A novel approach to sports oriented video games with real-time motion streaming

We are currently observing a paradigm shift in virtual reality and simulation technologies. From being predominantly entertainment focused, these technologies are now finding a much wider use in the so-called "serious games" space, where playing a game teaches the player some useful skills applicable in the physical world. While this trend is booming in military simulations, training and even education, surprisingly enough, there is hardly any work available in the domain of sports. Most sports oriented video games do not teach skills that can be later reused in the physical game environment and thus there are minimal benefits to the player's "real-world" performance. Performing key sports actions such as shooting a basketball or hitting a tennis ball are normally done via actions (like pressing keyboard buttons or swinging a game controller) that have little correspondence to the movement that needs to be performed in the game's physical environment. In this paper we advocate a new era where it is possible to play simulated sports games that are not only enjoyable and fun, but can also improve the athletic skills required for the real-world performance of that sport. We illustrate the possibility of this idea via state of the art inertial motion capture equipment. To highlight the key aspects of our approach we have developed a basketball video game where a player pantomimes dribbling and shooting in a virtual world with a virtual ball. Importantly, the virtual world of the game responds to a player's motions by simulating the complex physical interactions that occur during a physical game of basketball. For example, if a player attempts to score a basket, the simulated ball will leave the player's hand at the appropriate time with realistic force and velocity, as determined by motion capture and the physics system of the selected game platform. We explain how this game was developed and discuss technical details and obtained results.