7 Best Entertainment Augmented Reality Apps in April 2024

Augmented Reality in Entertainment

Augmented Reality experiences have been used with great success in entertainment for PR and marketing purposes in various media promotional campaigns, motion pictures, and television. Typical promotions incorporate printed graphic or real-life object recognition with target images recognition software for smartphone cameras or desktops. AR content becomes active with the software activation tracking stable coordinates of the camera image.

The most common examples of entertainment AR experiences that you already have seen are facial real-time lenses and filters that activate pseudo-3D mustache, funny haircuts or even multiplayer games. Nowadays, entertainment in AR isn't limited only to facial lenses and filters. You can place virtual characters on your hands, activate tabletop entertainment AR experience or even launch entire gameplay right in front of you on the ground.

Moreover, lots of AR experiences offer interaction and gamification parts. As a result, users can play with 3D characters, go through mini-games and quizzes right in AR experiences.

How does it work?

The most typical implementation of entertainment Augmented Reality features is a mobile app where virtual content appears over the printed image or ground in the device camera. Many companies started adding and using entertainment AR features into their existing apps, like Snapchat and Instagram.

Although Augmented Reality apps are constantly developing and are becoming rather complex. Some of the new AR products can only be used with special hardware. Microsoft Hololens is one of the most known examples offering a selection of apps, which can only be viewed with a special headset.

AR headset definitely opens higher quality immersive experiences compared to what can be achieved with a regular smartphone camera. That justifies the higher price for the development of AR products with additional hardware.

The entertainment domain actively uses such soft- and hardware innovations getting the most out of what AR has to offer.

Key studies

• According to Statista.com, Augmented Reality experiences in media and entertainment are most appreciated globally in 2019. The survey says that 55% of customers surveyed worldwide in spring 2019 highlighted that music and concerts are the most valuable immersive AR experience. The next categories are sports events and movies/series, with about 50% of the respondents stated that such AR experiences would be most valuable for them.
• The global AR/VR reality market is expected to exceed the revenue of US$ 1.7 Trn by 2031, growing at a CAGR of ~ 39% during the analyzed period.
• Based on 13 million ARKit app downloads 47% of them were games, utilities 14%, entertainment 12%, lifestyle 11%.

Use cases

Drive customers to your business. Games and entertainment components, like a scavenger hunt, help to drive consumers to specific retail locations. They help to unlock immersive digital experiences and boost purchases. Users can collect digital rewards (like virtual coins, coupon codes, promotions) in particular locations using geolocation-based features and navigation.

Stimulate consumer interest. A great example is a printing business. Augmented Reality helps to transform printed books and magazines into digital entertainment stories.

The publishers are able to get advantages of using new technologies and integrate additional customers' communication channels. By augmenting their traditional printed materials, they can transform their old-school business into technology companies and stay ahead of the curve. As a result, such features help businesses re-engage their old customers, attract new ones and unlock extra revenue streams.

The readers can now get the immersive AR experiences and interactivity. By pointing their devices to printed materials, they can activate and discover Augmented Reality content, play with it and share it.

Moreover, CPG brands successfully combine AR + entertainment + printing. You can find tons of examples when consumers scan packages of Oreo Cooking or Kellogg's Corn Flakes with their smartphone cameras and entertainment Augmented Reality content pop-ups. As a result, consumers can interact with 3D characters, play mini-games and share their experiences across their social media networks. That activation of AR content helps brands initialize products purchases since packages and labels work here as trigger/target images to unlock and run AR content.

Engage with your fans. Face AR filters help businesses and brands to engage with their audience and fans. Not only do teenagers use them. For example, during the Super Bowl, fans of different ages were able to reproduce the Gatorade Shower with sponsored Snapchat Lens. Millions of captures, shares and reposts were produced during this campaign. As a result, such Augmented Reality experiences could work as a very effective and viral tool.

Moreover, fan engagement of great scale can be achieved by attracting a brand ambassador and influencers. Such persons may have millions of followers and a huge level of trust. All Augmented Reality content captured and shared by them will help you to get a huge boost in terms of engagement with your fans.

Brand awareness. Social networks like Instagram and Snapchat provide numerous opportunities for applying AR and raising brand, service or product awareness. Netflix has been encouraging fans to use the Augmented Reality filters. For example, users were able to record a video AR experience of the Stranger Things movie during the premiere and share them through Facebook and Instagram stories or news feed posts for a while.

Art exhibitions. Augmented Reality helps to bring alive paintings and art objects. People can interact with art on a whole new level. Vibrant graffiti art by Cept at the Hermes Wanderland is a great example where Augmented Reality added a new experience for their visitors. Floor panels helped to activate AR and share stories with people while they were discovering art at the exhibit.

Interactive AR theatrics. Classic theaters can be transformed with AR as well. Imagine that you can interact with the physical heroes and props right in theaters. Moreover, AR changes outdoor theatrics. The Xtnt urban theater used ideas and inspiration from Google Street View. They created immersive Augmented Reality performances by bringing visitors through the current European Capital of Culture, Belgium and Mons.

AR in music and gigs. Thanks to Augmented Reality, fans can bring virtual 3D scenes and performers right to their houses. Moreover, AR helps to study piano play, guitar and other musical instruments. Augmented Reality visualizers that interact with sounds help users to see and feel the music.

Entertainment AR TV. Adding different information such as betting options, game scores to the live events on the TV screen is a great example of AR integration. However, the convenience of it is doubtful. Holding a tablet in front of a TV is definitely not something people want. AR headsets make a difference in working with this idea and create an enjoyable experience.

The Civilizations app by BBC appears as a perfect example of TV show promotion. Despite the fact that the app wasn't working with TV directly, it helped to popularize world art, history and added lots of value to BBC shows. Over 280 artifacts collected from the world's greatest museums and exhibits allowed the app creators to turn them into 3D models.

Download entertainment Augmented Reality apps and examples

Here on Catchar, you have an opportunity to select and test the top entertainment AR apps and lenses filtered by rating, type and date. Catchar Asset Store (Marketplace) is the best place to find high-quality AR templates and ready-to-use solutions. We are also working with big brands looking for professional AR studios to order unique experiences for them.

Tools to build entertainment AR apps and projects

A great selection of AR tools is at your disposal presented on Catchar. These tools allow creating AR content based on such frameworks and libraries as Spark AR, Lens Studio, ARKit, ARCore, Unity AR Foundation, WebAR, etc. SDKs and tools listed here have already helped both technical and non-technical developers in creating outstanding entertainment AR apps and experiences. Join Catchar today and start discovering Augmented Reality tools and SDKs, get help from licensed mentors and curators or simply here professional AR developers and studios to build AR content together with them.

How to promote entertainment AR apps?

Today developers are using Catchar to demonstrate and promote entertainment Augmented Reality apps, which gives them the opportunity to find the right users more efficiently than social networks and paid ads. Catchar is a club of AR admirers supported by our teams putting great effort in promoting and distributing AR entertainment apps with over 30,000+ connections in social media networks, newsletters, and chats. Find your perfect match on Catchar and scale your AR entertainment products globally.

Hire developers to build entertainment AR apps

At Catchar, our primary focus is on attracting the most professional AR developers, studios and other professionals, which makes us stand out from numerous platforms available online. You can get access to thousands of Augmented Reality, Machine Learning and Computer Vision developers and engineers. Selecting among the portfolios and searching with our mentors will help you find a suitable expert for your next entertainment AR apps, projects and campaigns.