Pokémon and Harry Potter AR games pushing real world events; TETRIS swaps apps

There’s good news and bad for iPhone gaming fans today. On the plus side, there are more real-world Pokémon Go and Harry Potter events on the way. On the downside, you won’t be able to play the official EA version of Tetris for much longer, even if you paid for it…

VentureBeat reports on this year’s upcoming Niantic events.

Pokémon trainers can look forward to an array of Pokémon Go events taking place throughout the first half of the year and across the globe including:

• Taiwan Lantern Festival in Taichung — February 6-9
• Pokémon Go Safari Zone St. Louis — March 27-29
• Pokémon Go Safari Zone Liverpool — April 17-19
• Pokémon Go Safari Zone Philadelphia — May 8-10

Harry Potter: Wizards Unite players can look forward to joining the second Fan Festival later this year. Additional details on the event will be announced soon here.

Niantic claims that its 2019 real-world Pokémon events generated almost a quarter of a billion dollars in tourism revenue.

• We held 77 live events in 32 different countries
• Players from 60 countries across six continents attended an event
• We celebrated with 2.7 million attendees
• $249 million in tourism revenue across Chicago, Dortmund, and Montréal

Niantic did OK from Pokémon Go too, generating close to a billion dollars in revenue from the game.

Gizmodo reports less happy news for Tetris fans, however.

In a stark reminder that you rarely actually own anything you buy digitally, Electronic Arts’ iOS Tetris games will not only be disappearing from the App Store on April 21, but the games themselves will no longer be playable on iPhones and iPads — even if you paid for them.

Before you pick up a pitchfork, however, it appears developer EA may have no choice: It’s losing its license for the game.

The game developer has for years licensed the title from the Tetris Company, which last summer announced it had signed a multi-year deal with a company called N3TWORK that would exclusively develop and publish Tetris games optimized for mobile platforms. The deal may still allow EA to develop Tetris titles for other platforms, but smartphones and tablets are no longer an option.

The N3TWORK version of Tetris is now available from the App Store. It’s free, but requires a $4.99 in-app purchase if you want to remove ads.