For sports enthusiasts, Pickleball has become a rising star in the enterprise world. Many employees are tapping the sport to keep their employees fit, healthy, and social in a world where many work from home or in offices.
As enterprises leverage virtual reality (VR) for a host of use cases, one specific example remains team-building. Companies with distributed workforces have begun tapping VR to unite their employees for socialising, events, and other activities. These combine telepresence with sports, gaming, and camaraderie for the modern workforce.
XR Today spoke to Raghu Bathina, Chief Executive, Playin Games, to discuss the sports craze of Pickleball and how virtual, augmented, and mixed reality (VR/AR/MR) games can benefit enterprises.
XR Today: What exactly is Pickleball and how do people play the sport?
Raghu Bathina: Pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in the United States. It’s a mashup between table tennis and tennis, played on a court the size of a badminton court.
Players use large paddles, so missing the whiffle ball is difficult. Scoring goes up to 11, just like in table tennis. It’s really the rage in the US, and I think it will also grow globally.
The attraction is partly because it’s so easy to pick up, and people can play the sport, even if they are not physically fit. Pickleball is also very popular among seniors, and even younger people are getting into it.
XR Today: What is your ethos for creating Playin Pickleball, and what was the call to action for those using it?
Raghu Bathina: [For us], the logic behind creating the game was its popularity in real life. The excitement we see around the game is that people are crazy about Pickleball.
For now, when you can’t get on the court or the weather is winter or it’s too cold outside, our game allows people to play multiplayer with each other. That’s where we’ve seen a lot of uptake and excitement.
It will likely help users improve their real game by building up their muscle memory, and we know that VR has the power to do this. We’re still in the early days with this game, but over time I think people will benefit not just from a nice social experience, but also from a fitness and training perspective.
XR Today: How did you choose the team that helped you to develop this title, and what skills do they bring to Playin Games?
Raghu Bathina: For each XR experience, virtual reality is different, and you can’t always use the same teams. I think we focused heavily on physics and game dynamics.
When you’re doing a sports game like Pickleball, there’s a reference point for the users compared to developing an alien shooter game where the player is using laser guns. For these, there’s not much of a reference point and people won’t criticise me on whether their laser gun behaves differently than in real life.
However, when we’re in a sports game, people can be very critical of the game’s physics, spin, and feel. We spent a lot of time finding and developing the right talent to get the physics right.
This didn’t happen overnight and took some time. There’s an evolution as to how our games improved, and they’re excellent now. For this, we had to find the right Unity developers that understood gaming physics for the rackets.
Additionally, we needed the right kind of people to create the environments and digital assets needed to make the game more realistic.
We also needed audio to provide an ultra-realistic feel—from environmental sounds, the sound of the ball hitting the net, the crowd—everything that makes for a more exciting experience.
These are three key areas, along with the unsung heroes that go through and find the numerous issues to make sure the game’s quality is up to par.
XR Today: Can you explain more about the social interactions on Playin Pickleball? How does the game allow people to interact across headsets?
Raghu Bathina: In reality, I think Pickleball has become so popular due to the game’s social aspect. It’s not as competitive as tennis, and there’s not as much running involved as the game is played closer to the net.
Pickleball has a non-volley zone seven feet from the net, where you cannot hit volleys inside that zone. You’re not doing aggressive shots in the game as in tennis.
In the zone, you’re 14 feet from your opponent and roughly five to ten feet from your partner. This creates a close social interaction on the court, which is very different from other sports. Replicating that in our game has really benefitted it quite a bit.
One of the reasons people return to play matches is because they enjoy that social aspect and chatting with each other. We’ve also created a spectator mode where you can watch matches and cheer your friends on, similar to what happens in real life.
XR Today: How will these sports apps evolve in the future? Could they potentially train athletes?
Raghu Bathina: I think we’re heading that way, and I say that as a veteran in the VR space, we’ve seen how the headsets have evolved, how the visuals and tracking have improved, and others.
I think we can all imagine in a couple of years these headsets will become a lot lighter and sleeker. There’s also a major emphasis on Meta’s mixed reality technologies, which use passthrough cameras for VR training and practice. This also allows people to train in real environments where people can practice in their living rooms.
I actually play pickleball, and a key thing about the sport is how quick you are and how fast you react. Hand-eye coordination and other skill happen near the net, which developers recreate in VR.
I believe that knowledge and experience are very transferrable to the real world. This could benefit athletes, people serious about the game, and even amateurs playing it on a weekly basis.
XR Today: Do you see Playin Games branching out into other titles to help people with physical fitness?
Raghu Bathina: Yes, the concept of Playin Games is to create more games. This year, we will remain heavily centred on VR Pickleball to make the game better and more accessible.
I think this will take us a good part of 2023 to achieve. We want also to bring in additional exercises and mini-games different from Pickleball. While we can’t talk about them right now, the concept will involve similar menu systems, very similar onboarding systems, friend networks, and so on.
XR Today: How can companies or enterprises potentially benefit from these games?
Raghu Bathina: Enterprises are experimenting with things like Horizon Workrooms, which allow people to host meetings inside immersive spaces, which we use for our weekly meetings.
Alternatively, enterprises can get their teams to meet each other through games like VR pickleball, especially with remote working and distributed workforces. People can do things that were not possible before such as hosting corporate-wide virtual tournaments across different regions, whether in the United Kingdom, China, India, The United States, or the South American continent.
I think this breaks barriers and improves communications between teams for team-building. I know so many people and companies with distributed workforces that are not in the same office. How do you break the ice with people? Doing this over a Zoom call and even over Horizon Workrooms is very difficult.
It’s an interesting concept, but I think that if you’re playing a game, especially a social one, that could be a great way for corporates to build camaraderie and have team-building exercises.
XR Today: Anything else you would like to add regarding the direction of VR and new headsets such as the Meta Quest Pro, HTC VIVE Elite XR, and Pico Enterprise Edition?
Raghu Bathina: Yeah, it’s really great news regarding the weight distribution and [performance]. More and more is being revealed about the Quest Three, which takes features from the Quest Pro. I think it will be interesting to see this transition from VR to AR, and it looks like mixed reality will be the stepping stone to get us there.
With its cameras and interesting experiences, we can build [much more] from a development perspective. We don’t have just to make a massive leap over to AR, but you can offer a mixed reality product.
One of the limitations of VR and fitness is that running with a VR headset on is very dangerous. You can squat, jump, swing your arms, and do rotations, but in MR, you can move beyond these limitations up to five or six feet without hurting yourself. I think that’s exciting and it will become a major development in the near term, even up to next year.
For more information, kindly visit Playin’ Games on their website.
