I interviewed Anwar Noriega and Julio Martinez at the Snap Partner Summit about the Snap Spectacles. See more context in the rough transcript below.
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.458] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast. Hello, my name is Kent Bye, and welcome to the Voices of VR Podcast. It's a podcast that looks at the future of spatial computing. You can support the podcast at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. So, continuing my series of looking at different announcements about the Snap Spectacles, today's episode is with a game that is a launch title. It's from Wabi Sabi Games, and it's like a capture the flag game. So I had a chance to talk to both Anwar and Julio just to get a little more context as to how they came into developing for Snap. They're like an independent game studio based out of Mexico, and they've received financial support from Snap in order to continue to develop for the platform. And they have this connected lenses, social game where you can play minimum of two people and these wide open spaces where they have these virtual objects and you're kind of shooting these balls at each other and you're trying to essentially capture the other person's flag. So it's a caption flag game, but implemented within augmented reality. Didn't have a chance to play it, but it was launched and it's on the store for folks who have a dev kit. So it's on the snap spectacles, which again is like $99 a month. And you have to commit for at least a year. So at least $1,200 to be able to even have access to it. But one of the things that I guess was a theme within the context of looking at the snap spectacles is to what degree is this just in the realm of potentiality and possibility and hope and aspirations. versus what is going to be grounded in actuality and what's real what's the constraints what's the limitations obviously this is very experimental and prototype hardware but at the same time they were able to defying all expectations for me and a lot of folks in the industry produce something that is low motion photo latency it's got very interactive hand interactions and a lot of sophisticated machine learning models so basically snap has a lot of the software and the hardware and the community to be able to pull everything together. It was essentially a pretty coherent experience. And then just in the process of talking to a lot of developers who had early access to it, just getting a sense of what they want to start to do with it and to see what the new unique affordances of the platform are and then how they're going to start to push it forward. And I think as we continue to move forward, it's going to be more of a question of like, okay, now that we've had this prototype, how do you start to move this into the next phase of being like a viable venture for other people who don't happen to be getting direct financial support from Snap. Is there going to be a viable market for developers to actually develop for this? During the keynote, they said there's going to be no developer tax, but if there's no market and no capability for any promise of a return on the money, then having no tax on zero revenue doesn't really necessarily do you all that much good. There has to be some other market viability for this ecosystem that they have to cultivate. So this is all like open questions that have yet to be answered. But I spent a lot of time at the Snap Partner Summit and the Lens Fest talking to independent developers like Wabi Sabi Games just to get a little bit of insight of their experiences in working with Snap and also what their hopes and aspirations and dreams for the platform might be. And they've been able to actually produce some experiences as well. So that's what we're coming on today's episode of Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with Anwar and Julio happened on Tuesday, September 17th, 2024. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:03:19.794] Anwar Noriega: Hello, my name is Anwar Noriega, co-founder of Wabi Sabi Games. We are a video game development studio focused on the future of gaming.
[00:03:28.061] Julio Martinez: Hello, my name is Julio Sabre. I'm also co-founder of Wabi Sabi. I'm the CTO, basically responsible of everything that they related. So yeah, that's it.
[00:03:37.062] Kent Bye: Maybe you could each give a bit more context as to your background and your journey into this space. Sure.
[00:03:43.587] Anwar Noriega: I come from traditional app development and mobile AR back in the days. And little by little, my dream has always been to make video games. So at some point, I was very fortunate to combine those two things, making development and being involved in video games. And that's how the idea of creating a studio to create this came to be. So it's kind of like that, my background. Yeah.
[00:04:07.932] Julio Martinez: For me, since I was little also, I always wanted to make video games. So all my career was focused on that. So I studied engineering and went to work in video games in Mexico. That was really hard because there is almost no industry. So I started working little by little in also marketing, combining with a small video game development, mobile mostly. And then I started to climb the ladder to web development, console development, XR development, AR development. Basically, everything related to video game was really good for me. So yeah, that's how we went with it.
[00:04:39.027] Kent Bye: And when did the XR start to come onto your radar? What were some of the turning points that got you into the immersive industry, either VR, AR, or other XR mixed reality things?
[00:04:49.232] Anwar Noriega: I think our roadmap is even before we started the company together. I think like maybe like 10 or 12 years ago, we started seeing these new technologies of spatial computing in phones or computers. And we got very interested on that. At that moment, I was also involved in creating mobile apps, especially like camera apps. So creating some type of augmenting layer for the camera capture was very interesting to try to motivate users to capture more stuff. So little by little, it was like that. And then, at least personally, I very quickly realized that it has a huge potential for video games. It's a new ecosystem, a new platform, a new way of playing. And that sounded very interesting for me. So that's how I got involved in this XR community.
[00:05:38.737] Julio Martinez: For me, I always wanted to focus on traditional gaming, but then there was no money in Mexico, so we started working in marketing and things like that. And from there, I started to work in augmented reality. Actually, one of my thesis for the university was making an augmented reality library, because I always think it was cool. And somehow it makes my living for a while. So I started working for companies, making projects and things. And then I realized that I can mix both my passions. So I started to making video games in augmented reality and now XR. And I'm really happy because it's combined both worlds that I really like.
[00:06:17.628] Kent Bye: OK, so we're here at the Snap Partner Summit with the keynote that happened this morning. You're featured in one of the videos. And then when I reached out to my PR contact, she put me in touch with you as somebody who has had access to some of this. And so maybe you could take me back to your beginning of your relationship with Snap. And there's the AR lenses. There's the spectacles. So when did you start to be more directly connected to what's happening here at Snap?
[00:06:42.737] Anwar Noriega: Sure, our history with Snap is quite long, to be honest. We started working together in 2020. At that moment, Snap had an investment arm called Yellow, and we got selected to be part of the cohort of the companies that they invested in. So from there, we have been working with almost all the departments inside Snapchat, like from partnerships to Latin American team to Snap Labs. And at some point, they showed us the prototype of the hardware that they were developing. And basically, it was very transparent. They asked us if we were interested in making games for a new platform. And of course, we said yes. And it's been quite the ride. We started working on the previous version of the Spectacles, the one that was released in 2021. And from there, we've been part of the journey, helping them improve the hardware and also coming up with ideas and trying to help them as well with the development. And getting to this point is a crazy ride for sure. It's kind of like a dream come true for sure. So, yeah.
[00:07:44.437] Julio Martinez: Yeah, totally. We have always tried pushing gaming into Snap. At the beginning, we started with Jello. We always thought that Snap had a lot of potential for gaming, and we have been trying to push gaming into several areas of Snap, like games inside lenses, spectacles, new hardware, new ways to monetize, and things like that. So that's our main focus. And being so invested with Snap and being part of this is really good for us, and we're really happy.
[00:08:09.775] Kent Bye: And so there's the fifth generation of the Snap that was announced this morning. And so maybe you could talk about some of your early experiences with the hardware, since everybody in the outside world is just learning about it today. But it sounds like you've had some early looks in being able to see what's possible with it. So what are your thoughts on what it's able to do?
[00:08:27.429] Anwar Noriega: Our thoughts is like, the hardware is amazing. It's truly magical. The capabilities and the form factor is crazy how they achieved to do that. Honestly, it's the first device, and it's not because we are part of the ecosystem and the event, but it's the first device that we truly feel it's not intrusive to be wearing outside and interacting with people. And it kind of just blends in into the interaction of everyday life. So yeah, I'm very excited for people to start testing it and see the capabilities and the features, because they have some very crazy magic tricks in it. Yeah.
[00:09:03.385] Julio Martinez: Yeah, like for me, seeing the device grow, like the 2021 version, and see how the capabilities were improving. This version, you really need to test it. It will blow your mind how well it works, especially outdoors. That's something that's really, really good. And I really hope for the future, because this is the first iteration of a really good, solid foundation of how this is going to be in the future. Right now, it's something that you can actually wear outside, and you can actually interact outside. And I hope that maybe in a couple of years, we can get a really truly almost device-free experience. It's close, but not there yet. But it's really, really good.
[00:09:41.175] Kent Bye: I was just talking to Niantic, and they were saying that they had developed their experience of the Peridot within the Lens Studio. And they have a separate fork for their other versions of their mobile app on Unity. But it sounds like that some of the different experiences that are being built for this Spectacles device are needing to use their internal operating system with the Lens Studio. As game developers, maybe you could talk about if that's the case that you've also been looking into Lens Studio, if you've been pushing up the edges of how much Lens Studio is becoming a proper game engine to do all the things that you want to do as game developers. So yeah, I'd love to hear some reactions about that.
[00:10:14.921] Anwar Noriega: Sure. So as we come from traditional game dev, we are used to the other frameworks and engines. We were, at the beginning, a little bit scared about jumping into Lens Studio. But the very happy surprise is that the architecture of Lens Studio is very similar to traditional game development. So the transition for us was actually very easy. And the tool is very robust nowadays. Honestly, you can do almost everything that you can think of. And I'm pretty sure we are one of the teams that we are pushing the boundaries of what you can do with Lens Studio. And we're very happy about that. And sometimes we have these heated conversations with Snap about possible features and all that stuff. But we are very happy to be part of that process of how to improve the tool. So yeah, very, very happy with the outcome.
[00:11:01.400] Julio Martinez: As a technical point of view, we were a little bit worried the first time we started working with Lens Studio because we have worked with other filters, solutions, and they were not so game development friendly. But we got a really happy surprise with Lens Studio because it really works like the other game engines. They use the same paradigms. They use the same way of extracting things. And it really make click with us. It was really easy for the team members to jump from one traditional game engine to Lens Studio and start developing right away. It took less than a day for them to do that. And in each iteration, it got better. We got more features, more way to test, more flexibility with the coding, and things like that. So right now, it's in a really good place. I mean, it can improve, but it's really good for game developers. And it's really, really easy to jump into.
[00:11:51.530] Kent Bye: Well, we've been talking around the experiences that you're actually working on, because you're not showing a demo here yet. I don't know if you've even announced specifically what you're working on, but maybe you can tell me whatever you can tell me about what you're working on for this platform.
[00:12:04.801] Anwar Noriega: Sure. We are working on a game that is Capture the Flag. Like imagine playing as kids Capture the Flag, just augmented with technology. We tried to take a very different approach where the technology and the game is not the main actor. The main actor is still playing Capture the Flag as kids in an open area, in the park, in your home. And then just trying to focus the technology in the very core elements that it actually can help and enhance the experience. So for example, you can shoot with your hand some projectiles to try to limit the movement of the other players. Or you can have some virtual blocks that can modify your strategy of how you need to tackle or how you need to capture the flag. So we were very careful to not take away the fun from capture the flag as a kid and just augmenting it with technology on top of it. And very soon, everybody will be able to give it a try. As soon as the headset starts being delivered to everybody, that game will be pre-installed. So yeah, everyone will be able to test it. MARK MANDELMANN- So it's all ready to go for launch. Yes, it's already good to go. Yes.
[00:13:19.397] Julio Martinez: Yes, totally. It was a really challenging game because we really need to shift from making the device the star of the game to making yourself another the star of the game. At some point, you get so immersed in the game that you forget that you're wearing a device. You focus so much on the other people, on the mechanics. And actually, you sometimes believe that the things are just in there, like if they were physically in the world. And that's some really good things to happen with the device, because we see other people play the game. And they really, really come with really innovative ideas, like using furniture to prevent other people from capturing the flag, or hiding, or doing some really creative ways to expand the gameplay outside of what we develop. And it really feels like a way to enhance the physical reality in a really fun way without you having to be preoccupied about complicated setups and things like that. So for us, it's really, really a good experience. And yeah, it's going to be pre-installed. Please play it. And if you love it, please let us know. And if you have any comments, please let us know.
[00:14:22.032] Kent Bye: Is there a minimum number of players, like at least two or at least four? Or how many people do you need at a minimum to have a good experience?
[00:14:28.846] Anwar Noriega: At least two, but we definitely recommend, if possible, to play it with more people because it's more messy and chaotic and more fun. For sure. Yeah.
[00:14:38.635] Kent Bye: Now, I'm imagining that this could either be in a place where you would need to have a big wide open space versus something that may have different trees or objects. Does this experience work with the environment in the way that you can play it and have natural obstacles? Or is this something where you need to be in a big wide open field and have everything that's an object be a virtual object so you can properly track it within the context of the gameplay?
[00:15:01.960] Anwar Noriega: The game was actually implemented from the very beginning to be supported in all types of environments. So of course you can play it, for example, in your home and use your real furniture as potential barriers or game blockers or whatever. And it's really fun to do it like that. But also, if you are in an open space, the game itself provides with a functionality to create virtual walls to make it a little bit more interesting. So yeah, we are trying to cover as many use cases as possible. But of course, we are very interested in seeing how people will take this into their real life. And then from there, start optimizing to the most fun use case.
[00:15:42.159] Kent Bye: And what's the minimum amount of space that you need? I think about like a tennis court or a basketball court or like what's the kind of the relative size relative to existing things versus what's kind of the recommended optimal size at a minimum to have a good experience?
[00:15:58.650] Julio Martinez: I can take that one. I'm sorry we don't use Imperial's system. It's three meters distance between the two bases. Minimum has to be three meters. But it can be as far away as you can. It's better if you spell them out because you have more room to play. But yeah, the minimum is three meters.
[00:16:15.176] Kent Bye: OK. Are you going to try to have some people play the game? You have a bunch of people that are going to be having devices tomorrow. I'm wondering if you're going to try to organize people to actually go out and have some fun playing it.
[00:16:26.485] Anwar Noriega: That's the plan, definitely. Tomorrow, a lot of developers will get access to the device here in the office. Definitely, we're trying to organize a session to see how that goes. Yeah.
[00:16:34.592] Kent Bye: MARK MANDELMANN- Now, one of the things that was brought up in the keynote that some people were questioning was this 45-minute battery life. And I know that when you have a bunch of people that are playing, then you need to have everybody basically synced up. charged up at the beginning, otherwise you end up having more of a fractured experience. Did you find in your testing that the 45 minutes was enough for playing this game, or did you find that you were wanting to be able to play it for even longer?
[00:16:59.460] Anwar Noriega: We find it good enough. To be honest, most of the people that we tested with get tired before the device runs out of battery, because each session in the game is kind of like two minutes long. So yeah, honestly, we've never find a situation where we got restricted by the battery life, at least for this use case.
[00:17:22.034] Kent Bye: And have you been able to try out any of the other applications, or just trying to get a sense of what other stuff is interesting or compelling that I should try to check out?
[00:17:29.376] Anwar Noriega: FRANCESC CAMPOY FLORES- Definitely, yeah. At least for us, the one that is truly magical is like shooting a basketball in the hoop. That one feels like so natural. It's kind of like the same paradigm as our game. The technology is not the flashy main actor or whatever. It's just something that augments your actual real activity. So that one is super amazing. And then the one that it was showcased in the keynote, it's also crazy magical, just like imagining stuff and then popping up in front of you. That's from another dimension. It's really cool.
[00:18:02.608] Kent Bye: MARK MANDELMANN- Is this something that Snap has invested in your company? Or what's the monetization strategy for you to be able to develop and to publish these experiences?
[00:18:13.174] Anwar Noriega: Yes, Snap originally invested in our studio through the investment arm called Yellow a couple of years ago and nowadays they have a very strong partnership program that they are always scouting for new developers and new studios and once they find someone that they are aligned with the vision of the spectacles they do some partnership and they do some funding for the projects and it's kind of like that, yeah.
[00:18:40.452] Kent Bye: Well, it seems like this is one of the devices that's really optimized to be used outdoors. We haven't really seen that as much. And so curious to hear some of your reactions to how well it works in the outside conditions. Is there any variability in for how it performs? Or since you've had a chance to have it for a while, just curious to hear what that's been like to try to use it in a variety of different types of conditions outside.
[00:19:02.389] Julio Martinez: Well, as you may see in the keynote, there is this automatic change of tinting, like the shade of the lenses. That works really good because in the past, we have the issue that in very bright environments, it was really hard to see the objects outside. Like if you go to a park or whatever, the light of the sun was so bright that everything was so dim that it's basically invisible. With this new technology, you can use it super, super good outside in any condition. All the capabilities, the hand tracking, the floor tracking, and everything works really, really good outdoors and indoors. And with this shade technology, you can use it both outside and indoors without any issue. To be completely honest, I'm really blown away with that. The only thing I can say is that it works like 80% in the night with artificial light, but any other use case is really good.
[00:19:54.357] Kent Bye: Yeah. And in terms of the everyday use of this device, I know there's the meta Ray-Ban smart glasses, which are very lightweight. There's no screen of any effect, but there's other camera effects. And so this is something that is a screen-based. And I'm wondering if you imagine that people are going to use this in a very context-specific thing. They're going to play this game. Or do you imagine that people are going to just start wearing these around? Because 45 minutes is not obviously long enough to go for the entire day. And so I'm just wondering how you imagine people would be using these devices in a way that is wearing them for more extended periods of time. Or if you imagine it, at least for the initial versions, only being wearing it if they're actually using it for something.
[00:20:36.889] Anwar Noriega: That's a very interesting question. The completely honest answer is everyone, including us, we are pushing very hard to find the killer use case. There are ideas, and there are concepts out there. And in the end, I'm pretty sure once the device is in the hands of the developers, some crazy ideas and use cases will appear. From what we have been experiencing, I think the device is simply at that point where it's really easy to use that can blend in into your day-to-day activities. But again, I think the core capability still is sharing, like the entire Snap ecosystem. It's sharing experiences with your friends, with your family. capturing a snap, sending it to your friends or like playing something in-house in your couch or whatever. So it's all about like experiencing this with the real world outside of you and with your close ones. So I don't think the battery life is a limitation at this moment and we are very interested in seeing what is the killer use case in the near future.
[00:21:45.971] Kent Bye: And finally, I'd love to hear from each of you what you think the ultimate potential for these different types of spatial computing devices might be and what they might be able to enable.
[00:21:56.115] Julio Martinez: I mean, like I mentioned before, I think this is a really solid foundation. For the future, I would like to have a smaller form factor and better battery life. Because right now, they actually work really good in having you forget about the device. But at the end of the day, the device is still in there and it's noticeable. But if they figure a way to make it more small so it looks like a normal or regular pair of glasses, it will be really good because you can actually wear them like all day long and forget about it because right now you can put them on and at the end of the day you will have them there and you will notice that you have them there but if you have a pair of glasses that looks like a normal pair of glasses you can wear them whatever you want and just turn it on when you want and turn it off when you want and have them integrated into your life and having the always on or having them be whatever you are ready to use them yeah
[00:22:50.083] Anwar Noriega: Yeah, for me, I think this is the first platform that is truly detaching from the existing ones. Up until today, every single platform that has been created in the last 15, 20 years is always an extension of a computer, or an extension of a mobile phone, or an extension of any other existing device. And this one has the potential, finally, to be its own animal. And that's super exciting. And I'm very curious to see how people will react to this in the near future.
[00:23:20.620] Kent Bye: Is there anything else that's left unsaid or any final thoughts that you'd like to share to the broader immersive community?
[00:23:27.004] Anwar Noriega: I guess just to invite the people out there, the developers, to take a look at Snap's ecosystem. Us being game developers from the traditional world, we started actually not paying too much attention to Snap in the early days. But little by little we realized that the vision and the stuff that they are building is very much aligned with the core values of a traditional game developer. So I really encourage everybody out there to take a look at the platform and the devices and all the technology that Snap is building. Because honestly, this feels like the new frontier. And especially nowadays that the game industry is going through a very difficult time and it seems like It's in such a bad shape that I encourage game developers to look for alternatives. And this is one of the best ones.
[00:24:19.255] Kent Bye: MARK MANDELBACHER- Awesome. Well, Anwar and Julio, thanks so much for joining me here on the podcast to give a little bit of an early look of the Snapchat spectacles that were announced today. And yeah, looking forward to being able to actually try out some of the different games that you've been able to create. Hopefully, they'll be able to have some people be able to play it tomorrow to jump in and play some of the Capture the Flag. So yeah, thanks again for joining me today to help break it all down.
[00:24:39.707] Julio Martinez: Thank you so much for having us. Yeah, thank you so much for the opportunity.
[00:24:43.527] Kent Bye: Thanks again for listening to this episode of the Voices of VR podcast. That's a part of my larger series of doing a deep dive into both the announcements around Snap Spectacles, as well as the AR ecosystem at Snap. What I do here at the Voices of VR podcast is fairly unique. I really like to lean into oral history, so to capture the stories of people who are on the front lines, but also to have my own experiences and to try to give a holistic picture of what's happening, not only with the company, but also the ecosystem of developers that they've been able to cultivate. And so for me, I find the most valuable information that comes from the independent artists and creators and developers who are at the front lines of pushing the edges of what this technology can do and listening to what their dreams and aspirations are for where this technology is going to go in the future. So I feel like that's a little bit different approach than what anybody else is doing. But it also takes a lot of time and energy to go to these places and to do these interviews and put it together in this type of production. So if you find value in that, then please do consider becoming a member of the Patreon. Just $5 a month will go a long way of helping me to sustain this type of coverage. And if you could give more, $10 or $20 or $50 a month, that has also been a huge help for allowing me to continue to bring this coverage. So you can become a member and donate today at patreon.com slash voices of VR. Thanks for listening.
