Three countries rose in the same week: yet in Korea this is a game that is normally absent
On September 7th Pokémon GO reached #1 in Korea. It climbed in the US and Japan that same week. No other game in our five readings moved in all three countries at once. In Korea, though, that one week is the only time it shows up at all.
Ranks are read directly from the Apple App Store grossing charts (games, top 15 per country), taken once a week from August 17th to September 14th — five readings. This piece uses chart positions only, with no rating or review estimates. The App Store lists the publisher as Scopely Explore, Inc. in all three countries.
Every Monday morning we write down the grossing charts for Korea, the US and Japan. Lining up five of them, one row looked different from the rest. Pokémon GO went up in all three countries on September 7th, and came back down in all three the week after.
The same week, in all three
| Pokémon GO rank | 08-17 | 08-24 | 08-31 | 09-07 | 09-14 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇰🇷 Korea | outside 15 | outside 15 | outside 15 | 1 | outside 15 |
| 🇺🇸 the US | 7 | 8 | 7 | 2 | 8 |
| 🇯🇵 Japan | 11 | 7 | 11 | 1 | 10 |
One column on its own could be coincidence. Charts move every week, and three countries drifting a little in the same week is not remarkable. So we pulled every game that rose in each country that day and set them side by side.
| Country | Games that rose on Sept 7 |
|---|---|
| 🇰🇷 Korea | Lineage M 13→3 · MapleStory Idle 7→2 · Pokémon GO new at 1 · EA SPORTS FC Online M new at 9 |
| 🇺🇸 the US | Pokémon GO 7→2 · Evony 14→10 · Kingshot 9→7 · Whiteout 11→9 · Free Fire new at 11 · Match Factory new at 14 · Coin Master new at 15 |
| 🇯🇵 Japan | Pokémon GO 11→1 · Gossip Harbor 8→5 · Monster Strike 5→3 · Knives Out new at 4 · Pro Baseball Spirits A new at 10 · The Battle Cats new at 13 · Last War new at 15 |
Lineage M rose in Korea only, Monster Strike in Japan only, Evony in the US only. Pokémon GO is the one name that appears on all three rows. Three countries with different markets happening to move the same week is hard to put down to chance. That does not mean we can say why. An event, an update, a marketing push — the chart does not tell you which.
Only one game moved in all three countries in the same week.
In Korea it is normally absent
Put the three countries on the same lines, though, and they look quite different. The US stayed between 7th and 8th across all five readings, Japan between 7th and 11th. In those two countries this is simply a game that lives on the chart. Korea, apart from September 7th, is blank throughout.
We wondered whether that was unusual, so we counted the blanks for every game that appeared in all three countries.
| Game | Blank cells of 15 | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Pokémon GO | 4 | Korea only |
| Last War | 9 | all three |
| Royal Match | 0 | — |
| Whiteout Survival | 0 | — |
| Gossip Harbor | 0 | — |
Five readings × three countries = 15 cells. Only games that appeared in all three are counted.
Pokémon GO is not the only one with blanks. Last War has nine, more than twice as many. But the two sets of blanks mean different things. Last War's are spread evenly across the three countries, which is what being pushed out everywhere looks like. Pokémon GO's four are all in Korea.
Someone following only the Korean grossing chart would have seen this game appear from nowhere and vanish again. Someone watching the same chart in the US or Japan would say it has been sitting in the middle all along.
The spike left nothing behind
A weekly reading leaves the days between Mondays empty. We started taking the charts daily in mid-September, so we can fill some of that in.
| Pokémon GO daily rank | 09-17 | 09-18 | 09-19 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🇰🇷 Korea | outside 15 | outside 15 | outside 15 |
| 🇺🇸 the US | 6 | 6 | 8 |
| 🇯🇵 Japan | 5 | 7 | 11 |
From the daily charts — a separate record on a different cadence, which is why it sits apart from the table above.
Korea is still blank. The US eased from 6th to 8th, and Japan went from 5th to 11th in three days. The country that climbed hardest on September 7th is the one falling fastest now.
- Source — Apple App Store official charts (games, top 15 per country), quoted as published.
- When — five readings: Aug 17, 24, 31, Sept 7 and 14. Gaps of 7.3, 6.5, 7.0 and 7.0 days.
- “outside 15” — the title was not in the top 15 that day. We cannot say what rank it held, because the chart is only published to 15th place.
- Rank is not revenue — nothing here tells you the gap between #1 and #2.
- What we inferred — three countries moving in the same week points to something on the game's side. Whether that was an event, an update or marketing, we cannot establish, so we have not written it.
- Daily ranks — a separate record on a different cadence, kept in its own table.
- Unlike our other deep dives, this one uses no rating or review estimates. Full method and limits are in our data methodology. We do not reproduce game art or review text.
Correction (2026-09-19) — this piece first ran with six readings, including one taken on August 16th. That reading and the August 17th one are fifteen hours apart and cannot be counted as separate weeks, so the article now starts from August 17th with five. We also wrote that Pokémon GO was the only game with blank cells; Last War has nine. The distinction is whether the blanks sit in one country or across all three, and the text now says so.