IBC
The marriage of IP production with internet viewing was always supposed to expose niche live events to a wider viewing public but few would have bet on computer gaming becoming the next mainstream spectator sport.
While debate will rage about whether virtual games are on par with more obviously athletic sports, electronic -- or eSports -- is a phenomenon with rapidly growing revenue streams that have attracted venture capital firms, major brands and broadcasters. “If you are a traditional media outlet trying to deal with massive change in Millennial viewing habits you have to be looking at eSports to capture this new audience,” says Ian Sharpe, CEO, Azubu.
SuperData pins the worldwide eSports audience at 134 million, rising to 153 million next year. “The intersection of technology, fandom and interactive entertainment is presenting [the industry] with new ways of sharing great experiences on a global scale,” it states.
According to market researchers IHS Technology, 2.4 billion hours of eSports video were consumed online in 2014, a figure expected to hit 6.6 billion in three years by which time the sport's global value will exceed $1 billion (SuperData). Home gamers have posted clips of their work online for years. Now games are watched live on dedicated gaming sites. Teams, some organised in leagues such as the European Gaming League (EGL) and Electronic Sports League (ESL), play strategy games like StarCraft 2, multiplayer online battle arena games like Dota 2, and first-person shooters like Counterstrike.
The two largest networks are Major League Gaming's MLG.tv, which specialises in Call of Duty contests, and Twitch.tv for which Amazon paid nearly $1 billion last year. Competitors include Gfinity, Azubu and Dingit. The success of Twitch, which records a monthly audience in excess of 100 million, recently forced Google to launch YouTube Gaming with an emphasis on live streaming (currently in beta).
Programmed to stream on such sites are matches broadcast live from venues in front of fans. Among the biggest is the World Championship Finals of League of Legends which drew 45,000 people to South Korea's Sangam Stadium last year. Publishers like Riot – owners of League of Legends -- organise these events in support of their intellectual property for which a nascent market in broadcast rights has emerged.
The world's first dedicated eSports stadium is being built in China with 15,000 seats and in the UK, Gfinity teamed with Fulham's 600-seat Vue cinema to run a weekly programme of matches – live streamed – from March until September [see Cinema 2020 at the IBC Big Screen Experience].
Production of the broadcasts are also growing in quality. Native digital content from within the games are ripe for streaming. On top of that, POV cameras capture shots of the gamers (their facial expression and hand movements); wider positions show the venue's spectators watching talent on giant screens and replay systems are available to the live show's producer. Mics on the gamers can pick up their reactions and commentary and VTs of player personalities can be inserted pre-show or during the show.
Vision mixers commonly used in outside broadcasts compile graphics, audio mixing and special effects with the stream published to social media and converted to H.264 for distributing online. All of the feeds can be controlled remotely over IP, which Red Bull Media House does from the dedicated eSports studio it opened last year at its US headquarters.
German-based ESL, owned by Turtle Entertainment, runs its own web channel (ESL.tv) to promote the ESL league and produces all the content in-house. Azubu (pictured), which buy rights to live stream tournaments, uses a combination of Amazon Web Services cloud, Akamai CDN and Brightcove online video player to service its subscribers.
“Higher production values are needed in order to take live event e-sports streaming to the next level,” believes Sharpe. “We need on-ramps into esports so that casual viewers can understand what it is all about. Stats are great at showing how people rank and are performing and giving an indication of what is happening. Commentary is another key and so is being part of the crowd in the experience. That means an emphasis on social media to contextualise the game. eSports are still creating that language and working out how to communicate that language.”
Unlike other sports, eSports affords the opportunity to chat in realtime with players while they are streaming. “This potential proximity is another reason for esports' popularity,” says Sharpe. “What we have to do is create a good experience for showcasing these personalities and build a solid global programme.”
Again unlike other sports and thanks to live streaming, e-sports has a chance to develop an instant global presence. Instead of isolating players in national leagues, networks like Azubu are intent on opening access to players in Brazil, or Korea to Europe and vice versa.
“There is a realtime transparency between gamers and the fan community which is unique,” says Sharpe.
With the global video game industry expected to top $100 billion in 2015, according to Gartner (far in excess, incidentally, of the global box office for feature film of $36.4bn, according to the MPAA), the industry is primed to move into the mainstream of sports consciousness.
Its primary home will be online but that didn't stop ESPN partnering with Red Bull to broadcast The International 4 — the annual world championships of Dota 2 – from Seattle's KeyArena on ESPN 3 last year. Viewing on a flat screen is one thing but just around the corner is virtual reality. Early 2016, Facebook is to debut VR device Oculus Rift and Sony will bow Morpheus, its VR headset for PlayStation 4. This Christmas, game developer Valve will launch its own visor-style, head-mounted display called Vive.
While Samsung GearVR (co-developed with Oculus) and Google Cardboard are already on retail, the latest entrants will work from a PC not a smartphone and are expected to deliver the next level in virtual experience. EGL's mission is typical of those at the centre of eSports' growth. Earlier this year it partnered with advertising agency BBH – which eyes EGL as a marketing platform -- to turn gaming into a global sport to rival football and Formula 1.
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