GOTTA CATCH ‘EM ALL: ARE NIANTIC AND POKEMON GO STAYING AHEAD OF THE GAME?

Pokemon Go was launched by Niantic in 2016 and became an overnight success. In just two years, the game has managed to attract approximately 5 million active users globally (businessofapps.com, 2018), raking a total revenue of 268 million USD by August 2017. This case study depicts the game development; starting from the deal that the CEO made with Nintendo and Pokemon Inc which was considered the best deal in the history of the game.

Despite its success however, Niantic was still trying hard to figure out how to stay in and ahead of the game, given the competitiveness of the industry and the shifting in gamers’ behaviours. In addition to that, Niantic also needs to start devising strategy to stay ahead of the game, given that other game developers start vying for its position in the market.  Going further, it is believed that Pokemon Go may no longer have the mass appeal which created the hype in the beginning. However, the community features that Niantic developed may allow them some development time to attract casual players. There were also some technical and non-technical related issues that happened during the early stage of the game development, leading to the question of how Niantic can bring forward its most successful game to this date.