New Charts Detail Steady Decline in Popularity of 'Pokémon Go'

After weeks of intense usage, new data from Axiom Capital Management (via Bloomberg) paints a picture of Pokémon Go's overall waning popularity as August comes to a close. With research lead by Senior Analyst Victor Anthony, the investment advising firm collected various user engagement statistics -- and even figured out how much attention Pokémon Go brought to augmented reality gaming -- in a handful of charts.

According to Anthony, many other popular apps, which saw a decline in daily active users because of the Pokémon Go phenomenon, were scrambling to figure out ways for former reliable users to return to their app. But now the executives of Tinder, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat "can breathe a sigh of relief," since everything from daily active users, downloads, and the amount of time spent on Pokémon Go each day "are all well off their peaks and on a downward trend."

"Given the rapid rise in usage of the Pokémon Go app since the launch in July, investors have been concerned that this new user experience has been detracting from time spent on other mobile focused apps," [Anthony] writes.

If these declines prove enduring, this would cast aspersion not only on the viability and popularity of Pokemon Go, but augmented reality gaming at large, according to the analyst.

Anthony believes the fad-like quality of Pokémon Go could ultimately leave little lasting impact on augmented reality gaming "at large," due to its fleeting popularity of a few weeks in mid-to-late July. Although not mentioned by the analyst or Bloomberg, it's also worth taking into account how many players actually used the AR camera when catching Pokémon, and consequently how many considered it an "AR game," when it became widely known that turning the mode off made capturing the creatures a slightly easier task.

While it was on everyone's mind, Pokémon Go made waves in both mainstream mobile gaming, and even sent Nintendo's stock rising, despite the company's small stake in both Niantic and The Pokémon Company, the game's creators. Niantic is still pushing out updates to Pokémon Go, attempting to fix issues with the game while also introducing it into new markets like Thailand and 14 other Asian countries.