Release: North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Hong Kong.

The world held its collective breath when Pokemon GO dropped, if only for a moment. Parents (and grandparents) raced their children to snatch the virtual critters on their radar.

It was hard to exaggerate what a social phenomenon the game instantly became. It doubled the size of mobile gaming market:

Source: App Genie

The servers quickly buckled under the weight of half a billion installs. The challenge then wasn't how to find or catch Pokemon, but just getting the app to work at all. Many sleepless nights were had at Niantic HQ.

The month closed with the first major combat overhaul for Pokemon GO. The meta back then was simply spam Water Gun, since it singlehandedly out-dps everything else available. The July 29th update rebalanced quick and charged moves to make charged moves worth using, a balance that would remain to this date. It helped push the fanbase to develop new analytics for studying optimal moveset combinations. First tier lists begin to come online soon after.