Exclusive article by China's well-off network.
Text|"Xiaokang", reporter of China's well-off network, Zhao Dina.
At present, virtual sports combine sports equipment with fitness software and platforms, promote the compatibility and adaptation of virtual reality terminals and content, and support virtual reality to land in outdoor and indoor, aerobic and anaerobic, single and multi-person, leisure and competition and other diversified sports fields, and gradually form a new format of mass fitness.
Photo by Ning Ying.
Sitting on a bicycle connected to a VR (virtual reality) device, or straightening up to speed up the catch-up, or doing a crawling position to adjust the rhythm; The large screen simulates the road conditions of the race in real time, and also displays data ...... such as speed and rankingThe above is the scene of the "Virtual Sports Series" at the first sports industry festival in Shijiazhuang. This kind of unique cycling has brought more people into contact with virtual sports, and the experience of interacting with digital has also made many people shout "fresh" and "enjoyable".
At present, with the rapid development of technology, VR virtual reality technology has gradually integrated into our daily life. The use of VR technology has not only changed the way people are entertained, but also created a new situation in the field of sports. "Virtual sports" is based on the traditional "real world" sports, and the competition content of sports is presented through virtual, human-computer interaction and high-tech means such as VR and AR. Virtual rides, e-basketball games, virtual table tennis, virtual baseball, digital soccer ......These new ways of exercising are gradually becoming a new trend in healthy living.
New forms of business are in the ascendant.
National fitness is beneficial. At present, regular participation in physical exercise has become a way of life for many people, and people's enthusiasm for sports consumption and the vitality of the sports market are constantly stimulated. According to data, China has become the world's largest sports and fitness market. About 400 million people are engaged in fitness activities every day, accounting for 28 of the country's 1.4 billion people6%, and the number of people expected to participate in traditional sports activities is about half of the country's total population. For sports enthusiasts, virtual sports undoubtedly present a great opportunity to significantly lower the barrier to entry for sports participation.
In the summer, you can also ski in the mountains, you can also row at sea in the mainland, and you can swing the ...... with friends at homeCompared with traditional sports, virtual sports are more convenient, safe, and flexible, and you can exercise anytime, anywhere, and you can also feel an extremely realistic virtual environment, so as to get a new sports experience. "I've always wanted to ski, but when I heard that 'the end of skiing is orthopedics', I was a little confused. Tao Jia, who loves sports, said. And according to her, her job requires frequent business trips, and it is very troublesome in case she gets injured. Recently, she experienced a virtual sport in a small way, "which was quite interesting, and directly unlocked a new experience: skiing on the ridge of a snow-capped mountain, enjoying both speed and passion."
This is one of the advantages of virtual sports – it can avoid the dangers in the real environment, allowing users to enjoy the fun of sports in a safe environment. In addition, virtual sports are more flexible and changeable, with rich sports modes and level design, and you can choose different sports scenarios and difficulty according to your preferences. Moreover, the extremely high interactivity is also one of the key points that many people are happy to experience, users can interact with the virtual environment through gestures, head movements and other operations, to achieve the best competition with other users, or to fight against AI, making sports more interesting. Li Hai, Dean of the School of Economics and Management of Shanghai Sport University, said, "Virtual sports are a useful supplement to the form of sports, which does not require too complicated preparation, has a low threshold and high experience, and is very attractive to the younger generation." ”
You Huizhen, deputy director of Shanghai Oriental Sports Evaluation Consulting, also holds the same view: people join a sports program if it is fun and easy to participate, and the characteristics of virtual sports can successfully attract young people and provide them with a new interface to traditional sports. "One of the main points of confrontation between traditional sports and modern sports is that traditional sports are based on human experience and physical participation, while virtual sports are based on a relatively low cost and a relatively low threshold to experience some interesting and interesting content in this sport. Nowadays, young people around the world will be exposed to e-sports and all kinds of products online, how to integrate traditional sports into modern youth groups, virtual sports is a good path and exploration incision. ”
Currently, more and more virtual sports events are in full swing. The Shanghai Virtual Sports Open is the first virtual sports comprehensive event in China, which will be held for the second time in 2023, including virtual cycling, virtual rowing, virtual golf, virtual racing, virtual skiing and other events, with a seven-month event cycle and a total prize pool of more than 1 million yuan, setting a new record for the highest prize pool in the global field of virtual sports events. Wang Zhenwei, Chairman of Shanghai Jiushi Sports Industry Development (Group)**, the organizer of the event, said: "Jiushi Sports will aim to create its own brand events with an international vision, and promote it through digital technology and multi-platform promotion, so that more sports fans can get a better event experience. ”
Zhang Jiyue, director of the operation of the Shanghai Virtual Sports Open, said that it is the original intention of the competition to empower traditional sports with virtual sports. "At the beginning of the Shanghai Virtual Sports Open, we hoped to use the technology of virtual sports, whether in terms of hardware or software, to radiate more vertical sports and lower the threshold of these vertical sports that may have seemed relatively niche before. Through the creation of repeated sports social scenes, we hope to let users form a lifestyle of physical exercise, and make sports an inseparable part of everyone's daily life, as well as eating and sleeping. ”
For the popularity and influence of virtual sports events, a set of data can speak for itself: the number of registrations for the first Open Championship reached more than 27,000, and the number of live broadcasts of a single session of the finals exceeded 7.5 million, and the number of broadcasts reached 3200 million. Xue Jingjing, general manager of Shanghai Jiushi Smart Sports, said frankly that the cost of single participation in virtual competitions is lower, the coverage is wider, the time span of the season is longer, and the means of interaction with the audience are richer, which will help attract and accommodate a higher order of magnitude of athletes and spectators to participate in it and enjoy the event. "The trend of sports entertainment is in line with the times and the needs of the public, helping young people try a variety of fashionable sports at a lower cost, and using the convenience of virtual sports to help young people establish a healthy and sunny daily lifestyle. At the same time, we should also pay attention to maintaining the essence and tradition of sports competition, combine entertainment and competition, and promote the development and innovation of the sports culture industry. ”
Facing challenges head-on, the future is broad.
Some industry insiders pointed out that at present, virtual sports will combine sports equipment with fitness software and platforms, promote the compatibility and adaptation of virtual reality terminals and content, and support virtual reality landing in outdoor and indoor, aerobic and anaerobic, single and multi-person, leisure and competition and other diversified sports fields, and gradually form a new format of mass fitness. Virtual reality and simulated sports have developed into an increasingly important core part of the sports field, receiving more and more attention and recognition, not only playing an irreplaceable role in the innovation and development of sports, but also playing a positive role in promoting the dissemination and popularization of sports culture.
IOC President Thomas **, when announcing the 2023 IOC membership list, said that it is necessary to better lead the development of virtual sports in the Olympic Movement. "The IOC believes that virtual sports have the potential to complement and enhance the traditional Olympic Movement and can provide new opportunities for athletes and fans to participate in the Olympic Movement. We believe that virtual sport can help promote the values of excellence, friendship and respect that are at the heart of the Olympic Games, and can inspire young people around the world to participate in sport and lead to active and healthy lifestyles. ”
It is reported that a large number of top professional athletes are avid fans of virtual sports. For example, F1 world-class drivers often familiarize themselves with the famous tracks one by one through racing simulators; South African cyclist Ashley Murman Pacio, a three-time Olympian who won the inaugural UCI Esports World Championship in 2020; Chinese taekwondo Olympic champion Wu Jingyu, who finished third in the virtual taekwondo event. As early as 2017, the Northeast Rakuten Golden Eagles professional baseball team introduced a virtual reality training system, allowing players to directly see the pitches of other teams' pitchers through virtual reality devices, and understand the trajectory, speed and curve of the ball. The system is also available to the general public, allowing them to watch the game and experience the training experience of the players.
In China, policy support has brought long-term benefits to the development of virtual sports, and the rapid development of virtual sports is predictable. **The "National Fitness Plan (2021-2025)" proposed to promote the development of online and smart sports events, and support the development of emerging sports such as smart fitness, cloud events, and virtual sports. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the State Administration of Radio and Television, and the General Administration of Sports jointly issued the "Action Plan for the Integrated Development of Virtual Reality and Industry Applications (2022-2026)", which proposes to "support the development of sports projects and the integration of virtual reality technology" and "enhance the public awareness of virtual fitness", and at the same time make it clear that by 2026, the overall scale of China's virtual reality industry will exceed 350 billion yuan, and the sales of virtual reality terminals will exceed 25 million units.
Lin Xianpeng, professor and doctoral supervisor of Beijing Sport University, said that virtual sports will provide new opportunities for the development of popular sports, fashion lifestyle and sports industry. "The development of digital technology in our country, especially the maturity of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and other technologies, provides a good opportunity for the display of virtual sports, which is also the result of the integration of China's digital economy and sports industry, and it is possible that in the future, it will create a new industry or even a new business model for us. In the past, these projects may have been in a separate sector such as a resort, but in the future, we can connect all the single spaces through a platform such as virtual sports events to form an economy of scale; On the other hand, it is likely to drive the further growth of some sporting goods manufacturing industry in the future, various projects can be simulated, golf can be simulated, bowling, table tennis can also be simulated, so that more and more sporting goods emerge in an endless stream, they will be more implanted with some technologies of artificial intelligence, and we can even think in the long-term direction. At present, China is in the first echelon of the world in terms of artificial intelligence and digital economy, which is also a plan that China has come up with to lead the development of world sports, and even a carrier of Chinese-style sports. ”
Cao Xinchi, vice president of China Electronics Cloud, introduced that the underlying technologies of virtual sports include high-concurrency network platform, distributed cloud platform with high security and high performance, big data platform and digital twin technology. "The high-concurrency network platform and distributed cloud platform can well support and ensure cross-regional, multi-person, and high-frequency virtual sports events; The big data platform can quickly analyze the results of an event in different regions and people; Digital twin technology can transform existing urban digital resources into virtual tracks. ”
However, it is clear that this new format also faces a number of challenges. Li Song, director of virtual and reality technology of Beijing Borui Skyworth Sports Development Co., Ltd., once said in an interview that whether it is sports at home or going to shopping malls to experience, the popularity of virtual sports in China is far from enough, and it is still mainly experienced in shopping malls. Ordinary people will experience dizziness and nausea when they wear VR hardware for more than 15 minutes, and these devices do not absorb sweat well, which adds a burden to athletes. "To popularize virtual sports, there is an urgent need to develop software. At present, there is no revolutionary software upgrade, especially the playability of sports software has not been substantially enhanced, and there is no flagship VR sports software. Moreover, in the simulation of near-eye equipment, some technologies have not yet made much breakthrough, and the information transmitted to the eyeball through the visual scene when the near-eye device is displayed at high speed and the information transmitted to the brain by the human instinctive auricular atrium and ear vestibular balance system will contradict each other, and long-term use will produce a sense of vertigo. In addition, although some VR devices have been made very light, such as the PICO4 weighs less than 300 grams, but for sports, it still seems cumbersome, when VR equipment can be as light as ordinary glasses, it is possible to improve the experience. ”
In the view of Yi Xuan, the head of the consumer market of PICO, a smart wearable device company, virtual sports need to be continuously upgraded and iterated if they want to enter the homes of ordinary people. "From the perspective of consumers, they pay more attention to comfort, fitness content, etc., which puts forward the requirements for upgrading and iteration of the optical scheme, chip, battery and other hardware configurations of VR equipment. In terms of content, based on VR scenes and future exploration of mixed reality, virtual sports can integrate more diverse scenes into it and break the barriers of more sports projects; In terms of experience, practitioners should continue to upgrade their technology to enhance the 'realism' of virtual fitness, achieve more accurate and sensitive full-body motion capture, and unlock full-body gameplay. ”
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This article was published in the late January 2024 issue of Xiaokang.