Australian companies have started taking advantage of the PokemonGO craze, with Virgin Mobile offering players free phone charging at 52 stores and kiosks across the country.
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The virtual reality game has had limited release in Australia, New Zealand and the US since July 6 and has become a sensation. However, PokemonGO is also notorious for draining phone battery because it requires constant global positioning.
Players have been seen carrying spare batteries plugged into their phones so they can stay out for longer.
Given the limited international release, it will be interesting to see what marketing innovations Australian businesses come up with to exploit the game's success.
Business owners wanting to attract wandering players could already release "Lure Modules", which cost 680 coins or about $10. Lure modules attract Pokemon to that location for other players to capture. A museum in Arkansas, US, has already bragged about the Pokemon to be found among its paintings and statues.
Any businesses near a PokeStop, which are selected by the games' developer and tend to be city landmarks, could find players milling about for hours at a time.
One of the first Australian companies to take advantage is Virgin Mobile, which on Tuesday said "all of its retail stores and kiosks will provide free mobile phone charging to gamers on the Go!" This was the same day the games developer, Niantic Labs, suffered problems with its servers.
"No matter what network you're with, Virgin Mobile will give you that little bit of extra battery life so you can catch 'em all. Every one of Virgin Mobile's 52 stores and kiosks nationwide will have chargers in all shapes and sizes plugged in and ready to go."
A spokeswoman said there would be at least six chargers available at each store that "gamers can access during store opening hours, for as long as they need until charged".
Virgin Mobile also has free secure charge lockers in some Westfield shopping centre food courts, she added.
Meanwhile, the overwhelming popularity of the game may slow its release in Europe and Asia.
Niantic chief executive John Hanke said the next phase of the global rollout has been put on hold until technical issues related to server capacity have been fixed.
