Pokemon Go’s Halloween Event – Was it enough to bring back players?

Niantic rolled out its first player centric event since game launch, the Halloween event.  For the event (which at the time of this writing this writer still sees Halloween benefits even though it was to end 11/1/16) players received an assortment of Halloween treats; from higher spawn counts for Halloween type Pokémon’s, double candy points, and much shorter distances for buddy candy.  But was it enough to bring the masses back to the game?

From the player perspective, it seems to have been very player centric and beneficial to players.  This writer has seen more than he cares to in terms of Meowths, Ghastly’s, Hypno’s, Drowzee’s, and Haunters for sure but this was a great opportunity to use these hyper spawned Pokemon’s to do a few things:

1. Players have a chance to get some high evolution Pokemon’s they might not have prior to the event via evolving them or simply catching them
2. You can churn them into candies and level up very easy (add an egg and you’re talking massive EXP’s to get more than one level)
3. More EXP from simply catching all these Poke’s that spawn over the last few days.
4. MORE CANDY!
   1. Let’s be honest there was tons of candy to be had via the reduced buddy candy. Walk distance was cut by ¾ths!!!  This is HUGE for getting candy for the other hard to level Pokemon’s.

This was an awesome opportunity to really make out well in terms of leveling your player and your favorite Pokemon’s!

Now for Niantic and the business.  Did they benefit and what’s the chances for more events?  Looking at the recent press on the matter that answer seems to be a resounding YES!  Forbes.com reports that Niantic saw a 133% jump in revenue, the app creep back to the top of the Highest Grossing app chart, and goes on to reference data saying the revenue jumped 133%.  Another source Geek.com echo’s the statements from Forbes with pretty graphs and putting a value of about $23 million to the Niantic coffers.  Pretty impressive!

It seems there’s a very good chance players of Pokemon Go will benefit from future events based on the fact Niantic catered heavily to the players with the Halloween benefits and the positives to the company and app.   Let’s hope we can see either a Thanksgiving or Christmas event coming out soon!!

Let us know your comments and thoughts on the event!