{"id":113041,"date":"2020-05-15T15:04:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-15T15:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/362912"},"modified":"2020-05-15T15:04:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-15T15:04:00","slug":"blog-how-niantics-response-to-covid-19-has-protected-pokemon-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/05\/15\/blog-how-niantics-response-to-covid-19-has-protected-pokemon-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog: How Niantic’s response to COVID-19 has protected Pokemon GO"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra\u0092s community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company. <\/small><\/i><\/strong> <\/p>\n

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Pok\u00e9mon GO <\/em>tends to perform in peaks and troughs, which reflects in the update cycles of the game. According to Priori Data, it saw a decline of 19.61% in net revenue in 1Q20, compared with 4Q19, across Apple App Store and Google Play combined. This is not unusual for the first quarter, given seasonality and the high consumer spending associated with the fourth quarter across most markets. Pok\u00e9mon GO <\/em>had a similar net revenue decline of 22.8% in 1Q19 versus 4Q18.<\/p>\n

In fact, the game appears largely untouched by the COVID-19-induced lockdown so far, with healthy net revenue and continuous growth throughout 1Q20. What\u2019s more, the game hit peak monthly active users (MAUs) for the year so far in March, at 16.9m, which suggests that users are increasingly unfazed by quarantine regulations. Despite a marginal dip in April, net revenue is set to reach its 2020 peak in May at just shy of $50m.<\/p>\n

In early March, Niantic announced changes to its location-based AR games, including Pok\u00e9mon<\/em> GO<\/em> and Wizards Unite<\/em>, which would make them easier to play from home. For Pok\u00e9mon GO<\/em>, these measures included:<\/p>\n