Pokémon Go
The archive has not found a surviving copy.
2016·The platform era·unexpected
For about six weeks in 2016 the entire world went outside to look at its phone in the same way.
At a glanceThe facts
- Spread in
- 2016
- Began as
- Something you played
- Where it started
- app-store
- Format
- Phenomenon
- Made by
- Niantic, with Nintendo and The Pokémon Company as partners
- Record
- Most revenue for a mobile game in its first month, 206.5 million US dollars, and fastest to 100 million, in twenty days
- Origin
- Not an upload originally
- Available
- Not held by ViralWorld
What this wasThe story
A free augmented-reality game released by Niantic in July 2016. The map is the real world, drawn from Google's data; Pokémon appear at real locations; you walk to them and throw a ball at the screen. Landmarks, parks and churches became gyms and stops, so the game's incentives ran straight into physical public space.
It went on to over a billion downloads and six billion dollars of revenue, and it caused genuine problems — traffic accidents, trespass, security restrictions at memorials and government sites. The summer itself did not repeat, and the game settled into a large, durable, much quieter existence. Every later location-based product is measured against those six weeks.
Why it matteredWhat changed
Within a week of release more people in the United States were using it each day than had ever used Candy Crush Saga. It set five world records in its first month.
TimelineIn order
- Made
Google publishes an April Fools’ game that hides Pokémon in Google Maps. The idea of a real one follows from it.1 What else happened on 1 April
- Posted
The game is released in the United States, Australia and New Zealand.1
- Record
About 21 million people in the United States use it in one day, passing Candy Crush Saga’s peak.1
- Later
It is released in Japan, and downloaded more than ten million times that day.1
- Later
It passes 100 million downloads.1
What people misrememberSet straight
Commonly remembered asNintendo made it.
ActuallyNiantic did. Nintendo stated that it had neither made the game nor earned significant profits from it, and its share price fell 18 per cent on 25 July 2016.1
Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · a moment that changed what the internet did next · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast
This began as something you played rather than watched. Originally published on app-store.
Where it came fromWhat we know
There is no original upload to identify: this did not begin as one. There is no copy of it here either — what it was, when it appeared and what people called it is what this page can tell you.
Nothing here is claimed to be the first publication of this Moment, because the first publication was not an upload. This began as something you played rather than watched. Originally published on app-store.
Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.
SourcesWhat was read
Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things