Vodafone - Qatar

A national technology leader, reimagining how fans connect with the game.

Vodafone Qatar is one of the country's principal technology providers, delivering a comprehensive range of services spanning voice, messaging, data, fixed communications, IoT and ICT managed services to consumers and businesses across Qatar. As the nation prepared to welcome the world for 2022, Vodafone set out to make its retail spaces more than places to buy a connection, they would become places to experience one, putting the brand at the centre of the biggest sporting moment in the region's history.

Turn a retail store into a high-tech Fan Zone for Qatar 2022.

In the build-up to Qatar 2022, Vodafone Qatar wanted to digitally transform fan engagement and give football supporters a reason to walk through its doors. At the heart of the store sat a high-tech Fan Zone, and Recursive was appointed to fill it with an engaging, customised gaming experience built on the latest emerging technologies. The ambition was simple to say and hard to deliver: create a moment fans would queue for, talk about and come back to, all while carrying the energy of the tournament into everyday retail.

Design a game the whole body plays, with nothing to hold and nothing to wear.

Recursive was tasked with designing and creating a unique gamified football experience for visitors to play in-store. We developed the concept of an interactive, batak-style game that unfolds in real time on the pitch: the player takes the role of a goalkeeper, defending as many shots as possible as they arrive from every angle. Interaction happens entirely through movement, supporters step in front of a large-format LED display and throw out their hands to make each save. At no point do they touch the wall, hold a controller or wear any equipment, keeping the experience instantly accessible to anyone who walks up, and hygienic and effortless for a busy public space.

A markerless, real-time football experience, engineered end to end by Recursive.

Our team built the software engine that drives the whole experience, combining Unreal Engine and TouchDesigner and interfacing it with the wider hardware, motion sensors and the experience's audio system among them. Players are tracked using a unique markerless motion-tracking arrangement developed in house: the software interprets their movement to render a real-time on-screen avatar, while simultaneously calculating and displaying the batak-style goalkeeping score directly to a super-large-format LED video wall. We also created a user interface that captured and passed on visitor data and email sign-ups, and gave store staff real-time control over the experience, including switching between game modes. The result is a self-contained attraction that turns every visitor into a goalkeeper, and every save into a reason to stay.

Unreal Engine

Touchdesigner

Orbbec

Unreal Engine

Touchdesigner

Orbbec