Augmented Realizations — Part 1
Overview
Though the technology has been around for over 20 years, over the last 12 months Augmented Reality has blown up. AR is all the rage in tech circles — from Silicon Valley, to Brands, Marketers, Investors, large tech companies, and startups. As a developer who has been on the ground floor of AR for the last five years, these posts will cover my sometimes-strong opinions on where we are now, and where we might be headed.
This my first post will cover topics including:
- The state of Mobile AR today
- The AR Killer App Messiah Syndrome
Who am I?
My early career began working at LucasArts for most of the 1990s, interacting regularly with ILM and Skywalker Ranch to embolden a new era of digital tools for filmmaking and games. I have seen many technology cycles in my lifetime, some that came to fruition, and many others that have not. HappyGiant, my current company, has been an early pioneer in the AR gaming and entertainment space. Our first published AR game, HoloGrid: Monster Battle, was announced before Pokémon Go, and has been covered everywhere from VentureBeat to the Wall Street Journal. HoloGrid, a collaboration with Academy Award winner Phil Tippett, which used Photogrammetry (volumetric capture), first came out using marker based AR for mobile devices, was then ported to almost every AR platform (Google’s Tango and now AR Core, Hololens and ODG, launch title for ARKit & featured by Apple as “Game of the Day”).
HappyGiant works with many entertainment, toy and other companies to create unique AR experiences based on their brands. Our first We think about Mobile AR today, and the headset AR future we all hope is coming. At HappyGiant, all we do is think about, and develop for AR — how to best use it in games and other entertainment and brand/marketing experiences. We have been thinking about the AR Cloud, since before it had a name (which wasn’t that long ago).
The State of AR
AR as the next Computing Shift
Apple’s Tim Cook has said he thinks AR could be bigger than the iPhone. Magic Leap has raised billions of dollars on this same sentiment. This article and my viewpoint looks at AR through this lens. This is an important distinction to make, as you can easily make the case AR is big business already, but that’s more in “enterprise” and other non-consumer sectors. And hey, that’s cool, but we are looking at AR through the spectrum of Mass Market Medium here; as something that’s going to fundamentally change how we interact with the world through technology, either with our phones - or with the forthcoming AR Headsets.
Mobile AR
As we wait for this to happen and HeadsetAR to emerge, we have Mobile AR to enjoy and with which to experiment. Apple, and more recently Google, updated their OS’s and select higher-end mobile devices, providing software SLAM-based tracking to a wide audience for the first time. Simultaneously, Depth-Sensing Cameras on phones are emerging. These are big technical steps for getting modern AR capabilities to the masses, and early on, there was hope these technologies would provide “breakout” hit moments of AR-awesomeness to the general public. However, since AR Kit’s release in September ’17, and more recently, Google’s AR Core, it’s safe to say we have seen no real hits yet. While there’s been extensive media coverage of AR Apps, there has arguably been no AR apps built on these core technologies that have captured mass attention. What is happening here?
Mobile AR Today — What are users saying?
Let’s take a look at some charts by ARtillry on AR usage (ugly red lines by me, not them):
It’s pretty obvious looking at these charts, that AR Gaming is by far the biggest use case, by a factor of at least double.
Next chart we can see that of the over two-third's of the people who have used mobile AR, we can infer over half of them were via AR Games.
Now the sobering stuff. Check out the people who have not used mobile AR so far:
My takeaway here reinforces my premise that a lot of us in AR are living in a bit of a “bubble” right now. To the general public, outside of games (mainly Pokémon Go, which came before AR Kit), they simply do not care about AR yet. So where is all this enthusiasm coming from in the AR community? How is AR going to get as big as many believe it can and has the potential to reach? And when and how will it happen? Can Mobile AR ever take off? Or is this more about the AR headsets, which will clearly take many years to reach mainstream penetration.
The “Killer App” Messiah Syndrome
Why isn’t Mobile AR taking off as so many prophesied? While we have not seen mass adoption of mobile AR or anything close to resembling real revenue being made from an AR Kit or Core app, there is a fairly common belief held in the AR crowd that I will call “The Killer App Messiah” — large investment consulting firms, investors and others committed to the space feel there is a “Killer AR App” coming that will pave the way to mass AR mobile adoption.
The AR publication ARtillry asked in a recent article titled, “The Killer App?”:
“A question often asked in AR circles is “what will be the killer app?” The sector needs a killer app to break out of niche status and fulfill its vision for a more ubiquitous medium.” Link
Some industry “experts” proclaim AR Kit and AR Core revenue will take off in 2019, but when pressed on why they believe this, you don’t get much of an answer. What is going to happen between now and then? Certainly more capable devices will be purchased, and this is a major factor. But if people continue to not show interest in mobile AR, then what? What app is going to change the current trend? Apple has already added capabilities to AR Kit, and Google has just announced new features with AR Core, but will these be enough? So far, I would argue no. We see average consumers struggle to understand basic AR, or even care about it. It seems a stretch to think more technically challenging experiences like multiplayer will change this, as least not quickly.
Another strong belief among the investors and journalists that I’ve spoken with, is that the AR killer app will not be a game. Much like the curve of mobile device usage, games paved the way as early revenue makers and still dominate the charts, but it was really when utility and social media apps with connectivity, communication, personalization and location capabilities arrived, that mobile phones took off to the general public. So it makes logical sense to make this argument for mobile AR. Sort of.
Ori Inbar, founder of Super Ventures and AWE, agrees, and in Sept 2017 predicted:
“ARKit and ARCore will not usher massive adoption of mobile AR. The AR Cloud Will.”
Final Thoughts
I want this to be an open forum and welcome people’s thoughts, whether they agree or disagree with me. The AR community needs to be talking about these things. We should not have AR dictated by VC’s and people who do not understand it. We need true Devs working on the ground floor to speak up, and this was my initial attempt. My next post will look at:
- The AR “Dark” Cloud Forecast — what is it and where are we headed?
- Pokémon Go F Yourself: Why do AR Games get so little respect in the AR Community?
- Is AR really the next big thing, or are we all drinking too much of the Kool Aid?
Mike Levine, HappyGiant
