popular since the late 1990s. Secondly, an inherently viral platform where players became real- world, monster-chasing adverts – sparking immediate interest from confused bystanders. And thirdly, the app store effect quickly kicked in. Pokémon Pokémon Go started life as an experiment, in partnership with Google’s Maps and Earth divisions. Go was the most downloaded app ever in its first week of launch, achieving 7.2 million downloads compared to a paltry 2.2 million for Angry Birds 2. And it stuck at the top of the charts, passing 500 million downloads in little over a year. Free to download with in-app purchases, it drove a record- breaking month for Apple’s App Store revenue. Pokémon Go was making real money from AR monsters.