In the game interface, a table tennis table is presented in front of the player. The system comes with a virtual coach. According to the player’s requirements, adjust your own level, and you can start the batting game by lightly holding the handle with one hand. In addition, the game supports online battles, players can invite friends for a table tennis battle beyond space.
In real life, the improvement of table tennis from enlightenment to competition does not happen overnight. Although this event has a broad mass base, the relatively high threshold of competition often makes this sport prohibitive for pan table tennis players. It takes at least six months of practice to appreciate the charm of this sport, and the curiosity of many enthusiasts about this sport is exhausted in the frustration of “difficult to get started” for several months.
The emergence of VR table tennis has solved the pain points of table tennis enlightenment of “can’t catch the ball at all” and “can’t find anyone to practice”. First of all, VR table tennis serves quickly, and re-serving the ball is as fast as switching left and right on the screen of a mobile phone, which saves a lot of time for picking up the ball. In addition, the player can also adjust the level of the VR table tennis coach. Even if the player can’t catch a ball, the table tennis coach will continue to practice with the player “relentlessly”.
Many people signed up for adult table tennis classes out of interest after experiencing VR table tennis for a few weeks. Interestingly, after a few servings, the offline table tennis coaches asked them if they had been playing with table tennis before, because it didn’t look like they had no foundation.
The ability to migrate from virtual table tennis to physical table tennis aroused my curiosity, so I specifically contacted Daniel Funk, a professor of sports marketing at the School of Business of Temple University in the United States. According to Professor Fang Ke, virtual sports are used as an introduction to sports, and they have advantages in time, space, equipment, capital, and human resources. Amateur sports enthusiasts’ preference, participation rate, and competitive level for new sports are all important. It is positively correlated with the time spent playing the VR game of the project.
To sum up, “virtual sports” can be regarded as a “preschool” for sports enthusiasts before they come into contact with new sports. In the United States, especially in underdeveloped communities, some sports social enterprises and NGOs have deployed VR equipment in the community as a tool to help poor children get in touch with new sports.
After all, even if it is as approachable as table tennis, you need to find a table tennis table, a table tennis ball, a pot of table tennis balls, and a coach for the first practice, and a set of VR equipment can meet all the basic needs of the appeal, and can even It is more popular with children, which is good for cash-strapped youth sports fans and parents.