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Tech in 2016: The Pokémon GO hype is behind us, but the game has a bright future

The virality of the game was so unprecedented, that the resulting traffic was ten times the volume of the worst case scenario anticipated by the team.

Aditya Madanapalle|Dec 28, 2016, 17:00:55 IST

When Pokémon GO launched, Niantic was working with Google Engineers to make sure that the servers were up to the task. The virality of the game was so unprecedented, that the resulting traffic was ten times the volume of the worst case scenario anticipated by the team. The game combined augmented reality, a popular franchise and real world locations to do something only Niantic had done before with Ingress — to get gamers to go out.There were safety concerns, so much so that news channels started saying playing the game was a deathwish, and the police had to encourage trainers to be safe. However, the gamers themselves were pretty sensible about it, taking their time to stop and play instead of walking while catching. The community organised events themselves, something that Niantic had to do for Ingress. By the time the game released in India, the interest seemed to have fizzled out.The initial hype happens with many games though. There are a surge of players, and then everyone seems to bail. That is a massive audience base though, and there are a number of dedicated players who continue to play the game. A number of players come out of the rafters every time there is a new update. People started playing Ingress after the launch of Pokémon GO, so another round of interest can be expected the next time Niantic comes out with a game. Ingress has been maintained for years, with content updates and events even now, and the same can be expected for Pokémon GO. For now, here is a look back at the good times.

Here is our Pokémon GO coverage over the year. Pokémon virality explained