Pokémon GO was praised because it inspired people to finally increase their physical activity. However, it turns out that it was just a fad as it only lasted around six weeks.
There are still a lot of Pokémon GO players but the interest is declining across the world. This is true even after Niantic released the highly-anticipated Gen 2 Pokémon for the game including its marketing promotion deal with Starbucks in the United States.
Researchers have even found that the game's physical activity uptick for the players was just a fad. It went up as fast as it also went down rapidly. The finding was from a study published in the British Medical Journal where Harvard researchers surveyed Pokémon GO players regarding their physical activities.
The study found that there was an increase of nearly 1000 steps for the Pokémon GO players during the first week of the game's installation on their phones. However, the figure steadily dropped over the following five weeks and it finally went back to the pre-Pokémon GO levels on the sixth week.
Researchers used the Amazon Mechanical Turk to find out the data through a survey of 560 men and women who installed the game on their phones. The correspondents were aged from 18 to 35 years old.
With the number of people uninstalling the game increasing, the study's findings are not surprising at all. Pokémon Sun and Moon seem to interest more players and that game does not need to be taken outside of their homes.
Another study published in JMIR showed that Pokémon GO players actually went back to their original physical activity level in just about 30 days. The study involved using the sensor data from the Microsoft Band users.
Niantic may have found a mobile video game hit in Pokémon GO but it turns out that it could fade into obscurity in the following months. The physical activity uptick also turned out to be just a fad.
Watch a funny video about Pokémon GO: