The names Squirtle, Jigglypuff and Charizard sound silly – but they’re not. Or, in some ways, they are, because they are generating a silly amount of money for developers Niantic.

Pokémon Go’s premise is pretty simple. The game layers computer-generated creatures over real-time maps on your smartphone using augmented reality. Players then have to run around in public places, trying to find and capture different characters.

Probably, it is this simplicity that has captured millions of players worldwide. The statistics are just staggering, with around 21 million daily active users and more than 700,000 downloads a day. The average daily spend on in-app purchases in the first week of August stood at $3 million a day.

In the first week after the game’s release, Pokémon Go became the most active mobile game ever, smashing the Apple App Store downloads record and pushing Nintendo’s stock up to $9.67 billion. The initial – and eventually sustained – activity engaged more daily users than Twitter.

And there’s the magic word – engaged. Because ultimately, these statistics are not just about a video game – they are about a new industry that could change the way we play and engage.

The use of AR in Pokémon Go shows that the technology is now ready to emerge from its experimental stage and start being applied to daily and popular usage

‘Engage’ is the magic word that sets the ears of brand marketers around the world atwitch. Because ultimately, it is engagement that gives visibility to brands, builds consumer trust and translates into sales. And Pokémon Go is certainly generating a lot of engagement, with app intelligence firm Sensor Tower reporting that Pokémon Go users are spending an average of 26 minutes and five seconds playing the game each day. That is more engagement than Facebook enjoys.

Pokémon Go’s engaging quality is fuelled by a strong element of nostalgia. A lot of the players hunting down Charizards on the loose are adults who enjoyed Pokémon toys and animation when they were children. Pokémon Go gives them the opportunity to relive those happy days.

Engagement is also a result of augmented reality. The game, in fact, heralds the mainstream arrival of this technology, which superimposes computer-generated content and interactivity onto real-world views. In simple terms, AR connects the online with the offline world.

AR is not a new technology – dating back to the 1960s, there were various AR developments in the 2000s, peaking with the Google Glass project and the recent release of Microsoft’s Hololens headset. Back in 2013, furniture retailer Ikea had also launched an AR-enabled app, which allowed customers to visualise how furniture would look in their own home – the app was downloaded 8.5 million times and, according to the company, helped drive new sales. However, it is only with Pokémon Go that this technology has managed to attract mass appeal.

The use of AR in Pokémon Go shows that the technology is now ready to emerge from its experimental stage and start being applied to daily and popular usage. And with big players such as Facebook, Apple and Google all wanting a slice of the AR action, more innovation will soon be on the way.

AR is set to be a game changer, especially in a number of sectors. Rival studios and publishers will, of course, tap into AR technology to develop new games.

However, AR is also set to make its way to brick and mortar such as museums, shops, entertainment venues and even warehouses. Last year, a DHL pilot project saw staff wearing smart glasses equipped with an AR app to navigate warehouses and improve the picking process. And some museums are also considering using AR to, for instance, turn famous deceased artists into guides for museum visitors.

In the future, watching a movie could also involve AR, turning a movie into a fully immersive experience – just imagine what Star Wars would look like with a dose of AR. On an individual level, users themselves might want to create their own augmented reality – that would herald new software and apps to, for instance, layer personal photos on familiar surroundings.

The next instalment of Pokémon Go will probably not be limited to, for instance, an AR game featuring Super Mario Bros, which also hails from the Nintendo stable. Rather, it will probably be other innovations, in various sectors, which will further bridge the gap between the real and virtual worlds.

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