Pokémon Go’s staggered global release has meant that a lot of Android users have resorted to installing the game via APK file rather than wait for their local Google Play Store. The game came out in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States last week, and over the past few days Germany and the UK joined in. However, that doesn’t mean people elsewhere can’t play it yet. As the craze spread, so did the various pirated copies, which have been downloaded millions of times already. The Internet today is littered with unauthorized Pokémon Go files and guides explaining how to install the game on various platforms. Nintendo is obviously not happy with this black market distribution and sent several takedown notices to Google Blogspot and Google Search this week, asking Google to remove the pirated copies and APKs from number of websites that currently host them. Certainly, it’ll be impossible for Nintendo to remove all APKs from the web, especially because the files are also stored in locations that aren’t necessarily known for serving files to Android users, and the majority of players have already downloaded the APK and saved it locally on their devices. Nintendo probably has good reasons to roll Pokémon Go out gradually, but the best anti-piracy strategy is obviously to make the game available worldwide as quickly as possible.
