Pokémon Go is in rapid decline.

Pokémon Go is in rapid decline. Since launching in july and soaring in popularity, it had lost at least a third of Its daily users by the middle of August. By mid-september, daily revenues had fallen from US$16m per day to US$2m (excluding the 30% app store fee) and daily downloads had declined from a peak of 27 million to 700,000. Of course, many mobile games – especially ones that trigger a worldwide craze – suffer declines in usage over time. Pokémon Go still generetes significent revenues . But its precipitous decline has seen it labelled a fad and nicknamed Pokémon gone ”. This raises the question of why usage has dropped so steeply, and what other game companies might do differently to retain users. In my opinion, Pokémon Go’s creators niantic have made several significant missteps. Here are the lessons that other companies can learn. Have a clear avenue to capitalise quickly Pokémon Go launched with relatively little actual “game”, and by the end of July was still arguably missing a lot of features. The launch version enabled players to collect Pokémon characters while out roaming in the real world. But it featured shallower gameplay than its siblings on Nintendo’s gaming platforms. For example, the mechanisms for battling Pokémon were relatively simplistic, with arbitrary-seeming controls. Furthermore, there was no way for people to interact in real time in the game. This is not a problem if the aim is to get as many players to sign up as possible, but it is an issue when trying to keep them interested. The developers did not introduce new elements quickly enough to stop players getting bored. So far there has been little in the way of new gameplay aspects, with the most significant addition being in the form of hardware: a Pokémon Go wearable device released last month. The developers have added a new feature that allows players to choose a “buddy Pokémon” to accompany them in-game, which has had a relatively minor impact on in-game mechanics. But by waiting so long after the game’s launch, the developers have missed an opportunity to capitalise on their existing player base. The obvious lesson for developers is to have a roadmap to enhance the game and keep players interested, especially when the core game itself is not very deep.

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