Project Overview
Collecting Crave* is…An addictive art-collecting game that allows players to interact with and learn about art collections using 3D Models & Augmented Reality. Players can collect and view digital art collections from North America, Europe and private collections in one place - no matter where they live - making art more accessible than ever!
*Or Sammel-Sucht in German 🇩🇪
Problem Statement
Due to space limitations, 95% of museum, art collections are kept in storage and not accessible to visitors. The only way to engage with these collections are through online digital archives (usu. indexes of photos, metadata, .CSVs), which they aren’t user-friendly or engaging for most art lovers.
Market Opportunity
Major Enterprise Customer Base
There are more than 55,000 museums in the world, with 35,000 in North America. Only a small number (~2,500) have virtual web experiences, meaning there’s a big potential market (Google Arts & Culture).
Huge Digital Collections
The largest museums have significant digital collections that we can leverage for our app:
- Library of Congress | 17.0 M objects
- Smithsonian | 37.0M objects
- British Museum | 4.5M objects
Massive User Interest
Search queries for online museums surged to an an all-time high during the pandemic!
Our Solution
Collecting Crave is asset-viewing platform (disguised as a fun, mobile game) that allows you to view an institution’s entire art collection (and more) using augmented reality and 3D modeling.
- No physical space limitations (display 100% of your collection)
- Flexible media formats (photos, video, 3D / AR models)
- Gamifies art experiences, and adds visual, social, emotional components to lifeless digital archives
- Option to license and display art from other collections
- Track which objects in digital collection are most popular

We’ve received major grants from the Smithsonian, Mozilla Foundation and others. We’re already working with major museums around the world to validate, test the prototype.