People are paying for Pokemon Go – in more ways than one

If you’ve been playing Pokemon Go – or feeling nostalgic about your dreams of being your childhood hero – here’s your chance. Thanks to Bangalore-based jobs site Babajob, you can apply for a position as a Pokemon catcher.

That’s right. According to the job posting, which is by Ash Ketchum himself, qualifications include knowing about Pokemon, physical fitness, Pokemon training, and Pokemon gym battling.

“Just as companies like Flipkart, Amazon, Ola, and Uber transformed and greatly expanded the delivery and driver job categories, we see Pokemon Go doing the same for catchers,” said Babajob founder and CEO Sean Blagsvedt in a statement, which noted that the founder has reached level two in Pokemon Go so far and that several company employees have also been trying to catch ‘em all.

The company reports having received applications for the posting from as far away as the UK.

It pays to play

Even though Ash Ketchum is a fictional character and Pokemon aren’t real, the ad is a marketing gimmick that hits closer to the truth than you might think. Several countries outside of Asia received Pokemon Go first. The game is now available in Japan and Hong Kong, but devoted fans have waved aside legal downloads and have been playing any way they can.

For some, this means less-than-legitimate downloads of the game. Others are just buying phones online that already have Pokemon Go accounts. Bonus points if they come with rare Pokemon already loaded.

That players are willing to cough up cold, hard cash for a chance to play bodes well for Pokemon Go, which operates off a freemium model but is trying to add in sponsored locations as part of gameplay, including McDonald’s and Starbucks.

Babajob has also caught onto a reality of the game – it’s time consuming. Going out into the real world to catch your Pokemon pals can be fun because it mimics the spirit of the original handheld games, but playing that way takes a lot of time. And if you’re in the 40 percent of players over the age of 25, that means that you’re likely balancing out your playing time with your job, your bills, and possibly your family.

The ad is a marketing gimmick that hits closer to the truth than you might think.

It makes sense then that companies like Pokewalk are emerging, where people who have more free time than you do offer to take your phone out on a little walk to catch Pokemon, hit up those gyms, and hatch those Pokemon eggs. Hatching eggs requires a certain distance walked (more literally, your smartphone needs to move around a certain amount).

If you’ve got a little more cash to toss around and don’t want to buy extra items for the game, you can spend US$20 and to pair up with another player for PokéDates, owned by US dating company Project Fixup. The Pokemon Go-related dating service finds you another player. You both meet at a nearby Poke Stop or gym, and see where the hunt takes you. The company is currently offering the first date for free.

This, of course, assumes you’re willing to drop US$20 per date (plus dinner – Pokemon Go can get tiring) or leave your smartphone with a stranger, but we live in a world where startups let people borrow each other’s cars. Stranger things have happened.