Pokémon game that’s all about sleep hits 10 million downloads

tech.hindustantimes.com:

Pokémon Go made billions of dollars getting people to roam the great outdoors. Now, the company behind the global game phenomenon is trying to get people to go to bed.

Pokémon Sleep records and rewards your sleep with Pokémon that you'd otherwise have to spend many waking hours catching. Developed by Japanese games studio Select Button Inc. and published by The Pokemon Co., Pokémon Sleep was the most downloaded game during the week starting July 16, according to mobile data analytics firm data.ai. The game celebrated hitting 10 million downloads Friday by offering some in-game items for free.

Users play by sleeping with their smartphones close to their heads, and the game keeps track of vibrations caught by the phones' sensors to estimate sleep quality. The better your sleep metrics, the more creatures you collect.

You can also speed things up in the free-to-play game by buying in-app items to befriend more Pokémon, or by paying for a premium subscription that comes with bonus sleep points.

“I really make an effort to go to sleep at my set bedtime, which I never did before,” said Tomoki Toma, a 23-year-old from just outside Tokyo who's used Pokémon Sleep faithfully for more than four weeks.

Pokémon Sleep enters an arena crowded by health-oriented apps such as Calm, BetterSleep and Sleep Cycle. Pokemon, a joint venture owned by Nintendo Co., Creatures Inc. and Game Freak Inc., said it spent over four years on the game, trying out different game designs in an effort to add “an element of fun.”

But interest is waning as more users voice boredom about a game whose outcome is determined while the player is asleep. What's more, users can't transfer creatures they find in Pokémon Sleep to other games. Searches for the title have sunk