Released in July of 2016 Pokémon Go took the world by storm. A game designed to put Pokémon into the real world for people to look for and catch.
During the height of the popularity, you could walk around and find many people working together for a gym raid or catch the Pokémon in a real-life simulation.
In the nine years since its release, people have been playing Pokémon Go less. Now, it seems that the amount of people who talk about it seems like a small ripple compared to the tsunami of people who did when it first came out. Have people lost enthusiasm for the game, or are they still working on catching them all?
While people aren’t on Pokémon Go as much now, this does not mean people have left the app altogether. Samantha Kleehammer ’26, said she was on Pokémon Go for a long time, but hasn’t been as active lately.
“I don’t go on it as much as I used to, after a while,” Kleehammer said. “It just isn’t the type of game you’d go on constantly.”
Scott Anderson ’27 is someone who has not had the game but has known many friends who used to play the game, Anderson has noticed how nobody seems to play anymore.
“I do think a lot more people talked about it more when the game was newer,” Anderson said. “I don’t really hear about it now though.”
However, Issac Dunford ’27 isn’t one of those people who has let the game go and thinks that people are online but may just be quieter about playing recently.
“People are active for sure,” Dunford said. “There’s still a lot of people who have an account too, they’re just not playing religiously.”
While people may play the game as much as they used to, the app is still very active. You might no longer see people on the sidewalk all working together in a mega raid, but that doesn’t mean there is no one trying to defeat the gym next to their house according to Dunford. People may not be on the game all day like they used to, but this game is still going strong.
“This game is 100 percent active,” Dunford said. “I know a lot of people who play it, and I can see gyms get taken all the time.”
