When the augmented reality game Pokémon Go debuted in July, it quickly became the biggest mobile game ever, edging out Candy Crush Saga and handily surpassing Twitter (TWTR) in terms of active users. But just as astonishing was the speed at which the craze took hold, racking up three to six times as many downloads as other hot games over its first week, according to research firm Sensor Tower. We asked them to plot out the rise of Pokémon Go in relation to other major, successful launches. It’s not even close:
Granted, that growth can’t last forever. Nintendo’s stock price has already dipped a bit after gaining billions in market cap just after the game launched, prompting some to call a Pokémon bubble. But even if the game doesn’t hold the country’s collective imagination for very long (it is a cellphone game after all), augmented reality has now officially gone mainstream. Expect imitators to follow.
A version of this article appears in the August 1, 2016 issue of Coins2Day with the headline “Pokémon Blasts Off At The Speed of Light.”