Martin said Pokemon Go’s ratio of paid users to total users was 10 times that of Candy Crush, the hit game from King Digital that generated more than $1 billion of revenue in both 2013 and 2014.
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Gamers in Japan, home of Nintendo Co.’s Pokemon, waited in vain on Wednesday for the launch of its smash-hit mobile phone game, amid media reports that the developers behind it had hit the brakes over concerns that manic demand would overload server capacity.
“Pokemon Go”, a compulsive smartphone game has not been made avail…
One of the Japanese creators of the game apologised for the delay in a video with the American head of Niantic posted on the internet.
The augmented reality game has players out in their real life neighbourhoods “capturing” monsters on their smartphones as they turn up even in ordinary offices and taxis. The company is partnering with the game’s developer, Niantic, in Japan on an undisclosed collaboration.
Pokemon Go had 21 million active users in the United States alone as of July 18 – less than two weeks after going live.
“Ultimately, McDonald’s is a restaurant”, said a company spokesman. That benefits Apple because two-thirds of all Pokemon Go downloads are on iOS devices. “We will call on players not to become a bother to customers who are eating”.
As anticipation built toward the Japan release earlier this week, the government issued nine safety-related rules for “Pokemon Go” players to follow.
The game has already achieved a 6% penetration rate in the U.S. It has been rolled out in another 35 countries hence there is a projection that the penetration rate could grow to 20%.
A number of other Asian nations still await the game, including China, the world’s biggest smartphone and online gaming market.
Niantic chief executive John Hanke asked users to play with care.
Shares of the Japanese division of McDonald’s jumped more than 7 per cent after the news, to 3,775 yen, the highest price for that stock since 2001, Reuters reported.
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McDonald’s Japan declined to comment on the report.
