Pokémon Go is more than just a gaming craze — it's an economic one, too.
People are making and spending plenty of cash in a new ecosystem of Pokémon-related goods and services that has emerged less than two weeks after the app's launch.
Real world money is hardly rare in the gaming world, with fans of Counter-Strike, Minecraft and many more creating cottage industries around their favorite titles.
None, however, seemed to emerge as fast as the tiny economy that now surrounds Pokémon Go.
You may have heard about the Uber-for-Pokémon Go offers for players who are tired from too much Pokémon-induced exercise. In Suffolk County, N.Y., an entrepreneurial Craigslist poster will drive you around to catch Pokémon for $20 an hour. If you bring a friend, it's $17 an hour each.
But there's more to buy and sell in the world of Pokémon than just a ride.
Getting around
Better than Uber is the 24/7 Pokémon Go bus roaming New York. The Pikachu-painted bus charges $0.99 per Pokéstop, $24.99 to take over a gym and $49.99 for egg-hatching services. The driver says he brings three phones with Level 20 accounts on teams Mystic, Instinct and Valor. He also has charging stations for your own phone.
Be warned — if you're under 18 you'll need written consent to ride past 11:30 p.m.
Hacks
For the ultimate lazy Pokémon solution, you can pay $10 for a Craigslist expert to install an iPhone hack that supposedly tricks your GPS to let you catch Pokémon without moving, like a normal iPhone game.
But those hacks could get you banned from the game. Another hack — for a steep $199 — promises never to cause a short-term or long-term ban by Nintendo.
For $20, another hacker promises to get you unlimited Pokéballs. But you still have to move around.
Sell your account
Pokémon Go isn't just about spending money — you can also earn some by playing.
To get to the top of the game without the effort, you can buy a Pokémon account at a higher level. Accounts at levels 19, 20 and 21 are listed on Ebay for as much as $600.
If you want an account at level 5 or level 10, some sellers will customize an account for you to buy ready to go.
One enterprising person went meta, creating a standalone marketplace for Pokémon Go — www.poketree.com — for which they're asking $599.
Or maybe you want to start your own thing. For a cool $2,999, you can buy PokémonGoAmerica.com on eBay.
Advertising
For businesses, Pokémon Go has been a boon.
In the U.K., the phone company Three is using the game to promote its "all-you-can-eat data plan." T-Mobile even offered its customers unlimited data for the year on the Pokémon Go app.
Bars and other small businesses across the country are advertising their conveniently located Pokéstops. The Village Pourhouse in New York promised the "biggest Pokémon Go meetup in Manhattan," complete with $5 Pokémon cocktails. Just don't do too many Charizard shots. Plenty of other businesses have been lucky enough to be near an important location within the game, boosting their foot traffic.
And that's just the start. Niantic, the creator of the app, has already said it plans to allow companies to sponsor locations within the game. It also did with with one of its previous games — Ingress — that is very similar to Pokémon Go.
The possibility of corporate money getting into the mix means that the existing business around Pokémon Go could eventually seem like chump change. McDonald's is reportedly going to be sponsoring the launch of the app in Japan.