How Pokémon Go brings the pocket monsters to your neighborhood

Pokémon Go is ripping its monsters out of your pockets and imagination and placing them someplace you’ll be able to go out, walk to, and find them: outside, in the real world.

Developed by Niantic, Pokémon Go is an AR mobile game that tasks players with exploring real-world locations while finding, capturing, and battling Pokémon. This moves the franchise — which has shipped 275 million video games worldwide and is estimated to bring in $2.1 billion this year as one of the world’s largest brands — into the VR and AR market, which is expected to be its own $120 billion business by 2020, according to tech adviser Digi-Capital.