Pokemon GO News - So Many Users, So Many Issues

Published: July 11, 2016 6:46 PM /

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Pokémon Go Logo

Pokemon GO has been a great success for Nintendo since its launch in New Zealand, Australia and the United States last week. The app has been receiving a lot of praise for getting people outside and bringing real life Pokemon trainers together. However, players in many parts of the world don’t have official access to the game yet and even those that do are experiencing some issues and voicing complaints. Here’s some of the most recent news regarding Pokemon GO.

Following the launch of Pokemon GO, Nintendo’s stock has increased by 25% as of today. That brings nearly $9 billion dollars in value to the company. It’s hard to argue that the stock increase isn’t due to the popularity of the new, free-to-play AR game.

Pokemon GO has been downloaded around 7.5 million times in the U.S. alone (combined numbers for both Android and iOS) says app analyzer SensorTower as reported on TechCrunch. That’s an estimated $1.6 million in earning power from the iOS portion of users, according to SensorTower’s analysis. Compared to Clash of Clans $350,000 daily income from iOS users, Pokemon GO is becoming the mobile market’s top earner.

Of course after the initial launch buzz wears off those numbers will mellow out but it’s certainly a good start. Data from SimilarWeb shows that Pokemon GO has surpassed popular social apps like Tinder in downloads and is fast approaching the popularity of Twitter and has in fact beaten out dating service Tinder. What will keep the money coming for Nintendo and developer Niantic is how engaged players are with their new product.

SimilarWeb pokemon go vs. twitter
SimilarWeb

Engagement numbers for Pokemon GO are way up. 60% of players have been using the new app daily and for an average of 43 minutes and 23 seconds a day. That’s more often than popular apps like Instagram and Snapchat, possibly indicating success for the app past it’s initial launch hype.

But not everyone can play Pokemon GO right now. Infamous server issues have delayed the international release of the game. Those in New Zealand, Australia and the U.S. using Intel Atom chips on their Android devices haven’t been able to play the game either. Apparently, a petition reached nearly 22,000 signatures on Monday to make Intel processor’s compatible with the Pokemon mobile game but hasn’t gotten any response.

Even those that were able to install the game on their devices have been facing issues. Overloaded servers have kept players from logging on and those installing APK’s of the game are facing RAT infested versions with some nasty malware. Niantic also has a list of known issues that many users are experiencing.

The good news is that some of the issues have possible fixes. Some annoying problems such as distorted audio and heavy battery drain are actively being worked on by the developers. Hopefully, the only bugs players will see in the future are caterpies, ledybas and other bug-type Pokemon.

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Alexandra Joy Taberski
| Past Author

Alexandria is a former Staff Writer at TechRaptor, who specializes in coverage of mobile games, RPGs, and JRPGs primarily, and has an unfortunate aversion… More about Alexandria