It’s the first officially licensed pickleball video game, and available now on Xbox, PlayStation (PS4 and PS5), and Steam.
PPA Tour/FarSight Studios
Two-and-a-half years after the initial pitch, and culminating from 18 months of development, the PPA Tour and FarSight Studios go live today with a pickleball video game for Xbox, PlayStation (PS4 and PS5) and Steam.
The game, titled PPA Pickleball Tour 2025, is priced at $49.99 and will include 16 PPA athletes, several endemic pickleball brands and two signature stops – in San Clemente, California and Atlanta, Georgia – from the actual PPA Tour calendar.
“There’s been a lot of change [in the pickleball world] the past two-and-a-half years,” said PPA VP/Revenue Parker Roberts, who added that the PPA and FarSight’s agreement to produce the game extends five years. “Right now, we feel like [pickleball]’s at its peak, and yes, it’s going to continue to grow… We feel right now is a prime time to get the video game out.”
Inspired by “impressive” grassroots participation growth in pickleball, FarSight made the initial approach to the PPA with the idea for the video game, according to FarSight CEO Bobby King.
“What they were doing in their league was going out and getting all the top players under contract. Back then, they were already growing,” he said. “It really looked like the premier league to partner with.”
FarSight entered with experience around emerging sports properties. King cited a bowling game, PBA Pro Bowling, launched with licensing and marketing support from the Professional Bowlers Association as a notable success, having generated revenue in the “$5-10M range.”
“That’s the floor we’re looking at, I hope, over the next few years here,” King said of revenue targets for the pickleball game.
Of the $49.99 price point, he added that, “we tried to price it where, if it was a tennis game coming out, it would feel like a good value for the quality of a game that it is.” Roberts said the PPA largely followed FarSight’s lead on pricing, while King noted that FarSight leaned on the PPA for pickleball knowledge.
In that vein, PPA Pickleball Tour 2025 will have quick play and career game modes, with the option for users to compete as or against the pros and create their own player. The game has three difficulty levels – easy, medium and hard – and five different skill categories: athleticism, power, accuracy, hand speed and “dink” consistency. Gameplay will support one-to-four players, but matching up with friends online is still on the horizon, as is a release on Nintendo Switch scheduled for July 26.
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Roberts also noted that more athletes will eventually be added, although the game launches with the PPA Tour’s top eight men and women represented, including phenoms Ben Johns and Anna Leigh Waters. All the athletes that appear in the game were motion-captured to emulate their real movements. Animations were built in Unreal Engine 5.
Of the licensing process, Roberts said the PPA controls its contracted players’ marketing rights, but worked with them to ensure they were satisfied with their likenesses and that their presence in the game did not conflict with other business arrangements.
The PPA and FarSight also approached members of the PPA’s sponsor roster to broach separate agreements for placement in the game. Roberts estimated there are 15 to 20 corporate partners digitally represented, including, according to a news release, Selkirk, JOOLA, FILA, Paddletek, Vulcan, Os1st, Versix and Thorlo.
“We made it very realistic,” Roberts said. “Our two best venues are San Clemente and Atlanta – but then the advertising around it is all sponsors. Just like a sponsor of our tour, they pay to get their logo on center court, in and around the venue [in the video game].”
The PPA and FarSight also plan to set up gaming tents at the former’s upcoming events to showcase the game, where users will in some cases get a chance to compete against professional pickleball players. The two sides already ran demoes at last year’s national championships in Dallas and this year’s Select Medical Orange County Cup in San Clemente.