Image: The Pokemon Company.
The “Pokémon” series now has its biggest mobile hit since “Pokémon Go,” thanks to the massive launch of “Pokémon Unite,” a game whose announcement last year was met with derision from hardcore fans.
Why it matters: “Unite” is far from an underdog. It’s a flex by some of the most powerful companies and brands in gaming.
- It takes some of the world’s most popular fictional characters (Pokémon)...puts them in one of the world’s most popular video game genres (MOBA — lane-based competitive games involving competing squads of heroes, à la “League of Legends”)….in a game co-developed by one of the world’s most successful game studios in that genre (Tencent’s TiMi).
By the numbers: “Unite” has been downloaded more than 30 million times since its launch on mobile on Sept. 22, according to industry tracker Sensor Tower.
- That’s better than TiMi’s big MOBA “Honor of Kings,” which launched in 2015. Sensor Tower says that game has surpassed $10 billion in player spending.
- On its first day on phones, “Unite” claimed the No. 1 spot on most-downloaded app store lists in 62 countries, according to tracker App Annie.
- This is all after the free-to-download game had already launched on Nintendo Switch in July.
Fan skepticism had struck early: When “Unite” was announced last year, many “Pokémon” fans grumbled, downvoting the game’s debut trailer 161,000 times, before the Pokémon Company deleted it and re-uploaded it.
- The re-uploaded trailer was panned, too, with comments like: “Stop trying to make Unite happen. It's not going to happen.”
- But it turns out the game is quite fun, as Axios Gaming’s Megan Farokhmanesh recently attested.
What they’re saying: “I do genuinely think it’s great, but I’d say people have a love-hate relationship with it,” says Kotaku editor-in-chief Patricia Hernandez, a former colleague of mine who is one of the smartest (and entertainingly strident) Pokémon experts out there.
- Hernandez said some fans have struggled with the game, in part because the MOBA genre — which requires that players learn characters’ moves and understand how to function as a successful team — is very demanding.
- But some also flinched at the aggressive monetization schemes in the game, which pushed players to pay to advance and were toned down for the mobile launch.
- “The reality is that MOBAs are gruesome in terms of lows,” she noted. “But the highs!”