After its meteoric rise in popularity when it was released last summer for iOS and Android, it seems that things have gone from day to night for "Pokemon GO." The augmented reality game by Niantic and Nintendo has been generating some less-than-encouraging headlines lately, with some now questioning its efficacy as a physical activity and how its status as a fad has waned.
Upon its release, people were singing "Pokemon GO" praises for it being the answer to physical inactivity and obesity since the free-to-play game has made going out and about less of a chore and more of a fun experience. But it seems it wasn't meant to last as a study recently published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) found out that it was only good at getting most people off their butts for around six weeks.
Six researchers from Harvard and one from Sweden got together and used the Amazon Mechanical Turk to survey 1,182 "Pokemon GO" players in the United States in the 18-35 age range who have the game installed in iPhone 6 smartphones, which records the number of footsteps taken each day. For the first week since installation of the game, there was an average increase of 955 steps per day. But in the next five weeks, this number steadily dropped until returning to pre-installation numbers six weeks after.
Whether this study had a sufficient sample size to make such a definitive conclusion or not, it does reflect what detractors have said about it for some time-"Pokemon GO" is a fad, not a lifestyle change. It takes more than just an app to enforce a habit of going out and moving around more as it would be limited by how that fun is maintained by the developer of "Pokemon GO," Niantic. Unfortunately, it did wear off, and the recent update didn't help much as it was rather underwhelming at best.
Time will only tell if "Pokemon GO" has anywhere else to go past its now-past viral popularity. With the release of "Pokemon Sun and Moon" last month, the core "Pokemon" fanbase has since gone back to the 3DS for their fix. While it's not likely that it spells the end for "Pokemon GO," it'll be interesting to see how it develops from here on, whether it somehow maintains a niche player base or it goes the same way as many other mobile games that achieved viral popularity before fading into the aether.
