The objectives of the project can be broken down in four categories: Technology, Games, Marketing and Business development. The MAGELLAN FTI project, being a close-to-market activity, is relying for its success on the following aspects which are of equal importance: a. producing a high-end technology platform, b. verifying the quality of the technology by producing engaging and attractive applications, c. creating a brand and a marketing strategy that can attract the right audience and d. test the market by means of approaching early adopters and potential customers even before the half-way point of the project.
1. Technology
Developing Mixed-Reality based experiences requires a set of high-end technologies which are difficult to master. While the market potential of Mixed Reality based experiences is very high and increasing, the technological obstacles and the production costs are translated into few widely adopted experiences, made essentially by game developing companies. Marketing and design companies are demanding accessible tools for location and mixed reality experiences. For the first year the project objective was to deliver a platform architecture that will be able to scale with the number of players based on a set of micro-services that would make the deployment in cloud infrastructures as easy and scalable as possible. At the same time Versions 1.0 and 2.0 of the MAGELLAN platform incorporates an authoring tool that can be used to create complete and publishable mobile games with location and mixed reality features. The tool although still under development is technologically mature concertation instrument that can help authors validate game scenarios and use various forms of content (video, audio, 360 images, 3D images etc.) to create AR and VR activities.
2. Games
The best way to validate and prove the capabilities of the technology is by developing high quality, engaging games and experiences. LOBA and INCONITO, the two design agencies in the consortium, have developed 2 applications using the platform during the first year of the project with a third currently under development. INCONITO developed a noir thriller-type game called “Bad Omens” using the capabilities of pre-version 1.0 and version 1.0 of the platform and LOBA created an application for a particular region of Portugal aimed at the tourists of the region. The first game is purely for entertainment purposes whereas the game created by LOBA is in accordance with the requirements of the Bairrada region of Portugal and has informational as well as entertainment elements.
3. Marketing
After producing the FTI project collateral (website, power point templates, document templates etc.), the consortium had decided that a new brand name would be required that could resonate better with our target audience and also make it easier for us to protect the trademarks, acquire a matching URL and build a “story” around it. After agreeing on the “First Parallel” brand name effort was put towards producing the necessary collateral that would help us in our business development and marketing activities. We are now ready to launch an online advertising campaign with a longer-term goal the participation in key event of the industry.
4. Business Development
It was the intention of the consortium to probe the market in order to better understand the validity of the concept and get some early feedback with respect to the added value that the platform might have for its first customers. For that purpose a series of meetings and presentations took place with various stake holders that may have a potential interest in developing games and experiences using the platform as well as buying the platform itself. Large brands and advertising agencies were targeted and a series of meetings were held in order to create the necessary market awareness prior to product launch.
