The fad may be over, but Pokemon Go still has 65 million monthly active players
But in a talk today at the London Games Festival, John Hanke, CEO of Pokémon Go developer Niantic, reveals that the game is still healthy and thriving with 65 million monthly active users.
Just for context, that puts the game ahead of the 55 million monthly players most recently claimed by Minecraft, the phenomenon on which Microsoft bet $2.5 billion. This isn't quite an apples-to-apples comparison, since Pokémon Go is a free download, while Minecraft costs anywhere between $6.99 and $26.95 to get started. It does, however, show that Pokémon Go is doing just fine for itself.
In February, Niantic introduced 80 new Pokémon into the game, in a bid to draw lapsed players back in. While we don't know for sure when most of those 65 million monthly active players joined the game, it seems a safe bet to assume that it worked.
Going forward, Hanke has promised that long-awaited features like player-versus-player battling and Pokémon trading are coming sooner rather than later. If and when Niantic delivers, it should go a long way towards keeping those millions around.