best start to a new year for the game to date, further proof that the game is not losing any momentum:

Image: Sensor Tower

Happy fifth birthday, Pokemon Go!

[sources:theverge&vg247]