Immersal Oy, part of Hexagon, launched an augmented reality (AR) game arcade at VRARA Global Immerse Summit in Miami. The solution enables the retail and tourism industry as well as other sectors to gamify their customers’ experience while providing monetisation and learning opportunities. Potential AR arcade games are Pinball, Air Hockey, multiplayer Pong, Pacman, Tetris, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, multiplayer Snakes and Ladders, and more.
With the game arcade solutions, you can decorate an entire neighbourhood in a city with games, for example, placing Tetris on the surface of a high-rise building. A shopping mall can include branded games with a retailer’s logo or products forming part of the game. These AR elements modernise the shopping experience, improve brand engagement and introduce an element of fun.
Visitors in a new city or shoppers in a mall can use AR through their mobile devices or AR glasses. AR games can be combined with other AR content like navigation or e-commerce as part of a city guide app or shopping mall’s own app.
AR experiences are typically implemented with 5G, either private or public. It is possible to use MEC (multi-access edge computing) servers to ensure the immediate response times necessary for AR content. Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) benefit from supporting these solutions to showcase examples of 5G in use.
Immersal previously introduced a similar solution for stadiums and horse racing tracks and has piloted this together with several operators around the world including Rakuten in Japan.
In June 2022, Immersal also introduced a personal metaverse app which is an unprecedented way to create, share and experience the metaverse. Immersal App is an easy and fun way to merge physical and digital realities seamlessly into one immersive experience. This functionality can be integrated to both stadium and horse racing solutions.
“To make the metaverse accessible for a larger part of society, we need to lower the barriers to entrance. Games are a great way to inspire people to test AR for the first time. Adding creative monetisation and brand visibility opportunities makes this an attractive option for brands, making this the smartest first step into AR world,” says Anttoni Vesterinen, CEO of Immersal.
