Latest news with #PokemonGo
Forbes
22-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Pokemon Go Made Niantic Billions. Now It's Ditching Gaming For AI.
Walking through Niantic's headquarters in San Francisco's historic Ferry Building, visitors are greeted by a scrum of giant Pokemon stuffed animals: On amphitheatre-style steps, an enormous Snorlax naps in the corner while a bulbasour sits ready to pounce. Elsewhere, a stunned Psyduck stares vacantly toward the distance, and perhaps the company's unexpected future. In March, Niantic made a bombshell announcement: the developer of Pokemon Go — once the biggest mobile game ever in the U.S. — is abandoning games to go all-in on AI. It has sold off its game development business to Saudi-owned game maker Scopely in a $3.5 billion deal and rebranded itself as Niantic Spatial. Instead of building augmented reality games for mobile phones, it will develop artificial intelligence models that analyze the real world for enterprise clients. 'It's kind of unusual for a successful company to do this cellular division — form two companies,' cofounder and CEO John Hanke told Forbes. 'It became clear to us that the way to maximize the opportunity for both was to let each of them go and pursue its future.' Now, Niantic is doubling down on its nascent Spatial platform, announced in November, which provides AI mapping tools that companies can use to chart out routes for robots or power augmented reality glasses. Just as large language models allow AI to generate text, Niantic's Large Geospatial Models (LGMs) help AI understand, navigate and interact with physical spaces as a human would. The models are able to recreate 3D, real-world places thanks to Niantic's massive set of location data, drawn from the 30 billion miles people have collectively walked playing its games like Pokemon Go and Ingress. And when the models don't have precise data on all the dimensions, topography or physical structures in a place, they use generative AI to fill in those blanks, estimating different angles of a statue or missing corners of rooms. 'I don't think maximizing the value for Pokemon Go for the next 10 years is necessarily where [Hanke's] heart is at.' Niantic's pivot underscores the seismic effect that the generative AI frenzy has had on Silicon Valley since ChatGPT rocked the industry nearly two-and-a-half years ago — radically transforming even a firmly established decade-old company like Niantic. According to Gartner, the market for spatial computing is expected to hit $1.7 trillion by 2033, up from $110 billion in 2023, with growth driven by location-based services from the likes of mapping giant TomTom and traditional big tech like Google. 'The opportunity is enormous,' said Tuong Nguyen, director analyst for Garner's emerging technology team. So is the competition. In spatial AI, Niantic faces some formidable rivals. Since 2021, Nvidia, the $3 trillion chipmaker, has offered Omniverse, an enterprise platform that creates 3D 'digital twins' for performing simulations in factories and other industrial settings. And last year, computer vision pioneer Fei-Fei Li, known as the Godmother of AI, founded World Labs, a startup building AI that generates 3D fantasy worlds, which could be helpful for video game development or astronaut simulations. The company is already valued at $1 billion — without even launching a product. To fund its new company, Niantic went to its well of existing investors, including Coatue, Battery Ventures and CRV, for a $250 million investment. As part of the deal, which was in the works for a year and is expected to close by the end of the month, about 400 gaming employees will join Scopely, maker of the popular Monopoly Go mobile game, and about 200 will remain with Niantic. The company laid off more than 65 people during the restructuring; Niantic isn't expecting any more 'significant' layoffs, though one or two people could hypothetically depart in the final phases of the deal, Hanke told Forbes. From the start, Pokemon Go was a runaway hit, generating around $8 billion in revenue since its debut in 2016, analysts estimate. Almost a decade later, the game, which tasks players to catch virtual Pokemon by trekking to real-world locations, racked up 100 million players in 2024, Niantic said. The company brought in $1 billion in revenue last year, with 30 million monthly players across its catalog, which also includes Pikmin Bloom, a step-counter game developed with Nintendo, and Monster Hunter Now, developed with Capcom. Niantic doesn't break out revenue for individual games, but the vast majority came from Pokemon Go, according to research firm Aldora Intelligence. It was responsible for $770 million of Niantic's billion-dollar haul in 2024, the firm estimated. Pokemon Go was a global phenomenon, attracting meetups around the world. The game was lightning in a bottle, but Niantic has had trouble replicating its success. Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, the company's first big bet after Pokemon Go became a global phenomenon, was released in 2019 and scrapped in 2022. That same year, the company laid off around 90 people, shutting down several games in development, including one based on the Transformers franchise. A year later, Niantic shut down its Los Angeles studio and laid off 230 people, a quarter of its workforce at the time, coinciding with mass job cuts across the industry post-pandemic. The closure meant cancellations of a handful of major projects, including games with high profile partners like the NBA and Marvel. And even Pokemon Go's lustre has faded from its glory days. On Apple's App store, it's still a top 10 role playing game, but it has fallen out of the top 100 free games. Hanke insists the sale was not due to games underperforming or revenue woes. 'It's not a case of abandoning the [games] business,' he said. 'You look around at the games we have on the market — revenue is doing well,' he added, pointing to the 'successful' launch of Monster Hunter Now in 2023, where players seek out and fight virtual monsters. The game brought in $142 million last year, a 23% jump year over year, according to Aldora. Joost van Dreunen, founder of Aldora Intelligence who's researched the industry for 15 years, agrees: 'This wasn't a fire sale to save the company.' The biggest reason for the split, Niantic executives say, is focus. Inside the company, there has always been competition for time and resources between the game development side and technology side, which developed all of the augmented reality and mapping tools that underpin the games. The latter, for example, built Niantic's 'visual positioning system' which could precisely pinpoint a person's exact location at a specific date and time (like if you caught a Squirtle at Grand Central Terminal at noon). Its technology portfolio also includes Scaniverse, an app Niantic acquired in 2021 that lets a user create a 3D model of a room by scanning it with their phone, similar to how you'd take a panoramic photo. Now, the company can devote all of its energy to the enterprise business — even if it means Niantic can no longer lean on its primary cash generator. 'We will have to focus on our own revenue,' said CTO Brian McClendon. 'And we won't have to split our attention between maintaining and improving Monster Hunter, and Pokemon Go revenue and business, versus addressing just this,' he said, referring to the enterprise platform. Brandon Gleklen, a principal at Battery Ventures, which first invested in Niantic's 2019 Series C, told Forbes the move was inevitable, noting that juggling games and developing AI 'was like two bodies running a three-legged race.' The pivot to enterprise is a decidedly buttoned-up swerve for a company with such a playful culture. It was named after the Niantic, a wrecked whaling ship that brought prospectors to San Francisco during the 1849 gold rush, its remains now residing beneath the TransAmerica tower. As an homage to the vessel, Niantic's lobby is styled like an old ship's deck with an antique cannon and scuba suit. But Hanke says the new strategy is a return to his roots. A pioneer in digital mapping, Hanke cofounded Keyhole in 2001, a satellite imagery startup that Google bought in 2004 for about $35 million in stock and used as the basis for Google Maps. After ascending to lead Google's global mapping operations, he began Niantic in 2010 as a small gaming division within the sprawling tech giant. It released Ingress, a sci-fi capture-the-flag game, two years later, and after the game became widely popular, Niantic was spun out into an independent company in 2015. (Google is still an investor in Niantic Spatial.) Then came Pokemon Go. Released in 2016, the game's placement of virtual Pokemon characters in real locations spurred millions of people to explore the outdoors, a novelty for an online game in an era of mounting screentime. It inspired meetups and events around the world. While several businesses limped through the pandemic, Pokemon Go surged as people looked for socially distanced activities outside. Three days after its release, it had more users than Twitter at the time. After just two months, it became the biggest mobile game ever in the U.S., clocking 21 million users a day. It was a cash cow, but that success came with lots of baggage. It takes a lot of work and money to nurture a megahit, and Niantic was throwing resources at keeping creating new features to keep people coming back. Meanwhile, coming up with a followup success became even more difficult. 'In the years since Pokémon GO's launch, the mobile market has become crowded and changes to the app store and the mobile advertising landscape have made it increasingly hard to launch new mobile games at scale,' Hanke wrote in a memo to employees during the 2023 layoff. 'We're not in the business of making weapons systems.' So the mobile game developer did the unimaginable: it ditched the games business. 'I don't think maximizing the value for Pokemon Go for the next 10 years is necessarily where [Hanke's] heart is at,' said Saar Gur, general partner at CRV, which invested in Niantic's Series C. The idea is to pitch Niantic's core technologies to businesses, like its visual positioning system, which could be useful to enterprises in confirming important deliveries were made, instead of just taking a photo of the package in the doorway, said McClendon. Scaniverse could allow a technician from an HVAC company to remotely survey an area and annotate the virtual space. Niantic Spatial has a handful of clients so far. The Singapore tourism board is using its tech to create an augmented reality tour of the country's popular Flower Dome, the largest glass greenhouse in the world. The closed-door pilot, set to launch next month, will let guests use headsets to see digital overlays with information about the various flower species, which pop up as they walk through the garden, said Gregory Yap, vice president of the Americas for the Singapore tourism board. A deal with government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton gives access to Niantic's logistics and mapping tools, like its scanning tech and visual positioning, which provides precise location tracking down to the centimeter, to all of the company's corporate clients. One unannounced client, Hanke said, is working on a development that's 'part theme park, and part office park, and part residential.' And Niantic hasn't ruled out doing business with the military. 'We will have customers in the government, public sector space that could include military customers,' Hanke said, though he does draw one line: 'We're not in the business of making weapons systems." The lifeblood for AI models is data, and Pokemon Go hoovered it up in droves. Spinning off the games division, however, doesn't mean Niantic is giving up the firehose, the company said. Niantic will continue to provide the game's underlying mapping technology to Scopely even after the sale, now as a vendor instead of proprietor. That means Niantic Spatial will still have access to the location data that allowed it to build its AI models in the first place, said Tory Smith, director of product management for the map platform. 'It's not like there's a spigot being shut off,' he said. 'We just can't control how it evolves over time.' Nor can the company control who has access to it. When Niantic announced the sale to Culver City, California-based Scopely in March, the company drew ire for selling its popular games portfolio — and the user data that comes with it — to a venture owned by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund. Hanke dismisses that concern. 'The rules of operation there are pretty clear, in the sense that Niantic and Scopely are the keepers of that,' said Hanke. 'So there wouldn't be any access to that, or any usage of that, outside of those companies.' In a statement, a Scopely spokesperson said the company 'maintains autonomous and independent operations.' 'Player data always has and will continue to be handled in accordance with strict data privacy laws and regulations, as well as stored exclusively on U.S.-based servers,' the company said. Some critics see Saudi Arabia's investments in video games and entertainment as a means to distract from its track record on human rights. Hanke said Niantic considered those points when it chose its buyer. 'We thought about that. We discussed and debated it,' he said. 'From our own personal observations, and the people that we've worked with in the Kingdom, I think there's a real desire there to become a more open liberal society.' When Niantic announced last November that it had created AI models based on location data collected by its games, there was more outcry. Some players felt blindsided their information was being used to train AI without their knowledge. Hanke strongly denied that, saying data wasn't collected when people just walked around playing games — only when players performed specific actions while during gameplay, like scanning a PokeStop to get in-game rewards like power-ups, and were asked for explicit consent to improve the company's systems. (McClendon acknowledged that AI wasn't mentioned specifically because the models weren't in development when the disclosure was written. It still does not reference AI, but after the deal closes, Niantic said the games business will roll out new terms of service that expand on its data policies.) To mark the sale of its games business and the beginning of its play in AI, Niantic held a party in early May across the street from headquarters at Sens, a tony Mediterranean restaurant overlooking the bay. At the party, Hanke and employees shared stories and memories as they said goodbye to the company in its current form. But after the deal closes, the gaming employees won't go very far. They'll move to a Scopely office a short walk away. The Pokemon stuffed animals will likely join them, Hanke said.
Forbes
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Building A New Type Of Content For Next Gen Consumers
Mixed reality on your smartphone: the next frontier for marketers? Augmented reality technologies in the consumer market are flying under the radar – it is almost a decade, for example, since the launch of AR gaming experience Pokemon Go. Nevertheless, the march of AR on the mobile phone is ongoing – a survey just published by Thrive found 35% of American consumers have now used mobile AR; almost one in two use the technology frequently. Thrive's research suggests that gaming remains the consumer market in which AR is getting the most reaction – the impact of the Pokemon Go phenomenon is clearly still being felt. But usage in other categories, from shopping to social interaction, is also continuing to increase. Advertising and marketing campaigns represent another key use case for this technology, as illustrated by the Series A funding round announced today by San Francisco-based Flam. It has raised $14 million, taking its total funding over the past four years to $22 million. Shourya Agarwal, co-founder and CEO of Flam, talks in terms of 'mixed reality', which he sees as a natural extension of the way in which content has changed over time. 'Over the years, we've made transition from text to images to video in order to keep customers interested,' Agarwal says. 'But consumers now want more – particularly younger consumers; they want content that feels and looks more exciting and engaging.' Big brands appear to agree. One recent report found that global brands spent $5.5 billion on augmented reality marketing last year, and estimated that this figure will more than double to $11.8 billion by 2028. 'AR advertising provides an opportunity for customers to experience products and services before making a purchase', researchers pointed out. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder The challenge for brands is how to distribute that content. Consumers can't be expected to browse traditional media while wearing headsets in case they want to access new types of content – let alone to wander the streets equipped with such devices. In this context, Agarwal says the best way to think about Flam is as a mixed reality publishing infrastructure – a platform that provides a means for brands and organisations to launch a more immersive type of marketing or customer experience from conventional touchpoints. Those could include anything from an ad in a newspaper to a billboard in the street or from product packaging to digital content. Consumers access these immersive experiences by using their smartphone camera to open a QR code or a link. That unlocks a richer piece of marketing, viewed through the phone, that incorporates the original content but adds 3D images and pictures and enables the viewer to interact with it – zooming in and out, say, or deciding what details they want to look at. Flam founder Shourya Agarwal Founded in 2021, Flam has already signed up customers including Google, Samsung and Emirates to run campaigns using its technology; last year, it even worked with Kamala Harris's Presidential bid team. Agarwal says more than 100 global brands have now used Flam – and that their campaigns have reached more than 580 million users. 'Before YouTube it was technically difficult to host and share videos online; it was complex, expensive and out of reach for most creators,' he adds. 'YouTube changed that with a simple, scalable platform, and we're doing the same for mixed reality.' Today's funding round is led by RTP Global, with participation from Dovetail and other existing investors. 'The time for mixed reality is now,' insists Nishit Garg, partner at RTP, while Amal Parikh, managing director of Dovetail, tips Flam to 'redefine how brands connect with consumers'. That remains to be seen – this is an evolving marketplace. At one end, for example, the social media giant Snap continues to experiment with AR functionality for advertisers and brands. At the other, businesses such as 8th Wall, are competing directly with Flam; it also offers an AR platform that allows brands to distribute AR experiences via mobile devices – in its case through a browser. Nevertheless, as providers make it easier for big brands to get more engaging content our there, the future for AR and mixed reality marketing looks bright. Above all, the returns on investment look compelling. AR Insider estimates that in 2022, buyers spent $58 billion on physical goods having been influenced by AR - and that this will increase to an enormous $255 billion by 2027.
Time of India
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
How to beat Leader Cliff in Pokemon GO (May 2025) – Full lineup, phases, best counters, and more
Leader Cliff in Pokemon GO (Image via Niantic) Leader Cliff remains one of the toughest Team GO Rocket opponents in Pokemon Go. With his May 2025 lineup now confirmed, trainers need the right counters to secure victory. This guide covers his current team, weaknesses, and the best strategies to defeat him. Leader Cliff's Pokemon GO lineup (May 2025) Cliff's battles follow a three-phase structure, starting with Shadow Cubone. His second and third phases feature randomized picks from a pool of powerful Shadow Pokemon. Here's his current lineup: Phase 1: Shadow Cubone Cliff always opens with Shadow Cubone. Phase 2: Random selection - Shadow Machoke - Shadow Annihilape - Shadow Marowak Phase 3: Random selection - Shadow Machamp - Shadow Crobat - Shadow Tyranitar How to beat Cliff in Pokemon GO (May 2025) Success hinges on exploiting type weaknesses. Below are the best counters for each phase, including accessible options for trainers without maxed-out legendaries. Leader Cliff Pokemon GO counters: Phase 1 (Cubone) Shadow Cubone is a Ground-type, weak to Grass, Ice, and Water. Avoid Electric, Poison, and Rock moves. Best Counters Fast Move Charged Move Primal Kyogre Waterfall Origin Pulse Mega Sceptile Fury Cutter Frenzy Plant Mega Swampert Water Gun Hydro Cannon Shaymin (Sky Forme) Magical Leaf Grass Knot Gyarados Waterfall Hydro Pump Leader Cliff Pokemon GO counters: Phase 2 How to Beat Cliff in Pokémon GO 2025? Shadow Marowak Marowak shares Cubone's Ground-type weaknesses. Best Counters Fast Move Charged Move Primal Kyogre Waterfall Origin Pulse Kartana Razor Leaf Leaf Blade Mewtwo Psycho Cut Ice Beam Shadow Machoke This Fighting-type is weak to Fairy, Flying, and Psychic. Best Counters Fast Move Charged Move Mega Rayquaza Air Slash Dragon Ascent Shadow Mewtwo Confusion Psystrike Mega Gardevoir Confusion Psychic Shadow Annihilape A Fighting/Ghost-type, weak to Fairy, Flying, Ghost, and Psychic. Best Counters Fast Move Charged Move Mega Gengar Lick Shadow Ball Dawn Wings Necrozma Psycho Cut Moongeist Beam Mega Alakazam Confusion Psychic Leader Cliff Pokemon GO counters: Phase 3 Shadow Tyranitar This Rock/Dark-type fears Fighting, Water, and Grass. Best Counters Fast Move Charged Move Mega Lucario Force Palm Aura Sphere Conkeldurr Counter Dynamic Punch Mega Heracross Counter Close Combat Shadow Crobat The Poison/Flying-type is weak to Electric, Ice, and Rock. Best Counters Fast Move Charged Move Mewtwo Psycho Cut Psystrike Rampardos Smack Down Rock Slide Magnezone Spark Wild Charge Shadow Machamp Another Fighting-type, weak to Flying and Psychic. Best Counters Fast Move Charged Move Rayquaza Air Slash Dragon Ascent Lugia Extrasensory Aeroblast+ Gallade Confusion Psychic Best team to beat Leader Cliff in Pokemon GO A balanced team covering multiple weaknesses works best: 1. Mega Gardevoir – Counters Machoke, Machamp, and Tyranitar. 2. Shadow Mewtwo – Handles Annihilape, Crobat, and Machamp. 3. Mega Sceptile – Melts Cubone and Marowak. How to find Leader Cliff in Pokemon GO 1. Defeat 6 Team GO Rocket Grunts to collect Mysterious Components. 2. Assemble a Rocket Radar. 3. Use the radar to locate Cliff at PokeStops or in balloons. Winning grants a Shadow Cubone and rewards like Stardust, Rare Candy, or a Charged TM. Also read: How to beat Leader Sierra in Pokemon GO (May 2025) – Full lineup, phases, and best counters For more boss guides, check our updated articles on Giovanni, Sierra, and Arlo. Bookmark this page—we'll update it after the May 14 Team Rocket Takeover!
Forbes
01-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Monopoly Go! Passes $5 Billion In Two Years, But Journey Wasn't Easy
(Image courtesy of Scopely) The mobile game Monopoly Go! just passed another big milestone, generating $5 billion in revenues in slightly less than two years, what its publisher, Scopely, says is the fastest a mobile title has ever reached that prodigious height. But it wasn't easy creating a game that perhaps no one expected would ever, especially so quickly, join an elite club (others include Genshin Impact, Pokemon Go, and Royal Match) among the 1.4 million games released on mobile app stores, said Scopely co-CEO Javier Ferreira. Scopely spent $70 million and seven years, beginning in 2016, trying to figure out the best way to adapt the original board game for a very different experience of gaming on a mobile phone, with a free-to-play mechanic and a strong social component. 'We knew Monopoly was a beloved (intellectual property), which in some way is saying it was a beloved experience,' Ferreira said. 'This is the key. Or maybe a beloved feeling when people were playing Monopoly. The question for us was how do we bring the game to mobile?' A screen shot from Monopoly Go! (Game image courtesy of Scopely) A straight conversion wasn't likely to be successful because it couldn't really replicate the actual feeling of 'of getting rich, of bankrupting others, not just others but family members,' Ferreira said. 'And do it in a way where the stakes are low, where it felt very playful and fun.' Early iterations of a mobile version were 'too skill-based. We didn't see audiences reacting positively to that," especially for a game that relies so heavily on luck and dice rolls, Ferreira said. Other early versions weren't social enough. 'That's kind of a key idea,' Ferreira said. 'It's a game that's fun, not just because of the mechanic itself, but because of who you are playing it with.' One key in unlocking a successful mobile take on a very well established board game was optimizing it so people could easily play with friends and family in 'your real social graph,' rather than 'the social graph inside the game," Ferreira said. That social web of connections helped encourage people to keep coming back repeatedly over weeks and months, and now, years. Now, some 10 million players access the game daily, according to Scopely. And Ferreira said that while a $70 million development budget seems steep, 'you can't complain. In free-to-play live services, when you're thinking about titles that can have a life cycle of 10 or 20 years, how much you invest in development isn't that expensive. (Focus instead on) how do you make a good game? Your investment will always be really good." The company, like all operators of live-service mobile titles, relies heavily on data to track what's working for which players, and constantly adjust its various parameters. 'How do you use data to listen to what players are telling you, so you can continually evolve the game and make it better every day,' Ferreira said. Such constant tuning is more vital than ever in a highly competitive fight for players' attention, not just from all those other games on mobile and other devices, but also social media, traditional media, live events, sports, music and so much else. The game business has been severely challenged the past couple of years, after the peri- and post-pandemic game-playing rush abated beginning around 2023. People are back to many parts of their old routines and ways to spend their leisure time, cutting game time notably for many. That makes careful construction of games to maximize engagement vital, said Nate Jones, vice president of corporate strategy and development for Sony Interactive Entertainment, the PlayStation unit of Sony. 'Consumer media time is plateauing,' Jones said, speaking at Monday's Los Angeles Games Conference legal & finance summit. 'Games have avoided (problems with) that, but they may not in the future. There's been no net new growth, and more competition for audiences than we have seen a few decades.' Ferreira said Monopoly Go!'s monetization structure isn't 'particularly unique,' but it was built around two big key performance indicators: 'an incredible long-term retention curve for the game that was better and higher than we had ever seen here at Scopely. The second thing that's driven success is the virality, the social dynamics in the game. Those social dynamics have been key to driving retention, but also downloads.' FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder The game's success over the past two years wasn't a big factor in the $4.9 billion 2023 acquisition of Scopely by Saudi-backed Savvy Games, Ferreira said, but it certainly has made the transition to Savvy ownership a much easier experience. 'It mattered not so much pre-acquisition, but post-acquisition, it allowed Savvy to feel pretty great about the investment they've made," Ferreira said. It's worked so well that that Scopely just announced another big deal, buying Niantic's game unit for $3.9 billion. That deal brings rights to augmented-reality pioneer Pokemon Go among much else. To help keep Monopoly Go! top of mind with different slices of its audiences, the company has done multiple cross-over deals, including with Marvel and, beginning today, a two-month collaboration with another big Disney brand, Star Wars (see trailer at end of story), said Ferreira. Monopoly Go's first-year success, when it topped $3 billion in revenues, was invoked multiple times by LA Games Conference panelists. 'You couldn't get two more different studios, but Scopely and (Baldur's Gate III maker) Larian Studios understood what their communities needed, and delivered,' said Eugene Evans, a former long-time executive at Hasbro (which has owned the Monopoly IP for years) and founding principal of Infinite Ventures. One advantage Monopoly Go! had is what Evans called 'a 90-year first-time user experience. They have been training people to play Monopoly for many years. Many players who paid there (for in-game assets) have never paid for an online game before. That game broke through all expectations. Nobody knew it was going to do $3 billion in its first 12 months.' Both L:arian and Scopely, in building very different kinds of game experiences for PC and mobile respectively, understood that merely delivering a good game wasn't enough, Evans said. In each case, giving players reasons to keep coming back, keep sharing about the game, and keep recruiting friends and family to join them, was crucial for long-term success. 'People only have two things, disposable money and disposable time,' Evans said. 'It used to be (the formula for success was), 'How many products can we sell them.?' Now, it's, 'How much time can we get them to spend?'' Evans also suggested that Monopoly Go! and similar well-constructed, easy-to-learn mobile games have been riding a wave of democratization in who plays games these days, even if they don't identify as 'gamers.' 'The average age of gamers is 25 years older now than it was 25 years ago,' Evans said. 'We're all gamers now. We've all grown up with it. That includes people who play Candy Crush or Monopoly Go! every day, and they'll still say, 'No, I'm not a gamer.''
Time of India
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Pokemon Go Applin evolution guide: How to get Flapple and Appletun
Applin has finally made its debut in Pokemon Go , bringing its unique evolution mechanics to the mobile game. This Grass/Dragon-type Pokemon can evolve into two distinct forms—Flapple and Appletun—but the process isn't as straightforward as simply collecting Candy. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Here's everything you need to know about catching Applin and evolving it into its powerful forms in this game. Pokemon Go Applin evolutions explained Applin is part of a special group of Pokemon with branched evolutions, meaning it can transform into different forms depending on the items used. Currently, two evolutions are available in Pokemon Go: - Flapple – A more offensive-oriented evolution - Appletun – A bulkier, defensive evolution A third evolution, Dipplin, exists in the main series games, but it hasn't been introduced in Pokemon Go yet. How to get Applin in Pokemon Go Applin was first introduced during the Sweet Discoveries event, which ran from April 24 to April 29, 2025. Currently, you can obtain Applin through the following methods: - Wild spawns – Applin can appear in the wild. - Research rewards – Available as a reward from paid Timed Research. - Apple encounters – Apples found in the wild may also lead to Applin encounters. Future updates might introduce Applin in raids, eggs, or free research tasks, but for now, these are the only ways to catch it. How to evolve Applin into Flapple and Appletun How to find Applin in Pokémon GO! Evolving Applin requires both Candy and special items: Here's your table: Evolution Candy Required Item Required Flapple 200 Candy 20 Tart Apples Appletun 200 Candy 20 Sweet Apples Tips for collecting enough Candy: - Use Pinap Berries to double Candy from catches. - Transfer extra Applin to Professor Willow. - Set Applin as your Buddy to earn Candy while walking. How to collect apples in Pokemon Go Apples are a new key item required for Applin's evolution. Here's how to get them: - Wild encounters – Apples can appear while exploring. Tapping them rewards Sweet Apples, Tart Apples, or even Applin encounters. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now - Mossy Lure Modules – Increase the chances of finding apples when active. Key differences between Flapple and Appletun While both evolutions share the Grass/Dragon typing, they serve different battle roles: Stat Flapple (Max CP: 2788) Appletun (Max CP: 2772) Attack High Moderate Defense Moderate High Stamina Moderate High Move differences: - Flapple has access to Fly, a Flying-type move. - Appletun can use Astonish, a Ghost-type move. - Both share strong Grass and Dragon-type attacks like Bullet Seed, Seed Bomb, Dragon Pulse, and Outrage. Can Applin, Flapple, and Appletun be Shiny? Currently, Shiny Applin, Flapple, and Appletun are not available in Pokemon Go. Niantic typically releases Shiny versions later in special events. When they do arrive, expect their usual red coloring to shift to a green Granny Smith apple theme. Also read: That covers everything you need to know about evolving Applin into Flapple and Appletun in Pokemon Go. Keep an eye out for future events that might introduce Shiny variants or new evolution methods!
