Just recently, a company in China has released a mobile application that looks so much like “Pokemon GO”. But that is where the similarities end because the said Chinese mobile application offers more than just game features.
The said mobile application was just recently launched by Alibaba Group’s Alipay, a popular Chinese third-party online payment platform. The said mobile application copied the features of “Pokemon GO”, which is a location-based augmented reality video game developed by Niantic Inc. for several mobile system devices. But nobody cares about that and people are actually intrigued about this said Chinese application.
The reason is because the Alipay mobile application enables users to earn money with just a click of a button, or of the screen rather. Unlike “Pokemon GO” that takes players on a real life adventure of catching pocket monsters, visiting gyms, and even acquiring various random items at Pokestops, Alipay’s mobile application gives money to its users instead. The Chinese application does not actually have an official name as it is a built-in feature within Alipay’s own official mobile application.
By promoting the company and the nature of its business, the said mobile application forces the user to hunt down money or which they refer to as treasure through the camera viewfinder. These treasures come in the disguise of red envelopes, wherein in Chinese culture signifies cash gifts. These red envelopes are placed by users of the Chinese mobile application at random locations and it is up to the other players to find them by locating stops that look like red Pokestops.
The Alipay mobile feature has already been tested out by many reliable sources and has found it real as the money that the users find are automatically wired to them. Aside from finding treasures, the hunters and keepers can communicate with the ones who left the red envelopes by sending them messages through the Alipay mobile application. The said Chinese application has already recorded 450 million users to date and the latest feature it launched is reportedly attracting more subscribers.
