What PokemonGo means for commercial real estate

In the first month of its debut, Pokemon Go has more than 21 million daily users.

Pokemon Go is the newest gaming craze which uses augmented reality to integrate digital information with a user’s real environment. It’s already won over more than 30 million users and raked in a reported $35 million, doubling the value of Nintendo and adding $20 billion to the company’s market cap in less than a month.

Virtual and augmented reality are estimated to become an $80 billion market by 2025. So how will this new technology impact commercial real estate? According to CBRE, this technology could have significant impact both immediately and in the long term. Here’s how.

  • Commercial property users will soon be able to visualize real estate virtually via mixed-reality offerings, in conjunction with advances in personal media devices and graphics technology.

  • In the industrial market, this technology will impact multiple elements of the supply chain. In CBRE’s report, the company notes that DHL and Ricoh recently launched a successful augmented reality pilot in a warehouse in the Netherlands. The result? It enhanced time efficiency and error reduction.

  • The retail sector is already benefitting from increased foot traffic from users looking for Poke “stops” and “gyms,” and is preparing to use augmented reality to engage customers online and in-store, and better educate consumers about their products.

  • Data centers will benefit from the need for additional infrastructure, connectivity, and storage capacity demands.

One word of caution, the report notes: Property owners and managers must consider the added risk of gamers trespassing on private property, posing a risk to those owners and the players themselves.