Esports, Virtual Formula 1 and the New Era of Play | James Hodge | TED

46,422 views ・ 2022-06-09

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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It was Christmas Day, 1995.
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My brother Rich and I, we're up early,
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we're excited, it's Christmas.
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He rushed into my room
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and in there my father had left his IBM ThinkPad and a note.
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"This is so you don't wake up your mother and me early.
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Merry Christmas."
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Next to it was a present.
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It was a video game, a football game, FIFA '96.
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We tore it open,
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put it into that laptop and we huddled around
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and played the match to end all matches.
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We played so many more matches after that,
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but neither of us became professional footballers.
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Richard?
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He's a lawyer.
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Me, I work with data
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to go and help organizations get that competitive edge and win.
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Back in '95, that game was just a video game.
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Nothing more.
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Little did we know that in the years to come
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you’d be able to compete in massive online competitions.
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More importantly, you’d be able to go and connect with people
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around the world that you've never met before
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and have a shared experience.
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And that's exactly what is happening.
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The lines between the physical and the digital world are blurring.
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And we're entering into a new world where we can start to dream bigger.
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A far cry from the '90s,
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video gaming has overtaken music
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as the most important aspect of youth culture.
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I see this with my children.
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They're much more likely to go and watch the latest video
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of someone playing Minecraft or Roblox
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than look up what the UK latest number one single is.
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And this has led to a shift in how we consume entertainment.
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We are no longer consumers of it.
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We are now being shared participants in an online experience.
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I myself love gaming.
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Not particularly good at it, but I love it.
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And I love the Formula 1 game.
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And that’s because I love real-world Formula 1 racing.
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I'm going to show you a clip why.
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So this is Lando Norris,
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one of McLaren’s Formula 1 drivers.
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Multiple podium wins last year driving the MCL35M --
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oh, MCL36, sorry --
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the car for this year in pre-season testing.
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Let's have a look at this.
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(Car engine revving)
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Isn't the noise of one of those just incredible?
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But the atmosphere, the drama,
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the suspense of going to one of these races
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and watching those cars go around, over 200 miles an hour,
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it's electric.
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But few of us will ever get to sit in one of those cars,
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let alone be one of those drivers on the grid.
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And that’s because in Formula 1, there are only 20 professional drivers.
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There are ten teams with two drivers per team.
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It's perhaps the most inaccessible sport in the world.
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Suffice to say, there are going to be so many people with dreams,
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talent and ambition to get there who will never be able to make it.
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I'm going to introduce you to someone called Rudy.
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Rudy Van Buren.
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He grew up in the Netherlands, next to a go-karting track.
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At the age of eight,
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he got given a birthday present, a go-cart.
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He was fast.
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He was so fast, that in 2003,
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Rudy won the Dutch national championships.
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He had dreams and aspirations
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of becoming a professional Formula 1 driver.
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Then at 16,
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like so many people that are trying to make that next step in the sport,
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it just became too expensive.
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And that dream for Rudy was over.
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I'm going to come back to Rudy later.
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Times change, and so does technology.
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Dreams are being fulfilled in a world of online gaming,
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especially in this class of competition called esports.
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Esports, at its simplest, is digital competition
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where you can get real-world and virtual prizes, fame and glory.
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There will always be spectators,
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in filling stadiums with spectators,
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athletes, fans.
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But now there are arenas filled with die-hard fans
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with gaming rigs
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and a new class of elite competitor.
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Most importantly, it's accessible.
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Any one of us with a PlayStation, an Xbox,
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a PC with a 100-dollar steering wheel
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can go and get involved in the thrill of competition.
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More importantly, you can go and connect with people
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and share an online experience.
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There are so many different types of games.
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Battle games, strategy games,
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football games -- soccer -- or racing games.
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The reason why I like racing so much, it's unique.
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It is the only digital sport that represents the real world so much.
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It is almost an exact twin of the physical world.
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As part of my day job,
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I work with organizations around the world.
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I work for a software company specialized in data.
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My favorite organization I work with at the moment is McLaren Racing.
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McLaren, founded in 1963 by the New Zealander Bruce McLaren.
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They’ve got an IndyCar team, they have an extreme e-team.
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They have my personal favorite, the Formula 1 team.
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Just look at that livery over there, I think it's incredible.
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But Bruce was an innovator.
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In 1963, Bruce would have never imagined
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that there would be a professional gaming team,
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the McLaren Shadow esports team,
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That's their car.
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These two cars are almost indistinguishable from each other.
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They're mirroring each other in the physical
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and the digital world of sports.
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I spent time with Lando,
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one of those drivers, talking about gaming.
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Lando is saying that the game,
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not the state-of-the-art simulators that the McLaren have,
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the game,
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is so realistic that he can tell if a bump in the road is out of place.
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The only thing that he feels is missing is the wind.
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Lando is one of these digital natives, a new class of gamer,
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where he drives in both the physical world and the digital world
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in that shared community.
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The difference in Formula 1 between coming first and second
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is a fraction of a second.
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When you have elite people, those 20 people in that car,
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the only way they can go and get better is by data.
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It's the only way they can differentiate themselves,
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using data to improve.
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This is exactly the same as esports.
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There are team managers, there are coaches, even psychologists,
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but most importantly, data analysts.
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In the racing game, the PC game,
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they hit out around 300 different data points in real time
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for you to analyze and improve what you do.
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Not real F1.
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This is the game.
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Things like tire temperature, brakes, acceleration,
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it's absolutely incredible.
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It's also incredibly realistic.
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Look at this.
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Sometimes you can look at this and think that could be real life.
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It's an immersive experience.
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When you're going down that, kind of the back straight,
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you're traveling about 293 feet per second.
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The difference between making that corner
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and dropping back and not being in the lead
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is a mere fraction of a second.
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You want to know: Are your tires at the right temperature?
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You want to be able to know:
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Are you hitting the brakes at the right moment,
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turning at that right moment?
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They're using data to improve again and again.
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Here's Lando playing.
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Lando would be playing again over lockdown.
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There was no Formula 1.
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Lando ended up gaming.
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The most empowering part about this,
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it wasn't just he was using this to practice his skill.
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It was he was connecting with an online community,
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an absolutely unprecedented access to Lando, the sports person.
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Something you don't normally get.
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Over lockdown, there was no sport.
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Journalists started writing about esports.
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Mainstream broadcasters started broadcasting esports on primary channels.
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We started looking at esports in the millions.
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It was sport.
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It was the only sport.
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People under 20
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are much more likely to start to watch esports or watch esports,
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than go and have a look at traditional sports.
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The Commonwealth Games this summer
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is going to have esports alongside traditional sports.
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The Asian Games later this year are going to have it as a medal event
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alongside traditional sports.
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The gaming industry is three times bigger than the music industry.
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It's going to double by 2025.
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The most important part about it
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is it's redefining our notion of what is sports and competition
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and how we get into that accessible world of fun,
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of connecting with people and enjoying ourselves.
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Now, I mentioned Rudy earlier.
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For Rudy, his dream hit a wall.
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He started gaming.
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He really enjoyed it.
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Then when he was 25, he saw a competition:
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World's Fastest Gamer.
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30,000 people entered this.
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Rudy won.
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Rudy got a professional contract with the McLaren simulator team.
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This led on to Rudy getting a contract for Huber racing
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in the Porsche Carrera Cup Germany and the Super GT Cup.
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Rudy is winning some of the most difficult competitions in the world.
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Just like he did in the virtual world.
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Play gives us new possibilities.
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The technology is closing the gap
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between our aspirations and our access to that opportunity.
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It's closing down barriers,
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geographic barriers, social barriers,
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economic barriers.
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It enabled Rudy to go and live his dream.
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We all have dreams
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and this is allowing us to go and fulfill our dreams.
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A new generation of people is starting to understand
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what it really means to go and live in a world augmented by technology.
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The relevance of it, the context of it,
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what it actually means to go and connect with people
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and technology being part of everything.
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They are able to go and reimagine the world around them.
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They’re more data literate than ever.
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They're ready to go and create that next wave of innovation.
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This really is the new era for play.
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And it's open to everyone.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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