Pokémon Go has celebrated its 10th anniversary with a massive event in New York City's Times Square. On Thursday evening, nearly 2,000 players gathered to participate in a special battle against the legendary Pokémon Mewtwo. The event was one of the largest in-person battles in the history of the mobile game.
During the event, the famous digital billboards in Times Square went dark. Then, they lit up to show a giant, escaping Mewtwo that began to Mega Evolve. Players worked together on their phones to defeat and catch the virtual monster, bringing to life the ideas shown in the game’s first trailer from 2015.
Michael Steranka, a vice president of product at Scopely, which now owns Niantic’s games business, explained that hosting such a large local battle was once just a dream. Steranka recalled how different this was from the game's first live event in Chicago in 2017, which failed due to severe technical problems and network overloads. Instead of blaming individuals, the team worked together to learn from their mistakes and improve future events.
This strategy of building player communities has helped Pokémon Go grow. Since its launch in 2016, the game has been downloaded over 800 million times. In 2025 alone, the game made $1 billion in revenue. Ed Wu, the president of games at Scopely, said that the game succeeds because it brings people together across different cities and cultures.
The celebration continues this weekend with the global Pokémon Go Fest. Millions of players around the world are expected to join cooperative challenges and find special Mewtwo encounters in their own neighborhoods.