From the Pixel 4a onwards, Google dropped support for Playground in Camera, and the long wind down continues with the various AR sticker packs recently delisted from the Play Store.
When the announcement was first made in 2020, Google said that “Playground will still be supported on earlier Pixel devices.” Residing within the Google Camera app’s More tab, you could overlay virtual Playground characters (Playmoji), animated stickers, and even text/signs over the world. Some, like Iron Man, would respond to how people were posing in the scene.
However, new users (which should be rare, especially with Pixel 4 and 4 XL support ended) can no longer download the Playground sticker packs/apps through Google Play as they’ve been removed from the Developed with Google account, leaving just tools and Looker Mobile.
Existing users that previously downloaded can still access the Playground stickers directly/officially from Manage apps & devices > Manage tab > Not installed. If you’re in the former boat, sideloading the APKs should work:
In removing Playground sticker support from Camera, Google said it was shifting focus to “building great AR experiences that serve a much wider audience.” In the past two years, this has manifested as Google Maps Live View, Google Lens, and even 3D Animals. AR stickers made for fun experiences, but were far from critical as people just used the filters built into their social network of choice.
On a related matter, version 2.0 of the Pixel Live Wallpaper app with Live Bloom “removed [the] Pixel 4 Pokémon live wallpaper” as the “license expired.” Earlier this year, the Pokémon Wave Hello Soli demo was similarly pulled from the Play Store.
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