It makes a billion a year in rev so I’d say its still going pretty well.

Woah! As someone who hasn't paid much attention since the initial launch, I had no idea. Here's the business model:

> Besides in-game purchases, partnerships with retail chains like Starbucks, McDonald's, Sprint, pay Niantic Labs for "Foot Traffic" on-demand of the retail shops.

The trick was combining a popular franchise with aggressive whale seeking monetisation and having that all backed up by three figure agencies.

The app more than did its jo.

You lost me at three figure agencies. Are you saying that the FTC should be somehow involved here? What other agencies are you referring to?

I'm pretty sure they're referencing John Hanke, who used to work for the U.S. govt, founded Keyhole through funding from In-Q-Tel (CIA's VC), which ended up spawning Niantic.

It seems they're actively working with the NGA, NSA, DIA, and CIA. It could be just for 3D geo-spatial tech, or it could be for sharing data. It's secret and it doesn't look like conclusive evidence of data sharing has been published. My personal belief is a little bit of both is going on.

Is it Japanese only collaboration?

Mobile games like Pokemon Go don't really want billions of players, but instead thousands of whales, which I assure you they are milking quite a bit.

Some of their decisions do the opposite, especially the recent limitation of five remote raid passes used per day. It used to be unlimited, and of course they have a way to purchase game coins that are then used to purchase those passes.

IMO this was more in line with their original principles over profits (that you ought to walk outside to do a raid at a gym, rather than going on Discord to get a remote invite and use a pass you purchased with pokecoins). But I find the game boring and tedious anyway.

“Hey kids! Let’s play a fun game called what is your moms credit card number?”

Uggh, apparently this is a well-tread genre of YouTube videos

It’s a scam going back to the 90s. It’s a big part of the reason we have COPPA.

The article suggests they make lots of money from partnerships with people like mcdonalds to bring people near to a branch by putting pokestops there. I'd guess the deal is along the lines of "we'll pay you 30 cents for each person you get to our front door".

For that to work, you don't want a few whales - you want as many hungry mcdonalds lovers as possible...

Yes it’s huge. I play in my community and many people pay in the hundreds per month to play. The community is still huge and it’s international.

It’s really easy to forget that their target market isn’t us the adults who love Pokémon. In reality, they have hooked a generation of children that spend >$1B on the game each year so I think they’re doing just fine

Hmmm. Citation needed. Am an active player. All the whales in the communities are adults.

Maybe you mean a generation of children as in children in the 90s), but even that's not true, as there's plenty of folks > 40yrs old, too. They've got multiple groups hooked.

So they’re drug dealers?

Yeah, it really is an evergreen brand, like Barbie or Hot Wheels

I still play almost everyday since 2016 and I know there are other people like me out there

My wife plays it regularly, I sometimes run the app to help her win a gym:). Lots of players, everywhere.

My wife and I play to, but infrequently, but they aren't really pushing you heavily to buying anything. In fact there isn't much to buy in their store at all, so I am a little impressed that they make that much money.

I have several friends that play regularly. Every time there's a big event I hear them complain that it's broken.

I still play almost every day but about 75% of my in game friends have stopped playing.