The Forge: Creating Metaverse-Native Sports

Planet Atmos
Planet_Atmos
Published in
7 min readMar 1, 2023

Fandom First

One common denominator among the Atmos Labs crew is that we embrace and love to share our respective fandoms. Among our ranks, we have individuals with a deep passion for:

  • Sports
  • Cars
  • Comics
  • Music production
  • Gaming
  • Fashion design
  • Film
  • Anime
  • Kung Fu Movies

It’s from this place of deep engagement, appreciation, and nerdom that the Atmos team is building experiences for our current and future audiences. The goal of our studio is to create immersive entertainment experiences starting with what we call metaverse-native sports.

What are Metaverse-Native Sports?

To us, sports are more than a showcase of physical feats — they are exhibitions of competitive excellence, broadly defined. We believe that whether on a field or online in an arena, people love to watch competitions, whether we’re talking about the Celtics vs. the Lakers on a court or Carlsen vs. Kasparov across a table. One person’s World Series is another person’s Valorant Champions Finals.

At Atmos Labs, we see metaverse-native sports as exhibitions of competitive excellence that are inspired by evolved digital modes of participation and spectatorship.

Practically speaking, this means our approach to game development is grounded in several core precepts:

  1. Evolving culture and technology lead to evolved game types
  2. Broadcast and the viewing experience must a core aspect of design
  3. Create meaningful skill-based multiplayer experiences
  4. Encourage expression of individual identity across physical and digital environments

Evolving culture and technology lead to evolved game types

The evolution of technology creates new opportunities in game design. This has been seen historically with changes in CPU and GPU innovation and broadband technologies all impacting the types of games we can create.

Changes in technology also create evolutions to existing game designs. For example, rhythm games such as Guitar Hero and DDR flourished in the early 2000s. Fast forward a few years and with the advent of reasonably priced consumer level VR, an evolution occurs — Beat Saber. Now rather than playing on 2D controllers with 2D cue system, players are now in a fully immersive 3D world, triggers are multi-directional, and the presentation of the game can now be in a fully virtual world.

Physical sports also emerge based on changing interests and culture. Disc Golf and PickleBall are examples of games that have grown in popularity over the past few years and have growing player bases and increasing presence in broadcast.

We believe there are compelling competitive gaming experiences waiting to be built at the intersection of technology shifts and cultural change. To us, this means reimagining the experience of competition — both as a participant and as a spectator — from the ground up. Metaverse-native sports are games that embrace technology’s new potential to deliver competitive experiences that are only possible in a metaverse reality.

The broadcast and viewing experience must a core aspect of design

Just because a sport is fun to play doesn’t make it necessarily fun to watch. Broadcasters are always looking for new ways to enhance the viewing experience in broadcast while events and venue managers are always looking for ways to enhance the in-person viewing experience. Drone and vehicle mounted cameras, user-controlled camera views, and advanced analytical displays have all been used to enhance the viewing experience across numerous sports.

Additionally, the expectations of viewers have changed culturally as we’ve shifted to digital-first and digital-only forms of socialization and communication. How we emotionally connect to events is myriad in nature with touchpoints including in-person attendance, offsite watch parties, and having online watch parties on Discord.

A core focus of our development process here at Atmos Labs is to build spectacle and emotionally-memorable touchpoints into the viewing experience. We recognize that viewers may be watching the game in person, in game through virtual grandstands, on a broadcast, or through a custom-designed third party viewing experience. Because of this, we believe that designing games with viewing and participatory instruments as a core design feature is a key facet of creating a compelling digital sports experience.

Create meaningful skill-based multiplayer experiences

Any good sport has to have meaningful competition. Skill and strategy must be the drivers of success. We’ve seen elements of pay-to-win emerge in the gaming space and we’re not fans. Any type of mechanic where one can simply spend money more to get a competitive advantage makes a game uninteresting.

Beyond simply damaging competitive integrity, culturally there are enough barriers to entry in traditional sports related to cost-of-entry and we do not want to encourage that type of ecosystem as we build our games.

In the metaverse, physical understanding of physics is optional — metaverse-native sports must reflect this. At Atmos we believe tests of skill and strategy will evolve to a point where human capability, both virtual and physical, are the only limits.

Encourage expression of individual identity across physical and digital environments

Great sports have great fans. We express ourselves through sport in so many different ways. Supporter clubs, tailgating, owning and wearing apparel, watch parties, wagering, and pub nights are among a few of the ways we create cultural rituals based on our expression and sharing of fandom. These rituals occur in and around games and on a day-to-day basis for fans.

As experiences migrate more into digital spaces, we believe it is crucial to find a way to maintain these unique forms of expression we have created over time and find ways to create new and novel ways of self expression in a digital world.

We are developing environments and instruments where fans can find ways, both physical and digital, to express and grow their fandom in ways that are unique to them and persistent across various touch points.

What does this mean in practice?

Gaming and Film Industry Veteran Dylan Bushnell is leading our team building ExoGP, our first and category defining entry in metaverse-native sports.

Built around the lore we’re creating in Exordium, our comic book series, ExoGP is a racing game that combines the spirit of Formula 1 with flight mechanics where players will be piloting customizable Exo suits in competition-ready gameplay.

From a gameplay perspective, we’re using Unreal Engine 5 to create a visually immersive game while focusing on a style of gameplay that we believe has a low barrier to entry and a high skill cap.

A screen capture from work on one of our first tracks. This extreme turn happens in the shadow of the Obelisk — a prominent feature of Atmos’ geography.

On a community level, ExoGP will have teams, leagues, and crews all competing for the top spots across the game’s universe. All players will be able to compete and can graduate to new tiers of play based on skill. Victory in these leagues comes with bragging rights and access to prize pools.

From teams to fabricators, bars to sushi shops, we are creating unique brands that reflect various aspects of life on Atmos.

From a spectating perspective, we’re building an immersive viewing experience designed to support broadcast and fan viewing. We’re creating in-game community areas where fans can cheer on their favorite players together. We are building and encouraging multiple avenues for spectating and celebrating favorite teams, players, and events with fellow fans. A few examples include:

  • Multiple track and pilot-mounted camera views to watch races
  • In-game grandstands and seating
  • Access to race data to scout the competition and track historical performance
  • A community hub for socializing and access to race-related content.
The twists and turns of building a track in complex environments means we have to consider not only terrain but also placement of grandstands for spectators, checkpoints in the race, and more.
Refinement of the track occurs at both both macro and microscopic levels. In this example, we’re refining details on track walls.
Camera angles, grandstands, observation towers, and more. Getting the best vantage points for a race are just as important as designing the environment.

Fans can show their support by kitting out their character with team colors, logos, and other customizations. We’re also focusing efforts on development of our Observer Tools to support viewing customization. We will be supporting players looking to review replays, fans looking to find new ways of watching the game or deep dive on a race, observers who will be controlling broadcasts, and of course editors who will be working with footage to create dynamic highlight videos.

The first set of Prototype Helms showed off myriad customization possibilities for just one piece of equipment.

On a personal level, characters and Exos are highly customizable. Through processes like fabricating components, tuning performance sliders, customizing finishes, and integrating owned art into livery, players are able to individualize their look and modify the way they will interact within the game. Additionally, we’re working to create physical collectibles and apparel that will tie in to the game as well as the broader story of Exordium to allow for fans to hold their colors when they’re out in the real world.

Above all, the game is meant to be a hub that bridges fandom touchpoints. Whether one is a pro player or a fan looking to watch the races, we will create touchpoints where play, viewing, community engagement, and personal expression can exist and transcend media and community boundaries.

We’re looking forward to showing you more in the coming months as part of this ongoing Dev Blog series and can’t wait to have you join us in game.

Lgl,

Richard Ng
VP of Marketing
Atmos Labs, Inc.

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Planet Atmos
Planet_Atmos

The Official Medium of Planet Atmos, Exordium, and ExoGP