Online GO Fest an overwhelming success
Back in June, Niantic CEO John Hankeannounced that his companywould be donating $5m USD in revenue to support a range of black gaming initiatives, projects and communities. However,Pokémon GOFest 2020 – held on Niantic’s AR title this past weekend – proved such a huge success that the companywill now double its donationto $10m.
PokémonGOFest usually sees players from around the world gather together for a physical weekend of fun and critter-hunting, but the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic forced the annual event to go all-digital this year. However,as reported by Eurogamer, this did not discourage would-be trainers, as “millions” of players from over 120 countries spent an astounding $25 million in-game during the weekend of July 24-26. These numbers boostPokémon GO‘s yearly revenue to around $540m, with its global lifetime revenue reaching $3.7bn.
While Niantic is yet to state specifically how the $10m donation is to be divided, it had previously said that half of the money would go toward funding black gaming projects and creators that can live on the Niantic platform, while the remaining half would be spent on supporting local black communities and businesses. In addition, Niantic has made a donation to theMarsha P. Johnson Institute, an organisation dedicated to protecting and defending the rights of black trans people. Niantic is also in the process of creating a new training programme to better educate its employees in combating systemic racism.
“It is up to non-Black allies to educate ourselves and each other,”said Hanke back in June. “We hope this diversity and inclusion training can help provide the tools and resources to make us all better allies… Lastly, we will take a public stand in support of the Black community and reject white supremacy, racism, and police brutality.”
PokémonGO is available now on iOS and Android devices.
Pokemon GO creator Niantic doubles Black Lives Matter donation to $10m[Eurogamer]
