Pokemon Go Trading and Game Update

Pokemon Go has been blowing up since its initial release in the Australia, New Zealand, and USA. In a short time the newest game in the beloved franchise has over 15 million downloads. This number is certain to multiply once the game has its global release.

Many users have noted that the game has limited features to push game play. However, this hasn’t stopped players from dropping loads of real money on the game. Forbes estimates that Pokemon Go is making $1.6 million a day from Apple’s App store alone.

With this kind of revenue developer Niantic Labs should have plans to push content forward and keep their user base hooked on the game. So far Niantic has teased a couple of features they are looking to implement in a future game update.

Pokemon Trading

According to Niantic CEO John Hanke, Pokemon Go is set to receive bi-weekly updates to improve function and play-ability. Pokemon trading is being touted as a core feature for future versions of Pokemon Go. When the ability to trade rolls out you can expect players to go crazy. Adding an extra layer of social interaction between players will help keep them involved in the game and avoid burnout. This also gives Niantic the ability to add region specific monsters (or region specific legendaries) to the game. Players would need to capture rare monsters from their country and trade them for rare pokemon only obtainable overseas. Whether the game is taken down this route remains to be seen. What we do know is that trading will be a prominent feature.

Updated PokeStops

It was also announced that pokestops will be receiving an upgrade. At release, pokestops serve as destination centers where players can congregate to fill up on items like pokeballs and eggs. In the future pokestops will be able to be upgraded to provide additional items and features. Players would need to work together to unlock these features.

Leaderboards

An additional feature that has been teased is the addition of leaderboards into Pokemon Go. Players would be able to compare their rankings on a regional or global level and see how strong they really are. The bragging rights would be a strong motivation for people to level up and catch more pokemon than their friends. The ranking would likely be based on account level and pokemon CP (combat points).

Unfortunately there is no timeline for these updates. The developer has been fairly secretive about the Pokemon Go release date so we can expect the update timeline to be fairly hush-hush as well.