Are statistics behind Pokémon Go's success?

A new article highlights how statistics are deeply involved within the algorithms that made Pokémon Go the hit it has become.

With modeling and statistical geo analysis seen almost everywhere in Pokémon Go, the game has led to a growing interest in statistical and data mining tools, which will likely lead to improved games and apps that rely on statistics.

"Though statistics have been used in video games for some years now, Pokémon Go took it to a new level: it not only uses statistics, it is founded on statistics," said Carlos Grajales author of the Statistics Views article. "Developed by experts in geo analytics, this game turned out to be a huge success in no small part by its clever use of data. Game development is yet another field that statistics are changing for good."