Pokemon GO : The story about catching them all.

Rohit Bhatia
Jul 24, 2017 · 5 min read

7:30 PM-The time when we usually play basketball with few folks sitting on the sideline as a spectator. Among that spectator, is a friend of mine who apparently is extra healthy and a structure which can be compared to that of a Pokémon known as Snorlax.

Sunday 10th of July, the day was different. As I stepped downstairs, I saw him walking around like a maniac. For a second, I thought that it would be that Pokémon GO app, but then I questioned myself whether the game in itself was enough to bring a change of such magnitude in a person lazy as fuck?

Well, Curiosity is a such a bitch! And saying that I went towards him and asked in a hysterically“Bro did your imaginary Girlfriend leave you for being too lazy?”. Ignoring my question, he asked me whether I would like to accompany him on foot to a temple which is like 3–4 km from my place.

On hearing that, I paused for a couple of seconds and said in a very surprised tone

“Dude Dafuq?”
“Temple? And Walking that much? Seriously?!”

I don’t have to know the answer to my first question because now I was certain that the “Hype was real” and the Bubble of “Pokemon” was on the horizon. Again.

Ps: — The Temple around my place is some Pokemon Gym.

Today 13th of July, As I walk downstairs to play basketball. I see almost all my friends walking around like maniacs in search of a Pokemon and maybe in hopes of becoming a Pokemon Master. Someday.

Ps: — I am an iOS user and was waiting for the game to *officially* launch in the Indian App store at that time.

With little or no marketing. Pokémon has successfully defeated giants like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram in daily time spent per user on the app and is now heading towards taking down twitter on Number of active users. The game in itself has contributed more than 9 billion dollars in Nintendo’s initial value (more than a quarter of its initial value previously)

Funny as it sounds, It took Pokemon Go just one day to take down Tinder. Does that mean, more people now desire Pokémons more than they desire to be in an actual relationship?

According to stats, it looks like that Ash isn’t the only who has his priorities straight and catching Pokémon is more important than playing Romeo and Juliet.

Ps: — I am pretty much sure that Pokémon Go is now the most downloaded and most efficient fitness app (if they classify it as a fitness app).

Anyway, All this brings me to an important question. Without no marketing, how did this game went viral? Perhaps, it’s time for us to decode the growth sauce, which lead to a record success for the company.

Let’s start by taking reading some popular examples.

Tesla Model was a huge success because it is cheaper and offers a lot more than people can expect from a car in that price range. Game of Thrones is one of the world’s most viewed shows because of the strong and amazing storyline.

Now one thing common between both of them is that they both are in a way different & better than their competitors. Similarly, with Pokémon Go, Nintendo took the helm and did something unique, i.e.

“Augmented-Reality”

Pokémon has already made a huge fan following since its inception as a TV show. A lot of teens like me had this weird dream in their childhood to have a Pokémon (I wanted Pikachu!). The craze of Pokémon was/is so real that people used to buy Nintendo consoles such as the GameBoy, DS, DSX and so on just to play this insanely addictive game.

Ps: Can you recall any friend having a Nintendo portable console and have never played Pokémon?

When something like this comes even in Augmented-Reality, it was almost certain that all those teens and hippies like me were bound to go crazy and try this app out & hence just like me the ones who heard about it, did download it for sure.

Now, the people who have played this game would certainly agree that finding a good Pokémon, The Gym battles, and all those stuff requires Hustle. Walking in kilometers instead of meters, taking out vehicles and exploring different places or to say new places just to catch a stronger Pokemon (For me it is thrilling as it gets).

The craze and hype of this game are so high that according to market watch, Business Owners are working on using Pokemon Go to derive growth of their businesses. In fact, in an interview with the Financial Times, John Hanke (CEO of Niantic) acknowledged about the integration of “sponsored location” within the app to increase their revenue stream.

Moving on, when you explore new places because of Pokémon Go or if you find an amazing Pokémon, you may want to put it on the social networking site, right? You may or may not, but more than enough people posted on various networking sites to make it trending and that trend lead to it getting featured “over and over again” in world’s most viewed blogs which ultimately made it the “Biggest mobile game ever in history.”

Coming to the end of this blog post, I wish that Nintendo’s new game will not screw up my notification in the future by sending infinite invites like Candy Crush did.

Thanks for reading and I hope you Catch them All!!

Rohit Bhatia

Written by

Helping Startups in driving growth | StoryTeller and Content writer | Founder of @Spaceyfi | Community Manager at @Startup Nexus

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