“The amount of people has been astonishing,” said Tom Lattanzio, the owner of L’inizio Pizza Bar in Long Island City, Queens. L’inizio’s manager, Sean Benedetti, says he paid $10 to have a dozen of the Pokémon characters lured to the store. It drew in so many players, the shop’s business went up 75 percent.
Niantic’s previous augmented reality game Ingress, also used sponsored content from businesses including Jamba Juice, Zipcar and Duane Read. For the game’s developer, this model is not new, which will come as a strength as it negotiates the best cost-per-visit rates for new advertisers
Nintendo and Niantic has partnered with McDonalds. Niantic CEO John Hanke recently told The Financial Times that other businesses would become sponsors too.
If certain locations had some kind of minimum cover or order then businesses could make $2-10 per hour that players are in their store.
Pokemon Go in Japan has been delayed til Thursday as Nintendo and Google work to beef up the numbers of servers.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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