4 ms·

FWIW their AR stuff was really weird. It looked stupid when I saw it at a convention. I would have dumped them too. If they had been doing Oculus Rift type stu

FWIW their AR stuff was really weird. It looked stupid when I saw it at a convention. I would have dumped them too. If they had been doing Oculus Rift type stuff I'm sure they'd still be at Valve.

nrp 13y ago
I was actually pretty impressed by CastAR. It's certainly the most compelling AR-esque experience I've tried. It opens up a different set of game possibilities than a VR headset like the Rift. Think augmented multiplayer tabletop games rather than immersive worlds.
- socialist_coder 13y ago
  The market for those types of games is slim. The tabletop market is already small and the only reason they can turn a profit is because their costs are low. AR tabletop games would have an even smaller market and also be more expensive to produce.
  - KVFinn 13y ago
    >The tabletop market is already small and the only reason they can turn a profit is because their costs are low. It's bigger than ever and steadily rising. Blocks for building dungeons made 2 million on Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dwarvenforge/dwarven-forges-game-tiles-revolutionary-miniature http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dwarvenforge/dwarven-for... I can see a single mind-blowing tabletop demo selling pretty damn well. The audience isn't huge and mass market, but it's decent sized, and willing to drop very high amounts of money on cool stuff.
  - sspiff 13y ago
    I'm not sure the market is that slim (a lot of people in my social circles are playing them these days, certainly more than 5 years ago), and these board and card games are sold at rather expensive prices (€80 for a boardgame is not rare). That said though, when I play a boardgame, I'm just playing it on a table with some friends. I don't want the games to get any more complicated, and I certainly don't want to put on headgear or glasses and involve technology for some gimmick AR feature. You'd have to make the game concepts that require such a setup very compelling for me to consider them.
  - tokipin 13y ago
    but dude, the possibilities[1] [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrWV4Hemfio http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrWV4Hemfio

FWIW their AR stuff was really weird. It looked stupid when I saw it at a convention. I would have dumped them too. If they had been doing Oculus Rift type stuff I'm sure they'd still be at Valve.

nrp 13y ago

I was actually pretty impressed by CastAR. It's certainly the most compelling AR-esque experience I've tried. It opens up a different set of game possibilities than a VR headset like the Rift. Think augmented multiplayer tabletop games rather than immersive worlds.

socialist_coder 13y ago
The market for those types of games is slim. The tabletop market is already small and the only reason they can turn a profit is because their costs are low. AR tabletop games would have an even smaller market and also be more expensive to produce.
- KVFinn 13y ago
  >The tabletop market is already small and the only reason they can turn a profit is because their costs are low. It's bigger than ever and steadily rising. Blocks for building dungeons made 2 million on Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dwarvenforge/dwarven-forges-game-tiles-revolutionary-miniature http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dwarvenforge/dwarven-for... I can see a single mind-blowing tabletop demo selling pretty damn well. The audience isn't huge and mass market, but it's decent sized, and willing to drop very high amounts of money on cool stuff.
- sspiff 13y ago
  I'm not sure the market is that slim (a lot of people in my social circles are playing them these days, certainly more than 5 years ago), and these board and card games are sold at rather expensive prices (€80 for a boardgame is not rare). That said though, when I play a boardgame, I'm just playing it on a table with some friends. I don't want the games to get any more complicated, and I certainly don't want to put on headgear or glasses and involve technology for some gimmick AR feature. You'd have to make the game concepts that require such a setup very compelling for me to consider them.
- tokipin 13y ago
  but dude, the possibilities[1] [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrWV4Hemfio http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrWV4Hemfio