Big AR: Gaming, Marketing, and You
This is the second article within a series of blog posts on augmented reality and the future of marketing. If you missed out on the first Big AR post, you can read it here.
One of the biggest markets on any app store is the gaming market. From Candy Crush to Angry Birds, from free-to-start to trials and demos, there are several platforms in which an inventive developer or indie team can stand upon to monetize the magical world of gaming on mobile.
As the virtual reality headset industry heats up quicker and faster each year, and hot on the heels of the Pokémon Go craze in 2016, marketers are beginning to look at how they can create the next big gaming app for augmented reality platforms of tomorrow.
Where do we go from here?
The current landscape of gaming on mobile technology is confined to the space of our phones and tablets. This creates an obvious separation between the real world and the digital world and, for gamers specifically, this breaks immersion and creates a defined sandbox for play. In some ways this can be a positive, as it allows users and players to separate work and play. In other ways, however, this can be seen as a primitive form of AR, as continually advancing technology will surely push us away from our phone screens at some point, leaping into glasses and potentially contact lens technology at some point, meaning this use of AR on mobile is just an in-between.
Our future lies in the image to the left. A world with a Pikachu right within our personal world. Well, of course, it’s not actually a Pokémon placed within our world, but it’s the closest that AR can get us without affecting our nervous system! The image to the left is a convincing Pikachu overlaid onto our world through a glasses or contact lens AR technology. And this is exactly where the realm of gaming can head in a very near future.
The Most Important Thing.
One of the strongest things to drive home as a marketer is that our mission is to push immersive and transformative experiences. In gaming, this means innovating and trying out interesting ideas. It means bringing people closer together and allowing them to communicate and share their gaming experiences with their extended network. The image below shows a mockup of what a Game Center in AR could look like. It allows gamers to move around within their environment to discover gaming milestones from fellow gamers and friends in their network that were attained in that specific setting.
This is important because it creates a grounding sensation with games — it allows the average user to feel like their gaming means something more: it’s a shared experience with your network — a congratulation of sorts from everyone who has ever shared the same feeling of victory. By combining this AR technology with location services, it allows users to open this app at any moment in their day, and share a sense of victory with those around them, which is exactly the kind of feeling we keep going back to games like Candy Crush and Angry Birds for.
As we head into a future of abundant AR, we have to consider how we will continue to transform experiences for gamers within a new and continually growing platform: their own lives.
