‘Harry Potter: Wizards Unite’ Off to Slower Start Than ‘Pokemon Go’

By Janko Roettgers

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Niantic’s new location-based augmented reality game “Harry Potter: Wizards Unite” is off to a solid start — but it doesn’t seem to have quite the same momentum as “Pokemon Go” did when it launched 3 years ago. That’s according to initial estimates from app analytics specialist Sensor Tower.

“” first became available to consumers in the U.S. and the U.K. Thursday, a whole day ahead of its scheduled launch . Within 24 hours, the game had been downloaded an estimated 400,000 times, according to Sensor Tower.

That was enough to shoot to the top of the U.S. and U.K. App Store charts, while it has been ranking 6th among Android app downloads on Google Play in the U.S. During those 24 hours, the game brought in some $300,000 in revenue  across the 2 app stores, according to Sensor Tower estimates.

That’s impressive, but not quite reaching the level of “.” That game was downloaded over 7.5 million times within 24 hours of its launch in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand in July of 2016, according to Sensor Tower estimates. During that time, it brought in over $2 million through in-game add-ons, the company estimated Friday.

The notion that “Wizards Unite” may not be able to break “Pokemon Go” records is backed by estimates from App Annie, another app analytics company. App Annie predicted this week that “Wizards Unite” would reach $100 million in revenue within 30 days. “Pokemon Go” reached that same landmark number in just 2 weeks.

Then again, even that level of success would be remarkable. “Clash of Clans,” another breakout mobile gaming title, took a whole 300 days to arrive at $100 million in revenue.