Everyone seems to be going nuts for Pokemon Go right now – but the game hasn’t rolled out to a number of countries, including China. That might explain why the top free game in China today on the Chinese iOS App Store is a Pokemon Go clone.
The knock-off game, City Spirit Go, features a creature in the app icon that looks like Pikachu crossed with a racoon.
It copies most of the ideas that form the smash-hit Pokemon Go. While there’s no augmented reality (AR) in it, it is location-based, requiring you to move around in order to discover and capture the Pokemon all around you. There’s a cartoony map in place of the AR seen in Nintendo’s game.
City Spirit Go is raking in money from in-app purchases, with the priciest virtual diamond package costing US$97.
Apple’s store is rife with rip-offs.
The developer, identified as Xiaoyu Sun in the App Store, has only published that one game. The app is doing well in users’ reviews, with most players apparently happy to hunt down kinda-sorta-Pokemon in an unsanctioned version of the game.
The Pokemon Go clone launched on March 24, a few weeks after Nintendo began a Japanese-only beta test of the game.
Apple’s store is rife with rip-offs of Nintendo’s game. One of them, called Go Catch ‘Em All, is currently the second most popular free iOS app in China. It’s a much more basic game than the Chinese one. The creator has a name that appears Vietnamese. It has overwhelmingly bad reviews.
See more on Pokemon Go:
- Pokemon Go still isn’t out in Japan – and it’s driving people crazy
- Pokemon Go is a major milestone for augmented reality
Converted from Chinese yuan. Rate: US$1 = RMB 6.69.
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