Pokémon Go
Pokémon Go is a 2016 augmented reality (AR) mobile game, part of the Pokémon franchise, developed and published by Niantic in collaboration with Nintendo and The Pokémon Company for iOS and Android devices. It uses mobile devices with GPS to locate, capture, train, and battle virtual creatures, called Pokémon, which appear as if they are in the player's real-world location. The game is free-to-play; it uses a freemium business model combined with local advertising and supports in-app purchases for additional in-game items. The game launched with around 150 species of Pokémon, which had increased to around 700 by 2021.
Pokémon Go was released to mixed reviews; critics praised the concept but criticized technical problems. It was one of the most used and profitable mobile apps in 2016, having been downloaded more than 500 million times worldwide by the end of the year. It is credited with popularizing location-based and AR technology, promoting physical activity, and helping local businesses grow due to escalated foot traffic. However, it attracted controversy for contributing to accidents and creating public nuisances. Various governments expressed concerns about security, and some countries regulate its use. The game had over 147 million monthly active users by May 2018, over a billion global downloads by early 2019, and grossed more than $6 billion in revenue by 2020.
Gamepla
Augmented reality gaming
After establishing a game account, players create and customize their own avatars.Once created, an avatar is displayed on a map based on the player's geographical location. Features on the map include 'PokéStops' and 'Pokémon Gyms'. These PokéStops can be equipped with items called 'Lure Modules', which attract additional wild, and occasionally rare, Pokémon. Gyms serve as battle locations for team-based king of the hill matches. PokéStops and Gyms are typically located at places of interest These locations were initially re-purposed portals from Ingress, Niantic's previous augmented reality (AR) game. This has led to PokéStops and Pokémon Gyms being placed at dangerous or inconvenient locations, such as a now-deleted Gym at the Korean Demilitarized Zoneand Bagram Airforce Base, which was abandoned by U.S. forces in July 2021. Since 2019, these locations also include submissions from Go players which are largely reviewed by other players.
As players move within their real world surroundings, their avatars move within the game's map. Different Pokémon species reside in different areas of the world; for example, Water-type Pokémon are generally found near water. When a player encounters a Pokémon, it may be viewed either in AR mode or with a live rendered, generic background. If the player flees, the Pokémon will face the spot it was last engaged, except Nosepass, which will always face north because of its Pokédex entry. AR mode uses the camera and gyroscope on the player's mobile device to display an image of a Pokémon as though it were in the real world. Players can take screenshots of the Pokémon they encounter either with or without the AR mode activated.
Although the game is free to play, it supports in-app purchases, where players can purchase additional Poké Balls and other in-game items. These items include Incense (which attract Pokémon to the player as they move for thirty minutes), Lure Modules, which players use at PokéStops to attract Pokémon to their current location near the PokeStop, and Lucky Eggs, which double experience points gained for a thirty-minute period from use. All Pokémon are displayed with a Combat Power, which is a rough measure of how powerful that Pokémon is in battle. Generally, as players level up, they catch Pokémon with higher CP and Pokémon are somewhat harder to catch.The player can check how strong their Pokémon are by the "Appraisal" system.
Pokémon collection
Unlike most other installments in the Pokémon series, players in Pokémon Go do not battle wild Pokémon to catch them. During an encounter with a wild Pokémon, a player may throw a Poké Ball at it by flicking it from the bottom of the screen up toward the Pokémon. If the Pokémon is caught, it will come under the ownership of the player. Factors in the success rate of catching a Pokémon include the Pokémon's catch rate, the timing, the type of Poké Ball used, etc. After catching a wild Pokémon, the player is awarded two types of in-game currencies: Candies and Stardust. The Candies awarded by a successful catch depend on what evolutionary chain a Pokémon belongs to. A player can use Stardust and Candies to raise a Pokémon's level and hence "Combat Power" (CP). However, only Candies are needed to evolve a Pokémon, except for certain Pokémon that might need special items. Each Pokémon evolution tree has its own type of Candy, which can only be used to evolve or level up. The maximum level a player can achieve is originally level 40, but expanded to 50 as of November 30, 2020. The player can also transfer the Pokémon back to the Pokémon Professor Willow to earn more Candies and create room for more Pokémon. Shiny Pokémon are available through multiple ways, mostly by chance. One popular goal of the game is to complete the entries in the Pokédex, a comprehensive Pokémon logbook, by catching and evolving them to collect every one in it.
In September 2016, Niantic introduced a "Buddy Pokémon" feature, which allows players to pick a Pokémon to appear alongside them on the profile screen, and receive in-game rewards and bonuses based on the chosen Pokémon.The feature was released later that month. Certain Pokémon have different distances that they need to be walked in order to receive candy. The more the player walks in real time, the more candy they can earn. During the same update, Niantic made it impossible for players with rooted or jailbroken devices to log into the game in an effort to reduce and prevent cheating.
On January 20, 2018, Pokémon Go held the first Community Day, a monthly event that increases the appearance rate of a specific Pokémon and offer an exclusive move to the final evolution of the featured Pokémon only if caught or evolved during the event window. Players also have a higher chance to catch the Shiny variant of the featured Pokémon. The first Community Day featured Pikachu, with the exclusive move Surf to Raichu.
Pokémon availabilities
The game is regularly updated with new Pokémon, and as of March 25 2022, there are just over 730 Pokémon in the game (not including regional varieties) out a total 898.
Regional Pokémon are often released together, such as Hoenn region Pokémon released in December 2017,] Alolan variants in May 2018, Sinnoh region Pokémon(along with the Sinnoh Stone item used to evolve them) released in October 2018, Unova region Pokémon (and the Unova Stone) in September 2019, Kalos region Pokémon in December 2020 and again more Alola region Pokémon in March 2022.
Mythical and legendary Pokémon are often released individually (or in pairs/trios) in special events or quests. The first Legendary Pokémon released was Groudon, in December 2017. The Mythical Pokémon Meltal and it's evolved form, Melmetal are so far the only Pokémon to have made their debut on Pokémon Go. Their release coincided with the release of Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! on the Nintendo Switch, Pokémon Go introduced the new Mythical Pokémon Meltan originally as a teaser, later to be available to capture only in Pokémon Go via a "Mystery Box" item that could be obtained through transferring Pokémon from Pokémon Go to either Nintendo Switch Pokémon games, or by completing new Research Tasks.
In August 2020, Mega Evolution came to Pokémon Go with four Pokémon able to Mega Evolve into five forms.
Battle system
Gyms and Raids
Players earn experience points for various in-game activities. Players rise in level as they earn experience points (XP), with various features being progressively unlocked. Most-notably, at level five, the player can battle at a Pokémon Gym and join one of three color-coded teams (red for Team Valor, blue for Team Mystic, or yellow for Team Instinct), which act as factions battling for control of Gyms within the Pokémon Go world.
In June 2017, Niantic announced that the game mechanics of Gyms would be revamped for a more teamwork-oriented experience;] Gyms were disabled on June 19, 2017, with the new Gyms being released with the next app update a few days later. As of the update, Gyms included a spinnable component to receive in-game items such as Potions and Poké Balls. Additionally, Gyms are capped at containing six Pokémon, each of which must be unique in that Gym. Coins are now earned based on the amount of time the defending Pokémon has been in a Gym, as opposed to a one-per-day gym defender bonus of 10 coins per current defending Pokémon. Legendary, Mythical and Buddy Pokémon cannot be placed in Gyms.
In July 2017, Raid Battles were introduced. Raid Battles consist of a group of players gathering to confront an over-leveled Pokémon located in a Gym. If the Pokémon is defeated, the players gain the chance to catch a regular version of it. Raid difficulties range from 1 to 5, with 1 being of the lowest difficulty, and 5 being the most difficult to defeat. Level 5 raids are exclusive to Legendary Pokémon. The first of these, Articuno and Lugia, were released on July 22, 2017, after the Go Fest, with Moltres and Zapdos following. From September to November, the 3 Legendary Beasts: Entei, Raikou and Suicune, were released shortly after, rotating regions every month. Following their departure, the Legendary Pokémon Ho-Oh appeared in Raid Battles from November 27, 2017, to December 12, 2017. In August 2020, level 3 Mega raids arrived with the introduction of Mega Evolution. At the same time, Level 2 and 4 raids were combined into Level 1 and 3 raids.
In May 2022, Raid Battle were updated to include the addition of Mega Legendary Pokemon, which were turned to 6 stars, the highest currently in the game. The only Pokemon included in these Raids were Mega Latios and Mega Latias.
Trainer Battles
In December 2018, Niantic added player vs player Trainer Battles. In January 2020, Niantic rolled out an online battle format Go Battle League which allows players to fight other players worldwide. Unlike the Trainer Battles format introduced in 2018, Go Battle League does not require physical proximity, scanning QR code on each other's phone, knowing each other's friend code, or any other real-world interactions between players. Instead, participating players are automatically paired by the game server via some variant of the Elo rating system.
Team Go Rocket battles
In July 2019, Pokémon Go introduced Team GO Rocket battles. Team GO Rocket NPCs could be battled at PokéStops indicated with it twitching and being a dark color. After victory, the player has the opportunity to capture and purify a "Shadow Pokémon" which are relatively low-levelled, angry-looking Pokémon. Purified Pokémon are higher-levelled than their Shadow counterparts and can learn an exclusive move when purified.
Development
Pre-release
The concept for the game was conceived in 2014 by Satoru Iwata of Nintendo and Tsunekazu Ishihara of The Pokémon Company as an April Fools' Day collaboration with Google, called the Google Maps: Pokémon Challenge.[42] Ishihara was a fan of developer Niantic's previous transreality game, Ingress, and saw the game's concept as a perfect match for the Pokémon series. Niantic used the crowdsourced[43] data from Ingress to populate the locations for PokéStops and gyms within Pokémon Go, data from Google Maps to spawn specific Pokémon on certain terrain, and map display from OpenStreetMap since December 2017. The game's application logic uses the open source Kubernetes system - and due to the game's sheer scale of users, a number of bugs with the Kubernetes system was discovered and later fixed.
In 2015, Ishihara dedicated his speech at the game's announcement on September 10 to Iwata, who had died two months earlier. Tatsuo Nomura, who joined Niantic in 2015 after he developed the Google Maps Pokémon Challenge, acted as Director and Product Manager for the game. The game's soundtrack was written by longtime Pokémon series composer, Junichi Masuda, who also assisted with some of the game's design. Among the game's graphic designers was Dennis Hwang, who previously created the logo of Gmail while working for Google.
On March 4, 2016, Niantic announced a Japan-exclusive beta test would begin later that month, allowing players to assist in refining the game before its full release. The beta test was later expanded to other countries. On April 7, it was announced that the beta would expand to Australia and New Zealand. Then, on May 16, the signups for the field test were opened to the United States. The test came to an end on June 30.
Post-release
At the Comic-Con 2016, John Hanke, founder of Niantic, revealed the appearances of the three team leaders: Candela (Team Valor), Blanche (Team Mystic), and Spark (Team Instinct). Hanke conveyed that approximately 10% of the ideas for the game were implemented. Future updates, including the addition of trading, more Pokémon, implementation of Pokémon Centers at PokéStops, a patch for the "three step glitch", and easier training, were also confirmed. He also stated that Niantic would be continuing support for the game for "years to come". In an interview with TechCrunch in September 2016, Hanke hinted that player vs. player Pokémon battles would be released in a future update.In December 2016, coffeehouse chain Starbucks and telecommunications company Sprint collaborated with Nintendo to add PokéStops and gyms at certain locations of theirs throughout the United States.] That same month, a companion app for Apple Watch devices was released, which allows users to receive notifications about nearby Pokémon, but does not allow for them to be caught. In January 2017, an additional 5,000 more Starbucks locations became available as gyms. In February 2017, an update was released which introduced over 100 species based in the Johto region from the second generation of the core Pokémon series, which were added alongside the original 151. The update also included the addition of new berries, new Pokémon encounter mechanics, and an expanded selection of avatar clothing options. Some of the Pokémon introduced in Ruby and Sapphire were added in late 2017, starting with a Halloween event in October and 50 more in December. A weather system was added alongside the latter, allowing real-world weather to affect gameplay. In November 2018, a game developed by Game Freak and heavily inspired by Pokémon Go, Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee! was released on the Nintendo Switch.This game will feature Pokémon Go style catching with Joy-Con and there has integration between the two games.] In addition, new Pokémon Meltan was revealed in September, becoming the first new Pokémon to be released through Pokémon Go. On October 10, 2018, The Pokémon Company and Niantic announced plans to introduce Pokémon from Diamond and Pearl into Pokémon Go. On October 12, Niantic teased one of the Generation IV Pokémon that would be coming to Pokémon Go. On October 25, a feature known as Adventure Sync was announced, which will record the player's walking data in the background. On October 26, Niantic announced research tasks for Bug type Pokémon that will give players a chance to catch Shedinja throughout November.
According to John Hanke in a January 2019 interview with Business Insider, 2018 saw Go become the game initially envisioned by Niantic.
In 2020, Niantic made major changes to gameplay mechanisms to account for the COVID-19 pandemic which saw many players unable to leave their homes to play. These development shift saw changes like the addition of indoor step tracking to count toward in-game distance challenges, long distance PVP battles, increased "incense" effectiveness, increased spawn points, and a doubled player radius
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