The Pokémon Company is pulling in record daily revenue from Pokémon TCG Pocket, despite fierce fan feedback around its new trading update.
Appmagic estimates suggest that Pokémon TCG Pocket has now earned The Pokémon Company over $350m since it launched worldwide on October 30. And IAP revenue is currently at a record highs after the introduction of the controversial trading update on January 29 and the ‘Space-Time Smackdown’ expansion on January 30.
Following the updates, Appmagic says IAP revenue peaked on February 1, when Pokémon TCG Pocket earned an estimated $7.7m in one day. In the week before the updates dropped, Appmagic’s estimates suggest that the game was pulling in between $1.1-1.4m per day in IAP revenue.
With controversy swirling around the trading update, IAP revenue has dropped off in the last two days, but is still several times more than before the expansion and trading updates went live.
Thought the recent updates are clearly a financial success, Pokémon TCG Pocket’s new trading system has not been popular among many players. Various reports in the games press have stated that players hate the new trading system, and others have said players have described it as “a joke” and “downright greedy”.
The fierce feedback promoted The Pokémon Company to put out a statement on January 31 which said the trading update was a “first iteration” of the feature, and it would soon be tweaking the system to address player concerns.
As we’ve previously reported, most of the spend in Pokémon TCG Pocket is coming from players in Japan, though over time US players are accounting for more of the overall revenue.
Appmagic estimates suggest Japan accounts for 41% of the game’s total earnings to date, with the US on 27%. There’s a huge drop off to the next biggest markets by revenue, which represent 3-4% of the game’s lifetime revenue, and include Taiwan, Germany, Hong Kong, France and South Korea.
On downloads, the US represents 19% of the installs to date, with Brazil on 17%. Those leading markets are followed by Japan (9% of lifetime downloads to date), France (8%), Mexico (7%), Colombia (3%) and Italy (3%).
Appmagic says that lifetime revenue per download, which tells us roughly what the per-player spend is on average, stands at $6.11 globally. But there’s a huge gap between east and west spending – the RpD is at $21.3 for Tier 1 eastern markets and $6.57 for Tier 1 western territories.
