‘Pokemon GO’ News: App Has Made $1 Billion Since Its Launch, Valentine’s Day Event Coming Up

In the latest Pokemon GO news, the app racked up over $1 billion in worldwide gross revenue from the mobile app stores Google Play and the Apple App Store, according to Sensor Tower. Launched in the United States back on July 6, 2016, it officially holds the record of being the mobile game to reach that mark the quickest in the history of mobile gaming. Comparatively, Clash Royale will likely be the next game to reach $1 billion, and it released four months earlier. In the same amount of time as Pokemon GO took to reach the milestone, Clash Royale made around $550 million in gross.

Despite the hype having severely diminished from just under seven months ago, Pokemon GO has been able to maintain its relevance. It grossed over $18 million in its first day, compared to it making closer to $2 million on average per day nowadays. Pokemon GO has remained relevant with the help of its numerous updates and special events. Only available for a limited time, these events offered added benefits to the playing experience, attracting Pokemon GO players to return to the app where they may have otherwise ignored it. Popular events included Halloween, Christmas, and New Year. The Halloween Bash event for Pokemon GO was particularly successful, increasing revenue by a third of the money worldwide, according to Sensor Tower.

“While its daily revenue has diminished since late July, when it grossed more than $18 million in one day—compared to the $1.5 to $2.5 million it has made per day recently—Pokemon Go has shown that it can still spark consumer spending through limited-time events, such as its highly successful Halloween bash.”

Based on that pattern, there are opportunities for a few more of these events from now until the one year anniversary of Pokemon GO‘s launch. With Valentine’s Day coming soon, plans are set for the next Pokemon GO event to take place. The thing that Pokemon fans have been looking forward to most is the update that would bring forth all of the second generation Pokemon. So far, we only have a few of those. More specifically, they are baby Pokemon that are pre-evolutions from first generation Pokemon that players can add to their Pokemon collection via eggs.

Have you hatched one of the seven recently found Pokémon, originally discovered in the Johto region? #PokemonGetUpAndGO pic.twitter.com/23LbljYJFJ

— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) January 23, 2017

“We’re still several months away from the one-year anniversary of Pokémon GO’s launch, which gives its developer, Niantic, plenty of time to leave this $1 billion milestone in the dust through additional events and major content updates—such as the long-anticipated Generation 2 Pokemon.”

Valentine’s Day could be an ideal time to insert more second generation Pokemon into the game, along with limited-time perks. As the theme of this holiday invokes romantic relationships, Niantic could at least play on that theme a little by taking advantage of the Pokemon friendship mechanic. Eevee is one of the several Pokemon that can evolve into a particular Pokemon once it has a high enough friendship value with its trainer. More specifically, as a first generation Pokemon, it can evolve into one of two second generation Pokemon through this method: Espeon and Umbreon. It would then be appropriate to introduce those two in a special Valentine’s Day event, as suggested by Slash Gear.

Financial Times also reported that Nintendo’s third-quarter profits doubled compared to the year before, in part due to Pokemon GO being out there. It would not be surprising if Pokemon GO helped catalyze additional interest in the franchise, leading to bigger Pokemon game sales for the 3DS, specifically Pokemon Sun and Moon.

[Featured Image by Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images]