In what has to be the least surprising news of all time, Pokemon GO continues to gleefully empty the pockets of fans worldwide – it won’t be long until they have enough money to genetically engineer real Pokemon.
For some perspective, a new report from research company Slice Intelligence shows that Pokemon Go’s in-game purchases made up a whopping 47 percent of the entire mobile gaming market in a single day (July 10).
In short, Pokemon GO nearly made more money in one day than every other mobile app combined, and the damn game isn’t even out in Japan yet – those guys love their Pokemon.
The report also finds that the AR mobile game is encouraging a lot of people to spend money on a mobile game for the first time ever.
Apparently, less than 53 percent of users who spent their money in Pokemon GO had made one or none mobile game purchases in the last six months.
I know that at least personally, I did the unthinkable and spent actual money on my mobile for the first time because of Pokemon GO. No Pokeballs and a Squritle right in front of me – what’s a trainer to do?
According to the report, the most popular in-game purchase is the cheapest, 100 Pokecoin bundle, which costs £0.79. Of course, the app is making the most cash from the £7.99 1,200 Pokecoin bundle.
Pokemon GO has already made an estimated $14 million, and has seen Nintendo’s shares rise by an insane 86 percent in Tokyo. This translates to roughly a $17 billion increase worth of market capitalization.
In other words, with the amount of bank Nintendo is making, a Jurassic Park style Pokemon safari might not be too far off.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.