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It might come as a surprise, but Pokémon games make a ton of money
- Recent data shows Pokémon Quest has already brought in $3 million in revenue and has been downloaded 3.5 million times.
- By comparison, Pokémon Go made $200 million in revenue during its first month of availability.
- As large of a gap as that is, both titles still rake in a ton of cash.
Pokémon Go was a juggernaut when it first launched in 2016 and continues to be the top grossing mobile title on the Play Store. Even though Pokémon Quest is not off to as hot of a start, it shows that Pokémon games remain immensely popular.
According to app intelligence company Sensor Tower, Pokémon Quest has already brought in an impressive $3 million. About 56 percent of the revenue came from Apple’s App Store, while the rest came from the Play Store.
At that rate, Pokémon Quest will bring in about $12 million in revenue during its first month of availability. That pales in comparison to Pokémon Go, which brought in an astounding $200 million during its first month.
That’s not an entirely fair comparison, however. Keep in mind that, by all accounts, Pokémon Go was a monumental release for The Pokémon Company. Not only was it the first mobile Pokémon game, but it was so successful that series gatekeeper Nintendo’s shares rose by $9 billion within five days of its release despite the fact that the legendary publisher had very little to do with the game’s development.
Pokémon Go was a game that captured and held onto the public conscious, even if it was only for that summer. It felt like Pokémon Go made headlines every day, even on websites and news outlets that typically do not cover such content.
Hype around the game has died down significantly since 2016, but the r/pokemongo subreddit still boasts 883k subscribers. Recent data also showed that Go hit its highest player count since launch — reported to be a whopping 147 million users — in May 2018, leading to a monthly haul of $104 million in revenue, up 174 percent year-on-year.
Developer Niantic has done a good job of updating the game with new content and features, with the most recent inclusions being the ability to trade Pokémon and maintain a friend list.
Pokémon Quest might also be a free-to-play title, but the game’s visuals push it closer to the younger demographic. The game also hues closer to a true free-to-play mobile title, with everything from a stamina bar to incredibly simple gameplay front and center.
Even so, Pokémon Quest is still a popular title. People downloaded the game 3.5 million times from the App Store and Play Store, according to the latest data, which helped push it to number 25 in the list of top free games in the U.S.
We also recently gave Pokémon Quest a glowing review. It might disappoint those who are intimately familiar with the traditional titles, but it is a great time-killer that does not push its free-to-play elements in your face.
At the end of the day, there is a reason why Pokémon makes more money than any other media franchise in existence. Even if they are mobile titles, and even if they are not your traditional Pokémon titles, Pokémon Go and Pokémon Quest continue to pull in the money and remain popular in the process.