Esports Gears Up

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Only a few years ago, esports were operating out of makeshift studios. Today’s events use OB trucks and professional broadcast equipment to push the limits of live.

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 Esports has moved into the mainstream. You can tell this because its merits as a possible Olympic event have been debated - with all the scepticism of middle-age punditry - on BBC Radio 5.

It is arguably the second truly global sport after football and continues to outpace growth predictions. Game-streaming platform Twitch registered 355 billion eSports hours viewed last year, and market intelligence company NewZoo forecasts the industry will be worth $1.6bn (£1.2bn) by 2021.

Will Waters, vp of ‘customer success’ at NewTek believes the reason for this popularity “has a lot to do with the live aspect of the events and the excitement of ‘anything can happen.’”

Its rise also goes hand in hand with higher production values, demanded by broadcasters like Sky and ITV (partnered with esports network Ginx) and by enthusiasts themselves.

“Esports audiences are generally much more attuned to experiencing higher-quality because many games are available to play in HDR and UHD,” says Jens Fischer an account manager for broadcast equipment vendor EVS. “The digital engagement or social media aspect of gaming is also an important part of the live events. Not only do audiences want to see the best possible quality, they also expect a more engaging live experience.”

All of which has prompted eSports producers to upgrade their kit and work with vendors more associated with live TV outside broadcasts.

“A major difference between conventional sport and an eSport event is that the audience at the venue don’t just want to sit and watch the game. They want to be truely involved,” says Fabian Leimbach, technical director at ESL, a leading eSports producer and event organiser.

ESL’s UK studio operations in Leicester has room for several teams of gamers, commentators and an audience of up to 100 fans. The largest studio broadcasts 3-4 times a week and includes a range of products from Ross Video.

“We wanted to take a step up from our previous equipment and create slicker and more professional-looking broadcasts, but also wanted to ensure that these broadcasts could be easily and consistently run by the people on the team who aren’t broadcast engineers,” says Sam Deans, ESL UK’s production director.

OB trucks rollup

Esports is one of the few sectors actively embracing large trucks and flypack formats. “Esports companies like to make a statement to their tech oriented fanbase, and a large truck/flypack definitely adds to the wow factor,” confirms Marc Genin, vp, Gearhouse Broadcast USA. “I would say that, currently, esports is probably the only growth market for large trucks outside of entertainment.”

He finds similarities with the music and entertainment market where the first thing an esports company looks for in a city is a venue with status – a Hollywood Bowl or Royal Albert Hall. “These venues add to the excitement level of the event and add kudos. Of course, most of these venues do not have a large control room and typically have a screen control room only. The only alternative is to bring in a large truck or flypack to service the event.”

On some events such as Call of Duty, the client will supply the qualification infrastructure that is typically a ‘multiple production in a box’ solution as made by Ross Video, NewTek or Blackmagic Design. Again, there’s a demand for high quality broadcast equipment for the main programme for which a large truck/flypack is the answer.

“It has the capability to take in the client supplied feeds and mix them into a full broadcast production. In short, high production values for a major tournament are always asked for.”

There are unique challenges that come with an eSports event that are typically not a part of a traditional sports production such as working with non-broadcast standard resolutions and framerates. Other challenges, depending on the gameplay, include capturing a massive number of players both in the gaming environment along with POV cameras.

“Esports producers are pushing the limits of broadcasting equipment to tell the story,” says Waters.

According to Fischer, “Previous workflows for eSports have been built around whatever technology was readily available. This means that production teams work much more on-the-fly, creating very imaginative programming. The teams’ approach to using more broadcast-standard equipment is to find the most interesting way to produce their live shows, using the technology to their advantage as much as possible.”

EVS worked with ESL to create first-of-their-kind in-game replays for live esports tournaments – something akin to output that would be delivered to fans watching any football or basketball game.

“For ESL’s first-person shooter games, we worked out a way to place observer PCs into a live game to view the action as if they were cameras,” explains Fischer. “Feeds from these are recorded in the PCs’ native 120Hz and ingested by the EVS server. ESL’s technical team use an LSM controller to create a replay in the same way they would for a traditional broadcast, slowing down the feed to the broadcast-standard 60Hz. This creates a half-speed replay with completely smooth playout and absolutely no loss of frames.”

ESL also deploy EVS DYVI which is a video switcher built on a IT/software-defined architecture. This means ESL can create a program setup within DYVI for each of the games played at any given tournament. Then as live production begins, the technical director can instantly recall the games’ configuration with the press of a button and begin cutting together a programme without any unnecessary delay between events.

It’s not all EVS kit at ESL. The producer also uses the Ross Video Carbonite Black production switcher and XPression graphic platform.

Higher frame rates

The typical streaming format for eSports is 1080p/60 or 50 which mirrors that of gaming machines. “There’s no option other than to broadcast fast action games like Overwatch or Fortnite in anything else,” says Fischer. “Audiences at home just wouldn´t accept it.”

Higher resolutions and framerates are nice, but it is arguably better to have a stable stream for the viewer to watch than to drop frames or risk buffering and lag.

“Viewers are quick to point out technical difficulties in the production and will move on when presented with a poor experience,” says Waters. “HD in 1080/60p will be dominate for now, but as bandwidth and computing costs continue to fall, more viewers will look to UHD streams of their favourite eSport event.”

Production Associates and Fanview used Forbidden Technologies’ Blackbird Forte cloud video platform, for pre, live and post-event production for an Epic Games-hosted Fortnite Celebrity Pro-Am tournament at E3 in LA. The core technology is the Blackbird codec which gives producers the ability to ingest video and edit in the cloud with little if any latency.

Drawing from traditional sports

There is evidence that eSports are most successful when they draw directly from the editorial presentation of mainstream sports.

Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas (MOBA) games for example account for more than half of Twitch’s eSports viewing and take the lion’s share of tournament prizes – The International 2017 had a prize pool of $24.69m (£18.68m). 

“Much in the MOBA world will seem alien to fans of traditional sport but, ignoring the specific rules and instead looking at movement, balance, objectives and map design, some familiar themes emerge,” observes Jonathan Broughton, lead analyst for the Insight arm of Broadcast Intelligence.

These include designated boundaries (like the markings on a football pitch); player positioning; and team tactics (when to defend or attack).

Esports fans have also begun to mimic the habits of traditional sports viewers. “Teams are more important than players, transfer windows are eagerly watched, and a significant proportion of audiences now comprise non-gamers who are simply fans of the format,” suggests Broughton. “Friendly areas must be defended and opposing areas attacked – leading to a balanced approach that normally results in offensive and defensive player roles being assigned.”

Waters identifies the “drama created by rivalry, tension and release between players as they interact with the game, announcers that narrate the gameplay and commentators that analyse the player choices. These are the elements that great video directors use to create narratives that capture viewers and make them eager for more.”

There is a lot more involvement with the live event too that in some cases include covering live bands at the finale. “Esports in truly a hybrid of both sports and entertainment from the facility perspective,” declares Genin.

To broaden its reach, ESL has evolved the live programming of the IEM events to feature similar elements to those in television sports. Pre- and post-game programming, half time shows and expert punditry are now staples of ESL’s events.

At the same, the nature of internet-only delivery and the pace of many of the games being played, means the speed of program production is very important. “During a live esports game, anything three-minutes old is forgotten,” said Simon Eicher, executive producer at ESL. “Our live programming and our social media content is what engages the fan base. Therefore, we need to be reactive, creating and delivering these supplementary assets as quickly as possible.”

Statistics are another inseparable component from the games. Tools like recorded replays and match histories create an abundance of data, all instantly available for public consumption. As in-game events occur, they are recorded and logged, and different programs or models can scan those logs for information. Every swing of an axe, movement around the map, and coordinate location can be noted.

“Personally, I wouldn’t even try to compare eSports with actual sports,” says Leimbach of ESL. “I’m talking about quality but production technique. We don’t want to be a sports broadcaster because we would lose a lot of the things that make eSports dynamic and unique.”