Pokemon Go's Pikachu Event Drew 2 Million Players, Here's How It Avoided Issues

Pokemon Go's series of summer live events got off to a rocky start with last month's Pokemon Go Fest in Chicago. Due to the high volume of attendees, the event was plagued by technical issues that prevented many players from being able to even log in to the game. Pokemon Go developer Niantic applied the lessons it learned from that meet-up for the game's most recent real-world event, last week's Pikachu Outbreak in Japan, which would turn out to be much more successful.

The event, which took place over the course of seven days last week in Yokohama, attracted over 2 million attendees, who would go on to catch over 120 million Pokemon. To prepare for the massive number of players, Niantic says it "had all of the major Japanese carriers on notice" and that the carriers "turned out in force to keep the data flowing."

Similarly, the developer organized the event to encourage players to continually explore. Niantic says it "carefully" distributed rare Pokemon such as Unown, Chansey, Larvitar, and Shiny Pikachu throughout the entire area, giving attendees an incentive to "move through the greater festival area rather than staying in a single location."

The event culminated in a battle with the game's newest Legendary Pokemon, Mewtwo. Niantic says this encounter, too, was "tightly scripted" to ensure it ran smoothly. The developer undertook special work in order to "segment the servers for this finale raid to enable the best play experience." As a result, the developer was able to avoid the problems that mired Pokemon Go Fest, and players successfully defeated the Legendary Psychic Pokemon and unlocked him in Exclusive Raid Battles in the near future.

More Pokemon Go live events are still planned this summer. Following a delay, players in Europe will be able to attend special Pokemon Go Safari Zone events at Unibail-Rodamco shopping centers across the continent this month. You can find the full list of participating cities here. Meanwhile, players have another chance to encounter the game's first four Legendary Pokemon--Lugia, Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres--in Raid Battles around the world until August 31. The rare Shiny Pikachu that premiered at last week's Pikachu Outbreak event is also available to capture worldwide.