XMG STUDIO INC.

The popularity of Customization in games has soared since the early days of the video game console. Customization is no longer simply a secondary option in games but almost a requirement to play certain games.

K-Factor

When we merge the theory of customization with social networking media, we create the circumstances for a viral loop. The user’s ability to post their creation or race times to their Facebook, Twitter or OpenFeint page helps create brand awareness which can spread across the Internet and the world. This viral aspect leads us to the K-Factor.

The K-Factor in viral marketing, measures the viral rate of application growth. Consider Farmville on Facebook. A low K-Factor user ignores the fact that many friends in their online social group are actively engaged in Farmville activity. This compares to a high K-Factor user who not only tries Farmville based on seeing it on their Facebook feed but recommends and engages many more friends in the application.

The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium – that is, of any extension of ourselves – result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology. ~ Marshall Mcluhan

The self reflective aspects of consciousness of the human species is responsible for its relentless hunger for new perspectives, new ways to relate and interact with information, each other and his or her worlds, both internal and eternal. This seemingly insatiable process has been one of the driving forces pushing technology to a nexus of which AR : Augmented Reality is but the beginning.

“The medium is the message, therefore the audience is the content.”  ~ Marshall McLuhan

Though the first part of this quote “The medium is the message” is quite well known the second part “therefore the audience is the content” is not. Facebook and other social apps or interactive frames such as online gaming and informational exchanges like Creative Commons and Wiki are altering the traditional World view. Merging this concept with Augmented Reality we see three iterations of technology evolution.

Augmented Reality or AR: A realtime overlay of virtual information on the real World by using the smartphone camera. The technology has its issues but the concept is a brilliant step into an integration of multiple media streams into a unified mobile-based experience.

Augmented Interactive Reality or AIR: Featuring realtime image processing and mobile-device content manipulation. This is truly “augmenting” reality in a one-directional manner. Next generation games would have multiple interactive data layers to create more immersive experiences which could include ”Otaku” or “Treker” style rich media content to allow users to dig deeper into the support materials of their activity.

Trans-Augmented Reality or TAR: The Holy Grail of AR and VR which would be a fully immersive, procedural, meta-dimensional, 3D space where you can access realtime content as it is generated and disseminated over ad-hock mesh network of mobile devices. Portable AR/VR. Note that desktop / laptop variations of this concept will change how we interact with software tools drastically changing our relationship to I/O’s (input / output devices).

Here is a possible example of an AR/VR or TAR experience:

A user would be able to network with a doctor giving a play-by-play commentary on a realtime surgical procedure all while siting on a bus. A virtual 3d image of the area that is being operated can be blown up like a google map, walked inside, and touched to get names of parts of the organ or system with images and video while the Surgeon is talking.

Now take this concept and apply it to gaming or any kind of data visualisation and the benefits are astronomically clear.

XMG is committed to stay on the front lines of this emerging evolution of technology. We seek to determine how to interact with human development and how to best leverage possible I/O’s and their mobile applications as it relates to our passion – “making and playing game”. Thus the audience and its realtime experience IS the content.