PARIS (ViaNews) – Change is constant, innovation never ceases, the ABB Formula E Championship understands it well and has recently introduced its latest initiative, it’s very first and unique videogame “Virtually Live Ghost Racing®: Formula E®.”
A world premiere in the city of light
The event took place at the prestigious Shangri-La Hotel in the city of Paris, France.
It´s been an unprecedented moment in the history of the all-electric series, which focuses on promoting the use of electric vehicles, with its clean energy racing series using a technology that already transfers from racing to the road.
With Ghost Racing, the ABB Formula E Championship, and its partner Virtually Live are literally changing the game.
The technology they developed has made possible a completely new experience for fans to play against real drivers in real time, something that hasn´t been done before.
“Virtually Live is a data visualization company. What we do is take live events and allow audiences to virtually participate in live events,” said CEO Markus Tellenbach.
The entertainment company joined forces with ABB Formula E to bring to life an idea that became a technology breakthrough.
The company based in Malaga, Spain, with a studio in Singapore and headquarters in Zurich has been working on the product for the last seven years.
As Tellenbach said, “it is not something that happened overnight.”
The Virtually Live Ghost Racing®: Formula E® game allows fans to play against their favorite drivers in real time, but also record and share their experience in social media with their community.
“Any sport can be today played by a game, what is not possible is that you can game against real pilots, real athletes, in real time.
Data visualization for us means the opportunity for anybody to compete with their favorite athletes and that´s what the core of Virtually Live is.
We are a fan engagement provider company, that sounds very difficult, but in the nutshell, is what we are,” explained Virtually Live CEO.
Ghost Racing can be played on every smartphone, Android or IOS, tablets, and is free to download.
On the latter, Markus Tellenbach added: “money doesn’t buy you a win.”
Mobile as a keyword
“The strategy of Virtually Live in offering participation to anybody is enabled by our focus on mobile devices, on reaching a global audience.
We believe gaming and social are two very linked parts that with Ghost Racing is introduced in a very new form.
If we talked about social, sharing is the key driver, and this is a component of Ghost Racing which is another World Premiere, it hasn’t been done before,” he affirmed.
Due to legal issues, the game is not yet available in the United States of America and China, but according to developers, this matter should be resolved soon.
The mastermind of the solution is CTO & Co-Founder of Virtually Live, Jesus Hormigo.
Hormigo is a computer scientist, technologist, and inventor, graduated in the University of Malaga where he studied Technical engineering in IT.
During the event, he offered a clear insight into the process of bringing to life Ghost Racing.
“We recreated all the environment beforehand with the help of Formula E that provided us with the assets, and the elements that compose the circuit, we also sent people to the track to photograph and get in detail, so we modeled all that in the studios, as well as the cars, drivers and outfits.
The day of the race we collect all the data in real time from the car. We have little boxes installed in the car, that provide us telemetry data, and other additional forms of data.
We have a very powerful cloud of servers that process the data in real time and then pushes all that directly to the client the day of the race,” said the Spaniard.
According to Hormigo, for Season six of the ABB Formula E Championship, the company will be making available Ghost Racing for PC, VR, and console.
Not any given game
As explained to the media, some of the innovative features of Ghost Racing are the in-game commentary, and the possibility to view the action on track from every possible angle, such as a tree, the driver´s position or a tribune for instance.
“We have commentators that allow the user to simultaneously understand what the action on the track is and what the action in the game is.
The commentator, sort of links the gamer into the real world and transports the data, the information, the action from the real world back into the game,” explained Tellenbach.
“What we are producing is not hi-tech, it is something which allows us to be involved. It has a degree of inventiveness that has never been seen before,” the CEO concluded.
Chief Marketing Officer of Formula E Jerome Hiquet also shared his view on the new initiative saying “to combine gaming and mobile is allowing us to engage a younger audience, and that´s very important for us as an organization.”
Stoffel Vandoorne, HWA Racelab Formula E driver was present at the event, making a demonstration on how to use the game with a tablet.
Founder & CEO of Formula E Alejandro Agag, who got stuck in a traffic jam, managed to make it to the end of the event, sharing his enthusiasm in what he called was “one of the greatest days that we had, when we can announce one of the early dreams that we had to Formula E.”
The man, the entrepreneur behind an electric path of innovation, is a charismatic human being with an acute vision of a future that step by step is becoming part of our daily lives, in the form of electric bikes, scooters, cars.
An electric future is no longer an idea, a dream, or a project, the technology which is constantly evolving has made it very present in the lives of citizens, all over the world.
“I think it is an amazing achievement because we didn´t know if it was even possible. This a result of the vision from our partners from Virtually Live and their determination and their decision to do it and also of the general attitude of Formula E about thinking out of the box, “let´s try something that no one has done before.”
It´s an incredible technology breakthrough because it´s not easy at all to deliver this game, it´s a turning point for the ABB Formula E Championship today.
I can´t wait to get good at the game and also to play in real time,” said Agag.
The game can be downloaded from Google Play, and App Store.