AR games

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Epic Games is “exploring native Unreal Engine support” for Apple Vision Pro

Unity, makers of the popular game engine, announced earlier this week it’s getting ready to levy some pretty significant fees on developers, causing many to rethink whether it makes more sense to actually go with the main competition, Unreal Engine from Epic Games. It seems Epic isn’t wasting any time to help transition those creating projects for Apple Vision Pro.

According to Victor Lerp, Unreal Engine XR Product Specialist at Epic Games, the company is now “exploring native Unreal Engine support for Apple Vision Pro,” the upcoming mixed reality headset due to launch in early 2024.

Lerp says it’s still early days though, noting that it’s “too early for us to share details on the extent of support or timelines.”

Lerp posted the statement on Unreal Engine’s XR development forum. You can read it in full below, courtesy of Alex Coulombe, CEO of the XR creative studio Agile Lens:

During Vision Pro’s unveiling at WWDC in June, Apple prominently showcased native Unity support in its upcoming XR operating system, visionOS. Unity began offering beta access to its visionOS-supported engine shortly afterwards, making it feel like something of a ‘bait and switch’ for developers already creating new games, or porting existing titles to Vision Pro.

As explained by Axios, Unity’s new plan will require users of its free tier of development services to pay the company $0.20 per installation once their game hits thresholds of both 200,000 downloads and earns $200,000 in revenue. Subscribers to Unity Pro, which costs $2,000 a year, have a different fee structure that scales downwards in proportion to the number of installs. What constitutes an ‘install’ is still fairly nebulous at this point despite follow-up clarifications from Unity. Whatever the case, the change is set to go into effect starting on January 1st, 2024.

In the meantime, the proposed Unity price increase has caused many small to medium-size teams to reflect on whether to make the switch to the admittedly more complicated Unreal Engine, or pursue other game engines entirely. A majority of XR game studios fit into that category, which (among many other scenarios) could hobble teams as they look to replicate free-to-play success stories like Gorilla Tag, which generated over $26 million in revenue when it hit the Quest Store late last year.

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Alien Invasion AR FPS Review

What better place to play a game about an alien invasion in your backyard than in your backyard? When a game studio offered to stage an alien invasion right here in my neck of the woods, I shelved my concerns about violent video games and picked up my mobile phone to see what Alien Invasion AR FPS is all about.

Resisting an Alien Invasion in Augmented Reality

Set in the not-too-distant future, Alien Invasion AR FPS by Stary, tells the story of an insidious and subtle alien foe. The aliens, nicknamed “Jackers” came in peace and even brought gifts. However, the gifts were sabotaged and the aliens quickly showed their true colors and effectively took over the planet.

Alien Invasion AR FPS ipad

In Alien Invasion AR FPS, you play the part of a resistance fighter in this sort of Sci-Fi “Red Dawn” situation. Use limited resources and unlimited resourcefulness to take back your home from the Jackers. But, how does it all play out?

Narrative and Gameplay

Alien Invasion AR FPS unlocks level-by-level in an unfolding linear narrative starring you and your “commanding officer” in the resistance. The introductory video as well as your mission brief at the beginning of each stage involves some compelling art but some humdrum voicework.

As you are a resistance fighter, most of the early missions involve tasks like planting explosives or setting up defensive positions. The mission brief at the beginning of each mission starts out by explaining how the success of the previous mission shifted the balance of the overarching conflict, which helps to give a sense of purpose to the gameplay, which can feel repetitive.

As the game progresses, your victories unlock more resources for the resistance, including new weapons. The beginning of many of the early levels has a brief tutorial on how to use any new equipment that you have unlocked. You have unlimited ammunition, but health and grenades are limited and need to be sourced from throughout the levels.

The game currently consists of four levels of four stages each plus the intro video. I haven’t beaten the whole game yet, but the names of the levels and material provided by the game’s publisher suggest that the resistance does eventually succeed in driving the Jackers from Earth.

Playing Alien Invasion AR FPS

Alien Invasion AR FPS is a free app download for iOS 12 and newer, and for Android 8.0 and newer, and it’s surprisingly agile. The app is still in its early days – maybe one day it will have a marketplace for buying extra supplies, or maybe it will use the AR ad formats Niantic is exploring. But for now, it’s really just free.

From the technical perspective, the game plays out in a series of digital sets that you place in your physical environment. The game recommends a play area of almost 50 square feet, so it recommends playing outside. Even outside, I don’t think that I ever played in an area that big, but my backyard was big enough.

Once your mobile device recognizes that you’re in a large enough space, you tap the ground to place the virtual elements. Getting the angle exactly right is tricky and if you don’t figure it out pretty well, those virtual elements can be too high or too low, which kind of ruins the effect and impacts playability.

Once the stage is set, you navigate through the space by physically moving through your environment. If the area isn’t large enough, you can pause the game, move to a new position, and resume the game. Typically, you perform some initial task, move to cover, and confirm that you’re in place. Then, the wave of Jackers comes for you.

Buttons on the screen manage your various healing kits, your weapons and firing, and additional equipment that you gradually unlock and use, like hand grenades.

Letdowns and Triumphs

Unfortunately, what the stage looks like doesn’t change based on your physical environment. My backyard has a shed and some stone retaining walls, so it would have been cool if the game had recognized these and incorporated them into the stage design – but I understand that that’s a huge ask for a free mobile app.

AR game Alien Invasion AR FPS

Ducking and moving from cover to cover is effective and feels right. You also have to explore each stage a little if you want to collect resources like health kits. And your health kits don’t replenish at the beginning of each stage, so at least taking a good look around before the first wave comes is highly recommended.

My general strategy was to hunker down wherever I started the level and fight in place. Although, at one point, the last Jacker in a stage refused to leave his cover, so I got up and charged through the map firing my SMG. There was definitely a moment of thinking “This is exactly the way that an AR FPS is supposed to feel.”

Speaking of “feel,” Alien Invasion AR FPS doesn’t have haptic support – the phone doesn’t vibrate when I fire a gun or get shot. This feels like a huge missed opportunity, but it can’t just be something that the developers never thought of, so I’m confident that it will come in an update at some point.

Compromises Paid Off Overall

We’ve already seen one area where the choice to make the AR FPS affordable and accessible might have meant going without some potentially more immersive features. There’s one more big thing about this app that I didn’t mention that likely fits in the same camp: it doesn’t require data or Wi-Fi. At least, not yet. The game’s roadmap includes multiplayer that probably will.

For me, this is a huge win – and it makes a lot of sense for a game that was designed to be played outdoors. As someone who’s seen too many Pokèmon trainers throwing balls into their bathtubs because they didn’t have connections outside of their homes, an AR game that doesn’t require connectivity feels like a breath of fresh air.

Again, that’s with the understanding that other AR games can do things that this one can’t. As a technical showpiece for AR, this game might not blow picky critics out of the water. But, as an artistic showcase for AR, this game elevates an enjoyable and well-executed first-person shooter onto a new level of play.

But How Did it Make Me Feel?

I mentioned at the top of this piece that I’m historically not a fan of violence in video games – particularly XR video games. It was something that I struggled with as I approached Peaky Blinders: The King’s Ransom. In my playthrough, I found that that game managed graphic content in such a way that it was able to be a part of the story without overwhelming the player.

I feel similarly about AR use in Alien Invasion AR FPS. It also helps that in Alien Invasion I’m killing aliens instead of Englishmen – that sits better with me. But, the aliens aren’t rendered in such quality that I have to intimately consider their death – they don’t even bleed like the gang members and political agitators that I virtually shot down in London and Birmingham.

Returning to Alien Invasion’s use of AR as an artistic medium rather than strictly as a game development tool, there’s a lot to be said for the way that AR tells this story about, well, an alien invasion.

Early in the game, I load an anti-aircraft gun that shoots down an alien ship – and it happens over my backyard. As I watched the airship go down behind my laundry line, I imagined it crashing down the road from my house and blocking traffic. It was another one of those moments that felt like a win for the development studio: this is what an AR FPS can do.

It’s Free

Are there things that I would like to see in updates to Alien Invasion AR FPS? Yes. Are there things that I can complain about from the game? Not really. As a lightweight, connection-optional mobile-based AR FPS that you can download and play for free, I really can’t think of any reason not to recommend that you at least give the game a try.

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Space Invaders Celebrates 45th Anniversary With a New AR Game

Space Invaders is a shooting video game created by Tomohiro Nishikado in 1978 and manufactured and sold by TAITO. It was the first fixed shooter video game and is considered one of the most iconic arcade games ever. As Space Invaders turns 45, TAITO teams up with Google and UNIT9 to give its players an elevated AR gaming experience with Google’s ARCore Geospatial API.

TAITO and Google partnered with global production and innovation studio UNIT9 to transform Space Invaders into an immersive AR game in honor of its 45th anniversary. Players can defend their real-world neighborhoods from 3D invaders emerging from nearby buildings and landmarks.

Meet “SPACE INVADERS: World Defense” AR Game

The reimagined iconic video game is SPACE INVADERS: World Defense, a sequel to the original game. It gives players access to enhanced weapons so they can defend their neighborhoods more effectively. New music and sound effects were also added for a more exhilarating and immersive experience.

Space Invaders AR game gameplay

The most remarkable update, however, is the real-time response to location-specific patterns and nearby buildings. It means that the AR game adapts to the player’s real-life surroundings. For example, if it’s raining, the virtual environment may also show rain, and if there’s a tall building at the player’s location, there will also be a tall building in the AR realm where an Invader may emerge from.

SPACE INVADERS: World Defense Gameplay

The original game’s classic characters and high-score mechanics are preserved in the AR game SPACE INVADERS: World Defense. The difference is that players should explore their virtual neighborhoods to find Space Invaders and defeat them. They can unlock special power-ups, compete with their friends within their location, and take an AR selfie to post on social media.

AR game Space Invaders

Players can easily switch between the World Dimension and Invaders Dimension via a portal. The virtual, 3D Invader world changes in sync with the natural environment, allowing players to complete missions in both the virtual world and the natural world’s AR view.

Harnessing the Power of Google’s ARCore and Geospatial API

UNIT9 harnessed the power of Google’s ARCore and Geospatial API to develop the next-level AR gaming experience of SPACE INVADERS: World Defense. ARCore is a software development kit (SDK) developers use to create AR applications across multiple platforms, including iOS, Android, Unity, and the Web. It seamlessly merges the digital and physical worlds, allowing users to interact with virtual objects in the AR adaptation of their natural surroundings.

As one of the top AR SDKs, the other prominent capabilities of ARCore include tracking the orientation and position of the user’s device, matching the lighting of virtual objects with their surroundings, detecting the location and size of various surface types, and integrating with existing tools like Unreal and Unity.

Phone screens Space Invaders - Invader Dimension

Combined with Geospatial API, which remotely attaches content to any area Google Street View covers, ARCore integrates geometric data from Google Maps Street View into SPACE INVADERS: World Defense, displaying accurate terrain and building information within a 100-meter radius of the player’s location.

The Beginning of an Exciting New Era

According to UNIT9’s Head of Digital, Media Ridha, Google Geospatial API’s launch marks the beginning of an exciting new era for digital experiences tied to real-world locations that are not only limited to games but for any brand experience linked to a specific place. “It was an honor to work with Google and TAITO to translate one of the most famous IPs out there into the next wave of AR gaming and create an experience that fans of all ages around the world can enjoy,” Ridha said in a press release shared with ARPost.

Matthieu Lorrain, global head of creative innovation at Google Labs Partnerships, is excited to see more developers leverage their platform to push the boundaries of geolocalized experiences. “[Google’s Geospatial API] allowed us to celebrate the iconic Space Invaders game by turning the world into a global playground,” said Lorrain.

SPACE INVADERS: World Defense officially launched on July 17, 2023, and is available on iOS and Android. Players in key markets, including Europe, Japan, and the USA, can download the AR game on their mobile devices and defeat Invaders in the real world, made more immersive with augmented reality.

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How Nex Is Flipping AR Games, and Why That’s a Great Thing

Augmented reality has a lot of promise for social and active gaming applications. An AR game’s use of the individual and their actual surroundings invites a connection to others and to physical space itself that tends to be absent from other kinds of gaming – including VR gaming. However, XR games are typically either social or active. Nex thinks that games should be both.

Meet Nex

Nex is a hardware and software developer making “motion games.” That is AR games that use motion as the only input. This isn’t entirely new. For example, once the level is started, games like Beat Saber only register motion – that motion is tracked with a controller, but the controller doesn’t provide other forms of input.

Nex AR games

“Our games only require a camera and a device with sufficient processing power,” Nex CEO and co-founder David Lee said in an interview with ARPost. “Today, that processing power is reaching living room entertainment devices.”

That includes connecting compatible televisions to a mobile phone or another connected camera and compute box, but it also increasingly includes televisions with their own built-in cameras. Nex software can recognize multiple people with a single camera for AR games played together and on the same screen.

The two main offerings from Nex are a hardware camera and compute box currently in pre-production, and games created by the company’s four internal game studios and six outside partners using the “Motion Development Kit.”

Is it XR?

Something about Nex feels like it can’t be XR. That’s possibly because there’s no near-to-eye display. There’s no head-worn device – there’s not even an arm’s-length screen. However, if we think about the way that we’ve always defined XR, those aren’t things that we insist on.

We say that AR is virtual elements overlaid over a live view of the physical world. We often think of viewing that through a lens as with head-mounted AR, or through a camera as with mobile-based AR. Nex admittedly flips that standard model – but it still fits the bill. And it has its advantages over “conventional AR.”

“We flip it around so the phone sees you […] and leveraging the biggest screen that most people have,” said Lee. “You can have the effect of a bigger screen by mounting it on your head but that’s not a communal experience.”

Those who have been around the tech world for a few 24 hours may recognize this approach. Over ten years ago, PlayStation Move used a similar model, as did Xbox Kinect. If the camera-flipped AR game is the future, why is the past littered with these experiences? In part because AR isn’t the only tech involved. Nex also relies on artificial intelligence that wasn’t around in 2010.

“At the time, there was no AI, so they had to have a more complicated camera system,” said Lee. “What was missing from those previous generations of games was the NPU – the neural processing unit.”

Those games were fun – and ground-breaking at the time – but their reliance on a console limited their success and led to unsustainable upkeep burdens on the companies. Neither of those constraints is true of Nex.

A Look at Nex Games

I haven’t yet had the opportunity to play Nex games myself. I did get to watch Lee and one of his colleagues playing some of the games on a live video call.

Party Fowl is a collection of party mini-games that looks similar to JackBox. The package will be available as an annual subscription and includes a mix of AR games and what Lee called “VR-like experiences.”

In one AR game, rotating your hips flies a helicopter. In another game, players represented on screen as a chicken squat to lay eggs and fill a basket.

Nex AR games Air Racer and Party Fowl

Another game, Air Racer, is a “flight simulator” in which players pilot an airplane through an obstacle course by moving their hands. Controls include direction, speed, and elevation.

While Nex is focused on games at the moment, I might be more interested in a fitness application from the company. Lee doesn’t see them as separate experiences.

“Movement is a natural way to play. As human beings, we’ve been playing for a very long time, and most of our games involve movement,” said Lee. “These games invite you to move more and also deliver those benefits in a gamified way.”

One experience really spoke to me as a potential showcase of a whole genre of experiences. The game was an episode of the children’s show Peppa Pig, in which gamers chose characters from the show and engaged in their favorite activity – jumping up and down in muddy puddles. The game was created with partner Hasbro.

“It’s not just watching – the family can be invited to join in the fun as well,” said Lee, who described the experience as “productive, independent playtime for the kids.”

Lee further described “the highlight of his career” as when his daughter got his mother into Nex games so that they could play together.

Experiencing Nex AR Games

I hope to get the opportunity to try out Nex AR games, and it sounds like I’ll get the opportunity soon enough – one way or another.

Nex AR games including Party Fowl and Sky Racers are already shipping as pre-installed apps on the Sky Live interactive camera. In fact, most of the motion games available on the camera are by Nex. For Apple users, Nex also works with the Continuity Camera feature.

Nex Playground – a camera box for Nex games compatible with most modern smart TVs – is currently in pre-order with the first orders scheduled to ship before this year’s holiday season. But, one day, external devices won’t be necessary at all as televisions ship with cameras and more computing power onboard.

Nex playgroung

“TVs don’t have really good processing yet. The memory is still quite limited but this is the beginning of these use cases,” said Lee. “This will be in a lot of living rooms and it begins with Nex pioneering this technology and showing the world what is possible.”

“The iPhone Moment for TV”

From AR games, to fitness applications, to just using hand gestures to navigate traditional media, Lee and Nex have an exciting vision for the future of television. The whole thing does feel like AI and XR reaching back into history to pull some of entertainment’s near-misses into the future where they belong.

How Nex Is Flipping AR Games, and Why That’s a Great Thing Read More »

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“Netflix for AR Content”: ARVision’s ARiddle, an AR Gaming Platform With Multiplayer Feature

(A)Riddle me this, what do you get when you create a gaming platform that facilitates the distribution of AR content and improves the multiplayer gaming experience? The start of a new era of interactive entertainment.

ARVision Games, an innovator in AR gaming, takes interactive and collaborative gaming experiences to the next level with the recent launch of its newest multiplayer gaming platform, ARiddle. Unveiled at the recent VivaTech Conference 2023, this cutting-edge platform is set to enable full AR immersion of gameplay.

ARVision’s ARiddle: The Netflix for AR Games

The new platform developed by ARVision Games is set to transform how we access and use AR content. Instead of downloading dozens of apps for individual games, users need to download only one app—ARiddle—to access a vast library of AR games.

ARVision Games ARiddle

“What we are trying to do is like Netflix for AR content. So today, there are platforms to play movies, to play videos, but there is no platform to play AR content,” said Christian Ruiz, CCO of ARVision Games, in a recent interview at VivaTech.

So, the team decided to develop the ARiddle platform, where users will be able to find dozens of AR games, both developed by the company itself and by other developers. “We are going to open the platform to other studios, for them to be able to create games and then put them on our platform,” Ruiz said. 

Another innovative aspect of the AR platform ARiddle is the multiplayer feature. As Ruiz explains, “We are really innovating with the multiplayer feature, because making multiplayer in VR, or any kind of game, is quite usual, but in AR is more complicated.”

ARiddle will also be home to AR escape games developed by ARVision Games. Captivating players with their immersive narratives and intricate puzzles, escape rooms have gained immense popularity in recent years.

The Montreal-based company takes this concept to new heights by bringing escape rooms into the realm of augmented reality. Through its ARiddle platform, players can now experience the thrill of escape rooms wherever they are. All they need is a mobile device to project the virtual environment into their physical surroundings.

In the ARiddle AR escape games, players are challenged to analyze their environment, search for clues, and solve a myriad of enigmas and riddles to complete the mission. With the exhilarating blend of AR technology and engaging gameplay, the ARiddle app guarantees an unforgettable adventure that will challenge your intellect and immerse you in a world of mystery.

Save the Cup: AR Escape Game That Lets Children Virtually Escape From the Hospital Bed

To create more meaningful AR experiences, ARVision Games has collaborated with 1 Maillot Pour La Vie, a charitable organization that strives to fulfill the dreams of children facing adversity. It coordinates with top athletes, famous personalities, and sports clubs to give children opportunities to experience something different from their daily hospital life.

Save the Cup, ARVision Games AR escape game

Together, ARVision Games and 1 Maillot Pour La Vie have embarked on a mission to create augmented reality multiplayer escape rooms that provide unique and engaging experiences for children. This collaboration aims to transport children into a world of imagination and wonder, where the challenges and obstacles of their reality are momentarily set aside.

“This is a great project that we have with 1 Maillot Pour La Vie. This association takes care of kids who have been in the hospital for a long time,” said Ruiz. “So we had the idea to make a special escape game for them to be able to play from their bed and transport them, thanks to augmented reality, to a chocolate factory, to an Egyptian pyramid…”

The first AR game developed through this collaboration is the Save the Cup series. This immersive AR experience combines captivating storytelling, challenging puzzles, and collaborative gameplay for children of all ages.

The game comprises a series of three episodes, each with unique challenges that bring players closer to finding the lost World Cup. Through AR, children are able to momentarily escape from their sick beds, go on amazing adventures, and achieve a sense of accomplishment as they complete the game’s mission.

Continued AR Innovation for Creating Meaningful Experiences

The Save the Cup series shows us how AR can empower and inspire users. By enabling children in hospitals and confined spaces to enjoy the same exciting escape room adventures as those in physical locations, the AR application becomes much more than a game. Innovations like these take AR beyond gaming and entertainment.

ARVision Games, Save the Cup, AR game
ARVision Games at VivaTech Paris in June 2023

Knowing this, ARVision Games is constantly innovating and is continuously iterating its platforms to provide more AR use cases that create meaningful experiences for users. It is driven to grow ARiddle into a centralized hub for AR content. By embracing the transformative potential of AR, ARVision Games is shaping the future of immersive content. With the fusion of technology and compassion at the heart of its mission, it will undoubtedly continue to inspire and bring joy to gamers around the world.

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AR Gaming, a Formidable Force That’s Changing the Gaming Industry

AR gaming has changed greatly since the release of Pokémon GO. At the height of its popularity, Pokémon GO had more users compared to Twitter, and people were spending more time playing the game than browsing Facebook. It was even more popular than Candy Crush in the US, having nearly 21 million daily active users.

The Growing Popularity of AR Gaming

Since Pokémon GO, many other AR games have been released, owing to the increasing demand for AR gaming. In a message shared with ARPost, Chief CX Innovation Officer and MD of Gaming at Arise and Arise Gaming, Jonathan Shroyer, remarked that the popularity of Pokémon GO was a “cultural phenomenon in many ways.”

According to Shroyer, people who didn’t like playing video games were now spending hours playing Pokémon GO. Moreover, they were becoming more active, walking an average of close to 1,500 extra steps daily and engaging with their respective communities more often.

“We also saw a boost in local economies and overall cultural awareness as people got outside and did things they normally wouldn’t do in their day-to-day lives,” he added.

Augmented reality gaming continues to grow in popularity and it’s projected to reach a value of up to $274.4 billion by 2027. One contributor to its AR gaming’s popularity is that players don’t need to don or purchase special equipment, unlike with VR. Other potential factors contributing to the industry’s growth include the rising popularity of mobile games, advancements in game development, and the integration of AR games with other industries.

How AR Gaming Is Changing the Face of the Gaming Industry

AR gaming offers a more interactive and immersive way for gamers to engage with games. This technology, coupled with VR, has allowed players to go beyond the screen and into an immersive world where they’re able to engage with both the game and the characters within it.

Moreover, it’s become a social phenomenon, allowing players to interact with others in virtual worlds. In turn, this allows them to connect with others who share the same interests. Plus, given that players can access AR games via mobile, this gives them more opportunities to explore new physical and virtual environments.

But what makes augmented reality gaming so intriguing?

“AR gaming really is a fantastic way to combine the excitement of video games with reality, effectively changing the way we game and think about video games in general,” said Shroyer. He added that augmented reality gaming has allowed “people to experience a world within our reality” and that with AR gaming, gamers can literally go outside and take part in a hybrid world.

This is what makes AR gaming very appealing to people in general, not just to gamers, and is a crucial driving force in the transformation of the industry.

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Spring Has Sprung for Niantic and 8th Wall

It’s already been a year since Niantic acquired 8th Wall. While acquisitions can be a scary thing in the tech world, both companies are growing and strengthening through their partnership.

Pillars of the Earth

Niantic and 8th Wall are both AR companies that might be bigger and more important than some realize. However, they both come at AR architecture and accessibility from different perspectives. Their coming together was a game changer that’s hard to understate.

Niantic Senior Director of AR Product Marketing, Caitlin Lacey, helps us understand what the companies are doing in their own products and projects as well as how they are helping each other grow and develop.

“I joined Niantic a year ago primarily to focus on Lightship, and one of the things that I was really excited about coming in was the acquisition,” said Lacey. “Having 8th Wall as part of the Niantic family has definitely made it better.”

Niantic

For some readers, Niantic is synonymous with Pokémon Go. If you Ctrl+K “Niantic”, Google Docs suggests the Pokémon Go website as a link option. Other readers will recognize this as a gross misrepresentation. Pokémon Go may have made Niantic a household name, but it only scratches the surface of what the historic and storied company actually does.

In addition to games (including the just released AR real-world pet game Peridot), Niantic has probably the largest and most detailed working virtual map of the world ever. A few years ago, that was a neat trick. As devices become more powerful and AR gains traction, it’s increasingly becoming something a lot more.

Niantic Peridot AR pet game

Niantic games gather data for this virtual map of the world, but they also have a dedicated platform called Lightship that developers use to fill in the empty spots, add detail, and create their own experiences. Whether you’re building or playing, you’re using an app.

8th Wall

Like its parent company, readers have probably seen the 8th Wall logo on an AR experience but might not realize the magnitude of the operation. Also like its parent company, users can experience 8th Wall both through experiences that they enjoy or through developer tools.

Over the years, 8th Wall has been building out their developer tools and experiences making them easier to use and accessible on more devices. The company has tools for augmenting the world around a user, as well as for augmenting users themselves through lenses and filters.

8th Wall’s experiences and developer tools are web-based. No app installation required, they’re well-positioned to run on pretty much any connected device.

Web and Apps

Apps have a certain gravity bringing obstacles and opportunities. People know how apps work and they know what to expect. Apps can run larger and more in-depth experiences, but they only do one thing at a time. These two necessary strengths are at odds when people expect an experience to do everything and do it well – an unrealistic expectation called “the metaverse.”

“It took a long time to train people how to use apps, but now they’re trained,” said Lacey. However, as she points out, “if you’re thinking about a future where all of these mobile technologies have AR capabilities”, opening and switching apps can become a hassle.

WebAR is getting better all the time, but it’s still limited in terms of the experiences it can run. Thinking about being out and about, this compounds as people are away from stable home networks and relying on burdened public networks or potentially spotty data coverage.

“There are still limitations to experience and file size that the web just can’t handle,” said Lacey. “As computing power continues to grow and get stronger, we’ll see better experiences across platforms.”

In the meantime, both companies are working on leveraging their strengths in app and webAR respectively trying to achieve the best of both worlds in both worlds.

“On the Lightship side, there was tons of tech that was very app-based … we took that and asked, ‘What do you want, and how do we bring it to the web?’” said Lacey. “And then, on the other side, bringing things from the web to Lightship.”

Updates and Releases From Niantic and 8th Wall

In the last few weeks, some exciting changes have come for developers using both developer platforms – including some of those updates that look a lot like a cross-pollination between the two platforms.

Sky and World Effects

First, Sky Effects and World Tracking came to 8th Wall. These are two separate developer tools that allow an AR experience to augment the sky itself, or to help AR elements realistically appear in the physical world. However, when used together, a single experience can bridge the earth and heavens in new and immersive ways.

“With sky and world effects, an object drops from the sky, recognizes the environment, and can interact with that environment,” said Lacey. “We’re seeing that happen across the board and there’s more coming.”

To celebrate the launch, 8th Wall held the “Sky Effects Challenge” which invited developers to use the new technology in interesting and inventive ways. Creators turned the sky into a canvas, mapped the planets, and more.

“We are consistently amazed by what our community builds,” said Lacey.

A Cross-Device Scanning Framework

A new Scanning Framework for Lightship AR Developer’s Kit 2.5 allows users to virtually reconstruct physical spaces and objects without LiDAR. LiDAR is one of two common methods for capturing spatial data on mobile devices, but it’s only available on higher-end iOS devices. Opening the Scanning Framework to other methods greatly increases accessibility.

“We’ve continually heard the feedback, and we’re listening,” said Lacey. “We really want to be a consistent partner to developers in the AR space. We do believe that AR can help make the world more interesting and fun.”

Two New Games

8th Wall doesn’t do so much in the games category – again, games still work better as full apps for now. However, a big theme in this article is that the line between the two companies can be a little foggy these days – at least in terms of user experience. These apps likely benefited from 8th Wall technology and 8th Wall will likely benefit from what the apps learn and earn for Niantic.

Early this year, Niantic launched NBA All World. The app includes basketball mechanics and an NBA partnership, and grows to incorporate elements that make it more than just a game.

“Our version of an NBA basketball game starts with exciting one-on-one gameplay and expands from there to include the major elements of basketball culture, including music, fashion, sneakers, and more, all of which are integrated into real-world locations,” Niantic founder and CEO John Hanke said in a blog post.

If that wasn’t enough, by the time you read this, Peridot will be live. The highly anticipated game encourages players to nurture an AI-powered virtual pet, including feeding it, petting it, and playing with it. Players can also use Niantic’s social platform Campfire to meet with other players and breed new and unique Peridots (or Dots).

Spring Has Sprung for Niantic and 8th Wall

I’m not a huge basketball fan and Pokémon is a chapter of my life that closed a long time ago, but I’ve had my Dot Erin for a few days now. Erin mainly hangs out by my desk eating sandwiches, but was pretty excited to see the spring flowers in my backyard the other day.

Peridot AR pet game Niantic - Jon's Dot Erin

Much More to Come

Lacey advised that a lot more updates to Niantic and 8th Wall will continue to reinforce both platforms for the benefit of developers and end-users alike. There are also some interesting artistic activations coming in the next few weeks. And, of course, we’re excited about Peridot becoming publicly available. There’s definitely a lot more to come from this power pair.

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CrimeTrip Introduces AR True Crime Cases for Your Perusal

True crime has become a national pastime. From documentaries and dramatized biopics to endless podcasts and YouTube channels, folks can’t get enough of diving into real-life murders and missing person cases – some solved, some apparently never to be solved. And now, you can explore a new file of cases in augmented reality with CrimeTrip.

Taking a CrimeTrip

CrimeTrip is a true crime AR game for iOS and Android from developer studio Prologue. The experience, viewed and navigated entirely through a mobile phone, puts you in the middle of painstakingly reproduced crime scenes from six unsolved crimes from the seventies and eighties including heists, mob hits, and more. Three are available now, with three coming soon.

The app download is free, but, after playing through a free “prologue” and tutorial, you have the option to buy an individual story for $3.99, or bundles of stories going up to the complete game for $12.99. According to the app, this allows the platform to be supported entirely ad-free.

CrimeTrip AR game - pricing

Hands-On the Game

If you have enough open space, you can navigate within the game by walking to some degree. However, the game worlds are big enough that no matter how big and clean your living room is you’ll have to use the on-screen controls eventually. (My biggest issue with the game was accidentally holding my phone in a way that covered the camera and lost my tracking.)

CrimeTrip is split between crime scenes and a pretty expansive police department office. The office includes resources that you will need to dive into the case, including the cork board where you put it all together.

“[CrimeTrip] revisits the podcast genre, following non-linear routes, constantly shifting between the present and the past,”  Prologue founder and creative director Jonathan Rouxel said in a Medium post. “Designers elevate the status of the audience who is no longer perceived as a community of passive listeners but as active participants.”

On-screen controls don’t do all the work. Sometimes the best way to view a scene or the only way to find an item is by physically getting on your hands and knees. A good portion of the game might be “played” on the various online communities as you compare notes with other true crime enthusiasts.

While scenes and clues are accurately created with great detail, the characters and events in the stories appear as luminous point clouds – so there’s no unsettling blood and gore to deal with. The cheeky, fourth-wall-breaking game narration should be amusing to true crime enthusiasts and not too stressful for people new to the genre.

A Careful Handling of a Touchy Subject

True crime is a sensitive subject – and people can be very sensitive to it. Stories can be emotionally challenging to hear and research, and living people are sometimes affected by true crime commentators jumping on a story still in development. CrimeTrip avoids both of these problems in two important ways.

First, the graphical style and the narration style of the game keep things from being too heavy. We saw a similar approach with USA Today’s Accused experience last year. Second, the cases in this experience are old enough that all of the suspects have passed away so players can enjoy the puzzling stories without stressing the impact on survivors too much.

Paolo Violi's Murder - CrimeTrip AR game

The fact that the cases are so old and so cold helps add allure to the game as well. There are no bad guys left to catch so it’s okay that even AR-enabled sleuths aren’t able to conclusively agree on whodunit. In ongoing cases, it would be great if the culprit could be caught and taken off the streets. But these forty and fifty-year-old tales can remain unfinished puzzles forever.

Check it Out if You Dare

So, is CrimeTrip worth your money? Check it out. The free app includes free previews to all available episodes – and that’s not just gameplay videos, you get to play the game. Still not sure? You can buy the cases one at a time. So, if you’re even remotely interested in true crime, it can’t hurt to check out.

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sxsw-2023:-highlights-and-xr-experiences-that-push-the-boundaries-of-storytelling,-music,-and-technology

SXSW 2023: Highlights and XR Experiences That Push the Boundaries of Storytelling, Music, and Technology

The South by Southwest® (SXSW®) Conference and Festivals has once again taken the world by storm, delivering a jam-packed 10-day event featuring a variety of activities for audiences to explore. Hosted in Austin, TX, SXSW 2023 ran from March 10–19, 2023.

Attendees from around the globe also got the chance to immerse themselves for a couple of days in the fantastical world of the SXSW XR Experience. SXSW 2023 boasted a brand new look and feel this year, complete with Congress Avenue and Red River Cultural District creatively merged together and set afloat in space. The amazing visuals and virtual elements were designed in collaboration with VRROOM, a social XR platform for live shows in the metaverse, and world-renowned artists.

SXSW 2023 was especially exciting for those interested in virtual and augmented reality. XR programming and events this year included the XR Experience Competition, XR Experience Spotlight, XR and Metaverse Conference Track, and many other XR-related sessions. While SXSW 2023 was primarily in-person, attendees were also engaged with the XR Experience World through VRChat and other online immersive events.

SXSW 2023: A Quick Peek at Event Highlights

The SXSW 2023 event was packed with exciting and immersive experiences for attendees to enjoy, including several standout highlights. Among the highlights was the “Neo-Wulin: The Era of Black Ark” virtual performance series, the first of its kind in China. Created by the OXYZ3 team, this concert experience featured musicians in their own unique musical world that combined performance, exhibition, and social interaction. Even more exciting, the virtual world could be constantly extended.

Neo-Wulin - The Era of Black Ark - SXSW 2023

Attendees were also treated to other immersive and engaging virtual music experiences. Web7, Le Juiice, and Maxence performed at the VRROOM Alpha Party, a live immersive concert in VR, in partnership with Deezer and Pico. Each of these emerging French artists performed in different virtual worlds.

Then, there was also the Metaverse Music Concert, presented by YOOM and Active Theory. The interactive, volumetric music concert took concertgoers into a special metaverse space inspired by the famous 6th Street in Austin, Texas.

SXSW 2023 also offered a range of compelling conference sessions across 15 tracks, including interactive tracks exploring science, technology, culture, government, and more; film tracks covering both the creative and business elements of film and TV production; and music tracks featuring content on the making, marketing, impact, and future of music.

Moreover, SXSW 2023 included several competitions, such as the SXSW Innovation Awards, SXSW Pitch, and SXSW EDU, as well as the SXSW Film & TV Festival and the SXSW Music Festival, both of which offered a wide range of content and experiences for attendees to enjoy.

A Marvel of Innovation – Multi-sensory Augmented Reality Gaming

Every year, the SXSW Innovation Award honors the most innovative and forward-thinking technology, design, and creative work in various industries, including music, film, and interactive media. This year’s SXSW 2023 awards featured over 50 digital projects from around the world, classified into 14 different categories such as Artificial Intelligence, Health and MedTech, and Sustainability.

Time Investigators AR game at SXSW 2023One of the finalists in the Convergent Gaming category was Time Investigators, a multi-sensory augmented reality game by Picture This Productions and Mary Rose Museum. The AR game players become Time Detectives, investigating the sinking of Henry VIII’s favorite ship, the Mary Rose, which claimed the lives of almost all the 500 soldiers and sailors on board.

Project Director Charlotte Mikkelborg consulted with Dr. Alex Hildred, Mary Rose’s Head of Research, to make the experience as realistic and as true to history as possible. Time Investigators, which also took the Award for Convergent Gaming home, immerses players in the sights, sounds, and even smells of life on board the ship almost 500 years ago.

Reflecting the true diversity of our world then and now, the game brings players on a roller-coaster journey through history. Players choose a character and receive a mission from the king. Using their smartphones as spyglass, they unravel secrets from the past. Then they follow a trail to solve the mystery and complete their mission. The app is available for both Android and iOS devices.

Cutting-Edge XR Experiences That Push the Boundaries of Storytelling and Technology

The SXSW XR Experience showcases the latest in immersive technology and XR. For many years now, it has provided creators and developers with a platform to showcase their innovative projects. It has also allowed attendees to immerse themselves in cutting-edge XR experiences that push the boundaries of storytelling and technology.

The SXSW 2023 XR Experience gave us the latest and most innovative immersive experiences, from VR concerts to interactive installations. Three standout experiences include the aespa VR Concert, Once A Glacier, and Symbiosis.

Aespa at KWANGYA

Aespa, a South Korean girl group formed by SM Entertainment, presented the world premiere of their VR concert at KWANGYA at the SXSW 2023 XR Experience. In the virtual world of KWANGYA, created by SM Culture Universe, the four-member K-pop group performed their debut song “Black Mamba” and “Illusion” to a global audience.

aespa vr concert at kwangya - SXSW 2023

The concert was captured using AmazeVR’s proprietary technology, which delivers high-definition stereoscopic live-action footage. Unreal Engine-based VFX tools, AI modules, and other state-of-the-art production software were used to deliver the next stage of music.

To offer more fans the opportunity to meet face-to-face with the members of aespa and see their performance up-close in 9K+ resolution, the aespa concert at KWANGYA will soon be launched on major VR headset platforms.

“Once a Glacier” – A One-of-a-Kind Story Experience

A 10-minute VR film Once A Glacier, which had its world premiere at SXSW 2023, merges the interactive world of glaciers and 360 storytelling. The experience was created by Director and Writer Jiabao Li, and Executive/Creative Producer Jenny Qinya Guo, who guided the narrative filmmaking within VR technology.

One a Glacier VR film - SXSW 2023

Utilizing real-world audio collected by Jiabao Li from glaciers in Alaska, the experience offers a multi-sensory journey into the heart of glacier culture with the smells of the glacier, swamp, freezer, and museum being released as the story progresses. The team used satellite data of Matanuska glaciers to model the disappearing glaciers in the experience. The contrast of scale within the experience is remarkable. It clearly showed the contrast between an enormous glacier during the first expedition and the tiny ice that was left of it in the latter part of the story.

The experience merges technology with storytelling to offer a better understanding of climate change and its effects on our world. Through the use of VR technology, the audience can participate in helping save the last glacier ice with a young girl. It also incorporates the Himalayan process of marrying a male glacier and a female glacier to grow a “glacier” over time for irrigation, showing where agriculture and ancient wisdom converge.

The final scene where the girl’s chunk of the glacier is auctioned to a group of cosmopolitan elites reflects the irony that despite being the largest climate change contributors, the elites are still the ones who can preserve the last remnants of the natural world for themselves. The use of VR technology allowed the audience to participate in the action of helping save that last glacier ice while also addressing the commodification of nature by elites.

“Symbiosis” – Merging Humans, Technology, and Nature

Symbiosis is a multi-sensory XR experience created by Dutch interdisciplinary artist collective Polymorf, in collaboration with Studio Biarritz. Polymorf brought Symbiosis to the US for the first time in November 2022, and it got its Texas premiere at SXSW 2023.

The experience takes place in a fictional world set 200 years into the future. In this world, humans have merged with technology and nature to become a symbiont—a human-animal and human-machine hybrid. The biotope now teems with genetically altered life forms, enhanced biochemical life, robots, autonomous intelligent systems, and other artificial or enhanced forms. In this world, all share resources and cohabitate in symbiosis.

When participants enter the virtual world, they become both a spectator and a performer. They choose a symbiotic role and interact with their surroundings. Through individualized haptic suits, soft robotics, taste and smell-based story elements, and VR headsets with olfactory fixtures, they experience a fully immersive, multi-sensory world that engages all five senses. The experience culminates in a collective eating ritual where participants share virtual and real foods.

An Exciting Year Ahead for the XR Industry

The pace of technological innovation is only going to accelerate as we continue to push the boundaries of what is possible. As we look ahead, it is important to keep in mind that these new technologies will bring not only new opportunities but also new challenges. It will be critical to approach these innovations with a keen awareness of their potential impact on society and the environment, and to work together to ensure that we harness their power for the greater good.

Still, the future of the XR industry is full of promise, and the possibilities are endless. By embracing the spirit of innovation and collaboration, we can build a brighter tomorrow for ourselves and for generations to come.

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“the-bear-who-touched-the-northern-lights”-is-a-charming-ar-story-puzzle

“The Bear Who Touched the Northern Lights” Is a Charming AR Story Puzzle

When a polar bear sees the northern lights for the first time, he wants to reach out and touch them. How will he get there and who will he meet along the way? That’s up to you with this charming interactive AR story puzzle.

The Bear Who Touched the Northern Lights

The Bear Who Touched the Northern Lights” is a sort of choose-your-own-adventure AR story for children where the “chapters” are physical puzzle pieces. The artwork and story are by Julie Puech and Karl Kim.

The ways in which these pieces fit together (or don’t) helps the AR story keep a logical narrative. However, pieces can be added and removed or swapped out resulting in multiple different possible tellings of the tale.

Of course, the adorable puzzle doesn’t tell the whole story. The puzzle pieces come to life with the help of a free AR mobile app for Apple and Android devices. The mobile app recognizes the pieces and animates their artwork, as well as queueing an audio narration by Kasey Miracle.

As a weary old XR veteran with a cold little heart, I sometimes find it helpful to recruit fresh eyes for product reviews – like when my younger brother provided his insights for my Nreal Air review. This time I recruited the help of my fiancée’s eight-year-old daughter.

What’s in the Box?

The puzzle comes with 15 AR story cards and an instructional booklet. The instructional booklet has information about the product, links to the app, and some advice for doing the puzzle for the first time – but don’t panic if you lose it. The puzzle information and a QR code to the app are both on the outside of the box and the first puzzle piece triggers an AR guide to using the app.

AR app - The Bear Who Touched the Northern Lights - AR Story Puzzle

The free app, powered by Unity, opens with a quick warning about being aware of your surroundings while using AR and encourages you to supervise children when using the app. From there, the app only has a play button and a settings button. Settings include background dimming to make the animations stand out better, or an option to turn the animations off.

Do be aware that the app is 394 MB and does require a fairly modern device to run. Like any AR app, it requires the use of your camera while the app is running.

Following Directions

Some pieces have special icons on them. Cards with a blue “+” are optional chapters that don’t have to be included in the AR story. Cards with green and orange arrows can be swapped out for one another, changing how the story unfolds.

The play guide recommends that you remove the optional chapters and two of the interchangeable chapters the first time that the puzzle is constructed. This is presumably an introductory version of the puzzle to avoid throwing too much at first-time players.

As with any puzzle, it’s important to find a flat surface large enough for the puzzle when completed. The play guide recommends a space of two feet by three-and-a-half feet. The AR story puzzle is long and narrow in nature, particularly with all of the possible pieces in play, but has some curves in the overall shape so it isn’t just a straight line.

AR app - The Bear Who Touched The Northern Lights

The AR instructions at the beginning of the puzzle remind you that you also need to have space to sit comfortably with the puzzle in front of you for about 20 minutes (give or take). After all, the play guide also recommends additional activities like asking the child to try to construct the story from the puzzle before watching the narration.

Putting the Pieces Together

The first time putting the puzzle together, we followed the play guide’s advice to remove extra pieces and one set of interchangeable chapters. The shapes of the pieces are similar enough to make it a little challenging for young hands to assemble without it being frustrating. They’re also different enough that the story can’t be constructed in an order that wouldn’t make sense.

It only took a few minutes to assemble the puzzle for the first time, and then we fired up the app. The AR instructions are short, cute, and very informative, telling us everything we needed to know without being boring. It takes the app a second or so to recognize the cards, so moving from one chapter to the next is neither seamlessly fast nor frustratingly slow.

The Bear Who Touched the Northern Lights - AR Story Puzzle

The animations are cute and colorful, and the effects are simply but beautifully done. The default background dimming on the app is 35%, and it certainly worked. Turning it up can make the background disappear completely, which makes for optimum viewing quality, but also makes it harder to find the pieces in the camera. Pick what setting you like best.

At one point in the story, the bear starts receiving items for his journey. The Child got to choose which items he used when, but only one item was ever needed in the story, and selecting the wrong item isn’t penalized – you just pick again. We were split on this. It’s nice that we couldn’t pick wrong, but picking at all felt kind of unnecessary. (This made more sense later on.)

We reached the end of the AR story. Sort of. Immediately upon finishing the puzzle and the story the first time, The Child asked to do the puzzle again with the extra chapters.

Putting the Pieces Together Again

We added in the two optional AR story pieces and swapped out both of the interchangeable pieces and put the puzzle together again. Suddenly, the choices made a much bigger difference and a lot more sense.

The interchangeable pieces provide the bear with a different item and see him use it in a different way. The additional chapters introduce new characters, which the bear befriends by using the different items. This gave The Child a new appreciation for the AR story, but it gave me a new appreciation for the AR app.

Doing the puzzle the first time, one would be forgiven for assuming that the chapters are stand-alone pieces that don’t affect one another. Doing the puzzle again makes it clear that the app is telling a new story each time based on the pieces, their placement, and your choices throughout the story.

AR Story Puzzle - The Bear Who Touched the Northern Lights

We’ve only done the puzzle those two times so far. I haven’t done the math to figure out how many different versions of the story are possible with different choices, pieces, and arrangements, but I know that there are a lot of versions of the story that we have yet to hear.

And that’s a good thing. As soon as we finished doing the puzzle the second time, The Child immediately asked if there were any more AR story puzzles like this one.

Where to Find the AR Story Puzzle

So far, The Bear Who Touched the Northern Lights is the only product by Red+Blue Stories (but we’re hopeful for more). The company is based in Canada but also ships to the US. Prices start at around US$34, but you can pay more for different shipping options. As of this writing, the AR story puzzle is not available on other online retailers like Amazon.

The AR instructions say that a child can use the product by themselves after the first go-around. That may be true, but if you’re letting your child construct this AR story puzzle without you, you’re missing out.

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GDC 2023 State of the Game Industry Report Includes Insights Into VR and AR

Games are the largest use case for consumer VR and AR. While VR and AR remain a comparatively small segment of the games industry, the industry is taking notice as VR hardware in particular improves. This presents possibilities for new kinds of games but also promises to breathe new life into established franchises.

The GDC’s State of the Game Industry Report for this year is by no means dedicated to VR and AR. However, it does hold insights into how this segment of the industry is growing and changing. This includes insights into larger emerging technology trends like Web3 and the metaverse.

VR and AR in the Larger Games Industry

This GDC survey, the 11th in an annual series, found that “the metaverse has become more than a buzzword.” That doesn’t mean that VR and AR are now the driving force in the games industry.

In terms of which platforms developers are building for, VR headsets land in 10th place with 12% of respondents. AR landed in 14th place with 4% of respondents. When asked which platforms developers are building their next project for, VR headsets remained in 10th place with 12%, but AR moved up to 11th place with 5%.

GDC State of the Game Industry 2023 - platforms developers are building for
Source: GDC State of the Game Industry 2023

PC leads the pack, with the intervening platforms consisting of the usual suspects – legacy gaming platforms and mobile. However, this may be changing in the near future.

When asked which platforms developers are most interested in, 23% of respondents said VR, pushing the platform to 6th place, ahead of Android, Mac, and Xbox One. Similarly, 12% responded with AR, placing it in 11th place ahead of PS4 and web browsers.

GDC State of the Game Industry 2023 - which platform most interests game developers
Source: GDC State of the Game Industry 2023

So, while we might not see a boom period for VR and AR games in the immediate future, it’s increasingly on the radar of game developers. This trend looks like it could be setting up growth in this aspect of the industry within the next few years.

That said, last year’s big metaverse hype may have led to increased expectations for the cycle we’re in now. Last year, 42% of respondents said that they were actively involved in VR and AR game development. Now that number is at 38%, closer to where it was in 2021.

Platform Wars Within VR

So, of the developers that are working in VR and AR gaming, what platforms are they working on?

When asked which platform their next game will release on, 36% responded with Quest meaning Quest 2. An additional 10% responded with “Project Cambria” – the Quest Pro which had not yet been released at the time of the survey. A further 10% responded with Rift, Meta’s now discontinued line of tethered PC VR headsets.

GDC State of the Game Industry 2023 - VR and AR platforms developers are building games for
Source: GDC State of the Game Industry 2023

It is worth noting that the percentage of respondents working with Quest has gone up almost 10% since last year. That in itself is not necessarily surprising if not for the fact that the overall number of VR and AR game developers has gone down.

Interestingly, the runner-up is the as-yet-unreleased PlayStation VR 2 with 18%, followed by the HTC VIVE ecosystem at 15%. A further 12% responded with Apple’s ARKit, and another 9% responded with Android’s ARCore. There was also a potentially unexpected write-in entry.

“A handful of respondents shared that they were developing games for Pico, a platform that was not on the survey list,” the report offers. In some geographical markets, the Pico 4,  which was announced shortly before the Quest Pro, is a significant potential Quest Pro competitor. However, Pico Interactive does not currently offer consumer support in the US.

Gaming in the Metaverse?

“The concept of the metaverse continues to pick up steam in the game industry, as new and existing companies alike move to secure funding, spin up projects, and develop new technology,” reads the survey. However, like VR and AR gaming, this news comes with a grain of salt and some more sober attitudes since last year.

Nearly half of the respondents didn’t select any of the survey’s platform options. They instead said that “the metaverse concept will never deliver on its promise.” This occurred last year as well when around a third of respondents said that the metaverse will never materialize.

From a VR and AR perspective, it gets worse. More developers said that Fortnite would become the model metaverse platform than Horizon Worlds. This isn’t bad news because Horizon Worlds is better than Fortnite, it’s bad news because Horizon Worlds is VR and Fortnite isn’t. In fact, many of the more popular “metaverse” contenders are flat platforms.

GDC 2023 State of the Game Industry - Metaverse promise
Source: GDC State of the Game Industry 2023

And it gets worse. “Microsoft/Minecraft” came in a distant third place with 7% of respondents choosing them as the model metaverse. This presumably included AltspaceVR. As this article was being written, it was announced that AltspaceVR is coming to an end.

A Note on Blockchain

ARPost is not explicitly interested in blockchain but as a potential pillar of both the metaverse and the future of gaming, it shouldn’t be inappropriate to share some of the survey’s findings in this field. And, if you aren’t explicitly interested in blockchain either, the survey results should please you.

When asked about their interest in blockchain integration in games, 23% of respondents said that they were “very interested” or “somewhat interested”, with 75% saying that they were not interested at all. The remaining 2% are using blockchain in games already, with blockchain being the principal monetization strategy of around 4% of games.

Interest in blockchain is down slightly from last year, but, according to the report, most respondents were against blockchain last year as well and simply haven’t changed their minds.

GDC State of the Game Industry 2023 - blockchain in game industry
Source: GDC State of the Game Industry 2023

“Many developers said there could be a valuable place for blockchain technology in video games in the future,” the report explains. “Others said that the risks outweigh the benefits and that existing technologies serve similar purposes that negate the need for blockchain.”

A Maturing Industry

If you thought that the gaming industry was moving a little too fast last year, you were right. Metaverse hype driven by hardware expectations and blockchain buzz may have led to a brief, hard burn in the industry. It now seems that a small correction has taken place but the VR and AR games industry is settling in for longer-term development.

For the full picture of the whole gaming industry, find the complete report here.

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