Is Pokémon the best new fitness app?
I originally posted this as a joke.
When the game first came out, I ended up walking all around San Francisco. I caught mostly Zubats, but racked up quite a few steps in the process.
There are a few great game mechanics that reward moving around, and pretty much require walking to get things done.
Walking can be used to incubate eggs, which come in 2km, 5km and 10km varieties. You will also need to go to city centers and other points of interest in order to catch Pokémon, battle at gyms and level up.
I began to wonder if this was actually a global phenomenon, finally making the world a much healthier place.
Many people I know didn’t actually play the game, or just briefly installed the app before finding the servers were down. On the other hand, the news was full of stories of crowds of people playing at odd hours. Thousands of people were RSVP’ing to events for catching Pokémon.
We decided to dig deeper to see if there has been a massive change in the world’s fitness levels since the game was released a few weeks ago.
We analyzed the average steps for Gyroscope users, which includes data from many integrations like Fitbit, Apple Watch, Google, or Jawbone.
Gyroscope Users
Daily Average Steps
It turns out most people are still moving roughly the same amount they were a month ago. Though Pokémon has taken over recent news and is the hot new app, it hasn’t dramatically changed how much the whole world is walking. It is probably not an instant solution to our obesity problem.
These results are not very surprising, since on average most people aren’t even playing the game—though sometimes it feels like it.
Even if almost everyone got the app and started playing, the battery drain of the app is immense. Without a battery pack, people could probably only add a few thousand extra steps for the day before their phone died.
Though not enough to move the average, many people are quite serious about the game. Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen many people share their steps for the day and attribute it to Pokémon.
There are tons of memes going around about it as well.
Anecdotally, there seems to be some examples of the game leading to increased physical activity.
Would we see that reflected in the data? If so, how much difference does it actually make? Are people going from zero to thousands of steps? Or are most of the players people who had already been active previously?
We reached out to some Gyroscope users who have been playing Pokémon to start a study of their steps. We asked to see their Pokédex to verify they have actually been playing. Most had discovered at least dozens of Pokémon and were between level 10 and 20 in the game.
Our sample of confirmed players is still quite small (let us know if you want to join), but enough to notice a meaningful trend after the game’s release.
Pokémon Players
Before & after release
Since the game was released a couple weeks ago, the average steps for a Pokémon player increased by about 3,000, from around 6k to 8–9k.
Fridays seem to be the highest days for Pokémon activity, rather than Saturdays like the average population.
Another thing to notice is the baseline steps were already higher for this group. Even before Pokémon came out, their daily steps were about 1k more than an average Gyroscope user.
With the Pokémon bump, the daily steps are nearing the recommended 10k amount, but still not quite there on some days. The game doesn’t make people into superhuman athletes, but does seem to increase daily steps by a few thousand. Any increase in activity is probably a good thing.
It remains to be seen what happens over the next few months. Will most of these people stop playing and return to their previous activity levels? Or will Niantic fix their server problems and take over the world, eventually increasing everyone’s daily steps by a few thousand?
Are you playing Pokémon and want to track how many steps you’re getting? Install the Gyroscope app to see the complete story of your life!
