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Pokémon Go active player count highest since 2016 summer launch

And earned $104m in a month.

More people played Pokémon Go in May 2018 than at any time since the game's stratospheric summer 2016 launch.

That's according to new info from numbers company Superdata, which also reported the game made $104m (£78.7m) last month - up 174 per cent year-on-year.

Superdata initially included a specific player count for May 2018 - 147 million people - although this number has since been hidden from the report.

Its easy to imagine this number will rise further as summer rolls on and school holidays begin.

Snorlax will replace Articuno as July's 7-day task reward.

Two years on, Pokémon Go shows no sign of slowing down. After spending much of its first year trying to stabilise the smash hit game, developer Niantic has spent year two rolling out major features and in-game events at a much faster pace. The past six months have seen the arrival of weather-based gameplay, missions, and - last week - the long-awaited debut of in-game friend features and trading.

As ever, the launch was not without some technical difficulties - levelling up friendship properly is still bugged. (Come on, Niantic...)

Looking to the future, Pokémon Go is about to celebrate its second anniversary with three big real-life events: in Dortmund, Germany this weekend, in Chicago, US next month, and then in Japan in August, with attached in-game activities for players worldwide.

"No-one plays Pokémon Go anymore."