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Back in 2016, when Pokémon Go first launched in Japan, the popular augmented reality game began a collaboration with McDonald’s. As of tomorrow, that will end.
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When the tie-up first started, around 2,500 McDonald’s restaurants doubled as PokéStops, while another 400 or so were Pokémon Gyms. According to Nikkei, the result was store sales increasing as high as 27 percent.
In an official release, McDonald’s Japan announced that said collaboration would cease starting this Friday. On Saturday, all PokéStop and Gyms located in McDonald’s across the country will be deleted.
No reason was given for why the collaboration was ending, but the fast-food giant did thank players for using the PokéStop and Gyms at McDonald’s restaurants in Japan.
DISCUSSION
This happens in Niantic games when in-game endorsement deals end. This will happen when the Starbucks deal ends in the States too.
There were sponsored items in Ingress that became different items altogether after the endorsements ended, we had Circle-K Powercubes and Lawson Powercubes that both became “Hypercubes” after the endorsement deals with both companies were over.