Thousands of ‘Pokémon Go’ Players Descend on Times Square to Defeat Mewtwo

Invites were sent out to 2,000 Pokémon Go players across the five boroughs of New York City through community ambassadors. (The event was made an invitation-only affair to avoid overcrowding in what is already one of the busiest places on Earth.) The players only knew about thematic raids happening in the vicinity of Times Square, according to Mark Van Lommel, Scopely’s director of marketing communications.

At a certain time in the evening, notifications went out through the game asking ticketed players to head to Times Square for a special event, where they were treated to a live EDM concert by Loud Luxury, after which Mega Mewtwo Y took over the many screens and a united battle kicked off. (Mega Mewtwo Y was ultimately defeated.)

The event was livestreamed on all of Pokémon’s websites and social channels, and this weekend a special Pokémon Go Fest Global virtual event will bring the same Mega Mewtwo Y gameplay experience to all trainers, sans the Times Square screens. “Everyone around the world can play that for free this weekend,” Lommel says.

Scopely says more than 800 million people have played Pokémon Go over the past decade, with more than 1 trillion Pokémon caught to date. In 2024, it had more than 100 million active players, and in 2025 it generated $1 billion in revenue. Daily engagement from active players is around 45 minutes, and players have walked more than 62 billion miles hunting for PokéStops and Pokémon.

Kim Adams, vice president of Game Development at Pokémon Go, says that in the last two years, the company has gone from 50 community ambassadors—vetted volunteers who lead and organize local real-world gaming groups—to more than 3,000 around the world.

For live events—a marquee feature that makes it unique among other mobile games—Pokémon Go sold nearly 1 million tickets in 2024. And since last year, the company says, it has seen double-digit engagement growth, with daily playtime up 10 percent and real-world exploration up 29 percent.

The capacity to handle thousands of players simultaneously participating in a raid hasn’t always been smooth sailing. Howie Ragunton, a US Federal Aviation Administration worker who has been playing the game since its release in 2016, says he remembers the first 2017 Pokémon Go Fest in Chicago, which was a disaster due to overloaded cell networks and unstable servers. “They’ve learned throughout the years,” he says.

PHOTOGRAPH: Julian Chokkattu