Developing Augmented Reality games for the masses that can also make money is a challenge only a few have taken but many are thinking of doing.
After several years of thinking and a few years of trying im sharing my thoughts at ARE 2011.
Phones are the AR mobile platform of the masses 5 Billio n Mobile Subscribers (2010) In the U.S., 9 out of 10 of every man, woman, and child has a phone 50% of cell phones sold in the US are now smart-phones
We’ll focus on AR games for Mobile Phones! Android phones are being activated at a rate of 166,000 per day , rapidly outpacing iPhones. The iPhone …fastest-growing consumer electronics product of all time - 70 million units sold since 2007. 10 Billion Apps downloaded. Source: Morgan Stanley Games Are the #1 Category On the Appstores. In 2013 $29.5B will be Spent on Mobile Apps.
Case Study: Paranormal Activity Sanctuary Play in the real world To get full advantage of your location
Sketch Interaction Experience Sketch a race track, point your phone and: Your sketch becomes part of the game content Pen and paper are still a barrier BUT the reward… You can enjoy your creation and challenge others
Hinweis der Redaktion
Here is a claim to begin with. AR and mobile are a match. AR is about interaction with your surrounding, things around you, with reality. A Mobile platform is exactly what enables you to go out and do that.
So what is you mobile platform of choice ?
If you aiming on the platform with the largest user base then you’re definitely looking at mobile phones
5 Billion mobile subscribers ! Can you compete with console when it comes to graphics? You can compete with console when it comes to playing out of the house, during the day rather than while seating on the coutch. While walking your dog, while commuting, while standing in the line or just during your lunch break.
There is only one thing left to check – Is there a market for mobile games? Look at the app store – games are #1 category.
So we started with AR and mobility being a good match Now we want to take full advantage of being mobile And Location Based Games are the natural answer.
With social elements in the game you cant really go wrong.
Ghost hunting in the real world, taking snapshots of them and saving them on your camera roll.
And last but not least, the WOW factor. The part of the game that will make your player remember you, talk about you, will make your game unique enough to be mentioned on all top blogs and will do a great marketing job to your game
Combining all those in one game, one theme, with the right doze of each, keeping a game balance while rewarding players doing the cools (but sometime hard) parts is the trick
Who is your target audience, the masses…
They might be open to try new experiences
But they want to match before closing your game and never coming back: Examples: registration screen, long download time, commercials, etc..
So lets talk about AR experiences but keep in mind we don’ t want to create stairs for our player to climb
So you might be thinking – this is all great. Let do the same type of interaction
When you download a game from the appStore it does not come with a printed card.
iPhone is not a 3DS device
What can you do on today’s phone not only in terms of AR Tracking that works nicely but also experience, publishing and game play that makes sense with the technology limitations ?
Lets start with the easiest one. Browsing around and interacting with objects appearing around you I know a dozen of games like that – very nice
But this is limited to “flying” objects experiences. Even for flying objects the CG will sometime wont make sense anymore (e.g. your facing a wall an a spaceship is coming toward you.
Browsing + Recognition Experiences are already better. Its also doable on iPhone today. Now you might be asking why im showing you a 3DS game rather than a mobile phone game – Because I havent seen a browsing + recognition game on mobile although it makes so much sense.
Lets take it one step further and closer to the 3DS game we started with
What if you could avoid the need for printing a marker Design an experience without harsh movements And do not require repositioning the phone vertically when tracking is lost. We did a sketching experience. Still – to some extend we introduce once more step – sketching
Is sketching a “step”? One of those steps we wanted to avoid climbing? What if sketching is really part of the game What if sketching is really rewarding and you can share a game you created with your friends and challenge them…