In a neat post on the question of whether virtual representations of sporting events [will] become part of the online rights economy, Martin Belam describes the use of Cricinfo 3D to provide over-by-over cricket match coverage:
Rather than just describing the action in near real-time, they show you, using a game engine to simulate the match being played... As each ball in the over is bowled, a Shockwave plug-in on the web-page illustrates the action.
You can select the camera angle you want to view the action from, either choosing TV style coverage, a fixed position like from the stumps, or a view through the bowler or the batsman's eyes, or from the point of view of the wicket keeper.
By that, I mean sports simulations in which the state of the game at which the player starts is a duplicate of the state of the game in the real world.
For example:
- in a cricket sim, rather than watch a replay of a particular delivery, you could take the bat and see if you could do better. The fielding positions and the actual flight of the ball (captured using something like Hawk Eye) would be faithful - at least at the start of the shot!
- in a snooker sim, you could pick up a (real) 147 break making frame after the reds have been cleared.
- in an F1 race, you could take over the drive from a real driver. The AI controlling the other drivers could directly simulate an actual race for at least as long as the time as your actions have no influence on any other particular car.
- in a round of golf, you could matchplay an actual game against someone else - or pick up the hole at any point in a championship winning round.
So what? you may say... Sounds a bit dull... just replaying some old game...
Ah yes - but what about if you 'take it from here' during the actual event and play along, maybe split screen style?
Or maybe during the TV replay, your digital ents box offers you a re:play? That is, you get to try the shot, etc. (maybe even 'for real', wii style ;-)
It'd be one way of filling time while the adverts are on!
What this boils down to is interactive sports viewing; or in other words: "I could have made that one - here, I'll show you...".
I don't know know if the "realtime re:play or "I'll take it from here" gaming already exists - maybe it does? (if so, can you drop me a line?)
But it's one of the things I'll be looking out for as we start to write our new short course on game design and interactive media...
Posted by ajh59 at April 5, 2007 10:32 AM