Pokemon GO Players Complaining Game Drains Battery Life

With Pokémon GO officially running in Australia and New Zealand, fans are flooding streets to catch their very own digital pocket-monsters. Fans, however, have found an unexpected issue with the game as they continue to play. Really, it’s a fact that shouldn’t surprise anyone: Pokémon GO is sucking the battery life out of mobile phones.

The highly anticipated game has surprised fans with how quickly the application runs down their phone’s battery. Nintendo is aware of the issue as the official Pokémon GO website acknowledges the problem on their troubleshooting page. The site explains, “Some devices may experience battery drain while playing Pokémon GO for prolonged periods of time. We are working on a solution.”

Yikes. Given the app’s real-time gameplay and reliance on GPS, it’s no shock that Pokémon GO drains mobile devices. Concerned players can visit the Pokémon GO Database to read up on battery conservation tips which suggest players adjust their screen brightness and monitor the app’s background usage. Of course, fans can also initialize their device’s battery saver option, but the jury is still out on whether doing so actually conserves any juice.

While initial reviews for Pokémon GO are overwhelmingly positive, fans are also sharing their thoughts on their battery woes via social media. Twitter has been flooded by irate fans who would rather be spending their time catching Pokémon than searching for a plug to charge up their mobiles.

User @Gauzunta wrote, “Never seen a game drain battery like Pokemon Go. Even my 6s loses 10% in 20 minutes – WITH the charger connected!” Similar words were shared by @filmgirl152 who said, “#PokemonGO – chewing up the battery and I don’t think I want to know how much data it’s downloading. But so much fun when out and about!!” However, these complaints fall short of keeping Pokémon fans from downloading the game. Despite the hassle, fans are all agreed in saying the game is definitely worth draining their batteries over.

While an update might be able to alleviate the issue sometime soon, for now, fans will just have to carry around chargers if they want to catch ’em all. And, for some reason, I’m guessing portable battery pack manufactures will be loving this issue while it lasts.