Good practice:

Active E-sports Arena

In NL a lot of companies were already investing in smart & data based products & services. COVID has accelerated this and emphasised the need. But also the target groups (consumers) are ‘forced’ to change their behaviour and accepting much more remote/online/smart services. In this we see a shift from physical sports to more digital supported sports. Exergaming is one of these emerging sports. It consists of:
- Physical exercise with virtual reality support
- Remote and combined digital experiences to exercise
- Indoor/outdoor playing options
- Attention to more digital approaches
Results that we have seen are:
- Exergaming becomes more popular for different age groups
- More investments becomes available
- More EU collaboration emerging
PWXR is a company that has developed a format in which physical players are emerged in a digital environment and are challenged to perform a physical/digital game between 2 teams in which players now are still in one room but in the future are to be in different locations. Technology is developed and connected to make this true (a.o. 5G & reliable inertial sensors).
The company is supported by a number of stakeholders (a.o. sports: PSV Esports, tech: Philips, marketing: Triple Double, SportsCloud, invest: Lumolabs, Leisure Ontwikkeling Fonds NoordBrabant).
The interest of these kind of solutions and in particular this specific case has grown during COVID and international collaboration is now sought.

The investment is now in tech development to be able to use the system outdoors, in different locations, but also in upscaling (more locations, more international) so the interaction can be done between different systems. The system can be franchised for that.

The approach is unique because arenas can be multiplied creating a competition field that is remote but in which players are joined in one game. It is an example of how technology can help to make people more active in a fun way. In NL the system has been used in different environments (soccer clubs, outdoor events) though COVID has limited the expansion. Also experiments have shown that non-competitive kids are now stimulated to be more physical active.

The challenge now is twofold:
- the development of the technology to make the system more flexible (location independent)
- expansion of number of arenas in different locations in/outside the Netherlands.
Substantial investment and franchising is needed for this.

The practise is interesting since it shows that e-sports used in a physical environment & challenge can lead to a new approach to stimulate people to do exercises and become fit while keeping safe distances and remote presence. In particular the virtual emergence gives a totally new dimension. Especially this can be interesting for target groups that normally are not easily to be engaged to be active (e.g. overweight youngsters). It could be an approach for primary schools or specific (e-)sport clubs. Public authorities might develop local or regional policies that can stimulate schools and sports organisations to test and try out these new systems.