Niantic has revealed that Pokemon Go made more than $300 million for local economies during Pokemon Go Fest events in 2022. The game prompted tourists and locals to spend at establishments like shops and restaurants, drumming up lots of cash for cities like Berlin and Seattle.
Back in March, it was revealed that Pokemon Go Fest 2022 would return to live, in-person events after the COVID-19 pandemic prevented this from happening in the two previous years. It looks like that decision has paid off, as in a press release, Niantic says the three main live events for Pokemon Go Fest raised $309 million for their respective cities, a total that includes expenditure and tax revenue increases.
Let's break those numbers down a little. Pokemon Go Fest was held in Berlin, Seattle, and Sapporo this year. In Berlin, the event raked in $49.2 million in player spending, resulting in a $24.3 million tax increase. Those figures increase to $65.5m and $15.3m for Sapporo, and $114.7m and $40m for Seattle. Not bad, trainers!
As you'd expect, that spending was mostly split between restaurants, entertainment venues, and shops in the three cities. After all, a Trainer's gotta eat, right? If you're interested in a breakdown, here are the main areas that benefited from Pokemon Go Fest in each city.
- Berlin: restaurants, bars, and shops, average visitor spend $521
- Seattle: restaurants, entertainment, and shops, average visitor spend $816
- Sapporo: shops and entertainment, average visitor spend $615
Niantic also provided fun stats for this year's Pokemon Go Fest. The events saw around 150,000 participants taking part, with 45% of those participants declaring that they wanted to return to the host city in the next year. 38 million Pokemon were caught in total, and the average distance explored by each Trainer was 10.2km. Trainers spent around $650 on average between the three host cities.
Elsewhere in Pokemon Go, an update for the game leaked the existence of coin Pokemon Gimmighoul before it was officially announced earlier this week. The game also ran into controversy last week owing to the disabling of the Pokemon Go Plus accessory, which was caused by a bug brought by mischievous little fox Zorua. We'll bring you more on Pokemon Go as soon as we get it.
