Graeme Devine is one of the wizards of gaming, having started at age 14 in the heyday of Atari in the 1970s. He brought us CD-ROM games like The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour. He labored on early Quake games at id Software and was the games evangelist at Apple as the iPhone was taking off.
He created games on his own for a while and then joined Magic Leap, the high-flying augmented reality smartglasses company, in 2013. Devine gave a talk on his vision for “mixed reality” games about a month ago at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas. It may seem like old news, but I’ve finally had a chance to revisit the talk, which was light on news but heavy on game design philosophy.
Devine said his job is to wander around Magic Leap’s offices in Plantation, Fla., and talk with everyone about what “mixed reality,” or blending real-world images with computer animations on platforms like smartglasses, really means. He finds “mixed reality” is a more fitting name than “augmented reality.”
Image Credit: Dean Takahashi
His definition: “Mixed reality is the mixture of the real world and virtual worlds so that one understands the other. This creates experiences that cannot possibly happen anywhere else.” If we start creating experiences that do that, we’re on to something cool, he said.
“What does mixed reality mean in two years, or what does it mean in five years or 10 years,” Devine said.
It’s not so silly to talk about that time frame because of Devine’s own experience with the iPhone. Ten years ago, it was just getting started, and now, it’s generating $32 billion in sales a quarter.
“Revolutions are possible,” Devine said.
Image Credit: DICE Summit
Two years ago, the impression of AR was the image of the robots on the smartphone above. Magic Leap’s ambition is much different, as it hopes to insert digital content directly into your surroundings where it can interact with you and your world. Mixed reality comprehends your surroundings and interacts with…