Arcade to attend SXSW with UK Trade Mission

We are very excited to announce that Arcade will be returning to SXSW in 2023. Having debuted at the event in 2022 with our GPT3-driven interactive episodic series, Alone Together, we are heading back this year as part of the prestigious UK Trade Mission with the Department for Business and Trade.

As well as demo-ing some of our latest work, we will be part of the roundtable discussion, “How Creative Tech Deepens Place-Based Experience” on March 12 at UK House, the home for the best of British at SXSW.

Find out more about the Trade Mission and see what’s on at UK House hier.

You will also find the team at Niantic‘s SXSW HQ showcasing, amongst other things, our Lightship-driven game, Bazaar, designed to create new reasons for communities to engage with local bricks-and-mortar retail.

Bazaar was developed in partnership with Niantic, in response to their ‘Revitalising the High Street’ challenge as part of Digital Catapult’s recent Futurescope programme.

You can read more about Bazaar hier, but if you’re headed to Austin and want to see it in action (or possibly even collect some drops and claim a prize or two) then let us know!

The team will be in town from March 10-14, and hope to see as many of you there as we can at UK House, Niantic or just out and about at SXSW.

Livvy Hinkin and Jon Meggitt presenting Bazaar at Digital Catapult

TO ARRANGE A TIME TO MEET AND CHAT WITH THE TEAM, GET IN TOUCH

CONTACT ARCADE

Bazaar demonstrator launched at Digital Catapult

The Arcade team was out in force at Digital Catapult last week, showcasing Bazaar at the culmination of Niantic’s wonderful Futurescope programme to over a hundred representatives from across the UK tech and innovation sectors.

Having been selected to partner with Niantic on the ‘Revitalising the High Street’ challenge, we had spent the past few months furiously innovating, putting the new Lightship ARDK to work in the creation of a new type of experience designed to give shoppers a new reason to return to local bricks-and-mortar retail environments.

The result was a prototype that we were very proud to show off to the assembled audience. The film below was played on stage, in which Arcade Co-Founders Jon Meggitt and Alex Book introduced the Bazaar concept and explained its potential impact.

Jon was joined on stage by Client Services Director Livvy Hinkin, who introduced Bazaar’s imagined storyworld in which there is more to High Streets than meets the eye.

In our game, they are special, important places, connected by an ancient magical network. But the magic has started to seep out into the world, and it is up to us to find and return the ‘drops’ to the shops that need their power. Find enough, and reunite them with the shops they came from, and the owners will show their gratitude in the form of free goods, discounts and other rewards.

Livvy Hinkin and Jon Meggitt take the stage at Digital Catapult

POSITIVE EARLY SIGNS

As part of the demonstrator we ran a test week, in which we set up controlled Bazaar testbeds across three high streets, including the recruitment of ten testers and three real world ‘drop shops’ in each location, tasked with putting Bazaar through its paces.

Livvy also took the audiences through the headlines from our research. The feedback was very encouraging, with hundreds of drops collected including the limited edition ‘timed’ drops that had testers racing to get there first. Interest in the full version, should it be developed and launched, was universal. But the most important metric was undoubtedly the impact it could have on people’s propensity to increase engagement with their local high streets, with 91% of testers reporting that they would be more likely to visit as a result of Bazaar.

You can read more about Bazaar in Digital Catapult’s comprehensive post hier.

A FABULOUS EXPERIENCE

But whatever the future holds for Bazaar, our involvement in the Niantic Futurescope programme was one of the most valuable and rewarding experiences we have had to date.

The chance to partner with Niantic, the shining light at the forefront of the ‘real world metaverse’ (to use the phrase they coined), was everything we hoped it would be and we cannot thank them enough for their support, encouragement and enthusiasm at every step of the journey.

One of our biggest learnings is that Niantic, through the Lightship platform, is set to drive the mass scale integration of AR into our everyday lives. We at Arcade are committed to being a part of that journey, and we cannot wait to where it takes us.

TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT BAZAAR, GET IN TOUCH

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Arcade launches Zog trail with Magic Light Pictures and Forestry England

Introducing Zog: A Forest Adventure!

We are delighted to announce the launch of our latest immersive experience, Zog: A Forest Adventure, created with Magic Light Pictures for Forestry England.

Using the very latest augmented reality technology, the free app brings to life lovable dragon Zog and some of his friends from the much-loved Zog film, based on the picture book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, as children and their families follow new interactive trails at 26 Forestry England sites across the country.

Launching on 30 January, the self-led trails encourage children to get exploring and learn more about forests and the trees, plants and wildlife they contain. Featuring lots of bonus activities, the Zog: A Forest Adventure app gives users the chance to interact with the 3D characters from the film as they discover how they can care for the forest and how the forests can care for them in return.

Inspired by the beloved books by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, Zog: A Forest Adventure invites children to join the dragon, Zog, and his friends on a thrilling journey through the forest. After downloading the app, kids can follow a trail and complete a series of exciting challenges that are brought to life through the magic of AR.

We are proud to have partnered with Magic Light Pictures, the creators behind the successful Gruffalo Spotter apps, to bring this experience to life. Zog: A Forest Adventure is the perfect way to get out into the great outdoors and we can’t wait for families to explore the forests and discover the world of Zog and his friends.

Alex Sanson, Senior Brand Manager at Magic Light said: “Forestry England sites offer the perfect classroom for budding little dragons. The new Zog trails offer a great opportunity to young explorers to learn about all the wonderful ways our forests can look after us and how we can look after them. The AR app adds a fun extra element so that children can explore the character, the story and the forest in a new way.”

Venture into the forest to meet Zog and his friends!

Jon Meggitt, CEO at Arcade said: “Several of us at Arcade have young children and know first-hand just how much Zog means to them. Bringing him and his friends to life in magical AR, and giving families even more reasons to get out into forests across the country, has been one of the most exciting and rewarding projects we have worked on. We’re very proud of the result and can’t wait to see all the little dragons earning their golden stars just like Zog!”

The Zog app adds an exciting extra dimension to the hugely popular Zog family forest trails, and follows the runaway success of Magic Light’s BAFTA-nominated Gruffalo Spotter apps, originally launched with Forestry England in 2017.

The Zog: A Forest Adventure app is available from from 30 January 2023. For more details and to download the app for free on iOS or Android please visit https://www.forestryengland.uk/zog.

Alone Together to demo at Belfast XR Festival

Alone Together has been selected as one of ten stories and experiences to display at the inaugural Belfast XR Festival on Wednesday 9th November.

We are thrilled to be joining some of the world’s leading immersive talents as we present the results of one of our most exciting, creative and innovative partnerships to date with the incomparable Dustin Harvey, Koumbie en Taylor Olson.

Alone Together is an experiment in episodic immersive drama. It uses advanced AI, voice recognition and cutting edge hologram production to depict a near future in which audiences are cast as a rented family member, procured to help their hosts deal with the challenges of everyday life including guilt, anxiety and loss.

Try it yourself at Belfast XR Festival, or get in touch with the team to find out more.

Belfast XR Festival is part of the Belfast Film Festival which runs from 3 to 12 November 2022.

Tickets available hier.

Arcade selected to build experience for the real-world metaverse with Niantic

The Arcade team is over the moon to announce that we are one of three immersive studios selected to build new experiences for the real-world metaverse by Niantic en Digital Catapult.

Having been shortlisted several months ago, we poured all of our creative and technical know-how into a concept we were incredibly proud of, and pitched to the Niantic and Digital Catapult teams at the end of August.

It was an anxious wait, as the prize was an incredible opportunity to partner with Niantic, the world’s leading voice in the consumer-facing augmented reality space, and use their new Lightship platform to push the boundaries of mobile immersive experience. The news came through a few weeks ago but we are finally able to reveal to the world that we won, and we couldn’t be happier!

We are in excellent company alongside No Ghost en Mobile Pie, each studio taking on a different challenge. No Ghost will be working with Studio Wayne McGregor to build a demonstrator that empowers self-expression through movement. Mobile Pie will be extending Cartoon Network’s highly successful mobile game ToonCup into the real world. And we will be working directly with Niantic to develop a digital experience designed to bring people back to the high street.

The prize was a chance to partner with Niantic, creators of Pokemon GO

BAZAAR

Our concept’s working title is Bazaar. It is a digital game with real world rewards, centred around the UK’s thousands of high streets, with a goal of motivating millennial and Gen-Z audiences to re-engage with bricks-and-mortar retail environments.

Bazaar imagines a world in which there is more to High Streets than meets the eye. They are special, important places, connected by an ancient magical network. But the magic has started to seep out into the world, and it is up to us to find and return the ‘drops’ to the shops that need their power. Find enough, and reunite them with the shops they came from, and the owners will show their gratitude in the form of free goods, discounts and other rewards.

High Streets are connected by an ancient magical network - will you find and return the drops that have seeped out into the world?

The first step for all three studios commissioned by this Digital Catapult accelerator is to produce a ‘demonstrator’ – a non-public app that allows test audiences to experience the core gameplay elements of our respective concepts. These will land in early 2023 and could, if everything goes well, pave the way for further phases of development.

But whatever awaits for Bazaar, the next few months ought to be pretty special. Watch this space – and your local high street – for more news soon!

Read the full press release hier, and get in touch with the team if you want to learn more about the real-world metaverse.

A Massive Step for the Real-World Metaverse

Light beams on an aerial view in AR

Late last week, Niantic launched Lightship VPS for Web – instantly advancing the state of immersive tech further than anything else has managed to since we started Arcade 5 years ago.

What is Lightship VPS for Web?

It is not so much a new product launch, but the combination of two already powerful platforms:

8th Wall – the most advanced WebAR platform in the world, that empowers agencies like us to create augmented reality experiences that can be accessed through the web browser (without the need for a native app).

and:

Lightship VPS – a visual positioning system for mobile devices to not just recognise the location of a user in the real world, but also understand the spatial and semantic nature of their surroundings, enabling us to create hyper-contextual augmented reality experiences.

So why is this so exciting?

Arcade’s mission of ‘connecting people to place through play’ is founded on a belief in the latent power of the devices in our pockets to connect people to the real world, and to make more of it through play and storytelling. And this is exactly what this release will allow us to do, producing more relevant and engaging experiences that feel seamlessly integrated into the world around us, accessible to anyone with a mobile device.

We have demonstrated the impact of this type of approach recently with our Keeper of Paintings experience at the National Gallery. By programming iOS and Android devices to recognise the real-world paintings, we were able to tell such a compelling story that over 40% of users are repeat visitors – that’s kids wanting to return to an art gallery to carry on playing!

Play Video

The real-world metaverse?

The Keeper of Paintings is an app-based experience, but Lightship VPS for Web will allow creators like us to combine this kind of world-understanding with the accessible nature of WebAR. This is the power of what Niantic calls ‘the real-world metaverse’. Niantic CEO John Hanke has made the point that ‘Metaverse’ is a term appropriated from dystopian portrayals of a future where society no longer wants to inhabit the real world and instead escapes into virtual ones. This is not the future that Niantic – or Arcade – is building towards.

Lightship VPS for Web is Niantic’s latest response to the hype and hyperbole surrounding the ‘metaverse’, that asks us all to believe in the world we have. Not to escape it, or leave it behind, but to join together in revealing its magic and beauty, exploring new ways to engage with it and each other.

We believe. Let’s go.

Meet Dan!

The wonderful and alliterative Dan Dawkins joined Arcade earlier this year after impressing during his very successful internship.

To mark his first three months with the agency, Emma sat down with Dan to ask him about his journey to and with Arcade, what he is aiming to achieve in future, and any tips for anyone hoping to follow in his footsteps.

If you’ve got any questions for Dan, hit him up at dan@arcade.ltd. Arcade is always on the lookout for bright, talented, creative people, so if you’re interested in joining Dan and the rest of the agency, drop a note to careers@arcade.ltd.

The Hundred Cricket Attax Cards Brought To Life In AR

Many of us remember fondly the thrill of opening a new pack of stickers or cards, seeing which sporting heroes we had picked up this time. Got. Got. Need! Ooh, a shiny!

But how awesome would it have been for those players to leap up out of the cards and show off their skills right in front of us? Well, now they can!

A NEW KIND OF COLLECTIBLE

The world of collectible cards took leap into the future with the release of this year’s Topps Cricket Attax, a set of cards featuring all the superstars from The Hundred, cricket’s newest and most exciting competition.

Not only could fans build up their collection of players from all the teams, they could also see many of them leap up out of the cards and show off their signature skills in magical WebAR!

By simply scanning the QR code on the back of the limited edition cards, fans could open a special web page using just their mobile browser, and point their device at the card to unlock the player as a 3D avatar.

Enjoy watching the player show what makes them so special, pause or slow down the motions to get a unrivalled view of their techniques, and take a photo or video to keep and share.

MEET THE PLAYERS

Topps Cricket Attax AR was built on WebAR platform 8th Wall to complement ‘Meet The Players’, the ground-breaking AR experience that lets fans get even closer to the avatars via the Sky Sports and The Hundred apps.

Users can enjoy a whole variety of skills and even step through portals to visit the players’ home grounds! Learn more about Meet the Players, including the motion capture and avatar creation process hier.

TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT WEB AR, GET IN TOUCH

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Arcade Shortlisted for Niantic Lightship AR Accelerator

Niantic Lightship

Arcade is very pleased to announce that we have been shortlisted as one of eight immersive studios invited to develop and pitch game-changing immersive experiences, in the hope of being offered a place on the Augmented Reality Accelerator run by Digital Catapult and powered by Niantic Lightship.

An open call by Digital Catapult and Niantic Labs – creator of some of the most famous AR experiences in the world, including Pokémon GO – was announced earlier this year, inviting creators from across the immersive sector in the UK to develop new ways of demonstrating Niantic’s vision of the ‘real world metaverse’, using the cutting edge features of their new platform, Lightship.

Of the three challenges on offer, we chose to apply for ‘Retail and the Future of the High Street’, a fascinating and complex opportunity to drive real change for one of the sectors that needs it the most.

A challenging six weeks lie ahead, in which we will hone and polish – and potentially tear apart – our concept before pitching to a panel from Digital Catapult and Niantic in late August. The prize on offer is the funding for a demonstrator experience, and the chance to collaborate with some of the leading players in the global AR landscape.

Wish us luck!

Concept art for Niantic Lightship

National Gallery Launches on Roblox

Keeper Council is a free, family-friendly game for Roblox inspired by The Keeper of Paintings augmented reality experience at The National Gallery in London.

Designed to offer 7-11 year olds a way to engage with the World of Keepers even if they are not at the Gallery, Keeper Council is a combined ‘tycoon’ and ‘obby’ Roblox game that invites kids to explore the magical crossroads where Keepers from all over the world meet up to hone their skills and catch up on all the latest Keeper goss.

Players are challenged to adventure through the mystical Keeper Council world, meeting different Keepers, completing their quests and being rewarded with masterpieces from The National Gallery so they can build their very own collection.

Like the Keeper of Paintings game itself, Keeper Council was developed in collaboration with a diverse set of young audiences, with over 80 children helping the Arcade team to create a game that met their very high standards!

Keeper Council represents an exciting new approach to engaging children for the Gallery and a first for the entire sector on Roblox, which was selected as the ideal platform to develop a game for remote audiences given its near-universal familiarity amongst the target age group.

"The result is a truly innovative experience that young people will love, whether they’ve been to The National Gallery before or not."
Professor James Bennett
Director of StoryFutures
"The way the project has evolved with the children through the design process is really special."
Lawrence Chiles
Head of Digital, The National Gallery
"We are grateful to the Gallery for letting us set this new benchmark in cultural engagement with them. We can't wait for families to meet the Keeper Council and get playing!"
Jon Meggitt
Jon Meggitt
Co-Founder, Arcade

Keeper Council and The Keeper of Paintings were commissioned by The National Gallery and StoryFutures, Royal Holloway, University of London, as part of StoryFutures China, a research and development project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). StoryFutures China is led by Brunel Design School, Brunel University London.

Read the full press release and coverage on The National Gallery website hier.

The game is free to play and currently available on desktop and laptop on Roblox hier.