Like it or not advertising in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) is going to become more pronounced as the technology develops, giving studios access to more revenue streams that can aid content creation. Mobile monetization and marketing company ironSource has now announced it’ll be launching the AR ads for mobile videogames this November.
Created in ironSource’s Playworks Studio, the ads use 3D assets from the original videogame, and can run on both iOS and Android in-app traffic. The AR ads superimpose in-game characters and scenarios from the advertised title onto a user’s environment, where they can vanquish monsters, earn points, or step into the virtual world of the experience, before being prompted to install the app to continue playing.
“For mobile AAA games which are often 3D and filled with special effects, AR ads finally offer a format that can evoke the true nature and experience of the game in an ad experience. Couple that with the large scale supply enabled by our direct relationships with thousands of game publishers using our ad network, and the potential opportunity for massive game advertisers is huge,” said Dan Greenberg, Chief Design Officer at ironSource in a statement. “Ultimately, amazing creative experiences are not enough to guarantee campaign results. You need to be able to access large volumes of relevant users, and to live close enough to the data to iterate and optimize. As the first ad network offering AR ads, that’s something we’re able to offer mobile AAA games looking to grow their market share by leveraging this new format.”
The AR ads were developed while ARKit was still in beta, but with Apple rolling out support this month with iOS 11 users will now see a growing number of AR videogames and soon corresponding ads.
“While we’ve seen AR applied in an advertising context with features like lenses, this is the first time it will be used to market games. Yet games are in many ways the perfect application for AR advertising, given that a lot of the ways people interact with AR experiences actually mimic gameplay interaction,” continued Greenberg. “The fact that we’ve been working with some of the largest gaming companies for so many years means we have a deep understanding of gameplay and how to translate it into a more compact and condensed ad experience. We’ve presented this new technology to our top partners while in beta and the reactions were uniformly positive. Our first campaign is already scheduled for November once user adoption of iOS 11 has increased.”
VRFocus will continue its AR coverage, reporting back with the latest announcements.
via Mint VR