Released 2016

100

Pokemon GO in 2019 is a game I shouldn’t care about. When it launched in 2016 it was in a lot of ways a mediocre experience. Outside of catching the original 151 Pokemon the game itself relied heavily on the nostalgia of the Pokemon franchise and augmented reality gimmick of having them show up in the real world. If you didn’t care about the IP, the game itself was very lacking. In 2019, the game is flooded with a multitude of tasks, activities, and events that can involve anyone from yourself to a large group of people. These additions create an experience that incentivizes users to be more dedicated to daily play without feeling like a grind. Friendship has been introduced and allows users to now exchange gifts, trade or even battle each other. Quests (research tasks as they are referred to in-game) have been added that reward items and even special Pokemon. Events now fill each month’s calendar with new (and sometimes shiny) Pokemon, exclusive rewards and new ways to play the game. There is even a burgeoning competitive PVP scene which gave Pokemon GO its first-ever appearance at the Pokemon World Championships this year.

The list goes on of all the mechanics and elements that make Pokemon GO a game that’s worth playing every day in 2019. As Andrew Goldfarb stated last year when we named Pokemon GO our hundredth game, “it is as relevant for what happens outside of the game as what happens in it,” and to this day that could not be more true. Few games in history have done as much to bring together communities of the most disparate interests, locations, cultures, etc as much as Pokemon GO has. The experiences I have had, the places I have gone and the people I have met because of Pokemon GO are all part of why it is still so special to this day. With the game having its highest-grossing month since launch, it's safe to say Pokemon GO isn't going...anywhere, especially not off of this list.