35 ESPORTS FOCUS Rocket League
the gameplay. I think that adds to the audience’s immersion in the game. It’s like seeing someone about to take a penalty in a football broadcast – will they, won’t they score? We’re replicating the kind of direction in esports which people are used to seeing in traditional sporting contests.” The production also used two eight- channel EVS’s for replay and online clip-out. Clips from the EVS were output to social media during the three days of the tournament. Three observe PCs, brought by the client, were used for viewing the gaming console outputs. Two of them were on the arena floor, connected to the OB truck, with another based in the truck, managed by a member of the NGE team. That gameplay content constituted a large proportion of the live broadcast. The show was distributed at 1080 at 59.94p, the typical format for video game broadcasting. “The 59.94p took a bit of engineering in the truck to achieve,” notes Bullen.
MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER BROADCASTING Though NEP is drawing on its past sports broadcast experience, the company is looking to develop new ways of approaching the challenge of esports. “Spending time with NGE, you get to understand the level of ambition these guys have when they want to put shows together - where you will see growth and what might provide technical challenges and the sorts of games offered. There are now some very popular games that have up to 100 individual players all competing in this virtual world. “How do you cover something like that from a production viewpoint? The only thing I can think to compare it to in traditional sports is something like golf where you focus on an individual’s play and that weaves itself into a wider narrative of what’s going on. You might focus on Tiger Woods shooting on the 13th hole at Augusta and cut to Luke Donald’s
UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL Sony HD minicams enabled action shots of the players during the game, adding to the audience interest
putting on the 15th, and through the skill of the commentators, and through the production narrative you create, that becomes part of a wider story. “How esports will evolve and how it will grow is by showing these games that have a wider narrative and multiple players competing. How do you tell that story from start to finish to an audience in a live venue and online? How do you integrate the analysis and the drama and the various characters in their locations into one production? I think that’s something we’d love to work with a client on developing.” So who did win the Rocket League Series 5 World Championships?... The winners were, for the second year in a row, the UK-based Team Dignitas!
Audience figures are just staggeringly high
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