Pokemon GO to add sponsored locations

Linking mobile games to brick-and-mortar retailing and advertisinghas long been the holy grail of location-based game enthusiasts.

Until Pokemon Go, however, no game had anything like the scale to drive significant traffic.

So it's no surprise that Niantic Labs' CEO John Hanke has been talking about the opportunity.

Come here

In future, he told the Financial Times, it would be possible for businesses to sponsor specific Poke Stops.

The concept of sponsored locations is the "second component to our business model at Niantic" he commented.

Indeed, this is something Niantic Labs has already successful operated in its first location game, Ingress. A deal with insurer AXA, pushes 600,000 players to visit its offices

Not that Pokemon Go isn't already making large amounts of cash.

It was reported as making $1.6 million a day in just the US; a number that will likely double as the game rolls out to more countries.

Indeed, analysts are already talking about Pokemon GO as a $1 billion a year franchise.