Despite the success of "Pokemon Go," its launch was actually plagued with various problems. The main factor was extremely high traffic because "Pokemon Go" fans did not wish to wait. The release was still delayed, but it did not resolve the concerns of game creator Niantic Labs.
IGN reported that Luke Stone, Google's Director of Customer Reliability Engineering, stated that he never experienced anything close to the significant growth that Niantic had when "Pokemon Go" launched. Stone explained that within the first 15 minutes of launching "Pokemon Go" in Australia and New Zealand, traffic was already higher than the game company's initial predictions. In a span of less than a week, millions of players began downloading and playing the game.
Before "Pokemon Go" released, Niantic anticipated the worst scenario of garnering traffic five times higher than their original prediction. When the game launched, Niantic had to struggle with traffic 50 times higher than they were ready for. As a result, "Pokemon Go" suffered from major stability issues. Stone explained that when issues surfaced around the stability of "Pokemon Go," Niantic and Google engineers dealt with each one in sequence. They worked quickly to create and provide solutions.
Google CRE collaborated with Niantic to go through every part of the architecture of "Pokemon Go." They also consulted with core Google Cloud engineers and product managers as millions of players continued to download "Pokemon Go." Furthermore, Niantic, Nintendo and The Pokemon Company also had to deal with several players complaining to the Federal Trade Commission about various issues.
GameRant revealed that at present, "Pokemon Go" is suffering from a massive drop in paying players, with many complaining that the hit mobile game does not offer much in terms of gameplay and experience. Since the game peaked in mid-July 2016, paying "Pokemon Go" players have dropped by 79 percent. Its total peak player population has dropped by over 15 million daily users. However, the game has achieved the title of being the most profitable mobile title worldwide. Niantic mentioned that it has several more features and plans coming that will entice old and new players to the game.
