By 1982, most users of the Xerox ball mouse were using "special pads" to increase the friction of the ball.
There is now a fairly colossal variety of elevated aspect "gaming grade" mousepads. In the beginning there were only a few such manufacturers: Everglide (arguably the first to come onto the market), fUnc Industries, Icemat, SteelSeries and Ratpadz (made by [H]ard|OCP). In 2005, diverse extended companies followed suit, including Razer, Qpad, Corepad, Xtracpads, X-Ray, Gamerzstuff, Ideazon, and Allsop. These pads are Mousepads come-at-able in a dilated variety of sizes to suit the at variance sensitivity settings that gamers choose. The Corepad Deskpad XXXL, uncommon of the largest pads on the market, measures 90cm x 45cm.