As the events of the World Cup continue it is time for another entry of This Week In VR Sport. Every week VRFocus brings you a number of sports and eSports related virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) stories. Keeping to the theme of the beautiful game there are two stories on the World Cup this week including download numbers for the BBC World Cup VR App and a VR penalty kick experience. Elsewhere, the Onward Invitational eSports event has been continuing and a number of matches are now available to watch including one with the developers.
BBC World Cup VR App Downloaded Over 325K Times
Getting to the topic of the FIFA World Cup 2018 right away, it has been revealed that the BBC World Cup VR app has been downloaded over 325,000 times. The app allows views to enjoy a wide range of content from the event in immersive VR and put themselves closer to the sport then ever before. The number of downloads, though tiny in comparison to non-VR viewing of the World Cup is still an impressive number on its own. It shows that there is a growing audience for the media even if there is still a long way to go.
All of the 33 World Cup games from the BBC, including the final, are to be available via the BBC Sport VR 2018 FIFA World Cup app. According to the figures, as reported by Broadcast, non-VR viewings of the World Cup have passed more than 40 million live and on-demand request for the BBC’s coverage across BBC Sport and BBC iPlayer.
It will be interesting to see if the number of downloads for the VR app continue to grow as the World Cup continues or if we have already hit the peak. VRFocus will be sure to let you know should the BBC reveal more data.
Onward Invitational Matches Available To Watch
As VR videogames continue to become more common in the eSport’s scene the VR League and ESL have been putting select titles into the limelight. Recently, during the Onward Invitational, eSport team Stack Up went head-to-head against the Onward development team, Downpour Interactive in a heated multiplayer match. Since it’s airing the whole match is available to watch YouTube and can be seen just above.
The other matches from the Onward Invitational are becoming avaiable to watch on the same YouTube channel as well with a number already up at the time of writing. This includes Mob Squad versus Globocherm,SMC Tactical versus Globochem and Mod Squad versus Beginners.
The Onward Invitational is ongoing so for all the latest from the VR League, keep reading VRFocus.
Test Your Penalty Shoot-Out Skills In New VR Experience
Finally this week, another piece of World Cup goodness. If you have been thinking you could do a better job then some of the players when it comes to penalty kicks there is now a VR experience that will let you prove it. The Straits Times has created a lightweight VR penalty shoot-out challenge for fans of the World Cup and lets them pick from the 32 countries taking part and try to lead them to victory.
Needing to score the as many kicks as possible, players will start from the bottom and work their way up through the rounds until they are in the finals. As you progress so to do the other teams, with a performance comparison available at the end of the experience to see how they fared. The experience is designed for mobile devices but can also be enjoyed on a computer using a mouse. You can try it for yourself here.