Pokémon Go Is Officially More Popular Than Tinder
Turns out people are more keen to catch a Zubat than get laid.
New data released by analytics firm SimilarWeb has shown that Pokémon Go is now more popular than Tinder. The smartphone game has taken the world by storm, taking over everyone’s social media feeds and even forcing police to issue warnings.
The SimilarWeb analysis shows that Pokémon Go has been installed on twice as many Android phones as the Tinder app. 60 percent of the people who have downloaded Pokémon Go are playing it daily, and users are spending more time on it than Instagram and Snapchat.
It’s likely that Tinder users are employing their well honed left/right swiping skills in Pokémon Go, which requires players to swipe up on the screen in order to catch wild Pokémon. Some sort of mashup Pokémon Go dating app seems like an obvious expansion, allowing users to catch and trade Bellsprouts and offer them as romantic gifts. Players could be allowed to inspect the Pokémon collections of different trainers before decided whether or not they were date material. The opportunities are endless.
At the current rate of growth Pokémon Go is expected to surpass Twitter in terms of daily active users within days. It’s an absolutely phenomenal result given the game was released less than a week ago.
The game has become so popular that armed robbers in the United States have used it to lure victims. According to a statement from the O’Fallon Police Department in Missouri, thieves used an in-game lure (which attracts wild Pokémon to the area) to rope in unsuspecting teenage victims and rob them at gunpoint.
The game’s soaring popularity is likely to cause continuing headaches for law enforcement, although it could also be a potential way to crowdsource police investigations. It’s unlikely Pokémon Go’s popularity will fade anytime soon because all serious trainers know that while catching wild Pokémon may be their real test, training them is their cause.