Pokemon Go conquers summer downloads

Pokemon+Go+conquers+summer+downloads

Kelly McGinnis, Editor

Eduardo Woo / Flickr / Creative Commons
The download of Pokemon Go shattered Apple Store records is its first four days. After a month, that rate has slowed down considerably.

If you haven’t been paying attention, on July 6, 2016, Pokémon Go took over the world.

The game, based on 151 card-based characters from the 1990’s,  features augmented reality as users “hunt” down Pokemon using the GPS feature of their smart phone.  For the first first week (July 6-13), it became the most downloaded app in US mobile device history, according  to an article by Robbie Allen in the Survey Monkey Intelligence blog.

Just how popular is it?  In two week period of July 6-20, Pokemon Go became the biggest mobile game on in US history, surpassing Candy Crush Saga, FarmVille, Angry Birds, and Draw Something.  Shara Tibkin ofC/Net reported that the game shattered all Apple Store records in its four days, amassing 30 million downloads.

It became so popular that both Twitter and Snap Chat were getting a run for their money, according to Allen’s figures. Ever since its introduction to the world, the battle game has been competing with Twitter on most views per day.

“It’s honestly insane,” said 2016 graduate Finlay Bruce, “I’ve seen so many people walking around playing Pokémon Go.”

The app runs on both IOS and Android devices.  Local businesses were quick to capitalize on the fad.

“I’ve set up lures in my shop,” said Eileen Hood, “which send notifications to people to find Pokémon in my shop. It’s great advertising!”

Many kids and young adults who grew up with the video game Pokémon or were hooked into the card-based version feel nostalgic about the new app.

“I’ve always wondered what it would be like to see Pokémon in real life,” said Doug Albert, “and now it’s coming to life!”