Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
From Sneakers to Startups: ASICS Ventures’ Joe Pace on Building a VR Sport from Scratch
31 Plays2 days ago
In this episode of Player Driven, Greg talks with Joe Pace, VP at ASICS Ventures, about the company’s surprising leap into virtual reality with DISC, a brand-new competitive sport built for Meta Quest. They explore what it means to build community before code, how fitness and gaming are converging, and what studios can learn from a 70-year-old brand embracing LiveOps. If you're thinking about building something new — or building it differently — this episode is for you.
Timestamps:
- 02:00 – Why ASICS is getting into gaming (and why now)
- 06:00 – The DISC origin story: air hockey meets VR
- 16:30 – Why they launched on Discord before they launched the game
- 21:00 – Surprising lessons from the VR community
- 38:00 – What’s next: arcade mode, cosmetics, and social scaling
Guest Bio:Joe Pace is the VP at ASICS Ventures, where he leads new product strategy across emerging digital platforms. Previously at Runkeeper, LL Bean, and Legendary Entertainment, Joe’s work spans fitness, technology, and innovation. LinkedIn
Key Topics:
- VR game development
- Community-first strategy
- Meta Quest platform
- Fitness and gamification
- LiveOps in non-traditional gaming studios
- Social dynamics in VR
- ASICS’s innovation model
- Building new sports for virtual platforms
Relevant Links:
Credits:Hosted by Greg Posner, founder of Player Driven — a podcast about the business of games and how smart people scale them.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Background
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to PlayerDriven. Today, we are joined by Joe Pace. He is the VP at Asics Ventures, and they built a new VR ah game that I'm really excited to be able to talk about.
00:00:12
Speaker
Joe, you have a really cool background. You're at Asics. You're at Legendary Entertainment. You've done a lot. You're at LL Bean. You did so many cool things. Welcome to PlayerDriven. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah, thanks for having me, Greg. I appreciate you taking the time. And yeah, I'm lucky enough to work for ASICS and help us build new digital products that help us spread our mission of helping people achieve a sound mind and a sound body.
00:00:37
Speaker
um I think a big part of my background is really about physical activity, which is why I'm so passionate about working at this company in the first place. um I've done startups in the past. I've played sports my whole life. I'm a big fitness fan and have a very active yoga practice and fitness regimen. And I really live a lot of the mission of ASICS. And so...
00:00:59
Speaker
um Yeah, we can get into any specifics so ah of my background that are relevant, but really at the end of the day, i'm really excited to build new products that help people move and get people physically acquainted and and familiar with their bodies and get into good ah habits. And our project disc that we recently just launched through our our ventures arm of the company is a really exciting one for us because it helps us achieve success.
00:01:23
Speaker
multiple things at once. It it is, in one case, um a new business venture. Of course, we want to um build something that we can reinvest in and and ultimately has sound business fundamentals underneath it and supporting it.
00:01:36
Speaker
But with the mission towards reaching audiences and inspiring people to be physically active in new ways. Of course, we love all of the physical products that we ship around the world. And it's one that we're um well known for.
00:01:49
Speaker
And at the same time, there are other ways that we can reach people and and achieve that same mission through through digital channels as
Personal Fitness and VR Benefits
00:01:55
Speaker
well. So um that's where this comes in. We can talk more about that and my background or whatever is useful, whatever think is interesting. We're going to touch on it all. But the first thing I want to ask is, you know, over the past year, you've said you're big into working out.
00:02:09
Speaker
Is there a particular type of training or working out that you tend to prefer over others? Yeah, for sure. i have a good mix. i' of It's been decades of dabbling.
00:02:22
Speaker
So come quite a long way. I understand like myself and what I like and what works. And now having kids, it's whole different wrinkle. you know I used to have all day to figure out when and how I was going to work out. Now it's like,
00:02:33
Speaker
have this amount of time. I want to do these certain things. This is what I can do. But yeah, typically these days I'm doing a lot of strength training um and I love free weights. I think it's just so dynamic and you do a lot of a lot in one go. Certain movements, especially functional movements, are just so valuable for everyday life. like I just feel...
00:02:55
Speaker
My goal with with strength training overall is just to feel strong and coordinated and capable of doing whatever I want to do with my body, um not in any sort of amount of excess. So it's really nice.
00:03:07
Speaker
i've I've found a nice happy ground. I'm not trying to jack up crazy weight anymore. yeah big these days And same thing with cardio. I'm a big Peloton fan. So yeah.
00:03:18
Speaker
I love the the whole system they have going. And i've I've learned a lot just by using the product. um I think it's one of the best products in the world as it relates to connected fitness and fitness in general. And so, um yeah, probably not the only person who thinks that, but ah i'm a big I'm a big fan of that ecosystem.
00:03:35
Speaker
I used to set a Peloton right over here. Oh, what happened? love it. I got it before COVID and I loved it. I went crazy with it. I used it like 300 days in a row at some point. oh And I got into strength training and I just loved strength training so much. And I hate cardio. I've always hated cardio, but I liked the Peloton because that got me going. But once...
00:03:55
Speaker
like once the stigma of COVID was gone and people were going to the gym more often again it's just like I always worked for remote I was just like I need to get out of my house I can't just be going here and coming back here and going back here so I was like all right I'm just gonna start going to the gym more often and yeah so it gets you out of the it gets you out of the house yeah while helping you yeah yeah yeah cool cool so go to a local gym I'm assuming yeah I go to a personal trainer uh he has a gym so I get a kind of locked in it helped me ah you know i've been a gamer i've been tech guy my whole life and this is why i'm excited about this conversation because it's fun to bring vr or tech or gaming into the working out world and i learned that like i didn't love working out at first but it helped me get rid of so much stress that was there and just it was a relief right and i felt better about myself right i use i used i still drink i don't drink as much as i do but like
00:04:43
Speaker
you know It kind of ah started as like, all right, I'm going to work out and I'll be able to drink and I won't feel as bad. then all of a sudden it's like, all right right, I drank last night. So then it's kind of like, then you start kind of weaning up and now I have kids. So i'm reverting back to drinking because that's the only way can get to the Sure, sure.
00:04:59
Speaker
Terrible cycle. ah Well, you're touching on something that I think is really like, yeah i think about every day um on a personal level, on a professional level, it's this idea of like, physical activity in whatever way that works for you is not just a physical benefit, but there's the mental benefits as well. And, uh,
00:05:21
Speaker
you don't even realize it while you're doing it. Sometimes it's hard to even just get started moving. But if you can break through that resistance and break through that friction and get yourself moving and get yourself active, there are so many
ASICS's Venture into VR with DISC
00:05:33
Speaker
physical benefits. There are so many mental benefits. And that's what we're thinking with DISC is, can you get lost in the sport like you do when you're getting to a flow state, whether it's running or playing basketball or whatever team sport or individual sport?
00:05:47
Speaker
um You forget you're exercising. And which makes it easier to get through that barrier to get through that friction that maybe is preventing you from starting that physical activity.
00:05:59
Speaker
But then once you're in it, you're in it, you're flowing, you're moving, and it eventually ends. And now you have all these physical and mental benefits that you get to enjoy, which hopefully create this virtuous cycle that you want to come back to it. And that friction up front becomes...
00:06:13
Speaker
reduced over time. We're reducing the the friction to creating these really positive habits. um So that's, yeah, that's what we're trying to achieve with a lot of the work we're doing. So let's dig into that, right? So ASICs Ventures was specifically designed for that to take a look at kind of the new tooling, the new things that are available to athletes or runners, I guess, ASICs or shoes, right? So are you focusing on any type of movement as just finding a different way to get people to move?
00:06:39
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I think in in one case, right, we're known for our running shoes. It's ah a really big category for us. We have other sport categories as well. um And we do, you know, we're not butre we're we're but aware of the trends in the world and where um how popular gaming is and how popular digital experiences ah experiences are, apps of all kinds And for our, for us, we, we love the idea of competition, inspiring you to be physically active and, and put yourself out there and try new things and, and fail and succeed. And at all, at at the end of the day, it all nets out to this physical and mental benefit. You're, you're improving over time and looking at gaming, looking at traditional flat games in general, we understand that they're extremely popular.
00:07:30
Speaker
um it's it's hard for us to find where we fit and where we make sense and how we can actually create value there. um But we looked when we looked at VR specifically, and more even more specifically on the MetaQuest platform, we see a lot of people around the world being physically active in gaming.
00:07:48
Speaker
um We also noticed that there aren't many ah definitive sports that sort of represent the VR category. And so we looked at that as a venture arc opportunity to say, Maybe that is a space where ASICs can make a meaningful difference to create a sport designed specifically for virtual reality and virtual space that is built from the ground up, is built specifically for VR. We're not translating...
00:08:13
Speaker
from the physical world, like a baseball or a basketball or soccer, whatever game you decide to translate it into virtual reality. Let's meet people where they are. Let's reach people who are using these headsets, using these devices and give them a sport that they're currently not being offered.
00:08:27
Speaker
So um this is a little bit more of the inspiration of where where this is coming from. But again, all back to the same idea, sound mind, sound body. but What ASIC stands for, Animasana Incorporated SANA.
00:08:38
Speaker
And i think that's I think that's the perfect use case you mentioned. that um VR is a weird place for me, right? I think as a normal gaming tool, I don't think it's going to be what people want it to be. I remember the Wii, when the Wii came out, everyone was standing up and playing soccer or bowling and standing up and then they sat back on their couches and they were doing everything from their couches. Right.
00:09:00
Speaker
But working out is a cool – I'm going to call it a niche even it's not really, right? But like you know you put on the headset and you're playing disc or you're playing Beat Saber or the climb and you're playing a game. But in reality, you're moving and you're doing things. and It's a workout. It's not – a game, like a traditional game. And I think it's the perfect medium for that. I think, you know, the first time people play Beat Saber, because I feel like that's the first one people always want to try and like, totally it's so smooth. And you just, like you said, once you're in it, like it doesn't even feel like you're working out anymore. Like once your mindset is like, all right,
00:09:35
Speaker
I'm doing this, right? Like it's just a cool experience. And i was surprised. I mean, i feel like other shoe companies have had VR experiences at some point or another, but I love the idea of going with air hockey because that's a simple, that's a simple premise that we all know every anyone can pick up and play. Right.
00:09:53
Speaker
But now you're looking at in this whole dynamic where you're moving side to side and you're kind of doing all this. So I'm curious when it came to disc itself, how did that idea come to be? Yeah, no, it's a great question. and And it's one that is based on a lot of these principles you're mentioning. So like we were looking at the wide range of games, whether it's ah existing VR games, existing arcade games, sports in general, and really trying to identify what makes sense for VR and what's what's something that people can understand at face value and just see it, understand it, be able to pick it up and play it immediately.
00:10:29
Speaker
while also needing to stay committed and improve at the particular skills and strategies of the game to become an expert and grow in the game. So we were trying to achieve this instant playability and instant fun with long-term skill development and and challenge if you if you care to get good at the sport.
00:10:51
Speaker
um and be competitive. And so that was really a starting point for us because we ultimately wanted this to be something that anybody in VR would enjoy. And so air hockey kind of was a little bit further along. We we were a little bit further down the path once we that light bulb kind of went off.
00:11:09
Speaker
But where where we really started was looking at existing virtual reality games like Beat Saber, like FitXR, like Supernatural. And we really loved this idea of things coming at you in space.
00:11:21
Speaker
And in there in most of those cases, it's they're coming at you to the beat of a song, which is choreographed. It's ah more pure fitness experience. There's a lot of like Peloton, for example, right? Like you're doing a lot of those classes to the to music.
00:11:35
Speaker
And in our case, we said, okay, can we take this proven idea? Like there's a lot of success in the space with things coming at you and you reacting
Community and Social Aspects
00:11:43
Speaker
to them. But what if that thing came at you because somebody threw it at you, hit it at you, very like tennis-like, right? Like what what other sports are ah involve an object coming at you?
00:11:57
Speaker
And we looked at baseball, tennis, right? These sports where this object is coming at you and you're reacting. And then to make it really fun for VR and it makes sense for VR, we started to constrain the problem and say, okay, face value, understand it super easy back and forth. And that's where air hockey came in. It's like,
00:12:14
Speaker
It strikes that balance between arcade game and sport. It's like a little bit of both. um And now we translate that into something that is more three-dimensional and um tied to sports. So you're defending a goal, you're in a long cube, your opponent is defending a goal directly across from you, and we're hitting the disc back and forth in various types of shots.
00:12:37
Speaker
to score goals on each other. Simple pickleball style scoring that everybody or many people will understand immediately. Win by two. Keep it simple. There it is. Simple is great. I think, you know, there's games you jump into tutorials and tutorials are fine, but then some tutorials go too long and you're just like, i don't want this anymore. If you see it and you can recognize it, right? Maybe it takes a hit or two to kind of understand what you do and then you're you're good to go. And I love...
00:13:03
Speaker
Again, with VR too, because you probably only got what, like an hour or so where people are wearing the mask comfortably. So it's like, how can we make sure we can get them going right off the bat? One thing I found interesting was I was thinking to myself, you know, ASICS making a game doesn't necessarily make a lot of sense. The idea of the game makes sense. And then I saw your email address was RunKeeper. And I remember that from years ago. so I was like, all right, well, they they clearly know apps and they know how to do this. So when ASICS comes up with this idea of, hey, let's make a game.
00:13:33
Speaker
How does that process start? And then I'd like to yeah eventually talk into how you decided to partner with Meta. Sure. Yeah. I mean, it's it starts from, you know, at our core, we're a very innovative company. um A lot of people don't but realize how much work and effort and science goes into the development and the progress we put into all of our physical products.
00:13:55
Speaker
We're very sophisticated when it comes to to innovation. And that's sort of spawned this... um yeah innovation and mindset beyond just physical products. right We're going to continue to do everything we do well as it relates to our physical products. and We have ambitions to reach people and and achieve our mission in different ways. and Being innovative to do that is going to require us to do things that aren't necessarily expected of us.
00:14:23
Speaker
and And that's where disk comes in, where we are, of course, trying something very new for the company. That is the whole idea with ventures, right? We have this ventures arm and we're using it as a vehicle to try new things, get out there and build new skill sets, build new teams, build new business verticals um that ultimately may not but you know, succeed in the ways that we envision, or maybe they'll succeed in ways that we don't expect.
00:14:47
Speaker
um But I think what's really beautiful about this, this organization is that we're willing to try and that we're willing to learn and, and understand where we are, you know, what we do understand and what we don't understand and what we're good at and what we're maybe need some help at.
00:15:03
Speaker
And so that's where partner with Meta really came in. And so the quest platform um for our vision of, of reaching, know, millions of people for virtual sport. It really was the only option.
00:15:14
Speaker
They definitely today have the greatest market share in VR in a wide ranging ecosystem. And so what was really also nice about Meta as well as they shared our vision or for reaching people through a virtual sport and doing it in the ways that and we wanted to do it.
00:15:32
Speaker
And so it was a really natural partnership. They want to they have a lot of the same goals as us. We want to help people move. We want to help people to engage with this new new industry and and get moving through it. And so both from a platform perspective and audience reach and ethos, just sort of like a fit from and from a from a vision perspective was really a natural fit.
00:15:53
Speaker
I was looking at your LinkedIn. You have a lot of analytics in your history. Are there analytics or things that you're looking at measuring right now as more of a proof of concept? like How are you measuring success with this game?
00:16:06
Speaker
We launched the idea and the concept last September around Meta Connect to establish our Discord community specifically. So the whole call to action at that time was join our Discord.
00:16:17
Speaker
We don't have a game yet. We're going to have a game. But we before we get out there, we want to establish community first. that Again, back to this point about knowing what we know and knowing what we don't know. um we wanted to learn from our community and really build this game with them.
00:16:30
Speaker
And so to do that effectively, we needed some lead time and some runway to just build the game, establish community and then build the game with them. And so that was a huge ah strategic initiative for us and and paid off very well. Over time, we're close to 3,000 people in our Discord right now.
00:16:49
Speaker
They're passionate. They're extremely positive. They see the vision, they support the vision. and we've learned a ton from them in the product development process. So that that's... the 10 months ago starting point.
00:17:01
Speaker
Back in March, we released the game in open access, which was only available to people through this very private link that we provided, which gave us even further confidence and feedback. And now we've actually, we've only been in market for about a month on the Medicomist App Store. So we're we're we've been ah live for a month to the to the wide world. So it's been a ah ah slightly drawn out process, but that has been by design. We wanted to do this the right way, establish the community.
00:17:27
Speaker
take in feedback, release something in private, take in more feedback, and then launch in public. And the way we're measuring this game is is engagement to to begin with. We wanna make sure that people are downloading, enjoying the game, coming back to the game, retaining retaining those users.
00:17:43
Speaker
And then ultimately there will be profitability and revenue expectations as well that we'll use to reinvest in the game and make it better. um But for now, we're just really focused on engaging people, expanding gameplay.
00:17:56
Speaker
improving gameplay to really increase those top of funnel metrics, acquisition, retention specifically. That's so cool about the community. And obviously it makes a lot of sense. Again, you've come from a running background where you have running groups and these communities already exist. And community has been this big thing in gaming for the past 10 years or whatever, maybe more than that as well, where you know people, and not every studio is doing it, but they release games early like you guys did, right? Get that feedback, get that, hear how the game is working and and let the community help shape it to become what you want. And then they're going to be more engaged. You're going to be playing more than that.
00:18:30
Speaker
Was that just the best practice you've gotten from experience at ASICS and RunKeeper and all this other stuff? I know you have your yoga app. Or is this something you've heard from like Meta saying, hey you might want to do this. This is the best practice.
00:18:42
Speaker
Yeah, i think it's a little bit of all of that. um the part Part of leading this project for me has been taking my own personal experiences and applying them to the strategy. And it is one thing I did learn with with my on online yoga startup, Icewater Yoga, which um it was...
00:19:00
Speaker
I'll say and in short, I learned a lot by making a lot of mistakes with that project, which in a lot of cases, um people's first startups are like that and made a lot of good calls, made a lot of not so good calls with with that startup. And um looking at the the space more broadly, we noticed that there were a lot of brands launching games ah without building the community first.
00:19:23
Speaker
And i think from our perspective, we were thinking, we don't want to launch this game completely in a vacuum. And even more importantly, we don't want to develop this game in a vacuum.
00:19:34
Speaker
and We want ultimately to test our assumptions. And in in the case of our specific project, we knew that we were inventing. We weren't, we were doing something in a space that we don't have a long history in.
00:19:46
Speaker
And so there are going to be, by definition, a lot of things that we don't know. And so what we wanted to do is attract people who do know, and then invent on their behalf, there, there is some reading between the lines and and making, um making sense and and specific decisions and actions out of rough qualitative type feedback.
Global Connectivity and Development
00:20:06
Speaker
And that was, that's work, right? You need to listen, and you need to empathize, and you need to distill and then ultimately make a decision and and a resource allocation to make those things real and tangible.
00:20:17
Speaker
um But it really comes down to, I think, just at a core, just being empathetic and understanding our own limitations and knowing that we want to be here for long term, which means we're going to need to establish a really strong foundation to do that successfully.
00:20:33
Speaker
In the VR space, would you say you've had any cool learnings over these past over this past year? from I guess you've had many cool learnings, but if you had to kind of rank like holy shit type of moments, are there anything that comes to mind? Yeah, good one.
00:20:47
Speaker
Yeah, I think i think the one of the big insights that, for me at least, is it's a very, like, extremely passionate community. community It's not the biggest. I will, that's another learning, is is VR is is still relatively niche. i mean, it's tens of millions of people, um but relative to sort of like the mobile app ecosystem, for example, right, it's it's much smaller.
00:21:08
Speaker
And so you kind of have this very small but mighty thing type dynamic where the people really believe the people who believe in it really believe in it. Uh, and there, the, the, I'd say of within that sort of learning is a lot of people in my experience come for not necessarily just the game, but the social aspects of these games.
00:21:34
Speaker
And so that was a big learning for me. It's not, um, I didn't understand that going into the development process. And um it makes sense though, right? It's a way for you to, it's the VR specifically gives this very unique ability to both In with one device, you put it on your head, you have this app store filled with games with different interests, different types of people, different interest groups, different demographics, et cetera, that you can instantly engage with. It's almost built for social in a way.
00:22:08
Speaker
um And I think that's a really powerful thing where I've been in these games and just... you know, what's really shocked me was how people will just come up to you and say, hi, you know? And, uh, at first I was like very taken aback. I'm like me, like you're talking to me, like, what, like, am I, you know, do I say something back? And it's a little, at first it's a little, um, jarring, but over time you kind of get used to it. I think that's the biggest learning for me is, uh, the social dynamics that are so powerful in, in, in the space.
00:22:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's like an awkwardness, right? It's just like, you don't know talking someone behind you because there's had people all around. It's kind of like, ah all right, well, you know, the thing is just like, beauty of online, it's also the nightmare of online. It's just this level of an non anonymity, really bad. Yeah. Right. It's just like, you don't know who I am. I'm just this character on the screen. And I think people need to embrace that. Like, don't be a dick, but like,
00:23:02
Speaker
you don't have to be shy and it's hard, but it's like, and that's a terrible way to word it. Right. But you can be yourself. which mean You can be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I totally know what you mean. There is, but there is a, um, awkwardness at first.
00:23:15
Speaker
Um, but then it's just like anything else really, you know, it's, just because we're not physically in the same place doesn't mean the same social dynamics don't apply, right? Like you can be polite and you can have a conversation and you can learn something about somebody that you would have never met otherwise.
00:23:33
Speaker
Right. ah Very conveniently, yeah you know, like you could, you're, you're wherever in the world and I put on a headset and now you're embodied in this virtual space and we can have a conversation and do something together. Mm-hmm. pretty powerful thing and in our case right to be able to you know give you the ability to throw on a headset and play a pickup game of disc with whoever in the world we we're just so pumped about that concept because in know in my personal experience right like going and picking playing a pickup basketball game or going and playing a pickup whatever game going for a run with a buddy it's some of the coolest um
00:24:12
Speaker
social experiences that I have in my life where like we have this shared interest that is physically good for us, mentally good for us. And we get this social benefit on top of it.
00:24:23
Speaker
um It's just a super powerful experience where within 30 minutes you, you feel so full. That's, that's an experience we really want to deliver. It's a winwin win, win, win. Yeah, exactly.
00:24:34
Speaker
Exactly. So, and as a global company connecting people, and And engaging people through physical activity globally is a really powerful idea for us. we're A lot of our business is based on regions.
00:24:47
Speaker
So the North American region, the European region, the Japanese region, Australia, et cetera. um And those those markets exist in physical places that have their own distribution and their own product lines and and categories, et cetera.
00:25:01
Speaker
um And in this case, it's one of the only... tools and services we offer that truly is global. um It's a singular product that reaches a global audience, which is very different from our our core business. A lot of our products are seen in different regions, but the marketing is different or the the the product set is different and the seasonality shifts, right? So um that's another aspect for us where we can continually improve this game while reaching a global audience at the same time, simultaneously. Yeah.
00:25:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's wonderful when you need a lack of localization because the game is just visual. Straightforward. Exactly. You could be from two different countries, speak two different languages, not know anything, and doesn't matter. You both know the rules of the game. There's no talking needed. and i mean, you can talk, I'm sure, but that's the beauty of it, right? it It's anyone can play anyone, and I think that's the coolest part of it. It's an even playing field.
00:25:58
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And it's going to take a little bit to get good. And wherere we're we're excited to continue to improve the game. I think what what you see in this store today is it we're very, very proud of. The beauty of it is it's the live operation side of it is what really makes it powerful. It's like, this isn't, once once you make a shoe and ship a shoe and it's sitting on your, you know, retail shelf, it is the shoe.
00:26:21
Speaker
It's a live operation. It's a addition of the shoe. Yeah. Well, I guess that' that's the thing too, but um that's what's exciting for this is it's a, it's a evolving product that is never
Challenges and Future Features
00:26:34
Speaker
done.
00:26:34
Speaker
Like that's the, you know, again, it's, it's the, that idea I think is a really exciting one for us as well, because it's, it's just so different and the growth opportunity is so large if we get it right.
00:26:45
Speaker
So, um, yeah. just so curious on your background because like and LiveOps is a known entity thing now. and People know what LiveOps is, but you're a shoe company and it's just like, did you know LiveOps before coming into this? I, I,
00:26:59
Speaker
Sort of where maybe my role at the company is maybe slightly unique and my background is slightly unique for foreign an ASICS where I'm Yeah, I'm definitely aware of LiveOps and building digital products.
00:27:13
Speaker
And that's the, I think, the purpose of of my team is to understand and have expertise in areas that the company isn't necessarily well steeped in. And there are definitely, that we have a very strong digital division and very, like to your to your point, Runkeeper, right? Like these people also very much understand the reality of LiveOps.
00:27:33
Speaker
So like, I'm not alone. I'm definitely not alone. ah But I think we're where where my perspective is maybe a little bit unique is building products completely from scratch.
00:27:46
Speaker
And that's where these ideas like establishing the Discord community early... being passionate about live ops, being passionate about getting to market as fast as we can to get to begin iterating as fast as we can. Like these types of things are, um are what makes the ventures team unique specifically. um And so, yeah, I mean, I wouldn't call myself like the most hardcore gamer, but I think a lot of these, any digital product is very similar in that,
00:28:13
Speaker
You launch with an idea, you learn from your early community, you iterate to achieve product market fit. like It's all very, very similar. What's been the most difficult part of this endeavor for you?
00:28:28
Speaker
Building a game is hard. um That's for sure. I think is, and I kind of alluded to this earlier, but this... you never have perfect information when you're building something completely brand new.
00:28:44
Speaker
And so there is this balance of having enough quantitative support, qualitative insight that creates this band in this, this spectrum of decisions that make sense.
00:29:03
Speaker
But then within that spectrum, it's, the the narrowness or or or breadth of that that spectrum can be really wide or or really narrow. and so And making instinctive decisions that you believe are correct, but not knowing.
00:29:25
Speaker
When it comes to Desk, you mentioned LiveOps a number of times. Have you started thinking about what the next season or iteration looks like? Have you kind of started building out those plans? Yeah, yeah, we have a number of features coming into the app soon.
00:29:38
Speaker
um We're really excited about giving people some fun stuff to wear in the game. So that's that's coming soon. We have another game mode that's currently set to coming soon in the game. So it's intentionally grayed out.
00:29:50
Speaker
It's our arcade mode. um That'll be a really interesting single player experience that we'll we think is going to be really fun, more intended to get the heart rate up, get you moving, get you, and help you both practice the skills of disc while getting a, like a exercise kind of snippet experience where you can pop in, play for 10 minutes, get your heart rate up, feel good.
00:30:15
Speaker
not necessarily need to um socialize, right? Like there are benefits to being able to just give somebody a single player experience as well. And so really that arcade mode will be that single player experience that we think will really improve improve gameplay.
User Experience and Access
00:30:29
Speaker
um And then the other stuff we' we're intentionally leaving the slate a little bit blank where we do want to capture some early data on what people are enjoying, quantitatively qualitatively and what they're lacking, what they really want to do more of this invention. Like we're going to have to live in this different levels of opacity space for a long time until we really find it. And it becomes 0% opacity and then we can just fully, fully go.
00:30:57
Speaker
And that's exciting. I mean, the building process and the being on an out there process is one I'm really excited about. It's taken us a while to get here. So we've, we've really earned this, this ability to be in live ops mode.
00:31:09
Speaker
I don't know if full opacity ever comes just, uh, yeah, probably never a moving target. It's like a twinkie at the end of the stick. Yes. The twinkie. Yeah. Twinkie carrot, you know, carrot, I guess. Yeah. For now. Do you play every day?
00:31:26
Speaker
yeah for now do play every day ah Yes. There you go. That's the right answer. No matter the answer. I'm always playing very... There's always a new build or something happening. It's the only way... like we we There was a time where we weren't in there every day.
00:31:46
Speaker
and like it's like... and don't know. You need to feel VR. ah You need to yeah be in it to to to understand and make decisions. So...
00:31:58
Speaker
um yeah, we get some which we get some cool builds to going on right now. I did ah a podcast yesterday with a gentleman by the name of Adam Boyes. He's been in the industry for a long time. He worked at some studios and he said they used to sit at the arcade and watch people play their game but not tell them they work for the company and they would just take notes on how people would do it. And I think it's similar to sitting down every day and playing your game. Like, you need to feel it. You need other people to feel it. It's one thing to be like an armchair expert be like, no, that's not right. That's not right. But you got to like
00:32:28
Speaker
feel it it. And I don't think enough people know that like, you got to eat your dog food, you gotta you got to do all this stuff and do it. And now put the best product out there. Yeah, the thing is, you get very jaded, because you've seen you're in there so often you understand it, and makes it hard to understand what a first time user is gonna interpret it as right now is our assumption that air hockey makes sense at face value true.
00:32:52
Speaker
makes sense to me but like is that true i don't know like we need to see we need to see somebody somebody actually go through it and and validate that assumption so yeah i think it's really smart idea it's just like yeah i don't i'm a random guy in the arcade what do you think of this game should i play it you know yeah Well, Joe, I think what you're building is really cool. and I think it's awesome. I think it's a great experience for people, A, to be moving. Again, I think I'm a big proponent of people just moving when playing games, but it's going outside playing Pokemon Go. It's worth playing vr and playing disc, right? Like be active, move your body. It's better for everyone.
00:33:27
Speaker
Before we do go today, can you let us know where we can find you, where we can find disc and everything else? Yeah, of course. Yeah, super simple. You can search DISC on the MetaQuest App Store go to disc.asics.com and all the instructions will be there. So ah we're excited to see if your listeners in the game. You might run into me. Maybe we can play one-on-one, see who who takes it. But thank you for the time, man. It was really pleasure chatting you,
00:33:54
Speaker
No, I appreciate it. Joe is awesome. I really love what you guys are doing. We will have links to DISC, to Joe, to ASICS, to all the stuff we talked about on our player-driven blog. We'll be putting out content all week on our social media network. So check it out.
00:34:06
Speaker
Joe, again, love what you're doing. Best of luck with it. And hopefully we'll talk again soon. Thank you.