Now that Pokémon Go has been out for almost a month, you can pretty much always tell when someone is playing. They have this way of stopping and turning around in the middle of the sidewalk, straying off onto lawns and under bridges. But I can’t really blame them, because I’ve been doing the same thing. Let’s face it, the game’s addictive.
One week following the American release of Pokémon Go, we teamed up with Pollfish and surveyed 2000 players about how they were liking the game so far. While some of the results were what we expected, some are pretty surprising. The results are visualized in the infographic below.
<img src="https://venngage-wordpress.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2016/07/0538a5ec-196b-4e9e-8cbd-c1fe87f58e8d-1.png" alt="Infographic: Pokemon Go | Venngage" /> See this infographic on <a href="https://venngage.com/blog/pokemon-go">Venngage</a>.
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Of course, players are urged to exercise caution when chasing pokémon. About half of players surveyed consider the game to be too distracting. In fact, there have already been a number of reported accidents caused by players not paying attention to their surroundings. Less extreme criticisms of the game have focused on how frequently the server drops, and players in rural towns have lamented that there aren’t enough pokémon near them for the game to be satisfying. It also seems that while many people are enjoying the game, few would be willing to pay for it. An overwhelming majority of players–79%–have not spent any money on the app yet, and 32% of players would like the game to have more free rewards.
But the majority of feedback from players has been positive. Unsurprisingly, the majority of players surveyed–62%–were already fans of Pokémon before the game was released. To them, this augmented reality adventure is a dream come true. For new players, the game is an immersive introduction into the franchise. Pikachu is still the most popular pokémon, followed by Squirtle.
A whopping 68% of players surveyed see themselves playing the game for longer than a month, indicating that Pokémon Go is a game that is going to stick around for a while. The game is also motivating a significant number of players to be more physically active. In the first week following Pokémon Go’s release, 34% of players had already travelled 2 to 10 miles to catch pokémon. What’s more, the game is bringing people together: 37% of people play with their friends and family and on a typical day, 36% of players will encounter 2-3 other players in public places.
One of the most amusing results of the survey are, by far, the obscure places people have ended up while chasing pokémon. Some people ended up in cemeteries, back alleys, funeral homes, dumpsters, military bases, jail, and even a desert.
How far are you willing to travel to catch a rare pokémon? Do you see yourself playing Pokémon Go on into 2017?
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The infographic in this article was created by Steve Shearer.