Niantic’s evolving mobile hit Pokémon GO is nearing its 10th anniversary, and perhaps unsurprisingly, it won’t be getting a sequel… at least any time soon.
Scopely’s president of games Ed Wu (and former SVP of Pokémon GO at Niantic) recently spoke to GamesIndustry.biz about the title’s future, and when asked about a second game, he said it would not be the “correct thing” to do right now, as it would divide the massive community.
Here’s exactly what he had to say:
“I think that doing a sequel within a franchise is pretty clearly not the correct thing we do.
“There’s such a big community because of the way that our games can be a part of folks’s lives wherever they go, however they explore the world. Creating a sequel that divides the community doesn’t make as much sense. If and when we do something new, it will really have to be from a different angle, but still with this notion of inspiring people to explore the world together”
It’s not the first time a large and extremely popular game has turned down the idea of a sequel. For example, Minecraft decided to build on its original foundations and community, rather than pump out a second entry.
As for Pokémon GO, in its current state, the title has now been downloaded more than 500 million times, and is estimated to have generated over 8.8 billion in revenue. Niantic has experienced some bumps along the way (including job cuts and game shut downs) and was last year acquired by Scopely. It has also expanded its offerings with IP such as Monster Hunter.
What do you think – could a game like Pokémon GO benefit from a sequel, or is it better to just stick with the one game in this particular case? Let us know in the comments.