GDC 2009: Why the iPhone Just Changed Everything

Posted on March 23, 2009 by Ori Inbar

Robert Tercek Chairman of GDC Mobile kicks of the Mobile summit with “Welcome to the Next Level! ”

He speaks about the state of the mobile gaming world (looks much better than last year) and even spends a moment on our favorite topic: Virtual layers superimposed on a fictitious reality. He admits it has only been done for advertising so far.

Next is a session I have been looking forward to: “Why the iPhone just changed everything” by
Neil Young founder of Ngmoco :)

When it comes to mobile games, everything before the iPhone was lame. Mostly because of the carriers, the devices, and their usability.
With the iPhone a new Everything was born.

As a game machine it’s so much better than anything before.

4 major Changes:
1) The market – iPhone has more installed based than the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP. 165 new apps per day.
Short term problem: Clutter + pricing pressure.
Long term – awesome opportunity.

2) The games – Graphics are better. The experience is better.
And it’s always connected. new opportunities for social, multi players.

3) Game making – fantastic SDK and a much faster development cycle.

4) and Publishing.
There’s never been a better time to be an independent developer and to create a closer relationship with customers.

Then comes the Ngmoco plug: they help create hits by focusing on largest audience appeal, superior execution, and making sure it’s native to the iPhone
There other job is helping games get in front of as many people as possible.
The Ngmoco platform helps is that endevour: analytics, silent download of levels and episodes, promotions engine.

The session ends in high note: iPhone is current the top dog.

Off to a coffee break.

Filed under: AR Devices, AR Events | Tagged: , | 3 Comments »

Is the Future of Games Lurking at the Game Developer Conference?

Posted on March 23, 2009 by Ori Inbar

I am on a flight to San Francisco, barely dodging a thunder storm, for what I expect to be an inspiring week at the Game Developer Conference .
I have been to hundreds of conferences in my career – GDC is one that usually satisfies the crave for inspiration – big time.

Here’s what I’ll be looking for:
The Mobile Games Summit has a bunch of sessions focused on the iPhone such as “Why the iPhone just changed everything”. It also features probably the first major session about Handheld Augmented Reality in the history of GDC (can you believe that?). Blair MacIntyre is best equipped to shoulder the challenge.
You’ll surely find me at the intriguing session: “Beyond the Screen: The Principles of Pervasive Game Design“. Although when Markus Montola speaks about ARGs he means Alternative Reality Games – not Augmented Reality Games – I believe it will be a treat.

Other sessions serve as stepping stones in my pursuit of the ultimate augmented reality game:
Get Smart About Smartphones: Insight Into the Future of Mobile Gaming
Bringing Meaning to Mobile Entertainment
Getting Serious About Alternate Reality: Designing a Different Kind of ARG
The Human Play Machine

Experimental Game Play Session is always fascinating. I wonder what year an AR game will be featured.

Jonathan Blow, Clint Hocking  and Jesse Schell are among the top reasons I am here this week. They’re super smart, artistic, entertaining, yet humble. They remind me why I am so attracted to this industry.

I also wish to ask Will Wright after the session “Stretching Beyond Entertainment: The Role of Games in Personal and Social Change”  if he’s doing anything related to his (celebrated among the AR community) quote: “Games should increase our awareness to our immediate environment rather than distract us from it”

Of course, I’ll be looking for green inducing tips (not what you’re thinking) in sessions such as “Early Stage Funding for Video Game Start Ups”.

The exhibition area usually feels like a SyFy convention. I’ll be looking for the future AR hardware from Vuzix, Nvidia, Microvision, and other contenders (Microsoft?).

Most importantly, I wish to meet like-minded folks.
My first stop is an AR dinner (plotting next year’s AR-attack on GDC) on Tuesday.
I would like to think that among the more than 5,000 attendees, there are at least 50 with a strong interest in Augmented Reality Games. I’ll be in their pursuit…

If you’re at GDC – please give me a buzz.
If not – use me as you’re eyes and ears – what would you have looked for?

So Is the Future of Games Lurking at the Game Developer Conference?

We’ll find out this week.

Filed under: AR Events | Tagged: , | 2 Comments »

2020 Games Look Mostly Augmented

Posted on March 18, 2009 by Ori Inbar

Gamasutra recently announced a competition for best game ideas. Games of 2020.

The winners are already in and their games are mostly…augmented.

Check out these 4 games:

House Chores by Wesley Wiebe.

It builds on the idea that if you cleverly use game pleasures people would be willing to tolerate almost anything – just to get the built-in reward. The same dopamine system in our brains that handles addictions.

In this case, the game controller is a broom. And your challenge: sweep the floor.

The setup is your “everyday” augmented reality game: your own house is modeled into the game, you wear see thru digital goggles with built in cameras, you interact with the real world (your living room) blended with virtual elements (water splashes)…

Intrigued?

Keep reading the next game:

Appliance Gaming By Daniel Cook

The concept in Daniel’s own words:

Cloud connected household appliances combined with simple games and an augmented reality feedback system. Hook up some inexpensive sensors and a wireless connection to assorted dishwashers,vacuums, refrigerators and washing machines. Add a feedback device in the form of a vision aware monocle.

The game device looks awfully like Yanko‘s Monocle (who’s first?):

I also like the punch line:

The resulting consumer boom is widely credited with ending the economic malaise of America’s Lost Decade.

Play Everywhere By: Angie Oikawa

Here is what every Augmented Reality fan dreams about

a diverse collection of casual, social gaming experiences that integrate easily into a persons everyday life. PE! is a mobile “game platform” that allows people to choose virtual “Smart Game Objects”, customize them, and place them into real world locations for friends to find and play with.

What’s this mobile platform like?

…an evolved smart phone with a high resolution holographic display, or glasses that allow a person to superimpose virtual objects into the real world

And a game play example shows an inspiring woman’s touch: leaving sexy clues for your spouse to find on your anniversary:

…she is greeted by a flock of doves who sing to her and drop rose petals across the hall way into the bedroom where you are waiting for her.

Chow Time By Trevor Paradise

The (wacky) concept: eat healthy food in reality, while the game makes you think you eat your favorite junk food.

Scratchy.

If you like these – there’s a whole bunch just like these at Gamasutra.

The only remaining question is: why wait for 2020?

Filed under: AR Games | Tagged: , | 5 Comments »

Edutainment is Dead: Long Live Learning Games!

Posted on March 10, 2009 by Ori Inbar

Eric Klopfer, Scot Osterweil, and Katie Salen have just published a paper: Moving Learning Games Forward.

With 60 pages strong, it’s more of a mini book than a “paper” – but hey, who’s counting?

I argued before that Learning Games should be the first pin we target in the Augmented Reality bowling alley (taking a page from Crossing the Chasm). I base my arguments largely on Eric and the Learning Games Network team’s work.

In this paper they speak about the role of play in learning and the freedom it entails:

game players regularly exhibit persistence, risk-taking, attention to detail and problem solving skills, all behaviors that ideally would be regularly demonstrated in school.

And they touch on how Augmented reality games could contribute to the goal:

Augmented Reality games that embed students in realistic real world scenarios

Overall it’s a very well crafted case, with the breadth and depth to convince skeptics that games can, and should, change the way kids learn. It’s complemented with a fantastic set of references for related work.

Highly recommended.

Filed under: AR Education | Tagged: , , , , | 4 Comments »

Augmented Reality Today – Ori Inbar Speaks at WARM 2009

Posted on March 9, 2009 by Ori Inbar

Games Alfresco is celebrating the first year on the air.

Among the festivities, I am sharing a talk I gave at the Winter Augmented Reality Event (WARM ’09) at Graz University (Austria) this February.

It makes the case for unleashing Augmented Reality into the mass market – Today.

The best part was the post talk conversation with a group of AR enthusiasts at the University. I guess I managed to get their juices flowing.

Hope it will have a similar effect on you.

Here it is: a year of research distilled into 16 minutes of uncut, fast-paced presentation – with a twisted voice over.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Many thanks to the augmented reality community for your contribution. I couldn’t have done it without you.

Are you in?

Filed under: AR Events | Tagged: , , | 20 Comments »

Total Immersion Breathe Life Into Baseball Cards With Augmented Reality

Posted on March 9, 2009 by Ori Inbar

New York Times unveils this story about Total Immersion‘s new foray into trading card games.

Total Immersion partnered with Topps to add 3D animation on top of their baseball cards using your web cam.

Rouli and Tobias have already mused about it this morning (Old World folks always wake up earlier…). Here’s the video video…

Judge it yourself:

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Kudos to Total Immersion: once again you managed to lead the pack.

But do we really want to be glued to the PC all day; when will you offer this experience on mobile devices?



Filed under: AR Games | 4 Comments »

Governator vs. Chancellator Play Augmented Reality at Cebit

Posted on March 3, 2009 by Ori Inbar

You got to see this to believe it:

California-Governor-Arnold -Schwarzenegger and German-Chancellor-Angela-Merkel jointly holding a Lego-digital box-by-Metaio.

In the back, a mirror screen featuring an augmented version of California-Governor-Arnold-Schwarzenegger and German-Chancellor-Angela-Merkel holding the Lego-digital-box-by-Metaio, with an exploded view of the assembled Lego toy.

This must have been the highest concentration of top-rank political figures in a single augmented reality scene – ever to be captured on (digital) film.

I have covered the Digial Lego Box when it was fresh news – now see it in video (in German) on the Cebit site.

Next political AR picture challenge:

capture Obama holding hands with Putin while watching an augmented view of a peaceful Afghanistan.

Thanks Jan Schlink for sharing!

Filed under: AR Events | Tagged: , , | 4 Comments »

Augmented Reality Game in Primetime TV Show

Posted on March 2, 2009 by Ori Inbar

To complete the trilogy covering the Japanese foray into Augmented Reality, here’s a revival of a TV show featuring ARis the Augmented Reality Geisha.

The game creator is a super star; the new scenarios are staggering; give it up to the unwavering, hanky-panky, poke-her doll – ARis the augmented!

The first adult AR game is garnering excitement in Japanese pop culture.

Is ARis really at the center of a this TV game show?

What’s the big showdown about?

Who won this “boss” battle?

Filed under: AR Demos | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

“I Think the Graphics of a Punch”

Posted on March 1, 2009 by Ori Inbar

Predicted Mr. Yamazaki during this week’s Augmented Reality panel at the IT Business Pro conference in Tokyo.

The panelists were (from left):

Tsunoda Tetsuya  from AR Lab Asuka – about content production, NEC’s Yamasaki Zyuniti MAGUNASUKOMYUNIKESHONZU about application development for mobile phones, AR DNP (DNP) Goro Nomotai, Mr. Hamano Satoshi of Japan about application development, and panel Chair  Takebe Keniti from Nikkei Communications about the theory of media arts

The panel chair Takebe started with an introduction to the advancements in AR technology.

He continued with examples of applications possible Today: (1) in construction of health care, (2) navigate catalogs, and, (3) communication, social understanding and relationship building using “social AR”

The panel discussion revolved around the business challenges and expectations from this new technology and highlighted the important roles of GPS and mobile phones in its future.

Japanese applications using AR such as the Sekai Camera were brought as current examples.

The panel went on a tangent and mused about an AR scenario that could take place in the very panel discussion they were all part of.

What if we used face recognition software to overlay text on a screen in front of the panel members, that would reveal to us relevant information about individuals in the audience?

That thought triggered a concern about the implications of AR on social ethics,  which evolved into a full blown discussions about the issues surrounding AR: low public awareness, hardware complexity, software scalability, security, etc.

The undisputed climax arrived when Mr. Yamakazi summarized the future of AR with his prediction “I Think the Graphics of a Punch!”


Filed under: AR Events, AR Panel | Tagged: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Japanese Augmented Reality Punch Continues

Posted on March 1, 2009 by Ori Inbar

via augmented times, via Sein Blog, thanks to google translator…here are the AR news from Japan.

Scene Recognition Engine (SR Engine) demonstrates its ability to recognize buildings, pull relevant information, and display it live – on an iPhone. And it works outdoors – alfresco.

Looks like a marriage between Tonchidot’s Sekai Camera and Mobilizy’s Wikitude.

Interested in a look under the hood?

How does it work?
(loose translation from the creator’s speech in Japanese):

Stores in the city are stored in a database and mapped and tagged with information from brochures and videos. Based on the “scene” caught by the Camera, the app pulls information from its database and tags the actual image, the AR-free sensor networks. It uses GPS, angle variation and image matching, to recognize the targets.

So, I guess it only works when you observe the target from a certain perspective.

Why develop it for the iPhone?

IPhone’s CPU is [not] bad, folks like it…

Who’s behind it?

According to the blog it’s the man with the big name:

Sunday Star Geumchon

have you seen this man?

Who are you Sunday Star?

Filed under: AR Applications, AR Demos | Tagged: , | 2 Comments »

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