Wayfair Wants To Change Online Shopping With Augmented Reality

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Most people probably associate Wayfair with online furniture and home goods shopping—featuring brands such as AllModern, Birch Lane and Dwell Studio in addition to its own brand name items—but the company sees itself more as a tech brand that happens to sell furniture, similar to how Amazon happens to sell books.

That is why Wayfair launched the Wayfair Next team two years ago, headed by Mike Festa, to explore up-and-coming technologies such as augmented and virtual reality. It was one of the first companies to develop a commercial app for the Google Tango AR platform, which senses depth and motion in ways that ordinary smartphones cannot. Even though there are only two devices that support Tango right now (the newly launched Asus ZenFone AR and the Lenovo Phab 2) Wayfair sees AR as the future platform for online shopping.

Mike Festa, director of Wayfair Next

Festa was a new engineer at Wayfair when he developed an AR app as a proof of concept at a hackathon. Not only did he win the hackathon, he was promoted to director of Wayfair Next, and his team has been working to integrate 3D models into the Wayfair app so that users can get their first taste of how AR enhances the online shopping experience.

The app detects whether or not a device supports Tango and will automatically enable its 3D shopping features accordingly. All users see is a new button for 3D shopping for certain items, which allows them to place computer rendered furniture items into their rooms to see how they look at scale. Users can freely move the virtual furniture around and rotate them as needed.

Festa sat down with AListDaily to discuss Wayfair’s AR app in detail and how the company believes the technology will shape the online shopping experience.

“We think AR is a great tool for customers to help visualize what they’re going to get before they buy it,” said Festa, discussing the company’s interest in the technology. “One of the challenges of selling home furnishings is figuring out how it will fit in people’s spaces. AR enables us to answer that question quickly and easily, as customers see how a product will fit with what they have.”

The standard Wayfair app lets users apply what Festa describes as “stickers” to their spaces. They’re 2D silhouettes of furniture items that users can zoom in and out on to imagine how they’d fit into their spaces.

“But people who have 3D Tango enabled phones get a 3D button, and that gives them content that helps them understand products better in their space,” said Festa. “It’s part of the shopping experience on mobile, and as more devices become capable of AR, more consumers will have access to that additional feature.”

That future might seem distant to some, given how Google Tango is only supported by two high-end mobile devices. However, Festa believes in the importance of true AR through Tango.

“I’ve been looking at a lot of different AR platforms that don’t use the Tango sensors, and I’ve found that Tango is incredibly stable and robust,” explained Festa. “That means we can put a piece of furniture into a space and have a high level of confidence that it will be to scale. If we put the real and digital products together side-by-side, they match every time we try it. Scale isn’t necessarily guaranteed with some of the other AR platforms, nor is the positioning. Sometimes, if you move a non-Tango device around, the product could be gone when you look back, or it’s floating up in the sky. Platform stability, scale and accuracy is what we’ve been getting out of Tango.”

But user adoption isn’t the only thing that Wayfair needs to consider. The bigger challenge is in getting more home goods manufacturers on board with AR, creating 3D content to promote their products.

“We work with over 10,000 vendors to sell over eight million products, and we have about 40,000 3D-ready products right now,” said Festa. “We’re trying to work with vendors to create 3D models of their products. Since these are the early days of AR, most vendors don’t understand why they’d need to create a 3D model. So, with the emergence of the 3D platform, we’re going to get data to show whether a couch with a 3D model outsells one that doesn’t. If we can make that compelling case to suppliers, they’re going to create 3D content for us.”

Festa also noted that, except for some high-end manufacturers, most furniture makers don’t design their products using CAD software. Most coffee tables are usually designed in shops, and changes to their design are done by making adjustments to a machine. But he hopes that, as more consumers have a chance to try AR shopping, more companies will warm up to the technology within a year or two.

“I think we’re one of the leading retailers to embrace this technology,” said Festa, talking about how the emphasis on technology helps Wayfair stand out from its competitors. “There are certainly others that are using 3D content in AR, but I don’t think any of them have the library of models and diversity of products that we do right now. But I’m also encouraged to see more competitors embrace the technology because that will help customers learn to expect it.

“Once customers use the experience, it becomes one of those things you get hooked on. The next time you buy something as big as furniture, if you don’t have an AR model or 3D preview, then you’re going to look for someone that offers that experience. That gives us an advantage right now, but I think that over time, AR is going to be a technology that consumers will pick up naturally, either by playing a game like Pokémon GO or shopping on Wayfair. App developers are going to create these new and interesting experiences and users will come to expect AR as part of the online shopping experience.”

So, considering how AR can significantly improve the shopping experience, why aren’t more of Wayfair’s competitors adopting the technology?

“It’s a big challenge, especially when creating the 3D content,” Festa replied. “When you think about the process of creating the content, putting it into an app and developing an app, it’s kind of risky. People haven’t necessarily embraced AR yet.

“I think by doing it early, Wayfair has an early-mover advantage and we’re actually a pretty big tech company. Although the Wayfair brand is well known, the Wayfair tech brand isn’t necessarily understood in the same way. Wayfair is in the space of being a furniture company, but we’re really a tech company with over a thousand engineers working on all kinds of interesting and complex problems—we just happen to sell furniture. AR is one of those interesting technologies we thought we could leverage for our business, and being a tech company, we took that on ourselves. Most other furniture companies would have to hire third-party contractors to do that because they don’t have the in-house capabilities. So, I see us as a tech company that’s looking to utilize the latest and greatest, which is why we made the leap into embracing AR when a lot of our competitors aren’t ready to do that.”

Wayfair has plans to improve on its AR app by allowing multiple products to be placed into a space, which was a feature in the original design until the company decided to simplify it to one item at a time. The company also has a number of decorative objects like coffee mugs that have been brought into its 3D library, but they’re mainly used in its developing VR application because “a VR room with only one piece of furniture looks really empty.”

Enhancements will depend entirely on how people are using the AR mobile app and what they want from it. “It’s just a matter of getting the right user experience,” said Festa. “We don’t want to overload people with too many features and buttons, but we’ll start introducing them if there’s demand for seeing those props in there.”

As for choosing the right technology to enhance the online shopping experience, Festa believes that there are more near-term opportunities with AR compared to VR, even though he’s a fan of both.

“VR is still a bit of an isolating technology, and people don’t understand it until they try it,” said Festa. “There’s a kind of social aspect to AR—where people can stand around a screen and look at something together—that VR doesn’t quite have yet. But I think that as devices become more connected, we’ll have shared experiences in VR that will be quite compelling. But AR is the main thing right now because it’s so easy to explain, show and share that experience with somebody.”

AR Game ‘Recoil’ Comes To Life Through SkyRocket And TheCHIVE

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Recoil developer Skyrocket has teamed up with photo entertainment site theCHIVE to create a series of videos and community events around what they hope to be the biggest retail launch of this holiday season.

Recoil is one of those games you have to try to fully understand. Players attach their smartphones to plastic weapons both physically and with Bluetooth, then connect to a provided WiFi router to track movements and damage. It’s essentially the cops and robbers game you played as a kid, souped up with modern technology. The AR game can be played indoors or outdoors in an area ranging up to 500 feet. While the game is already at retailers, Skyrocket will begin an aggressive marketing push beginning August 15.

In an interview with AListDaily, Albert Briggs, vice president of sales and brand strategy at theCHIVE, and Craig Mitchell, senior director at Skyrocket, discussed millennial marketing, building a community around a brand and how cool guys never look at explosions.

“I think there’s going to be a lot of depth and strategy to a game like Recoil that we want to show off to a lot of people,” said Mitchell. “I think there’s a big part of building credibility to this product early on. It ties into our strategy of why we showed it to IGN and why we showed it to Gizmodo and CNET and taking it to [San Diego] Comic-Con. We’re building credibility around the product so it’s not perceived as, ‘Oh it looks like laser tag.'”

To help build this credibility and show Recoil in action, Skyrocket teamed up with theCHIVE, whose previous partnerships include Call of Duty: Black Ops III and Dead Rising 4.

“We’ve got a pretty long history of working with video games,” said Briggs. “TheCHIVE is an environment that appeals very heavily to millennial men, and gaming tends to be a big part of their lives. When people come to theCHIVE, they’re not only coming to laugh, but they’re also coming to get a good amount of relative, relatable gaming information.”

With its brand message, “making the world 10 percent happier,” theCHIVE partners with brands to create content it knows its followers will enjoy.

Since Recoil is played in the real world, Briggs explained how this particular campaign will be different. “When we approach a game like [Recoil], there are elements of the campaign that live digitally online, where a lot of people are going to purchase this game,” he said. “But also experiential—off-site elements so people can actually experience and play the game with our other community members and other ‘Chivers’ out there.”

In addition to community events, theCHIVE is creating what it calls “the ultimate war room” in its home base of Austin, Texas. It’s an indoor environment complete with couches, big screens and (of course) air conditioning to watch the action from afar. The company is also planning internal promotion around the Austin city area, timed with an upcoming college football game.

“We know that, in speaking to a younger audience, they want to be wowed and they want an experience that is truly unique,” Briggs continued. “If a brand or an advertiser can come in and say, ‘let’s be additives to that experience,’ then that’s truly the best way to reach someone. We’ve been seeing that in the masses in the last year-and-a-half of brands coming to theCHIVE saying, ‘we know that your community is very loyal and awesome and we want to add to that experience.’ I think Skyrocket nailed it with this program.”

For Skyrocket, partnering with such an engaged community has great potential for its new game.

“TheCHIVE has been such a great partner with us,” says Mitchell. “The fun part of this product is that we think it appeals to so many different audiences. We’re going after gamers [and] we’re going after tech-focused people, because this is really a new piece of technology, and play pattern that’s going to apply to that group. TheCHIVE is gonna be great because I think it’s going to get a few different audiences like dads playing with their kids, and a younger audience that’s going to take advantage of that larger, 16-player experience—getting people outside.

“We joke that for certain audiences, Recoil is going to turn into an awesome drinking game and I think that kind of aligns with theCHIVE‘s audience. Our directive to them is to have a lot of fun with the product and show it off in a lot of interesting environments.”

Recoil is similar to games like laser tag or Nerf, but at the same time, completely different. To help illustrate Skyrocket’s vision for turning anywhere into a battlefield, Skyrocket worked with creative agency Battery to build a brand strategy and campaign, starting with a character that would train “new recruits.” Veteran actor Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs) embodies the role of Striker—a grizzled general preparing today’s youth to become “Recoil soldiers.”

Separate from theCHIVE partnership, a new spot starring Madsen will debut on August 15. While filming, Mitchell and his team were particularly impressed with the actor’s professionalism.

“There’s a giant explosion in the shot 100 feet away from [Madsen],” Mitchell says. “He’s leaning against this tree and we set off this massive explosion next to him. I was there and I remember we all jumped out of our seats—it was that loud and it took everybody off guard—and there’s Madsen with his back turned, eyes on the camera when the explosion goes off and he does not flinch. You don’t even notice a twinge on his face and I thought, ‘Man this guy is a professional.'”

Mitchell says that technology has changed how we interact with each other, and while it has brought about many great things, it also led to “people staring at their phones all day.”

“I love that there are companies out there that are trying to take technology to improve our lives and improve interaction and get people going outside,” he said. “I think Pokémon GO was such a great example of that—taking the play pattern that people are doing that is interacting with their phone, but also getting them off the couch, interacting with their friends and going outside. I really think Recoil is a further evolution of that play pattern. I think we’re going to see a lot more of that over the next few years and that’s a great thing.”

Millennials Name Their Favorite Brands; Digital Commerce Climbs To 14 Percent

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Fifty-two percent of British millennials say they are more impatient now than they were five years ago due to their reliance on technology, according to a study by YouGov and Fetch. This is slightly more than US millennials, 45 percent of whom said the same. The study found that consumers of all ages in the US and Britain have become less patient over the years. For example, 41 percent of US consumers would not wait more than 15 minutes for a ride they ordered from a mobile app, such as Lyft or Uber.

Brand Building Agency Moosylvania has just released its 2017 top 100 Millennial Brands report. Based on more than 15,000 responses from millennials over the past five years (2013-17), the most beloved brands are Apple, Nike, Samsung, Target, Amazon, Sony, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, Coke and Google. While the top brands are well-known, it’s not all about big advertisers, Mooselvania says. For example, Vans comes in at number 34, while Super Bowl advertiser Anheuser Busch came in at 94.

US addressable TV ad spending is expected to reach $3.04 billion in 2019—more than double its 2017 level of $1.26 billion, eMarketer estimates. According to “Television Update H2 2017: Advanced TV’s Progress,” eMarketer says that in addition to superior ROI, the potential for an expansion of both available addressable inventory and the number of households that can be reached could be drivers of this growth.

Mobile header bidding grew by 285 percent year-over-year in the second quarter of 2017, according to the PubMatic Quarterly Mobile Index report. News publishers accounted for three-quarters of this growth. Mobile programmatic advertising witnessed an 11 percent global increase in eCPMs.

Snapchat’s daily active users have grown 21 percent year-over-year in the second quarter with 173 million people now using the app. In addition, Snapchat has added 7.3 million people in the three months to June 30 alone. According to the company’s second quarter earnings, it has doubled its average revenue per user from the same quarter a year ago—109 percent to $1.05.

Digital commerce grew 14 percent in the second quarter, according to Demandware’s latest Shopping Index. Fifty-nine percent of consumers reported using their phones while shopping in a physical store within the last three months, and social accounts are an increasing driver of mobile traffic—up 42 percent over last year.

Advertisers and marketers are out of touch with modern family dynamics, according to 84 percent of millennial dads in the US. A survey of 1,100 millennial fathers by Saatchi & Saatchi New York found that modern perceptions of fatherhood and manhood are changing. Eighty-five percent said they know more than people give them credit for, and 80 percent think a “real man” is one who’s comfortable expressing his feelings.

Forty-six percent of consumers prefer to shop online or via voice ordering, according to a new report by Walker Sands. “The Future of Retail 2017” explores the purchasing habits and preferences of more than 1,600 US consumers. The report finds that one in five consumers has made a purchase using voice control, and one in three plan on purchasing through this method within the next year.

Live TV is still the preferred watching method for consumers’ favorite shows, according to a study by ThinkNowResearch. The Hispanic-focused market research firm explored viewing preferences across different ethnic groups and found that live TV is still the most popular method of viewing for all groups except for Asians. Asian participants said they watch TV on YouTube (59 percent), more than they watch live TV (55 percent).

Editor’s Note: This story will be updated daily until Friday, August 18. Have a new report, study or tip? Let us know at editorial@alistdaily.com.

Esports One Brings Real-Time Stats To Esports

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Although big esports events like Valve’s $23 million The International for Dota 2 and Activision’s Call of Duty World League Championship are being compared more often to traditional sports events—some are even held in sports arenas—there’s been a gap in the esports viewing experience. Real-time stats play a key role in watching everything from UFC to baseball to football. Startup Esports One wants to provide esports fans with the same depth of viewing experience as traditional sports fans currently have.

“While watching matches through the Esports One platform, you’ll have full control over how you watch the game,” Matthew Gunnin, founder of Esports One, told AListDaily. “We have modules that will track every data point you care about to the second. Want to ensure you never miss a single event in game? Our Objective Tracker and ChatBot modules show everything in-game from item purchases to player movements. We even have educational modules for users who are new to the game and want to learn while they watch.”

Esports One is an esports data and analytics company comprised of MIT engineers that hope to change the way fans watch and engage with esports. Using computer vision, real-time analysis and databases of historical information, the company creates modules updated to the second, which users can insert into an esports stream to show more detailed information.

“When our beta launches, you will be able to watch professional League of Legends matches on esports.one and customize the area around the stream,” Gunnin explained. “There will be panels to the right and bottom of the stream that you’ll be able to customize with modules containing whatever info you like.”

The platform embeds streams directly from Twitch, Facebook and YouTube with no degradation in quality or content. Chat functionality will be provided through a module that the user can add or remove as they choose.

“Social media plays a major part in the esports industry, but for the most part, it feels disconnected from the games themselves,” Gunnin said. “We want our users to be able to interact with each social media platform while not taking them away from the action. We’ll have separate modules for each service with a number of customizable features. As an example, there is a tremendous amount of information that occurs during a live broadcast, and being able to share it quickly with context can be near impossible. With our real-time data extraction tools, users will have a whole new avenue available to them to share their favorite moments with their friends.”

While Esports One is first and foremost a stats and data company, Gunnin sees the opportunity that this platform can provide for advertisers.

“In the NFL, it’s very common to see featured stats and key moments being sponsored,” Gunnin said. “Rotating sponsor logos have become such a commonplace for broadcasters that users very rarely even take notice anymore. You rarely see any type of real-time product activation during major esports game events, largely due to the fact that it requires manual input to activate. We capture hundreds of data points every second, allowing us to make an immediate call to this database to showcase various informative metrics surrounding in-game events.”

“User engagement is one of our core principles and is a driving force behind the Esports One platform,” Gunnin added.

One of the features available to sponsors is One Blueprints, which are page templates pre-configured with different modules depending on the objective of the page. One of the initial three Blueprints at launch will be educational and geared towards individuals that are new to a specific game or esports in general.

Now that the technology has been developed, Gunnin has turned his attention to connecting with endemic and non-endemic brands.

“We are currently working with two brands to incorporate elements of their guides into these pages that will trigger based off of real-time events (champion selection, item builds, skill choice, etc.),” Gunnin said.

Washington Redskins’ Tress Way Kickstarts Trivia Game With Universal Appeal

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Even in the digital age, tabletop games are making a big comeback, and if games like Cards Against Humanity are any indication, they can grow from modest Kickstarter projects into huge brand names.

Way Fun Entertainment is a company that was founded by Washington Redskins punter Tress Way, but the game it’s developing goes far beyond football and sports. Its debut title is a trivia card game called What’s Your Bid?, and even though its association with the Redskins might lead people to think that it will be all about sports, the company is working to get the word out that it’s a trivia game for everyone, including people who don’t like trivia games.

What’s Your Bid? began its crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter in July, and it has almost reached its goal with about three weeks left to go. Backers will get the game first, and the game is expected to release in November, in time for the holiday gift-buying season. The game can be purchased from the official website, and it’s already approved to sell on Amazon. Way Fun Entertainment plans on approaching retailers after the Kickstarter campaign ends, using the campaign as proof that there is strong interest in the game.

Chad Theis, COO at Way Fun Games

Two teams come together to compete in What’s Your Bid?. Each question has multiple answers, and teams bet on how many answers they can get right using game chips. If a team thinks it can provide five correct answers, it can bet five chips. However, if team members provide even one wrong answer, then their opponent wins the bet. The first team to win 30 chips wins the game. Players as young as six have been able to play, making it truly family friendly and approachable.

“People who don’t like trivia have usually said that they love this game,” Chad Theis, COO at Way Fun Games, told AListDaily. “So, we’ve been able to market to anybody. I’ve played with my 12-year-old cousin and my aunt and uncle—who are in their 60s—all together.”

Theis is joined by Ben Habern, chief marketing officer of Way Fun Games. Both are college friends of the four-year veteran punter. The duo joined AListDaily to talk about how they’re using crowdfunding to grow interest beyond the Redskins fan base and attract a broad audience of players.

What inspired Tress Way to create a trivia game?

Theis: It started with one question when the Associated Press came out with the top college football teams of all time. Tress went around the Redskins locker room asking players how many from the top 10 they could name. He kept track of how many right answers each person got and drew up a ranking. Everybody liked it and asked Tress for more questions. Now, we’re at the point where we have 500 questions and we announced five expansion packs with 100 cards each. We all loved games growing up, and we’re all college buddies who went the University of Oklahoma together. We’d have game nights where we would get together on weekends and play everything from card games to board games to hang out. The time spent together is what motivated us [to make this game] because we want to bring that to other people.

Habern: In college, Tress was kind of the leader in bringing us together game nights. He always had a passion to create some kind of board game, and he’s got ideas for future games. So, we all knew that he would create a game someday, and he realized he had something going with the first college football teams question.

Ben Habern, CMO at Way Fun Games

This seems like a project a game publisher might back. Why go with crowdfunding?

Theis: We thought crowdfunding was a good idea because with Tress we have the sports aspect, given his association with the Redskins, but that only appeals to so many people. Board games are very popular on Kickstarter right now, so we thought it would be a good way to tap that market. We wanted to use Kickstarter to market the game, so people could learn more about the game, and how to play. We wanted a backing from the games side instead of relying on Tress’ name, and it’s a good way to reach an audience that we didn’t have before. Also, we hosted a livestream on Kickstarter Live to show what What’s Your Bid? is about because it can be hard to explain games through Kickstarter pitch videos.

Besides Kickstarter, how else have you been reaching audiences outside of the Redskins fan base?

Habern: We’re using social media as much as possible—posting quality and engaging content on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. That’s been a reach for us, in addition to friends and family. We’re also very fortunate to have Tress and his relationship with the Redskins. He has some connections with media and PR outlets that we wouldn’t otherwise have. Tress also played football at Oklahoma and we were teammates, so we have the Oklahoma football reach, too. Those have been our main channels for getting the game in front of as many people as possible. We also believe that this game will sell itself, so we want to get it into people’s hands and in front of their faces so they can see how much fun it is. Our goal and hope is that the word will spread by people playing it.

Theis: We’ve also been using targeted ads on social media not just for sports fans, but tabletop gaming fans as well. We’re also using sites like reddit, which has huge sports and gaming communities to spread the word. The hardest part about marketing the game is that you need to get the game into people’s hands, and we think Kickstarter helps that way. Once people play it, they love it.

Is Tress’ involvement a kind of double-edged sword? Do people think it’ll be a sports-heavy trivia game?

Theis: I assume people will think that it’s sports heavy because you’re marketing toward the Redskins NFL market. But our message is trying to get away from that, and it says it’s “trivia for everybody” on the box. We always emphasize that we have five different categories, which are science and animals, sports and entertainment, food and drink, statistics and history. So, it’s very general knowledge that covers almost all subjects in everyday life. That’s what we’re focused on in every single interview and marketing ad, instead of how the Redskins punter is doing a game.

But Tress is still asking his friends on the Redskins to help promote the game, right?

Habern: Yes, and to your point, it is a kind of a double-edged sword, where we want to market it to everybody, whether they’re Redskins or sports fans, or not. That’s the ultimate goal, but certainly, we’re leveraging Tress’ connection with the Redskins, his teammates and himself. He has a pretty good social following, and some of his good friends on the team are supporting us as influencers. They’re reposting stuff that we put onto our What’s Your Bid? account, and like we said, Tress has media and PR connections. We were recently in the Washington Post, and a Redskins blogger wrote about the game on ESPN.com. So, we’re utilizing those connections and we’ll continue to ask Tress’ friends to help us promote the game. They play in the locker room every day, and I think they want to see it succeed, so that’s why they want to support it.

Theis: They play the game more than any of us, including Ben and I, because it all started in the locker room during training camp last year. We don’t necessarily have to approach them to ask them to do things. They often come to us saying that they want to help, which is fantastic. It’s not just the players, either. It’s also the Redskins staff and management. They’re all willing to help with anything we need, and we really appreciate their support.

You said that What’s Your Bid? is a trivia game that appeals to people who don’t like trivia games. How do you reach that audience?

Theis: “Trivia” is a word scares people off, so we’re trying to incorporate messaging about strategy. [What’s Your Bid?] isn’t about specific knowledge, per se. It’s all about team strategy. Some of the questions include, “who are the presidents on Mount Rushmore? What were the six most diagnosed food allergies in 2016? What are the nine NFL teams with the most Super Bowl wins? And what are the seven best-selling soda brands in 2016?” Most everyone can get one or two answers right for every question. So, people learn that it’s a game everyone can play so that they’re not scared off by the word “trivia.”

Habern: It goes back to our goal of getting the game into people’s hands, and that’s why we’re excited about the Kickstarter Live video. We think that helps bridge the gap. People need to see how the game is played and how the questions are general knowledge and not, “who won the Oscars for best male actor in 1980?” Which isn’t very fun or engaging. Our goal is to show people that this is a fun game with questions that cover things that you think you may know, but it gets more challenging when you have to give several answers. We want to show larger groups, with 10 people playing on two teams, so people can see how fun it is and spread the word. Games generally sell by word-of-mouth.

VR Is Changing The Way Developers And Consumers Look At Gaming

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Virtual reality is changing the gaming industry in many ways, least of which by placing consumers directly into a virtual experience. While the technology’s “coolness factor” is a major selling point, VR is still in its infancy, and consumer adoption has been slow.

“All eyes are on the upcoming Spielberg movie Ready Player One as a potential moment when VR enters mainstream interest,” Debby Ruth, Magid’s senior vice president of global media and entertainment told AListDaily. “[Not only do they need to go] beyond the evolution of the holy marketing trinity of lower prices, more and must-see content and lowering friction of the technology itself—smaller HMDs, easier content discovery and access, they also need to break through to consumers’ awareness.”

Stepping into an artificial world offers both advantages and challenges for consumers and developers alike. Advantages include total immersion for the user and interactivity within environments limited only by the developer’s imagination. Revisiting familiar video game worlds in VR extends the life cycle of franchises. Minecraft VR, for example, has become the second most popular VR app in the US, according to Magid.

While pop culture loves to depict VR and all of its possibilities, the technology isn’t perfect.

Nausea and double vision are still a problem for many—so many, in fact, that scientists have dubbed the phenomenon “VR sickness.”

Finding a cure for the ailment may actually be advancing the technology, with researchers finding new ways to replicate the way eyes see and focus on objects in real life.

Superdata forecasts a total market for virtual, augmented and mixed reality gaming to reach $8.8 billion globally.

How Car Brands Are Driving Awareness Through Video Games

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The relationship between video games and vehicle manufacturers is a symbiotic one—introducing young consumers to vehicles they might otherwise never drive, much less race. Posters of high-performance vehicles have graced the bedroom walls of teenagers for generations, but there’s a good chance today’s posters don’t come from car manufacturers. Instead, they come from video games like Forza, Gran Turismo and Need For Speed. As esports becomes mainstream and racing games go mobile, car brands find even more opportunities to showcase their legacy through gaming.

Gran Turismo

While Polyphony’s Gran Turismo wasn’t the first racing game to hit consoles, it changed the genre forever by offering realistic graphics and over 100 licensed vehicles to drive. The series has sold over 76 million copies since its debut in 1997 and its games are often featured prominently by PlayStation to show off the gaming console’s technical capabilities.

The list of cars featured in Gran Turismo has more than tripled over the years, and gamers get to experience some of them before real-life drivers do. For example, BMW is launching the 6 Series in Gran Turismo before it debuts in the real world this fall. In the past, Toyota and Nissan have even provided Gran Turismo demo discs along with vehicle marketing materials.

The latest game, Gran Turismo Sport, honors its partners with Brand Central—a new portal for purchasing cars and learning the history of each car manufacturer. The new feature was designed to aid in discovering brands in the real world and includes “premium movies” made by each of these companies.

“Instead of the car dealership from past games, Brand Central is a place where boys discover cars for the first time,” Polyphony founder Kazunori Yamauchi told AListDaily. “When I was in my second year of junior high, I walked into a BMW dealer to pick up a catalog and my heart was racing. We want to recreate that experience of discovering cars for the first time.”

Brands like BMW, Aston Martin and Mercedes have partnered with Gran Turismo to feature “vision” cars—driveable concepts that you won’t find anywhere else.

Forza

As of December 2016, the Forza game franchise has earned over $1 billion at retail, making it the best-selling racing franchise of this console generation, according to NPD. With over three million players joining online each month during the Forza Racing Championship alone, that’s a whole lot of brand awareness for vehicle partners.

Ford has been a partner with Forza since the original game launched in 2005, and it offers a wide variety of in-game vehicles from, which includes the classic Model T and the 2017 Ford GT.

“The video game is extremely important,” Henry Ford III, global marketing manager for Ford Performance, and great grandson of the legendary Henry Ford told Auto Guide. “We want to make our cars—even our supercars—accessible to everyone, and a great way to do that is through the gaming world.”

Ford even gave Forza developer Turn 10 Studios an advance look at the new Ford GT early in its concept phase, giving them access to schematics and other details in order to make its in-game version as close as possible to the real thing.

Video game and car fandoms collide regularly, and vehicle brands understand the value of marketing to this engaged audience—going so far as to debut the latest model to gamers. Porsche unveiled the 2018 Porsche 911 GT2 RS during Microsoft’s E3 2017 press conference to promote Forza Motorsport 7—marking the first time a vehicle had been debuted at the show.

“This moment is a testament to digital and real world racing merging in an unprecedented way,” wrote Alan Hartman, studio head at Turn 10 Studios. The Porche 911 GTS RS will also appear in Gran Turismo Sport this fall, marking the first time Porche has partnered with the Gran Turismo franchise.

Driving Brand Awareness

Partnering with games can make highly-niche car brands a household name. Pagani teamed up with game developer Eden Games to unveil a $2.5 million car inside Gear.Club, a racing title for mobile devices. After flying social media influencers to Switzerland, Pagani and Eden Games revealed the Huayra Roadster in both the real world and inside the game for a limited engagement.

McLaren partnered with Logitech G and other brands to enter the esports arena this year with the World’s Fastest Gamer competition series, conceived by IDEAS+CARS.

“Car manufacturers once saw gaming as an income stream that was a profitable sideline to their normal business, but the switch is coming where brands want their cars to be in certain games, and they work closely with publishers to make sure they’re front and center,” Darren Cox, founder of IDEAS+CARS told AListDaily. “I can see the license fee model changing, where certain games will be able to charge the other way around—offering a premium position for car brands. That’s how important gaming is to the car industry.”

Players who “test drive” vehicles in a game develop their favorites, which can lead to real world brand loyalty. Brand consultancy firm Strategic Vision hosted a focus group of males between the ages of 11-16 and found that Fords and Chevrolets were the vehicles they were most interested in. Why? Because those were the cars they drove in video games.

“I think in general, the average gamer certainly embraces a lot of the qualities and spirit we look to incorporate into our vehicles,” Craig Daitch, senior manager of social media and brand communications at Chevrolet told Auto Guide. “The beauty of gaming today is that it spreads across multiple demographics—it ranges from casual experiences to experts to people of all types.”

Chipotle Serves Up Esports Partnership With OpTic Gaming

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Chipotle Mexican Grill is the latest non-endemic brand to get a taste for esports. The restaurant chain has partnered with OpTic Gaming to drive awareness of its brand through a contest that will send four fans to Chicago to visit OpTic Gaming’s main base, Scuf House.

The “Text2Win” contest will run from August 14-28, and two winners will get to bring a guest for a two-night, three-day stay in Chicago with airfare, premium hotel and transportation, spending money and swag—including limited-edition Chipotle-branded jerseys.

Scott Robinson, manager of events and sponsorships at Chipotle Mexican Grill, said the company has been keeping a pulse on esports for some time and has watched it grow. Now felt like the right time to jump in.

“We were having discussions with RevXP  about the space in general, looking for a way to support the scene, to be a foundational partner brand as it continues to grow, and to integrate initially in a fun way,” Robinson explained to AListDaily. “Partnering with the OpTic team ended up being our direction.”

OpTic Gaming CEO Hector Rodriguez said the team has been fans of Chipotle for a long time and it had been interacting with the brand on social media over the years.

“This partnership fits in well with the busy lifestyles of our pro players and our OpTic Strength initiative, which helps promote the benefits of a balanced, healthy lifestyle,” Rodriguez explained. “We look forward to introducing the brand to esports.”

The existing social media relationship with the top-tier esports team made the decision easy. “We thought it was the right time to show that this scene deserves the support, as it has an amazing, loyal and passionate fan base,” said Robinson.

Research by the restaurant chain found that the brand already had a lot of esports fans. “This is about supporting their lifestyle and passions, and having fun with them,” Robinson said. “This is something Chipotle is always looking to do for our customers in the variety of ways we look at event and partnership opportunities.”

Chipotle worked with OpTic Gaming to come up with the contest.

“We wanted the prize to be once-in-a-lifetime, and something really special for the fans of OpTic and esports,” Robinson acknowledged. “It became pretty apparent that getting them out to the Scuf House, actually game with the team, hang at the house, and do something special like that was the direction we wanted to go.”

Since esports is a completely digital ecosystem, Robinson said Twitter will play a huge role in getting the word out about the contest and for some follow-up communications and promotions. Additionally, OpTic Gaming players will help promote the contest by creating video content around the sweepstakes winner coming to the Scuf House and gaming with their favorite players.

“We love how organic it felt to support the team, given their professed love of Chipotle over the years,” Robinson said. “We hope it’s a successful partnership and that we can grow our support in this area.”

OpTic Gaming has a history of working with non-endemic brands like Brisk and Turtle Wax, which tapped into the team’s love of sports cars. The pro team is competing in the Call of Duty World League (CWL) championship this weekend in Orlando, Florida.

IMAX Bets Big On Location-Based VR

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IMAX is looking to leverage its vast variety of theatrical distribution platforms to provide patrons family-oriented fare with premium, location-based virtual reality experiences.

The entertainment technology corporation, which has had a litany of touchpoints across the industry and the movie-going experience for nearly 50 years, is looking to add immersive options for consumers.

IMAX finalized the first phase of a $50 million VR fund last November that was geared toward financing content experiences from high profile filmmakers and creators for VR platforms—most notably for its IMAX VR Centres, which are currently in an experimental pilot phase across different parts of the world.

IMAX is trying to discover whether VR will be a viable business category and a vital part of their brand’s evolution in the future. A wider global rollout will be in store should the pilot plan succeed.

Rob Lister, IMAX’s chief business development and chief legal officer, joined AListDaily for a video interview to offer details on the company’s primary learnings so far from VR. 

On IMAX’s VR strategy and consumer insights . . . 

“One of the most exciting things we’re working on as a company right now is our brand new VR initiative. Even though we’re only in the pilot phase, we’re really excited about the promise of the platform. We spend a lot of our time putting together content and technology deals and building out our actual first center in Los Angeles. The focus for us during this pilot phase is to gather as many learnings as possible, so we’re studying what the consumer preferences are when it comes to content. We’re studying price elasticity, what the right price points are and how to work for throughput. These are generally 8-to-12-minute experiences, so we’re looking at how to move people through in a really effective way. What we’ve learned, to our pleasure so far, is that the demographic that’s interested in VR is pretty broad. We’ve seen birthday parties for a bunch of 35-year-old men and then birthday parties for a bunch of 10-year-old girls. To me, that represents that we’re reaching a wide audience, and that’s one learning we’re most happy about.”

On IMAX’s approach to content and experiences . . .

“Because of IMAX’s place in the ecosystem, a lot of people have been asking us, ‘What does this mean for the future of entertainment—cinematic entertainment in particular?’ We’re hoping to break what, so far, has become a bit of a chicken-and-egg issue in VR. There’s not quite a big enough network out there to justify a lot of big IP being created by the studios, and there aren’t enough big IPs to justify a large network. We at IMAX think we can help solve that. We have such good relationships with the studios. Our content fund invests in AAA IP and movie-studio content. Our hope is that we can help create and build a real pipeline of high-end movie content that makes its way into the VR space, which to us will lift everybody’s boats because more people would be interested in seeing IP that typically goes along with the big movie blockbuster marketing budgets.”

On IMAX’s vision to scale . . .

“IMAX’s approach is to broaden the marketing. Again, we’re still in this pilot stage where we’re trying to learn as much we can about VR before deciding if this a new business worth fully getting into, and invest heavily, and scale globally. But at this stage, our thinking and strategy is that if we do roll this out, it would be mainly through our multiplex partners around the world. [As of this March, there were 1,226 IMAX theaters in 75 countries.] Multiplexes are in situations now where they’d like to have more utilization of their auditoriums and their lobby space. They’d like to reach millennials at a greater pace than they are right now. Millennials have so many content choices on so many different platforms. We’re really confident that regardless if you’re in a big city in the United States, or a smaller market in China or somewhere in western Europe, there is a multiplex operator out there looking to attract a broader audience—particularity a younger audience, that will find this new medium of entertainment interesting enough to make a destination-based decision and trip. That would be great for us in a new business and great for our exhibitor partners, too.”

On how VR impacts marketing and advertising . . .

“A lot of people in the industry have been focused on how VR is the next great immersive entertainment platform. But there are just as many people focused on how it’s the next great media platform—period. That includes not just entertainment, but things like advertising and product marketing. You hear a lot about how retail itself can be revolutionized—VR giving you the ability to see a virtual fashion show where you’re watching different people wearing the same types of clothes, or different colors and sizes. Or even virtual shopping for furniture . . . allowing you to shop and experience different brands without leaving your house.”

On IMAX’s marketing strategy . . .

“We’ve been asked a lot about our marketing strategy and it’s in such an early stage. We have experts in house who are able to attack just that right balance. So, we’re kind of working on understanding the local marketing end of having a center operating in The Grove in the middle of Beverly Hills, California and how to reach local consumers and local businesses versus the broader marketing that would come along with a big tentpole release of a VR piece. That’s an area that we know well because marketing budgets come along with the types of blockbusters that IMAX does cinematically. We plan to work with the studios to leverage that same marketing campaign for a big piece of content.”

On the immediate future of IMAX’s VR efforts . . .

“We’re excited about being able to use our relationships with exhibitors, studios and technical partners to really try to advance the industry forward. Earlier this year we signed a three-picture deal with Warner Bros. for three big tentpole pieces of IP content—Justice League, Aquaman and a to-be-determined release in 2019. They will be big VR releases—the kind that we’re envisioning people will be attracted to with the IMAX brand and want to see. We’re very excited about that. We’re very excited to be rolling out our next few pilots in New York, Shanghai, Tokyo and the United Kingdom and seeing how other markets respond to IMAX VR. Hopefully, it’ll be as positive as they have in Los Angeles. We’re also still working with Google on a groundbreaking cinema VR camera. We hope we can give it to our filmmaking partners and convince the industry to use and create the next generation of VR content. We’ve accomplished a lot in the past year, and I think the next year is going to be just as event-filled.”

Kongregate CEO Lays Out PC And Console Gaming Expansion Strategy

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Kongregate is growing at a phenomenal rate. The publisher, famous for its browser-based and mobile games, is largely credited for popularizing idle games such as AdVenture Capitalist. That caught the attention of Swedish entertainment company Modern Times Group (MTG), which acquired Kongregate from GameStop in June in a deal worth $55 million, adding to a video game portfolio that includes the ESL, DreamHack and Innogames.

Since then, the publisher hasn’t wasted any time furthering its goal of helping independent developers succeed across multiple platforms while growing in the PC and console gaming space. Earlier this year, the company launched its first original title, a retro-arcade styled game GRIDD: Retroenhanced on Steam before bringing it to Xbox One in July. Later this summer, Kongregate is launching Peter Molyneux’s The Trail: Frontier Challenge and Super Fancy Pants Adventure (based on the popular web game franchise) on Steam for PC gamers to enjoy.

But it’s Wednesday’s announcement of a $10 million PC and console fund to expand its cross-platform initiatives that really demonstrates Kongregate’s long-term plans. The fund, which will be used to develop and promote both paid and free-to-play games, “provides independent developers customized marketing, financial assistance and production support,” according to a statement.

AListDaily spoke with Emily Greer, co-founder and CEO of Kongregate, about the acquisition, its newly announced fund and how the publisher—which has a strong presence in the browser and mobile gaming spaces—is taking on the PC and console markets.

Emily Greer, co-founder and CEO of Kongregate

What led to the acquisition by MTG?

They’re very interested in building up a presence in gaming, and they were looking for a someone who had strong skills publishing and distributing games to help bring their portfolio together. They looked at the market and thought that we were the best fit, and we had been exploring our future with GameStop for a while in terms of figuring out the best situation for us. After many months of talks, MTG came to the conclusion that this was a great fit on all sides, and one that had interesting partnership opportunities between GameStop and MTG.

How is MTG in a better position to help Kongregate further its goals compared to GameStop?

If you’ve been following GameStop’s diversification strategy over the past few years, you can see that they’ve had a lot of success in diversifying on the retail side and with their technology brand division—which includes the ThinkGeek and Spring Mobile brands. So, GameStop has been focusing on a retail strategy, playing to their strengths as a retailer in the gaming landscape, and the things that we’re doing with digital, mobile and free-to-play game distribution is a little distant from their core. It was better aligned with MTG, where this kind of content development is a core strategy. Part of our strategy is also in doing some acquisitions within our portfolio for first-party games, which is of great interest to MTG but is of less interest to GameStop. In short, our future strategy is more closely aligned with MTG’s core strategy than GameStop’s.

Despite its esports presence and its acquisition of Innogames, MTG is primarily known as a media brand. How does that fit with Kongregate’s brand?

They appreciate and understand content development, in addition to working with licensing and third-parties for distribution. As a media company, they’ve said that gaming is the future of media and sports consumption, which is how they got into esports—they own ESL, DreamHack and Innogames. MTG as a brand is a relatively quiet one, but our interest in helping content creators succeed is very much aligned.

Will the acquisition impact games that are currently in development?

They have very little impact on our day-to-day [operations]. We were relatively independent within GameStop, and we continue to be quite independent under MTG. Near-term projects are going to be minimally affected by this change, but where we are going to see differences and benefits are in longer-term investments, including the $10 million fund into PC and console games that we just announced.

Was the $10 million investment fund created as part of the MTG acquisition?

They’re related in that our desire to broaden the types of games that we’re providing was of interest to MTG in the acquisition. We had been planning smaller-scale investments within GameStop, and had already started planning on a few games, but the acquisition enabled us to take a longer-term investment approach.

Why focus on investing in the PC and console space instead of putting more toward mobile?

This does not in any way come at the cost of mobile—we’re continuing to invest there. But overall, Kongregate’s mission is to help independent developers succeed. We’ve been working on browser and mobile games, but there has been a real explosion in PC game development for independent developers. We felt that—in order to live up to our mission and serve our players wherever they like to play—it was important to look at this market.

What are the challenges of standing out in the PC and console space compared to mobile and browser gaming?

I’d say that on the PC side, it’s similar to mobile in that it’s a crowded marketplace. In a situation like that, existing audiences and marketing become as important as quality when making a game successful. Where we saw an opportunity was to translate some of the skills and audience we built up on mobile and browsers to help developers spread the word about their games in that crowded market. Consoles are a little different—they’re not as crowded—but the barriers to entry (certifications, QA, and general knowledge) are much larger. That’s another way that a publisher can help. Generally, having somebody that’s on your side in crowded and difficult markets—someone who has been through it before and knows what you don’t—is important to the success of the game. It’s hard for any individual developer to keep up with the market and understand the best ways to bring attention to their games. What they knew before may have already changed.

Kongregate released its first original title, GRIDD: Retroenhanced for PC and Xbox One. What did you learn from launching that game?

I think one of the things we learned was the hurdles of getting through console publishing and all the parts it takes to get that done, which is quite rewarding. GRIDD was featured by Xbox and it has a high Metacritic score. The Steam algorithm is still something that we’re trying to understand and we’re learning more about it every day. We also launched Realm Grinder on Steam, which was a surprise success in terms of concurrent players. I think it’s been in the top 100 for concurrent players on Steam. Steam is a very interesting market and one that we’re continuing to explore—figuring out the best ways to promote games and how different types of momentum and marketing matter.

There are quite a few multiplatform games in Kongregate’s portfolio, including AdVenture Capitalist. Does success on one platform usually promote awareness for the game on another?

Realm Grinder

Absolutely. We see that most specifically between mobile and browser, where we have the largest presence, but we had a recent game called Bit Heroes, which is developed by Juppiomenz and launched on Kongregate.com last fall. We signed them to a mobile publishing deal and it released to good success on mobile in May. A very interesting thing happened, which was that revenue from the browser version, which had been steady for months, quadrupled after the mobile version launched. We think it was mostly because a lot of players discovered the game on mobile and then decided to jump over the browser version. We want to sustain any situation where players have a preferred platform. Another example is how after Realm Grinder launched on Steam, we saw an increase in installs and revenue for that game on mobile. After the Xbox One launch of GRIDD, we saw an increase in Steam/PC numbers. Sometimes there’s nesting going on, especially with a simultaneous launch, so you can’t always tell what’s cause and effect, but we see definite benefits and increases on various platforms based on activities and launches happening on another. We also see games that do better in one context or another. Realm Grinder is a web game that we took to mobile and it did well, but it has really outperformed on Steam. There’s just something about that game that’s a natural fit for Steam and less so for mobile, where the case was reversed for other games. So, the more platforms you take a game to, the more you can discover its natural habitat.