FUTURETECHLIVE! @ COMIC-CON was the official first event of San Diego Comic-Con kicking off on Preview Day and lasting through the whole event. We got the chance to hop in and play around with some of the emerging tech aiming to widen the world of gaming and entertainment.
The massive space at the Omni hotel featured some of tha latest advancements in Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Gaming, eSports, and other leading-edge attractions the event also includes AI (Artificial Intelligence) Innovation Fair, celebrating robotics and machine learning; Space Zone, showcasing the wonders of the cosmos; and Coinfest, where Bitcoin meets Blockchain. The first-ever Comic-Con hackathon, a one-day event for hackers and storytellers also took place.
Some of the memorable there’s VR and AR experiences included Star Wars (from Lenovo), Ready Player One (Warner Bros.), Deadpool (Fox/7-Eleven), Overwatch (Blizzard), Hologate, and others. A variety of offerings were available during the event including:
Attractions and Activities
STAR WARS: JEDI CHALLENGES – from Lenovo
Features smartphone powered augmented reality Star Wars experience, enabling lightsaber battles. Oddly satisfying and fun! Your phone projects onto a panel of glass in the headset to create a hologram effect. So you could actually look OUT of the headset but a HUD display puts Kylo Ren, Darth Maul, and other game objectives in front of you creating a fun augmented reality experience.
As Lenovo looks to break away from just computers and into the gaming space, ventures like this are a good start but are not quite THE solution yet. The hardware needs are a bit of a barrier to entry and the sort of one-and-done setup for this game make repeatability a little more questionable here.
DEADPOOL AR – from 7-Eleven
An AR activation based on the snarkiest Marvel Comics superhero and Fox movies rolled out by 7-Eleven Digital. Redeem for real points to use for discounts in-store!
OVERWATCH AR – from Blizzard
From the gaming giant behind this mega-game, now you can virtually jump into the game.
GHOSTBUSTERS AR – from Sony / 433 Games
Remember Pokemon Go? Soon people will be able to hunt virtual ghosts via their smartphone. Similar iterations have been adapted by others including a new high-profile one for Jurassic World.
APE-X – from Starbreeze and Luckyhammers
Fight for your freedom atop a towering building while battling bots high above city streets in this location-based VR experience. This was TERRIFYING at first and certainly will give anyone with a fear of heights immediately willies. I KNEW I wasn’t really on a roof-top but it was very difficult for me to move around the platform for fear of falling off.
READY PLAYER ONE
From Warner Bros. – 5,000 square feet of immersive experiences and pop culture iconography.
More Attractions:
- HOLOGATE – multi-player location-based VR experience providing exhilarating adventures in which multiple people fight robots, dragons and zombies, throw virtual snow balls or bond together and try to escape a sinking submarine.
- TAKE PAUSE – VR-based toolkit that helps teens improve focus and resilience by making mindfulness accessible and engaging using virtual reality.
- STIMULI VR – Stimuli glasses replace big, bulky VR headsets to make VR more accessible. Get ready to nab some being given away.
- WAREPLAI – uses AR to make clothing into an interactive gaming experience, with the goal to pioneer experiences to bring people together using our blended reality platform which successfully blends the virtual world, the real world, and physical items through any device.
- e360TV – making videos bleeding edge
Gaming / eSports
ARCHANGEL: HELLFIRE – from Skydance Interactive
An action-packed multiplayer mech game, and a successor to the award-winning story-driven VR shooter Archangel. From a war torn cityscape to a snowy mountain terrain, mechs can battle it out in free-roaming warfare in open combat environments. A lot of setup for this one I was really just impressed with the “hologram” signage that animated at the top of the booth. So cool!
More Gaming:
- WAX – from the founders of OPSkins, the world’s leading marketplace for online video games assets, WAX is a decentralized platform that enables anyone to operate a fully functioning marketplace among the 400+ million online players who already collect, buy and sell in-game items.
- ROBOT CACHE – the gaming industry’s first-ever decentralized video game distribution platform, dramatically reducing the fees publishers pay and for the first time, allowing gamers to resell their digital PC video games.
- ULTRA – a new game publishing platform, bringing the blockchain revolution to the gaming industry and creating a fair ecosystem for the future of games distribution.
- TEAM LIQUID – one of the most influential and dominant teams in eSports; it includes some of the winningest players ever. Their eSports wiki, Liquipedia, has grown to become one of the most useful, most detailed, and most up to date wikis in all of gaming. Team members will be on hand to interact and sign autographs.
A.I. Innovation / Robotics
OZOBOT
Maker of award-winning coding robots for the next generators of creators… preparing kids for a future where they’ll collaborate with robots every day. They had Marvel figures on display to showcase the engaging way to learn the logic of robotics!
More Robotics:
- HORIZON HOVER – founded by former NFL player Thomas (“TJ”) Wright, Horizon is developing autonomous hovercraft and heavy lift drones for businesses and consumers; TJ will be on hand for show-and-tell.
- #AISHOWBIZ ROUNDTABLE – thought leaders in artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, and entertainment from around the world are converging to share their ideas and interact.
More to See!
Get all the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con news and info from the entire weekend below!
