Google Integrates Brands and Locations in Virtual Reality Game Ingress
By Rob Scott
November 27, 2012
November 27, 2012
- Currently invitation-only, Google will soon launch the beta of a new virtual reality mobile game, testing whether the model can lead players to visit retail and online locations.
- The company will integrate communications for brands such as Jamba Juice, PopChips, Hint, Zipcar and Chrome Bags Store within the Android-based “Ingress” game.
- The pilot will incorporate physical locations and use Google Maps, GPS locating, QR codes and possibly Google’s Project Glass virtual-reality eyeglasses as an accessory.
- “As fiction, the game describes the app as a leaked piece of technology allowing people to use a smartphone camera to view exotic matter and portals around them in the physical world,” reports MediaPost. “In reality, it’s a free downloadable app from Google Play for Android-running smartphones that will become the marketing platform for brands.”
- “The narrator, P. A. Chapeau, describes the journey through a series of notes and clues pinned to a pegboard, as well as shareable content on Google+, Facebook and Twitter,” explains the post.
- “What’s most interesting about ‘Ingress,’ though, is what it suggests about Google’s future plans, which seem to revolve around finding new ways to extend its reach from the browser on your laptop to the devices you carry with you at all times,” notes Technology Review in a related post. “The goal makes plenty of sense when you consider that traditional online advertising — Google’s bread and butter — could eventually be eclipsed by mobile, location-based advertising.”
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