Pokémon Go has just passed its 2 year anniversary, and has no signs of slowing down as it was first reported by Variety that the game has approximately made around $1.8 billion since its release. This was attributed to a Game Developer's Conference held back in March, where analyst Sensor Tower initially made approximations of around $2 million every day. Of the total revenue, around 58% came from Android devices, while the remaining came from iOS.
This shouldn't come too much as a surprise, as initial numbers reported by Newzoo, the game made a reportedly $480 million in its first 80 days, before it began to level off as the hype from the release faded. The lack of updates and consistent bugs may have led to the quick fall off, but by the end of its first year Niantic had introduced the 2nd generation of Pokémon from the game's series, had more communication with the community, as well as teased a better battling system, and raids--a game mode that allows players to team up to take down a stronger (and larger) monster, with the chance afterwards of catching it.
This follows a continued trend of the gaming industry leaning heavily on its revenue from mobile gaming--as it almost shares a third of the revenue, comparatively to console and PC titles. Instead of game companies investing in a movie adaptation, the more lucrative options that have sprung up over the last 5 years is adapting a game to mobile.
While the Pokémon Go is free-to-play--it embarks players (or 'trainers' as they are known in the Pokémon-world) around the real world to catch mon(sters), battle with the help of their friends and other trainers, and not up until last month, can now freely trade them as well--all while using developing company Niantic's augmented reality technology. The game was released on July 6th, 2016 and is available on the iOS App Store and Google Play Stores now.