As Pokemon GO ages and passes into its second year, there have been plenty of problems, but lots of successes as well. As of this month, the game is still pulling in $70 million in monthly revenue, according to a report from analyst firm Sensor Tower.
Released two years ago today, Niantic’s Pokémon GO became an overnight sensation. While the fervor has subsided in the 24 months since that game-changing day, players worldwide continue to spend more than $2 million per day in their quest to catch those original Pokémon and the dozens that have been added since launch. This has led to the game reaching $1.8 billion in player spending, according to the latest Sensor Tower Store Intelligence estimates, having crossed the $1 billion milestone in January 2017.
But the massive financial earnings of the mobile game aren’t the only noteworthy news for Niantic this week. A community effort spearheaded by the Reddit communities for the game has ruthlessly datamined the most recent APK for the game and uncovered some interesting new additions that may soon be catchable Pokemon in-game.
Pokemon GO dataminer Chrales carefully analyzed network data for Pokemon GO and discovered that Smeargle, Nincada, Ninjask, and Shedinja, Clamperl and Huntail, Jirachi, and Deoxys are all currently hidden in that data. None of these Pokemon can currently be found or caught while playing Pokemon GO though. You can peruse the full asset dump on Github if you wish to see that data for yourself.
What this means is that at some point in the future, we will probably see these new entries become active in the game, but there’s no way to know exactly when that will happen. Pokemon GO fans have plenty to do in the meantime though, with the Community Day event having just wrapped up, Niantic will certainly be pushing out more in-game events and rewards in the future, maybe we will see new events themed around the release of these new roster addons. One thing we know for sure is that Niantic is working on improving the AR integrations to make the Pokemon you encounter seem like a more organic element of the surrounding environment, so that’s pretty cool.
Pokemon GO is available now for mobile devices.
