"This is like a stepping stone for doing more things in India": Niantic on Pokemon GO City Safari Mumbai and more

With Pokemon GO City Safari Mumbai 2025 being the first such event for India, there was no way I, or Sportskeeda Gaming, was going to miss out on a chance to be part of the festivities. While my event report talks in detail about the proceedings and my experiences, there's no doubt that the City Safari well exceeded expectations.

Amidst the festivities, I had the good fortune of sitting down with Sundarraman Ramalingam, India Manager, Niantic Inc. and Rafael Siregar, Head of APAC Emerging Markets, Pokemon GO, at the Pokemon Fiesta. They shared insights on Pokemon GO's expansion in the subcontinent, hosting local events here and in emerging markets, and plenty more.

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Sitting down with Rafael Siregar and Sundarraman Ramalingam on City Safari Mumbai, Pokemon GO India, and more

Q: What drove the choice of Mumbai as India’s first such Pokemon GO event? Are there other cities penciled in for future events that you can share?

Sundarraman: We wanted to do Mumbai because we got a great reception for the game in the city. We have our biggest Pokemon GO community in Mumbai. It’s also closer to some of the other centers, like Bangalore, Pune, and Gujarat. It’s much more accessible than, say, something like Delhi. All of these factors - how accessible the game is for players and how the community is in Mumbai - led us to actually choose Mumbai.

Apart from that, this is a great city to explore for someone coming from outside of India - all the way from food, culture, and historical sites. I think this is a great starting point for us.

When it comes to having more events, we definitely want to. We have gotten a great reception for this event, and this is like a stepping stone for doing more things in India. Hopefully, we will see a lot more in the coming years.

Angshuman: Any potential cities already being looked at?

Sundarraman: Again, it will be one of the top cities where we have a larger gamer base already, say, like Bangalore or Delhi.

But that’s a conversation for later when we are looking at other factors as well - maybe even the local weather, the climate when it comes to, and whether we can set up the event there in terms of permission. We have to look at all of that, and only then will we be able to finalize. But it's definitely in the cards.

Q: When we compare the Indian cities to cities like Seoul, New York, Barcelona, etc, we can notice a visible difference in Pokemon GO point of interests. I also saw a similar difference when I visited Jakarta last year.

Is this solely because of player count? Does this impact the quality of real-life events that the company can host in Indian cities?

Sundarraman: To the point of PoIs, this was a major concern for our players a couple of years back. Back in 2023, we did our Hindi launch. During that time, we did the largest ever ingestion of PokeStops ever in the world in India - a million plus PokeStops were ingested.

While the density can still be better in certain places, the hotspots where the community is playing right now are quite good, and the playability is also quite good. It’s one of the best in the world as well. And, we have a very active community that gives us feedback on where to set up these PokeStops - the Wayfarer challenge.

We call it the Wayfarer - you can go there and nominate PokeStops. Recently, we had a similar challenge in India. As you do that, we will keep increasing PokeStops.

Finally, we want our players to have the best possible experience. Maybe it's still not on the level of some of the cities you mentioned, but we have come a long way from where we started, and we will keep growing.

Pokemon GO City Safari Mumbai Gyms (Image via Angshuman Dutta)

Rafael: The layout of the city itself. Jakarta and New York, for example, are very different. Jakarta is significantly less walkable than New York. And we always take our player safety in mind.

So, could we increase our density? Yes. But we also don’t want our players potentially playing in areas that are unsafe. There’s always that consideration, and that’s how we were able to ingest those PoIs that really made sense.

Hopefully, we will get more community nominations, especially not only in the major cities but also in the smaller, outer rural areas. That’s definitely a focus. But that’s why you see so much variance in different cities.

Q: Building on the previous question, how much did the remote raid nerfs impact the Indian and other emerging markets in the APAC region, if at all?

Sundarraman: During COVID, all games saw a boost, and Pokemon GO was no exception. We also saw a huge boost in terms of player engagement and our player base. Post-COVID, when things went back to normalcy, the entire gaming industry saw a bit of a correction. I wouldn’t attribute all of that to remote raid nerfs.

It’s more of people going back to their normal everyday life. Yes, there was negative feedback - a global sort of concern. But at the end of the day, we are looking at what is the best possible experience for our players. When we look at that, the decisions did make sense.

Because we wanted to promote real-world connections and interactions. The goal has always been social interaction, and you play with friends and communities. And we have seen our communities sort of double in the last couple of years.

We are seeing footfalls that we have never seen before, and that’s the USP of the game. Sticking to what made the game hugely successful to start with, it was just going back to that. And we are seeing great reception now.

Q: Speaking strictly from my perspective back in Kolkata, India, I saw a noticeable fall in player count from the first few years of the game’s availability in the country to now.

Back then, I would see groups of people roaming about the city, especially at the hotspots, in chase of some Pokemon. Is this the actual case across India? If yes, what’s the company planning to do to not just sustain the current player base but attract more users at the grassroots level?

Sundarraman: During the initial phase, that’s the sort of hype there was all over the world. We had Shah Rukh Khan posting about it. We had Anushka Sharma and Priyanka Chopra posting about it. So that kind of organic reach is hard to go back to - this sort of a launch craze.

But, nine years down the line, we are still looking at a very strong user base and we are still looking at a growing user base in India. The potential for growth is exponentially more, given we have 400-450 million mobile gamers. When it comes to connecting to them, that’s what we have been doing.

The last couple of years, we started with the launch of Hindi in-game for all players to use. We started doing local events like the Festival of Colors for Holi and the Festival of Lights for Diwali. We brought Pikachu in saree and kurta.

What we are doing is getting the game more accessible to the local players, telling them, “Hey, we are listening to you, we are here for you.” The first ever flagship event for Pokemon GO in India comes to Mumbai after nine years, showing the commitment we have to our player base and also the reception we are getting after a year and a half of investing in the market.

Compared to last year and the years before, we are seeing more people come out to play. The community doubled from 24 to 50+ last year, and we are in 30+ cities right now. We are just hoping to double down on this, keep doing local events, enable local players, and make it more friendly for people to play.

Rafael: Pokemon GO, at the end of the day, is nine years old. Obviously, like with any game that has been out for so long, you will see a slowdown. But like Sundarraman said, the reception we have seen in India is overwhelmingly positive. It signals to us that we can do more events like this.

We wouldn’t have done an event like this had the market not signalled a degree of demand. I think when we are talking about growth, we are definitely seeing it. Everything that you are seeing happening - our influencer strategy and our market strategy for our offline events - all kind of reinforces that.

Q: In India, cities may not be as pedestrian-friendly as other countries where Pokemon GO regularly holds major in-person events. Do you think this is a deterrence in the growth of the game’s ecosystem in the subcontinent?

Sundarraman: Infrastructure is something that, of course, India is not at par with when it comes to some of the other developed nations. But our players are also very creative. Even now for City Safari, if you now go and see people playing, they have found places which are safe to play - malls and parks.

Of course, a lot can be done to improve the conditions of the infrastructure and playability across India, but given that we have communities going across to these very safe hotspots, that should help players play the game in a fun and safe manner.

Rafael: That’s also our job as managers of the market - to have that close coordination with the community members. We often talk to the communities about where they play. We identify key malls and key areas that we can support them with our in-game infrastructure and backend.

That’s a consistently evolving dialogue that we have on a monthly basis. We are always trying to make our game as playable as possible. Each country is very different. Even within emerging markets, we have Latin America, countries like Brazil, and maybe their infrastructure isn’t also that great, but they identify parks, malls, and similar stuff.

So the way someone plays in New York is probably very different than people in India. But that’s why we have a team here to support that. And that’s why it’s also really important that we hire locals. Locals really understand the behavior, and we support that through the way we build the in-game infrastructure.

Angshuman: When you are talking about talking with locals here, are you referring to the Community Ambassadors?

Sundarraman and Rafael: Yes, the Community Ambassadors.

Angshuman: And do you also look at player feedback?

Sundarraman: We do look at player feedback. Not just through the ambassadors, but all of us go to the Community Days. The Pokemon GO community, like every other gamer community, is very vocal. There are WhatsApp groups and Campfire groups.

We do receive and monitor feedback. If there’s a bug or any issue that comes up, we flag it and get it resolved within a few hours. We are very cognizant in this matter - listening to player feedback and trying to implement whatever we can to improve the player experience.

Q: Compared to other emerging markets in the Asia-Pacific region, has there been any particular or unique challenge while growing Pokemon GO further in India?

Rafael: I think after entering multiple markets - Indonesia, Saudi, Thailand - the strategy has always been the same. I would also say that maybe India has been more giving than the other market - meaning to say, we don’t have any other market where we have saree and kurta because that’s two traditional costumes that have been so well received.

We have two live event festivals that were also well received by the players. I wouldn’t say there was anything actually surprising. Would you say there was anything too difficult? (addressing Sundarraman)

Sundarraman: The awareness of the Pokemon brand is something that could have been better in India. Mainly because it was exposed to people of a much older generation while growing up, through cartoons or even cards.

Angshuman: But they were fake (laughs).

Sundarraman: They were fake, yeah. I think there was a period when Pokemon did not have as much brand presence in India. And Pokemon GO being a game that also is a part of the Pokemon IP - the more awareness of Pokemon there is, the bigger our game becomes.

Compared to some of the other markets, our awareness for the overall Pokemon brand could have been better, especially in some of the Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. Tier-1 cities still are better in that aspect. That’s why The Pokemon Company is very focused on India. They are here with us for the Fiesta in this mall.

They, alongside us, launched the saree and kurta Pikachu. It’s this sort of close synergy that The Pokemon Company, as a wider brand, and Pokemon GO sees India as a key market.

Q: Late last year, I was in Mumbai witnessing the reveal of Pikachu in a kurta and a saree, among other news. If memory serves right, Indonesia got Pikachu in Batik last year. What’s the driving force behind organizing such events with local flavor both in India and in other such countries?

How successful would you deem the process has been till now? And, might we see a similar tour to Pikachu’s Indonesia Journey in India?

Rafael: Like Sundarraman said, it’s all about market penetration. How do we see these countries with a huge amount of population that does not have the same awareness as Japan or the US? How do we do it in a respectful way, and also enter it in a way so the market knows that we are paying attention to them?

Giant Pikachu at Pokemon GO City Safari Mumbai (Image via Angshuman Dutta)

The best way we did that was to represent Pikachu, the company mascot, in a way that reflects the heritage of the country. In terms of events like these, Pikachu’s Indonesia Journey was built upon a close-knit relationship with the Ministry of Tourism in Indonesia.

The strategy was driven by the key cities that the administration wanted to push for tourism. That’s why we were able to do those four events back-to-back, which had never been done before. That’s the challenge we have in India right now. What we really want to aspire to do is to obviously recreate that. But we can't do that ourselves.

We need some sort of a government entity to really be supporting us to grow that. We are more than open. Based on the reception we have seen so far in the country, I think it will just be as successful, if not more successful, here.

Angshuman: Do you guys reach out to the government about this, or are you just open for collaboration?

Rafael: I think we have actually had talks and reached out. For Indonesia specifically, during the Bahasa Indonesia launch, we actually reached out to the minister himself. Because in our event, we had invited them. We had a discussion, and that discussion really evolved into how do we grow tourism.

You can see around you and notice the international faces that are coming to this event (referring to City Safari Mumbai), which really shows that our events can bring in international tourism. The level of contribution and support was really driven by the minister, including how big he wanted it to become. It's a two-way street.

Sundarraman: We have had some discussions (talking about India), but we will have to make much more progress if we want to see something as big as Pikachu’s Indonesia Journey. And as Rafael mentioned, it’s a two-way street that we have not yet been able to crack. It’s something that we are looking at proactively and are very open to. We definitely want to try to bring it to India.

Rafael: And as I understand, the administration also has a really big push now for tourists.

Sundarraman: Yeah, yeah, in the Budget (referring to Union Budget 2025-26) as well, our finance minister mentioned that tourism is sort of a big hotspot for India to grow. I think Pokemon having deep penetration in developed markets can really significantly do that.

Even for this event, if you go out and see somewhere at 4 pm or 5 pm, you will see a lot of foreign tourists - people coming in from Japan, the US. And this is just the first event, a Pokemon GO event.

So when we start doing wider, larger events, you will see a lot more people open to coming to India for Pokemon, and also to experience the local culture and take it all back. We would love to do this, but I think there’s a lot of work ahead of us to get there.

Rafael: I would also add to that since you brought up Pikachu’s Indonesia Journey - when we host these events, not only are we growing our brand's numbers, but we are also making an economic impact.

For Indonesia, we generated about 10 million USD in incremental revenue for Jakarta from all the tourists that came down. Of that 10 million USD, about 1.5 million USD was directly tax revenue for the government.

There are a lot of benefits of hosting this. We make sure that partnering with the government is not a one-way street of us just saying 'give us facilities,' but also for them to understand that this is something that will also benefit them as well.

Sundarraman: We are hoping something similar will come out of City Safari Mumbai as well. And that builds a stronger case for us to do more.

Q: Pokemon GO has been criticised in recent years for paywalling a lot of content, including special Pokemon. Do you think event tickets and paywalled content fare among Indian and other such emerging market player bases?

Rafael: I think the way we always approach this is - at the end of the day, we are a business, so we have to monetize. If you ask me on a personal level, I don’t think we monetize as predatorily as other games, like gacha ones. Another thing we put a really big emphasis on in emerging markets is doing localized pricing - finding a pricing that is in consideration with our player base.

So when we launched in Hindi, we saw that 100 PokeCoins was about 1 USD, which maybe in more affluent markets is affordable, but that’s not sustainable, right, and not a way to grow the game. We actually looked at player feedback on how much they have an appetite to pay, and we adjusted the coins. Now, our coins are what?

Sundarraman: I think 100 PokeCoins are about 29 INR. That’s the lowest in the world. We are looking at individual markets. We are not like other games where the pricing or the model is much more predatory. We are listening to players, and we are seeing what is feasible for each country and localising accordingly.

Pokemon GO Community in Kolkata (Image via Angshuman Dutta)

Q: Has the recent business acquisition from Niantic to Scopely changed/impacted the plans already in motion? What can we, as players, expect from this change?

Sundarraman: From a gameplay standpoint and commitment to both players and India, there will be nothing that changes because of the acquisition. City Safari Mumbai has been in the plans for months now, and even after acquisition, we are going about business as usual.

We are executing our events, and we will continue to do so. From a player and gameplay standpoint, we will still be committed to players, and there will be no changes.

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