Hundreds of Pokémon Go players gathered in New York’s Times Square on Thursday to battle a giant Mewtwo, a nod to the game’s original trailer published more than a decade ago. The event marked the 10th anniversary of a mobile app that has been downloaded more than a billion times and still sees millions logging on each day.
“Pokémon Go will always start with community – we think we’re only scratching the surface here,” said Michael Steranka, vice president of product at Scopely, the game’s publisher. “We often receive wedding invites from players who met through Pokémon Go … because it’s been such an integral part of their relationship.”
“Pokémon Go celebrates 10 years with over a billion downloads and millions of daily players.”
The game, which uses GPS and augmented reality to overlay digital creatures onto real-world locations via a smartphone camera, launched in 2016 and quickly became one of the biggest mobile game releases in history. It sparked a craze that saw people flock to parks, waterfronts and shopping malls in search of Pokémon.
“By allowing you to take your mobile phone out into the world to discover virtual creatures, Pokémon Go helped realise the millennial dream of becoming a Pokémon Trainer,” said Matthew Reynolds, editor of Pokémon news website One More Catch.
Since the first Go Fest in 2017, Scopely has hosted major live events in more than 60 countries, averaging over 400,000 attendees a year. The company estimates players have explored more than 100 billion kilometres while playing – roughly 334 round trips between Earth and the Sun.
UK content creator j0beats, who runs one of Twitch’s biggest Pokémon Go channels, regularly travels to events such as the one in New York to meet fellow players. “People always think it’s crazy that you travel all over just to catch some pixels,” she laughed.
The Pokémon series itself began on Nintendo’s Game Boy in 1996, but its modern incarnation on mobile has proved enduring. Steranka says the experience has always been about bringing people together – and for many, that connection shows no sign of fading.