By: Isael Vega
April Fool’s
Pokémon Go initially began as an April Fool’s joke in 2014. Google presented it as a faux ad for the Google Maps: Pokémon Challenge. Google was looking for applicants for its new job role. “Pokemon masters are the world’s greatest digital explorers, and their passion for exploring will take our maps to the next dimension.” The idea came from Nintendo and The Pokémon Company in collaboration with Google. The trailer showed limited “gameplay” such as exploring the real world and catching Pokémon. These elements would become the core mechanics in Pokémon Go.

Niantic developed and released Pokémon Go in the summer of 2016. Although successful, the game had a rough launch with a multitude of server issues. These issues were due to the sheer amount of players overloading the servers. Regardless, the game continued to steadily grow and reached over 500 million downloads by the end of the year. Pokémon Go hit over 750 million global downloads in 2017. In order to celebrate this milestone (further monetize the millions of players) and the game’s first anniversary, Niantic announced its first real-world event, Pokémon Go Fest.