INQUISITR.COM / Entertainment

‘Pokémon GO’ Is Bigger Than Pornography – People Looking For The App Outnumber Those Looking For ‘Porn’ Online

By Alap Naik Desai
Published on: 05:04 PST, Jul 14, 2016

Pokémon GO has managed to surpass the one thing that internet is commonly used for. According to Google Search analysis, people searching for the app or trying to get more information about the insanely popular game far outnumber those looking for pornography online.

The wildly-popular augmented-reality driven game that has everyone getting outdoors is now more popular than the one thing the internet is most commonly used for: searching for pornography. Google searches for the app are way more than a number of other popular searches, including Android, iPhone, and porn.

[Image via Google Trends]
Pornography is generally the most commonly searched-for term online. While there are multiple genres and variants that people search for, the broad category remains the same. The search category is so popular — there have been only a handful of occasions where a search term has managed to surpass it. Recently, the term “Brexit” had started to trend and briefly managed to surpass the search for pornography online, reported the Independent.

Now Pokémon GO has managed to gain a healthy lead over “porn.” Incidentally, this is the first time that a smartphone app has managed to top Google Search. What makes the news even more astonishing is that the app was launched merely a week ago. The game had relatively lower traction when it was first launched, but the searches related to it skyrocketed over this past weekend, reported Times of India.

Who is searching for Pokémon GO? The game hasn’t been released across the world, and perhaps that has fueled the online excitement about it. While people from the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand, where the game has been officially released, have been frantically looking for information associated with the platform, majority of the people searching for Pokémon GO are from Netherlands, Costa Rica, Canada, and El Salvador.

The game’s popularity in regions where it is officially available is simply phenomenal. Within a mere week, Pokémon GO surpassed Tinder, a hugely popular dating app. While Tinder is installed on about 3 percent of Android devices in the U.S., Pokémon GO has already surpassed 5 percent. At this rate, the game will soon surpass even Twitter.

Besides the number of installations, the game has even managed to garner the highest Daily Active User (DAU) base. Moreover, each player spends an average of three-quarters of an hour playing the game. No other platforms, including Facebook, WhatsApp, etc. are able to capture user attention for such a long period of time at a stretch.

Regions where the game is not officially available has people trying multiple techniques to unofficially install and play. Interestingly, many Indians who have “side-loaded” the game, using the installable file obtained online, are complaining that majority of the game characters that a player has to search and find are turning up in and around religious places.

According to experts, Pokémon GO hasn’t remained a game. It appears to have evolved into a social network, which now houses millions of players who are scouring their neighborhood looking for creatures to capture, train, and engage in battle with rivals. One of the major aspects why the game is successful is the seamless integration of real-life imagery captured by the smartphone’s camera with augmented reality and geospatial information obtained by the phone’s built-in GPS.

It is not clear for how long the interest for the game will remain online. However, the game is generating a massive number of queries online from people who are interested in knowing more to people who wish to learn how to play and master the game.

Pokemon GO was released in select countries on July 6. Since July 10, people have been searching information about the game with a much higher frequency than they have about flesh-bearing topics, reported Nerdist. Interestingly, the game has already boosted searches for a combined topic called Poke-Porn, reported the Inquisitr.

[Photo by Kazuhiro Nogi/Getty Images]

Share this article: ‘Pokémon GO’ Is Bigger Than Pornography – People Looking For The App Outnumber Those Looking For ‘Porn’ Online
Pokemon Go
More from Inquisitr