ABOUT SHOV
Shov is an online game where you remotely control a real, full-auto gun turret firing .68 cal rounds inside a secure USA shooting range, livestreamed 24/7. It is operated by MMOD, Inc.
What we built
A permanent indoor range with twelve full-auto gun turrets on motorised mounts, a fleet of cameras, an instrumented target field, and the software to hand control of any of it to a stranger on the internet inside a second. The arena streams continuously and runs 90-second matches back to back, all day.
Why
Shooting games are the most played genre on earth and every one of them is pretend. The interesting question was whether the real thing could be made safe enough, fast enough, and cheap enough to hand to anyone with a phone. The answer turned out to be yes: an unoccupied range, .68 cal rounds, hard movement envelopes per turret, and a video pipeline built for control rather than for broadcast.
How it is different from a video game
The turret you are aiming exists. The round you fire travels. The target you knock down had to be reset by someone before the next match. Latency is a physical property of a motor and a network, not a difficulty setting. When you win, you beat eleven other people on identical real hardware.
Where things stand
The arena is built and streaming. Public play is opening in stages — the waitlist on the home page is the queue for it. Credits are virtual currency only; there is no cash withdrawal.