SINGAPORE, Oct 4 — The Pokemon Go craze may have abated but the free-to-play, location-based augmented reality game on handheld devices has left a lasting impact worldwide.
Even the uninitiated took the trouble to get to know of Pokemon, the fictional creatures that players seek using a smartphone app at real-world locations.
Rolled out in July 2016 by Niantic Inc, it witnessed a strong following with many trying to download the game even before its official launch.
YouGov, the global market research firm, polled 10,808 online consumers across Asia Pacific (APAC) to investigate how popular the game was and how the game changed the social behaviour of people who play it.
According to the poll, majority of APAC respondents have heard of Pokemon Go and found the concept interesting.
The game made the Pokemon character more popular. 88 per cent of the respondents across the region have heard of Pokemon Go, with highest awareness levels in Hong Kong (97 per cent) and Indonesia (97 per cent), and the lowest in China (57 per cent).
Less than two in five of respondents (37 per cent) were Pokemon fans before the launch of the game, now seven out of 10 respondents (69 per cent) in APAC know of Pokemon.
Delayed launch triggers more interest in Pokemon Go?
Half of the APAC respondents tried to download the game even before its official launch.
In APAC countries except Australia, where the game was launched much earlier, almost half of respondents (49 per cent) tried to download the game before the game was officially launched in their respective countries.
One third of Pokemon Go players spent 30 minutes to an hour a day playing the game on average.
Looking at the impact of Pokemon Go on the players’ social behaviour and daily lives, 56 per cent of those who have downloaded the game put the app icon on the first screen of their smartphones.
Over half of them (52 per cent) have played one to three times in the past 24 hours, and around one third of respondents (33 per cent) spent 30 minutes to an hour per day playing game.
Pokemon Go encourages other social media use?
About 44 per cent said playing Pokemon Go made them use other social media more often as they wanted to share their progress on the game with others online.
Almost half of the players (48 per cent) said they would still spend the same amount of time playing this game once they understood the game better.
However, 7.0 per cent of respondents have stopped playing the game already.
Within this group, one in three (36 per cent) think it’s too time consuming and they do not have enough time to play.
About half this number (18 per cent) said they did not find it interesting at all, and 8.0 per cent said they did not know how to play Pokemon Go.
Flash in the pan?
Augmented Reality: the combination of virtual and real worlds is a key reason for the Pokemon Go craze.
Almost 80 per cent of the respondents found the combination of virtual and real world made Pokemon Go fun to play.
Half of respondents (50 per cent) think the game is interesting because they can have fun gaming and being outdoors at the same time.
About one third of the respondents (34 per cent) liked the game as it allowed them to socialise over the net.
For 28 per cent of the respondents, they always loved Pokemon and this game added their fondness for the character.
Meanwhile, among the 31 per cent of the respondents who did not find the game interesting, almost half (47 per cent) said they did not see any reason for the hype over the game.
Just over one in five (22 per cent) of respondents said they have privacy and security concern as the mobile game needs to use their camera and geolocation functions.
YouGov, an independent, publicly listed global insights agency, is one of the most recognised and quoted names in research across UK, Europe and North America. It is expanding quickly throughout Asia Pacific. — Bernama
