Mobile game Pokemon Go has taken the world by storm. Spotify announced today that the game has triggered a spike in listening too, with more than triple the streams of Pokemon songs logged in the past week. Users of the streaming platform have also created 197,000 Pokemon-themed playlists. Pokemon Go is an augmented reality game where players walk around the real world to find and collect digital copies of the franchise’s pocket monsters on their phones. It has attracted hordes of players, and the mobile app has more downloads on Android than dating app Tinder, and it currently tops the free app chart on iOS.
Streaming services, and Spotify in particular, have become a fascinating touchstone for major cultural events. Following the last episode of the latest Game of Thrones season, music media touted access to the soundtrack on Spotify. The service has also done its own tie-ins to Game of Thrones and Star Wars. Watching how quickly Spotify has taken ownership of these bellweather moments is yet another indicator of its opportunism and its growing clout in the streaming music space.