45 GENIUS INTERVIEW James Dean
doing a law degree and you could take an eSports module to apply what you’re learning around law to the eSports industry. Psychology and life sciences, also data analysis and statistics, are particularly interested in doing research. There’s a huge amount of data generated by eSports and a lot of stu to look at in terms of playing habits and data about the individual’s playing. That’s only just starting now. We’re really excited about taking a lead in that; I think the UK can oer a lot for the overall industry. We had the University of York at one of our large events in Hamburg. They had a team doing live data analysis with a new technique they’ve developed. They were collecting the player data – how the game was being played – and it was being analysed for narrative use. They were feeding detailed statistics to the commentary team to highlight and provide commentary on the gameplay FEED How does eSports tech compare with traditional broadcasting? JD The only problem is that within the broadcast industry, the technologies are so expensive. If it’s new tech, broadly speaking, it’s untouchable. It’s been designed for someone like NBC to come in and have a competitive advantage
SLEEPING GIANT UK audiences grew rapidly following the launch of a national league and partnering with MCM London Comic Con
There are a lot of opportunities for teams to come out of nowhere and have a business. We’re still at that stage of forming these potentially world-renowned teams, which is quite exciting. Our ESL UK national league is continuing to start qualifying teams into higher leagues. We’ve just added new game titles, including Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six, to the Premiership, and we’re looking at other titles, including mobile games. Our expansion now is about more game titles and more promotion into higher leagues. If you compare it to football, for example, you could say that the English Premier Football League is one of the best leagues to watch in the world. In the
same way, people might want to watch the UK’s ESL national league from other parts of the world. It’s kind of a one world situation. FEED What’s next in the development of eSports? JD There are some games that are dominated by certain nationalities. We are starting to ask a lot of questions in that space as to why, and we’re working with universities on a research level. Working with the University of Leicester and the University of York, our premise is to oer an eSports module that can be attached to any subject the university is oering. You could be
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