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

2,000 invitations were sent Pokémon Go players in the five boroughs of New York City through community ambassadors. (The event was designed to be invitation-only to avoid overcrowding what is already the busiest place in the world.) The players are only aware of the terrorist activity happening around Times Square, according to Mark Van Lommel, Scopely’s director of marketing.

At some point in the evening, notices went out at the game asking ticket holders to go to Times Square for a special event, where they were treated to a live EDM concert. Loud Luxuryafter that Mega Mewtwo Y took more shots and a united battle began. (Mega Mewtwo Y was eventually defeated.)

The event was featured on all Pokémon websites and community channels, and this week is a special one Pokémon Go Fest Global The virtual event will bring the same gameplay experience of Mega Mewtwo Y to all trainers, without the Times Square visuals. “Everyone in the world can play for free this week,” says Lommel.

Scopely says more than 800 million people have played Pokémon Go over the past decade, more than 1 trillion Pokémon have been caught so far. In 2024, it had more than 100 million players, and in 2025 it earned $1 billion in revenue. Daily exercise from active players is approximately 45 minutes, and players have traveled more than 62 billion miles in search of PokéStops and Pokémon.

Kim Adams, vice president of Game Development at Pokémon Gosays that in the past two years, the company has grown from 50 ambassadors—volunteer scouts who lead and organize real-world sports teams—to more than 3,000 worldwide.

In live action – the marquee feature that makes it unique among other mobile games-Pokémon Go sold about 1 million tickets in 2024. And since last year, the company says, it has seen a two-fold growth, playing daily by 10 percent and real searches by 29 percent.

Being able to handle thousands of players simultaneously participating in the show isn’t always smooth sailing. Howie Ragunton, an employee of the US Federal Aviation Administration who has been playing the game since its release in 2016, says he remembers the first Pokémon Go Fest in 2017 in Chicago, which was a disaster due to crowded cells and unstable servers. He said: “They have studied for many years.

PHOTOGRAPH: Julian Chokkattu