Virtual Augmented Reaility Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games
The Untapped Power of Augmented Reality
Imagine playing Pokemon Go, but becoming an actual pokemon trainer, with the stylized clothes and all, viewable through the lens of another’s phone camera.
Imagine seeing full-sized, to-scale Pokemon overlayed perfectly over the real world, interacting with the environment, and even doing authentic attacks and actions!
This was how I envisioned augmented reality. Even before Pokemon Go came out, even before I knew Ingress existed. When that game actually came out, and the utter 💩 that was its gameplay came to light, I was pissed.
What a waste.
But luckily its not too late, if anything, now is an even better time to do something like this. Google and Apple both finally have brought the technology to a suitable level of fidelity and immersion.
The main problem is that they’re too busy marketing it to the general public, that they forgot the power of the niche groups. They forgot that new tech like this only ever takes off AFTER the nerds and geeks and such have got ahold of it.
In order for AR to become the incredible force it can be, it needs to be focused down on a specific customer to be fleshed out and its potential shown.
I believe that group are gamers, cosplayers, and LARPers to be exact. The kind of people who go out and congregate with others like them to literally create a shared imagination. The kind of people who immerse themselves in role playing and creativity.
Right now, AR is limited by the garish hardware needed to really show its power. Sure, phone-based displays work really well, but theyre not very convenient for augmented reality, since you have to actually lift up your phone and open whatever app the AR visuals will be displayed through.
You need a dedicated display for AR… glasses, goggles, a headset of some sort. Much to bulky for regular people to want to wear out in public on a daily basis. Thus why its working really well in Industry right now such as warehouses, because what you wear to work is much less important than how it makes your job easier or safer.
The only way to get regular people into AR seriously is to have a form factor that is discrete and comfortable. Which is impossible or prohibitively expensive right now.
But luckily there are huge groups of people who aren’t ‘regular.’ There are cosplayers and enthusiasts and people who are so passionate about their thing that they dont care what ‘regular’ people think of what they wear and do.
So… as a two-parter, you can make both a ‘killer app' and have ‘product-market' fit by making an AR app specifically for one person, for one niche.
Go deep, and that will help you go wide.
Take the example of Pokemon again. If they had actually cared about the community or the technology, they wouldnt have created some BS app to cater to the widest audience possible. It was am amazing global sensation, but it burned out fast, because the masses are fickle.
If they had focused down on the 26 year old who had been a pokemon fan since he was a kid and still Pokemon cards and gameboy games. Who can name at least a dozen non-common Pokemon off the top of his head in his sleep. Who goes to commicon dressed as a different Pokemon every year and whose girlfriend dresses as his pokemon trainer.
If they focused on creating an AR Pokemon game for him, they would have realized that it would be worth the extra work and money to create high fidelity and realistic AR displays. Because he would have bought them, even if they looked like some goofy, chunky glasses, because he could then DIY them to look like those funny Squirtle Shades. He would have bought that little trianer backpack that housed the dedicated computer if he had to. He would even have bought mocapped cosmetics just so that his virtual avatar would look hella cool when another player saw him.
The sheer awesome power of th3 technology he and his Pokemon nerds would have ran around town with would have inevitably attracted more nerds and geeks and enthusiasts and gamers and more. They would have all invested in the tech.. which is much easier to share and show others than virtual reality.
Then they would have asked for games to be made for each of their favorite shows… for Yugioh and Digimon and Gundam and Dragon Ball Z and so on…
The world would thus be changed dramatically through the induction of these magical realities floating around within easy reach.
Youd have been able to monetize everything from physical peripherals to virtual cosmetics, without pay to win corruptions.
There is just So MUCH Potential!!!
But again… its still not too late!
Who will take this opportunity to change the world more dazzlingly then even the smartphones that allowed it to happen?…
