Anyone with a child aged 8 and olderup has probably heard of Pokemon Go this week. As children and adults explore this new phenomenon, we already have seen evidence of businesses shifting their marketing strategies to catch players’ attention as avidly as the app users try to catch Pokemon. This game that is taking over the nation in a way no other app in history has ever done before. As my 21-year-old son showed me, it requires players to physically walk around to search for and capture “live” cartoon versions of the imaginary animals that match those on the Pokemon cards he had collected and traded for years as a child.

While many fret over the safety of players who aimlessly wander through streets and sidewalks playing the game, there are many pluses. Millennial players have the opportunity to relive a part of their childhood while actively interacting with strangers and getting exercise. However, the real winners here are businesses who leverage the app’s phenomenon to drive customers to their stores. The app’s integration of the real life with active game play could completely shift how we as customers interact with businesses.

One of the plusses of the app is that it encourages players to explore their surroundings. It gets them to notice parks, streets, churches, statues, and other community landmarks. And, of course, businesses. A tweet posted this week noted that “My sister got to pick what the sign said” and showed Picasso’s Restaurant, with the sign “You can reach two Pokestops from our dining room, just sayin.” This tweet already had received more than 500,000 likes in one day. I believe this to be a harbinger of the competition that lies ahead, as businesses quickly learn to vie for these coveted Pokestops, for they will bring in potential customers.

The game has a brand whose impact is strong and dates back to the childhoods of many millennials. For these reasons, it has increased the market value of its parent company Nintendo by over $9 billion in just the last six days. The technology it uses —AR or augmented reality — has been around for a number of years, but has become much more popular lately. AR takes real-world camera views and enhances them with digital images and information to convey knowledge or simply make the view more interesting. This technology has been used to show the price of a house on the market or give the history of a building by simply looking at these objects through a camera. With Pokemon, you see the street in front of you superimposed with live creatures you can roll a Pokeball at and try to capture. Believe me, it’s fun. It wouldn’t be getting this reaction if it wasn’t.

What else does Pokemon Go’s popularity mean? Well, it’s one more distraction for workers. Last night, we saw a man out walking with his two kids, playing the game. He saw my son doing the same and told us that he worked for a defense contractor and he had seen people playing it during his lunch hour this week. At workplaces and other institutions everywhere, significant numbers of people in their 20s and 30s spent the last few days reliving a part of their childhood with Pokemon Go. How long will it continue? Who knows, but we do know that there are real productivity decreases when employees get wrapped up in a game (think March Madness, Fantasy Football, etc.)

It also should lead to the development of more similar games, or the addition of similar games to popular business apps. As my husband and I got our Pokemon Go lesson from my son last night, I started thinking of all types of games that could be developed using the same technology. Imagine running with a virtual competitor beside you, spurring you on. Or what about a nature walk where the app would bring up information about every type of wildflower or bird you come across. As with so many advances in technology, there will be countless opportunities coming to the business world, as consumers learn to navigate the online world outside and with their feet.

但凡你家里有一个八岁以上的孩子，这个星期你八成都已经听说了《口袋妖怪Go》这个游戏了。许多儿童甚至连成年人都对这个游戏趋之若鹜，同时很多商家也转变了他们的营销策略，欢迎玩家进店来抓小怪兽，并将它当作吸引人流的法宝。可以说，这款游戏正在以一种史无前例的方式占领整个美国。最近，我21岁的儿子教给了我玩法，这款游戏需要玩家的肉身亲自出动，到处去抓“活”的卡通小怪兽。而这些小怪兽，正是我儿子童年时代乐此不疲地收集和交换的小卡片上的那些“神奇宝贝”。

虽然很多人担心，玩家们盯着手机在大街上走路可能会遭遇交通事故，但不得不说，这款游戏还是有很多好处的。“80后”玩家们可以重温童年的回忆，同时还有了与陌生人互动的机会，并且锻炼一下腿脚。但真正的赢家还是利用了《口袋妖怪Go》吸引人流的商家们。这款应用将虚拟与现实世界融为一体，加上极高的玩家参与度，很有可能彻底改变消费者与企业互动的模式。

这款应用有一个值得称道之处，就是它鼓励玩家探索他们的周边环境，比如公园、街道、教堂、雕塑和其它社区地标。当然，还有各种商家。本周有网友在Twitter上称：“我妹妹看到了这个牌子，非要去那儿抓小怪兽”，并附上了一张毕加索餐厅的照片，上面有一块牌子写着：“在我们的餐厅里有两个妖怪出没的地点，别说我没提醒你哦！”这个贴子在一天时间里就收获了50多万个“赞”。我相信，这件事预示了针对这些小怪兽的竞争就快到来了，许多商家马上就会心甘情愿地掏钱让自己成为妖怪出没点，因为它们会带来潜在消费者。

另外，这款游戏还拥有很强的品牌效应，它勾起了很多“80后”的童年回忆。因为上述这些原因，《口袋妖怪Go》的东家任天堂公司的市值在短短6天里飙升了90亿美元之多。它使用的现实增强（AR）技术其实已经诞生许多年了，但也是直到最近才火爆起来。AR通过手机摄像头从真实世界中取景，然后再在其中加入数码影像，从而手机上形成了现实世界与虚拟世界共存的奇妙场景。这种技术以前也并非没有应用，比如通过某些APP，你只需用手机摄像头对准一幢房子，就会显示出它的价格；对准某些物体，就能显示出它的历史。而通过《口袋妖怪Go》，你会发现面前的街道不时出没着一些可爱的小怪兽，你可以扔一个神奇宝贝球过去，将它们抓住。相信我，这款游戏相当好玩，否则它也不会引起这样大的反响。

《口袋妖怪Go》的大热还意味着什么？那就是它会让人从工作中分心。昨天晚上，我看见有一个男人带着两个孩子边散步边玩这款游戏。他看我儿子也在玩，便告诉我们，他为一家国防承包商工作，这星期他发现有人在午休的时候也在玩这款游戏。不管是在企业里，还是在其他任何机构，过去几天，有大量二三十岁的年轻人都在通过《口袋妖怪Go》重温童年。它的大热还会持续多久？谁知道呢，但如果员工们痴迷于一个游戏，的确会导致工作效率的下降（比如“三月疯狂”——即全美大学篮球联赛的冠军赛季，或是《疯狂橄榄球》等等。）

《口袋妖怪Go》的大热，应该很快就会催生出不少跟风之作，或者一些热门商业APP也会加入类似的游戏功能。昨天晚上，我和我老公从我儿子那儿学到了《口袋妖怪Go》的玩法之后，我开始思考还有哪些游戏可以采取类似的AR技术。比如你可以想象一下，在跑步的时候，你身边总是有一个虚拟的竞争对手在跟你赛跑；或者是当你离家去亲近大自然时，经过的每一种野花、飞过的每一只鸟，都能通过一个AR应用看到它的相关信息。总之，随着科技的大量创新，随着消费者们开始用双脚去探索线上的世界，商业世界还将迎来无数的商机。 （财富中文网）

译者：朴成奎