Pokemon Go took the world by storm when it was released in the summer of 2016, but now, it’s losing its charm. However, Niantic is not worried about it, as it believes the game’s success is something that is going to stay for a long time. They developer is trying every possible thing to do that, even adding secrets.
The game is here to stay
About 500 million people downloaded the game in just 2 months, and it was among the most popular points of conversation around the world.
“It was a crazy summer,” Mike Quigley, chief marketing officer for the game’s maker, Niantic, said at the Web Summit in Lisbon on Thursday. “We were very humbled by fan reactions.”
However, the frenzy was short-lived as players started abandoning the game. Quigley accepts that there were some issues initially, adding that the team was astounded after seeing the initial reaction and “went off by orders of magnitude.” To take control of the situation, the company had to abandon the original rollout plan and stabilize the overloaded servers.
Niantic, however, remains unfazed by the thinning number of players and says it has a full-fledged roadmap. They also gave a glimpse of the roadmap by launching buddies in September, and then came daily bonuses. Halloween week saw some spooky Pokemon characters in the game that were enough to catch the attention of players and retain them. Quigley says that these bonuses earned the company some $200 million in revenue, notes CNET.
Also the makers are preparing to roll-out the “nearby” feature in Pokemon Go. This was shut out of the game in August, says CNET.
Pokemon Go is concealing a secret
Meanwhile Niantic CEO John Hanke gave Pokemon Go fans a bite when he said that the game is currently holding a secret feature that no one has found yet.
In an interview with the GamesRadar, Hanke said, “There will always be secrets in the game that no one has found because we’re always adding new secrets to the game. There’s one out there right now and we’ll see how that plays out over the course of the next few weeks.”
When asked if the feature was released during Halloween week, Hanke said he is not giving any other clue. With the big secret still not revealed and Hanke not giving any other hints to players, Pokemon Go is surely going to gain back the interest of players.
