Pokémon GO is seeing a very successful financial week amid the lockdowns and coronavirus outbreak.
Games that center around moving about the world, obviously, have been a bit lackluster as of recent weeks. With states and even countries ordering their non-essential worker citizens to stay indoors, naturally, those games have seen a bit of hardship. Or you’d imagine, at least. Turns out, this was a good thing for Nintendo and Niantic’s lovechild, Pokémon GO.
In the freemium app, players are able to capture tons of their favorite earlier generation Pokémon. Of course, they’re adding new ones and keeping the public interested in the game for the long haul. Even in this time, the game, which relies on a GPS system to make sure you’re walking, the game is still in use. Albeit, in most likely an understandably lazier way.
It appears ever since the lockdown went into effect, the game has been doing really well financially, reporting one heck of a week. According to Sensor Tower (via VentureBeat), Pokémon GO is seeing a global player spending of $23 million for the week of March 16. Comparatively, that’s a whopping 66.7 percent increase since last week’s revenue.
What’s with this spike?
While they aren’t exactly clear on what’s driving these sales up, it’s most likely a combo of stockpiling Pokéballs for safekeeping, new spaces for the creatures, and Incenses. Incenses, for those who don’t play the game, draw out new Pokémon that you can then capture. That’s only a theory, though, but a sound one.
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Ever since the coronavirus began spreading and became an epidemic, employers have been sending home employees worried about their well-being. This even includes Nintendo of America, which has its main US office in the US epicenter of the outbreak, Washington.
Distractions are widely desired and for some who don’t have a console, they may turn to a game like Pokémon GO to get away from reality if only for an hour or so.
What do you think? Have you been spending more time on your phone? What have you been doing on your free time? Tell us below!
