10k installs in a month: a "where to grind" calculator for a newly launched Brazilian Pokémon web game

A developer credited as Liang made a free Chrome extension for PokeIdle, a Brazilian web game that officially launched on Sep 7, telling players "where is the most profitable place to hunt this Pokémon right now". In a month it reached 10k users, with 16 reviews all at 5 stars, and a game streamer sent it to viewers with a single chat command. It earned nothing; its growth depended entirely on the host game. What's worth studying is the cold-start approach, not the extension itself.

One command in a livestream chat

On Oct 2026 7, on the 30nd day after PokeIdle's official launch, an extension called "/hunt for PokeIdle" went up on the Chrome Store. It was Portuguese-only (Brazil), and the developer is credited as Liang.

A month later, in Brazilian streamer dersin2k's Twitch chat, typing !pokehunt got the bot to reply:

PokeIdle hunting extension -> chromewebstore.google.com/detail/hunt-for-pokeidle/…

This command sat alongside others: !pokeidle posted the game link with his own referral code, !pokesniper posted another extension that snipes cheap listings on the market, and !pokeutil posted a guide site, one of which was also made by Liang. The streamer promoted the game, earned referral rewards, and brought the tools along. (dersin2k's StreamElements command page, 11-06)

By Nov 6, the extension had 10,000 users, 16 reviews and a 5.0 rating on the Chrome Store; on Nov 1 it was still 8,000. It shipped 13 versions in a month, the latest on Nov 4 1.0.13. On Oct 11 it also came to Firefox, with 175 daily active users (Firefox add-ons site, 11-06).

What PokeIdle is

A Pokémon MMO that runs in a browser tab. The official site's first screen says: "Your Pokémon hunt on their own. You only choose where." Your Pokémon walks over, fights, and puts drops into the bag while you keep the tab open at work. The player's decisions boil down to three things, and the first is "choose where to hunt": the map has 752 hunting spots, each with different levels, types and drops.

The key is the second thing: drops can be turned into real money. Shiny Pokémon, Boss tokens, shiny stones, and legendary houses and bikes can be listed in the in-game player market for "Gema", a currency pegged to USDT. Once you hit 1,000, you can withdraw to a wallet via Solana, and the market takes 15%. In the example on the official site, a shiny Dragonite is listed at 12,400 Gema.

So "where to hunt" isn't a question of fun, it's a question of "how much can I earn per hour". There are 752 options, each Pokémon has different levels, IVs and moves, and on top of that there's a stack of XP bonuses (VIP, XP potions, guilds, bonuses for watching Twitch and Kick streams, events). No one can calculate that in their head.

The game's official Discord has 19,336 members, 6,371 online right now (via Discord's invite endpoint, 11-06). Players are mostly from Brazil's Tibia / PokeTibia scene, where words like "hunt" and "XP/h" are Tibia slang, and this crowd has spent a decade installing third-party tools to calculate hourly earnings.

The official tool exists, so why do players still install this?

The game has a built-in "Hunt Analyser", already in the October 2 archive of the official site, and it predates the extension. But it works one area at a time: you open a map, and it tells you how many XP and coins that area yields per hour on your account.

The extension sorts all 752 spots at once. The store listing is clear: click the /hunt bar above your Pokémon, and every spawn point is ranked by its yield for it, with each row showing Pokémon XP/h, trainer XP/h, kills/h, and coins/h, how long it takes to kill a wild Pokémon, how hard its strongest move hits you, whether it can one-shot you, and how many times you're expected to die per hour. The best spot is highlighted, along with the recommended move to use.

Three more things make it more accurate than similar tools, and make players willing to install it:

• It reads the game's live formulas and Pokédex directly. "When Pokémon are rebalanced or the curves change, F5 recalculates immediately, so you don't have to wait for an extension update."
• It gets more accurate the more you hunt. In the background it records where wild Pokémon respawn and how many you actually kill per hour; with AoE moves, it calibrates how many targets a move hits.
• It sends nothing out. "No data is sent anywhere, no login is required, and it only runs on pokeidle.io." In a game where the currency has real value, players' biggest fear is an extension stealing their account.

Where users come from

Everything comes from the game itself, at zero cost:

1. Good timing. It launched a month after the server opened, right when players move from "just grind randomly" to "start calculating yields."
2. Streamer chat commands. The game gives viewers XP and referral rewards, and Brazilian game streamers have an incentive to play it daily. dersin2k is a clear example I found; whether other streamers do the same wasn't checked one by one (inference: quite a few do).
3. Store search and related recommendations. Searching "pokeidle" ranks it first; the detail page cross-recommends other same-game extensions like Auto Hunt and /rate.
4. Discord word of mouth. I didn't find specific posts; this is an inference.

Searching "pokeidle" on TikTok turns up only videos of the game itself, peaking at a few thousand views, none covering this extension. On X there was zero discussion over two months. No ads, and no media coverage.

Where the money comes from: none

The extension is free with no in-app purchases. The developer's guide site has a Brazilian Pix tip button ("Apoie o dev!") and his game referral code, but that money is negligible.

But people in the same community are making money, and the direction is clear:

• Pokeiddle, an extension for the similarly named game Poke Idle World, handles macros and automated actions for R$19.90 / month.
• dersin2k sells their own multi-window split-screen tool aimed at "Idle RMT" players.

In other words, in idle games where the loot can be converted to cash, players are willing to pay for automation and multi-accounting, not calculators. The calculator brings in users; the money comes in the next step.

Who it's competing with

All the similar extensions come from individuals or small companies in Brazil that appeared in October, each roughly an order of magnitude smaller. It has become the default choice in this small community, and others copy it or build on top of it.

If it were you

The takeaway: don't build another spawn calculator inside PokeIdle, since that spot is taken. What's worth learning is the playbook: target a web game that just launched, has complex numbers, and drops loot that can be cashed out; be the first to ship a calculator embedded in the game, then move toward automation people will pay for. Grade C.

Who it suits: people who already play this kind of game, can write browser extensions, and can keep up with patches daily during the first few weeks after launch; people with a community in places like Brazil or Southeast Asia, where RMT online-game players are common, have an edge.

Who it doesn't suit: anyone who wants a product that earns money over the long run. The ceiling is the host game's player count (roughly 20,000 core players here), and if the game fades, the extension goes with it. If the developer changes an API or adds a "no third-party tools" rule, revenue can drop to zero overnight.

How to build it: the extension runs only on the game's domain, runs locally, requires no login, and states "doesn't touch your account" on the first screen of the listing; it reads live game data directly instead of copying the wiki, so it updates automatically after patches; the UI sits inside the game screen rather than opening a separate web page for users to fill in by hand. Once you have users, add paid features like auto map-switching, auto-supply, and multi-account management, priced against R$19.90/month. Automation requires understanding the game's rules first, and that is where the ban risk is highest.

How to get users: find streamers currently playing the game and make the extension something they'd willingly put in a !command (for example, leave room in the extension for their referral code); get into the official Discord's tools channel; put the game name in the store title so it ranks first when people search for the game.

When to get in early: publish within 2–4 weeks of the game's launch. After the second month, the default option is already taken. Hunt+ had nearly identical features but arrived a step late and stalled at 154 users.

Signs you've got this wrong: ① /hunt's users grew past 20k in December and surpassed the Discord member count, which would mean PokeIdle is much bigger than it looks and there's room for a paid tool inside it; ② automation extensions like Auto Hunt start charging and reach several thousand users, which would mean the money is in that layer and you should move more aggressively; ③ conversely, if PokeIdle's official team adds full-map sorting to the Hunt Analyser or explicitly bans third-party extensions, the risk of this playbook is greater than described here.

Data and sources

• Extensions: Chrome Web Store listing (11-06:10,000 users, 16 rating, v1.0.13, updated 11-04; 11-01:8,000 users, 15 rating), Firefox Add-ons (10-11 listed, 175 daily active users, 11-06).
• Game: pokeidle.io official site (11-06), and the web.archive.org 10-02 snapshot (Hunt Analyser already present); Discord invite endpoint (11-06).
• Streamer command: streamelements.com/dersin2k/commands (11-06).
• Competitors: their respective Chrome Web Store pages (11-06).
• The game's real player count isn't public; the text uses the Discord member count.