IP Brings the Wow Factor To Educational Esports Programs
Esports — a video game competition with a live audience either at a venue or online — has evolved from a niche
event into a legitimate industry with total global revenues of
more than a billion dollars annually. That is not a typo. That is
billion — with a B.
Esports prize pools totaled $160 million in 2018. When all
is counted at the end of 2019, those pools are expected to grow
by 25 percent. The top 10 professional players earned a range between
$1 million and $2 million each in 2018. It is estimated the
total audience of esports will grow to 454 million viewers in 2019
with revenues of $1.1 billion, up about 22 percent from 2018.
The increasing availability of online streaming media platforms,
particularly YouTube and Twitch, have become central to
the growth and promotion of esports competitions. Mainstream
sports organizations including ESPN now provide extensive coverage.
With a rise in the number of leagues, the popularity of
purpose-built venues, rising investment, viewership growth and
even the potential for esports to be added to the Olympics, it is
time to recognize esports is no longer a fad. Esports is all grown
up — and now it is time for it to go to school.
Academia Legitimizing the Profession
Esports is a growing area of study at colleges and universities
and is attracting big name partners. Degrees are being offered in
gaming programming, game art, game design and esports management
—for education and professional competition alike. Esports
programs require a specialized and diverse group of personnel,
and an esports event’s success is dependent on a combination
of business and technology expertise.
On the business side, there are roles in marketing, finance, and
the management of partners, logistics, events, teams and organizations.
On the production side, there is website development, social
media management, Twitch stream control, camera operation, audio
engineering and more. Another aspect is on-camera talent for play-by-play reporting, color commentary, hosting and analysis.
But perhaps most critical to successfully preparing students for
an esports career — a job market that is sure to be competitive for
the foreseeable future — is offering hands-on, real-world experience
in such a production. Offering students the opportunity to
utilize the real technologies that exist within the esports space is
critical. Providing them with a production reel of real events is key.
In this article, we will consider the technical infrastructure
requirements for starting up an esports program in K-12 schools
or higher education.
What workflow is required
for esports curricula?
Computers and Consoles
One of the first expenses to consider will be the gaming computers,
consoles, displays and peripherals. There are plenty of purpose-built gaming rigs out there. While some of this hardware
might be irreplaceable — the standard for digital sports competitions
is nearly all conducted on Sony and Microsoft consoles —
gaming PCs can typically be built from parts at a much more
affordable cost per unit.
That said, consideration must be given to the capture of video
from these sources. A camera pointed toward a competitor works
great for picture-in-picture production layouts, however, pointing
a camera at a screen simply won’t cut it in the world of esports.
To solve this, we turn to a second consideration…
Traditional cabling is costly, but there is a better
solution: IP infrastructure.
Production of esports events with video resolutions of up to
4K UHD need to be planned. Large numbers of simultaneous,
high-resolution computer sources over the network have to be
mixed in real time along with camera sources, graphics and audio.
Special cabling was once required to achieve such a workflow
— however, the world has changed! No longer are expensive
cables required to send signals around a campus as IP transport
permits organizations to expand and achieve new capabilities that
would not be practical using a legacy approach.
To be future ready, the only answer is to incorporate Internet
Protocol (IP) based transport in the production workflow.
The most common IT elements involved in media production
include software processing, standard networking, common computing hardware and IP transport. IP is the established standard
for connecting devices that is now being applied more pervasively
to media. IP is a mature, existing technology, ubiquitous on a
global basis. By its very nature, IP technology efficiently handles
any and all of the data types that are of interest to media production
and distribution.
NDI Empowers IP Production
Network Device Interface (NDI) is a free-to-use protocol built
upon IP-based standards, enabling compatible products to share
video, audio and data across a standard local area network. Using
refined encoding and communication, NDI permits systems,
devices, and applications to identify and communicate bi-directionally
with one another over IP, and to encode, transmit and
receive multiple streams of high quality, low latency, frame-accurate
video and audio in real time. Furthermore, it is a standard
used freely among competitors such as Sony and Panasonic. NDI
is royalty free, so there are thousands of software and hardware
products with NDI support, and millions of users incorporating
it into their environments.
It is also familiar in the esports space: Twitch uses it to support
many of their productions, and OBS Studio — one of the leaders
in streaming software — utilizes NDI as an enabling technology.
Simply put: it is an affordable, interoperable and simple solution
to effectively transfer video over a network.
As students are the primary users, an esports production center
must be quick and easy to operate. Using standard IT interfacing,
gaming workstations have to be connected over the network simultaneously.
Free scan converter tools can be used to make each
gaming PC available as video sources. Game consoles from Nintendo,
Microsoft or Sony can also be added to the network with
converters, making these and other HDMI video devices NDI
sources.
Bringing It All Together: Live Production Systems
Switching for all cameras, gaming PCs and consoles — along
with video clips, graphics and audio — needs to be combined into
an IP-capable digital media production system.
A production system needs to be simple to use and incorporate
automated functions so it can be set up in a self-service mode. In this
way instructors or students can produce finished content without
needing technical experience. A comprehensive macro automation
system will let users record, store, edit and automate their common
settings and typical command sequences. Macros can be set up to
run manually from a combination of compatible control interfaces or
be set to perform actions with the system automatically.
Some production systems can use a Microsoft Word document to
act as the teleprompter script that is delivered to monitors, tablets or even smartphones mounted on cameras for the talent to read. Some
systems can layer static and moving graphics inserted from pre-set
templates for show openings, title animations, and lower third titles
with timing, speed and duration control. Design of graphics can
originate in popular Adobe Photoshop and After Effects applications.
Many live production systems provide software-based control
panels, which can operate a production system from any compatible
desktop or mobile device and from anywhere on the network.
Easily accessible through any web browser or operating system, this
functionality includes production-ready control panels for remote
video and audio mixing, media playback and macro automation.
Another way that systems can help manage production is with
PTZ camera control. There are a number of PTZ cameras available
providing video, audio, control, tally and power over a single cable
that simply connects to an Ethernet port on a standard IT network.
The Curriculum Is Critical
While these are the pillars for the infrastructure, it should be
mentioned the curriculum for esports must be dovetailed with these
technologies. This is no coursework in playing videogames — just
as sports management degrees don’t help you play better golf or hit
more jump shots. Look back to the core technologies we’ve considered
and think about how they have educational touchpoints that
will translate to valuable workplace skills in esports.
Building, repairing and upgrading computers brings in a
foundational element to the technology that will be critical both
in designing workflows on budget and during real-time troubleshooting.
Understanding networks to a point where they can be effectively
designed, managed, troubleshot and scaled is a skill that
goes beyond just esports. The network is an emerging technology
for all types of AV and broadcast environments.
Understanding the technical components of directing, switching
and managing a live studio and live performance is once again
valuable beyond just the esports space as it touches on uses in the
broadcast, streaming and live performance industries.
Finally, work in front of the camera should also be added as
students take over as announcers and — yes, finally — as esports
competitors. In total, the esports space requires a distinct blend
of computer, network, AV and management literacy that can be
accomplished through simple and affordable technologies.
The key to success is implementing IP workflows that enable
esports production to be completely driven by the students.
An esports center can be student friendly enough to be operated
without ongoing technical staff support while still being affordable,
effective and professionally competent.
This article originally appeared in the November/December 2019 issue of Spaces4Learning.