Speaker 1: Technology with tech Stuff from dot com. Hey there, and
Speaker 1: welcome to tech Stuff. I am your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm a podcaster y'all over at how stuff Works dot com.
Speaker 1: And if you've been listening to the show, you know
Speaker 1: I absolutely adore technology. I can't shut up about it,
Speaker 1: which is great because that's what they pay me before.
Speaker 1: Am I Right? So today I wanted to kind of
Speaker 1: conclude sort of the episodes that have been leading up
Speaker 1: to this point. I did a three part series about
Speaker 1: the history of Valve, a very influential company in the
Speaker 1: realm of PC gaining. I did an episode about eye
Speaker 1: tracking technology, which is a it's a technology. It's used
Speaker 1: for lots of different stuff, but one of the things
Speaker 1: that's being used for is analysis and another is for
Speaker 1: a user interface, and we talked a little bit about
Speaker 1: its application toward gaming in that last episode. But today
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk specifically about the realm of professional gaming
Speaker 1: and professional gaming leagues, as well as how eye tracking
Speaker 1: technology is integrated into that world these days. So think
Speaker 1: of this as the conclusion of that that loosely serialized
Speaker 1: series of episodes, and then after this one, our next
Speaker 1: episode will probably be about something completely unrelated. So if
Speaker 1: you are uh satisfied, satiated, let us say with video
Speaker 1: game content, fear not. We will cover something different in
Speaker 1: our next episode. If you love video game content, fear not.
Speaker 1: Eventually I'll get back to it. It'll happen because it
Speaker 1: plays a big role in tech. Now let's talk about
Speaker 1: E sports. I've covered related topics, including some way back
Speaker 1: in the old days of tech stuff, when Chris Poulette
Speaker 1: and I used to shout our podcast from the top
Speaker 1: of a building in Buckhead in Atlanta, and the only
Speaker 1: way you could hear it was if you were in
Speaker 1: the general neighborhood. There is a classic episode titled Can
Speaker 1: You Make a Living Playing Games? And that original episode
Speaker 1: came out on July two thousand eleven. Holy cow, guys,
Speaker 1: I've been doing this show a long time. The answer,
Speaker 1: by the way, is yes, you can make money playing
Speaker 1: video games if you're good enough. We're gonna talk a
Speaker 1: bit today about the industry around competitive professional video game players,
Speaker 1: better known as e sports. I'll have a chance to
Speaker 1: chat with Robert o'kelleeny, VP of E sports products over
Speaker 1: at Turner Sports, and later on I'll also chat with
Speaker 1: Brian Desaias and David Chen of alien Ware to talk
Speaker 1: about the use of eye tracking tech and e sports
Speaker 1: and how it can enhance the experience. We've got a
Speaker 1: lot of wonderful folks who gave over their time, him
Speaker 1: and their expertise to help make this episode happen. So
Speaker 1: big thanks to all of them, and I can't wait
Speaker 1: for you guys to hear what they have to say,
Speaker 1: because they're really fascinating people. But before we dive into that,
Speaker 1: it's always fun, at least for me anyway, to talk
Speaker 1: about the history of whatever the subject is at hand.
Speaker 1: So how old do you think e sports to be.
Speaker 1: Do you think it rose up in the nineties, like
Speaker 1: maybe the late nineties over in South Korea, or maybe
Speaker 1: you would go back to like the nineteen eighties when
Speaker 1: people like Billy Mitchell established world record high scores and
Speaker 1: arcade games like pac Man. Well, depending upon your definition
Speaker 1: of e sports, the real birth of the industry dates
Speaker 1: back to nineteen seventy two. That's when students at Stanford
Speaker 1: University pitted their lead gaming skills and tournament of Space
Speaker 1: war Now. Steve Russell had led a small group of
Speaker 1: designers way back in nineteen sixty two to create Space
Speaker 1: War with it was one of the first examples of
Speaker 1: a computer game to use a dynamic display. Now Ever,
Speaker 1: since we've had computers, people have been trying to figure
Speaker 1: out ways to make those computers do stuff that they
Speaker 1: weren't intended to do, like play games. The original computers
Speaker 1: weren't meant to do that. But you get enough people
Speaker 1: who are mathematically gifted together and they start thinking about
Speaker 1: the potential for math to do practically anything. Eventually they're
Speaker 1: going to start creating programs that play games, including things
Speaker 1: like Tic Tac toe. But it wasn't until the nineteen
Speaker 1: sixties that people were looking at the potential of creating
Speaker 1: displays for computers. Otherwise, you were getting readouts that were
Speaker 1: either on paper or sometimes just a bank of lights
Speaker 1: would light up a specific way, and that's how you
Speaker 1: knew what the output was of whatever your input was.
Speaker 1: So Space War was one of these early, early, early
Speaker 1: examples of a game that uses such a dynamic display.
Speaker 1: Players would control one of two spaceships. There was one
Speaker 1: called the knee and one called the wedge, and they
Speaker 1: were called that because obviously of their their shapes, and
Speaker 1: these spaceships could fly around in a two dimensional plane,
Speaker 1: so you can fly along that x y axis, but
Speaker 1: not the Z There was no third dimension to this,
Speaker 1: and it looked like a little space field and you
Speaker 1: were technically you were flying around the gravity well of
Speaker 1: a star so there was this gravitational effect that came
Speaker 1: into play with the game, and your whole goal was
Speaker 1: to destroy the other starship. So it was a player
Speaker 1: versus player game that came out in nineteen sixty two,
Speaker 1: and by came out, I mean it was developed for
Speaker 1: a what at that time amounted to a supercomputer, and
Speaker 1: if you also happen to have a supercomputer and you
Speaker 1: could get a copy of the code, you could install
Speaker 1: and play that game yourself, not even installed, run the game.
Speaker 1: It's not really even installation because we're not talking about
Speaker 1: a hard disk at this point. By nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: several engineering and computer science schools had a version of
Speaker 1: this game, and then the tournament was born. The grand
Speaker 1: prize for this tournament back in nineteen seventy two was
Speaker 1: a whole year's subscription to Rolling Stone magazine. The tournament
Speaker 1: itself took place in the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab, so
Speaker 1: one of the most important events to ever take place
Speaker 1: in that ai lab in the history of mankind as
Speaker 1: far as I'm concerned. Stewart Brand, who at the time
Speaker 1: was a writer and editor for Rolling Stone, was the
Speaker 1: organizer for this event. His piece in Rolling Stone equated
Speaker 1: the players with athletes in traditional sports, so from the
Speaker 1: very beginning there were parallels. Though at the time the
Speaker 1: treatment might have been a touch tongue in cheek, maybe
Speaker 1: a little playful satirical, But the version that the students
Speaker 1: were playing of Space War was slightly altered from the
Speaker 1: one that debuted back in nineteen sixty two. There was
Speaker 1: a programmer named Ralph Goren who added in a couple
Speaker 1: of elements to the game to make it more competitive
Speaker 1: and interesting. He added in the capacity for ships to
Speaker 1: suffer partial damage before being destroyed, so you could take
Speaker 1: more than one hit. And he also threw in some
Speaker 1: space minds, so some obstacles that you could deploy within
Speaker 1: the game field and uh maybe your opponent would fly
Speaker 1: into them and destroy himself and that would just make
Speaker 1: the game more interesting to play and watch. By the way,
Speaker 1: Ralph Gordon would later go on to create the world's
Speaker 1: first spell checker. So when you hear about some of
Speaker 1: these people who were involved in this tournament, a lot
Speaker 1: of them went on to do some very important things
Speaker 1: in the realm of technology and computer science. Now. The
Speaker 1: winner of that first tournament was a guy named Bruce
Speaker 1: baum Guard, and baum Guard would go on to work
Speaker 1: at the Internet Archive, and later on he would become
Speaker 1: the head of operations at Cool. Ce U I L.
Speaker 1: And you may owe my drugs not remember what Cool is?
Speaker 1: Things changing so scory nowadays and people quick to forget it.
Speaker 1: Cool was one of those companies that when it launched,
Speaker 1: got a lot out of people poking fun at it
Speaker 1: for its name, that c U I L being spelled cool.
Speaker 1: It was a short lived search engine. It did not
Speaker 1: last very long. It had really long entries, so when
Speaker 1: you did a search, you would get the results with
Speaker 1: very long descriptors of what those search results were, plus
Speaker 1: a thumbnail that would appear next to every search result.
Speaker 1: But it just didn't catch on. It ended up shutting
Speaker 1: down in September. But while Cool would come and go,
Speaker 1: video game tournaments were really here to stay, and whether
Speaker 1: they were informal or they were big twodues, they continued
Speaker 1: largely beneath the notice of the general public. The introduction
Speaker 1: of the personal computer and various gaming systems in the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties helped a little bits, as as did the
Speaker 1: rise of the arcade, but by and large, video game
Speaker 1: competitions remain confined to a niche audience. In the late
Speaker 1: ninet nineties, gaming had reached a new level, largely because
Speaker 1: personal computers were much more common, and this would be
Speaker 1: the early days of the high powered graphics processing units
Speaker 1: or gp us, those dedicated graphics cards, which were the
Speaker 1: devices that were actually giving computers the horsepower needed to
Speaker 1: run games that had three dimensional graphics, so stuff like Quake,
Speaker 1: and in fact, one of the earliest tournaments of this
Speaker 1: time was a Quake competition. It was held in nine
Speaker 1: and the organization holding it was read Annihilation. It drew
Speaker 1: two thousand participants and the prize was a doozy. If
Speaker 1: you won, you got to go home with a Ferrari
Speaker 1: that once belonged to John Carmack. He was one of
Speaker 1: the lead developers of Quake. On June seven, Angel Manuals
Speaker 1: founded the cyber Athlete Professional League or the CPL. This
Speaker 1: was a group that organized various tournaments and pioneered the
Speaker 1: field of e sports. Professional tournaments. It operated out of
Speaker 1: the United States until two thousand eight, when the company
Speaker 1: nearly dissolved due to an overcrowded scene, got acquired and
Speaker 1: then sort of relaunched in China. But in just a
Speaker 1: decade we saw that the environment had changed from a
Speaker 1: curiosity into a pretty big industry. This cyber Athlete Professional
Speaker 1: League went from being the only game in town pun
Speaker 1: intended to being a a fish in a very large
Speaker 1: pond that was growing completely beyond what it originally was. Now.
Speaker 1: Early on, the emphasis in these tournaments was on first
Speaker 1: person shooter games games like Quake. Then sports titles also
Speaker 1: became popular in tournament play. Then you might get things
Speaker 1: like fighting games. They popped up a little bit later,
Speaker 1: and then real time strategy genre games joined the ranks,
Speaker 1: and that's when the game StarCraft brood War rose to
Speaker 1: prominence in the tournament scene. While tournaments were still largely
Speaker 1: a niche interest in the United States and other parts
Speaker 1: of the world, they had become incredibly popular, and one
Speaker 1: of those regions was South Korea. South Korea has two
Speaker 1: big game channels, on game Net and NBC Game, both
Speaker 1: of which created leagues of professional StarCraft players who would
Speaker 1: compete against each other for prizes. The country takes professional
Speaker 1: gaming extremely seriously. In fact, when a scandal broke out
Speaker 1: in that some StarCraft players were purposefully throwing games as
Speaker 1: part of a gambling scheme, the government levied harsh punishments
Speaker 1: against the accused players, all of whom were banned for
Speaker 1: life from professional StarCraft competition. In two thousand, the World
Speaker 1: Cyber Games and Electronics Sports World Cup both launched, and
Speaker 1: they gave professional gaming a bigger spotlight. Two years later,
Speaker 1: the Major League Gaming Professional Game League launched, and since
Speaker 1: then professional video game leagues have been picking up speed.
Speaker 1: We've also seen other types of games into this realm,
Speaker 1: including MOBA's things like Dota Too and Smite and League
Speaker 1: of Legends. Those have become enormously popular in the professional
Speaker 1: gaming league scene. In recent years, we've also seen a
Speaker 1: big push coming from major broadcasters to elevate professional video
Speaker 1: game tournaments. I had a chance to speak with Robert Ocellini,
Speaker 1: who overseas eleague at Turner to talk about it now. Robert,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us on text stuff.
Speaker 1: I want to kind of get an idea about how
Speaker 1: eligue came about, and uh and and sort of get
Speaker 1: an idea of how it's evolved and and what you
Speaker 1: have seen so far in that space. Because while e sports,
Speaker 1: I think, uh, it's something that more and more people
Speaker 1: are are aware of, it's still sort of an emerging
Speaker 1: kind of form of entertainment for a large part of
Speaker 1: the mainstream audience. I think that's changing, especially among younger demographics.
Speaker 1: I think they're far more aware, especially now that we're
Speaker 1: seeing video games being used as a form just the
Speaker 1: playing of video games being used as a form of
Speaker 1: entertainment throughout lots of different platforms. But tell me specifically
Speaker 1: about E League, sure, So, Uh, Eleague was first announced
Speaker 1: about two years ago. Um, it actually wasn't called Elague
Speaker 1: at the time. We didn't have a name yet. Um,
Speaker 1: but we were working on it, I would say, for
Speaker 1: probably six months or so before that, uh September two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen announcement. Um. And really it came from the
Speaker 1: sort of interest came from the very senior levels of
Speaker 1: Turner so h Kevin Riley, who is the head of
Speaker 1: TBS and T and T came to the company with
Speaker 1: a lot of contacts and gaming Um, and you know
Speaker 1: he's in l A and E sports has really taken
Speaker 1: off in Los Angeles, and so he came in with
Speaker 1: a lot of interest and he's sports. And then from
Speaker 1: the Turner Sports side, you know, Lenny Daniels and David
Speaker 1: Levy UM had had a lot of interest in the space.
Speaker 1: They saw, you know, they kept hearing that this space
Speaker 1: was developing. They kind of saw what was happening. And
Speaker 1: and actually at first, UM at the time, I was
Speaker 1: working on the NBA's digital products here. I did seven
Speaker 1: seasons working on the NBA mobile apps and over the
Speaker 1: top apps and NBA League Pass UM and for a
Speaker 1: little while as a part time job, I was actually
Speaker 1: going to meetings and working on this, and you know,
Speaker 1: sort of my background is more in digital product but
Speaker 1: I'm a lifelong gamer and very interested in competitive gaming
Speaker 1: and was actually the GM of competitive World of Warcraft
Speaker 1: Guild UM. So I kind of had my own long
Speaker 1: history with with gaming and and E sports UM on
Speaker 1: the fan side and on the playing side. UM. So
Speaker 1: I kind of was able to bring that to the
Speaker 1: table UM as we looked into this, and then I
Speaker 1: think probably around uh the beginning of July July, we
Speaker 1: sort of decided what direction we were going to go
Speaker 1: in and at that time they decided that if I
Speaker 1: wanted to work on this full time, they give me
Speaker 1: that opportunity, and I really haven't looked back, UM, nor
Speaker 1: have nor has the company. UM uh. So, you know,
Speaker 1: we we did this deal with I M g U
Speaker 1: Eligue as a joint venture with w M E I MG,
Speaker 1: and we started meeting with teams. We actually had a
Speaker 1: big team summit in September because we were really the
Speaker 1: first big media brand to enter into this e sports
Speaker 1: space and we wanted to make sure that we were
Speaker 1: entering it with reverence, UM, with you know, an eye
Speaker 1: towards authenticity. And then of course, you know, we'd already
Speaker 1: decided at that point that we're gonna work with counter
Speaker 1: Strike UM that we were talking to and getting feedback
Speaker 1: from the counter strike community. UM. About two months later
Speaker 1: we came up with a name and logo and all
Speaker 1: of that stuff and launched our website, and then in
Speaker 1: January of two thousand sixteen, we did our very first
Speaker 1: tournament UM the Road to Vegas, and that was essentially
Speaker 1: sort of an open qualifier for one of the scots
Speaker 1: in our inaugural season. Later in UM we really started
Speaker 1: the league and league play in earnest in May of
Speaker 1: UM with our first counter Strike season. We followed that
Speaker 1: up later in Steen we had the opportunity to do
Speaker 1: the Overwatch Open. We were like the first big Overwatch tournament, UM,
Speaker 1: and then we did a second season of counter Strike.
Speaker 1: Around that time frame, we were also awarded the first
Speaker 1: Counterstrike Major of sen UM and we did that in January,
Speaker 1: and then in in we've we've branched out a little
Speaker 1: bit and have done some stuff with Street Fighter. We
Speaker 1: did a series a docuseries around uh the International, which
Speaker 1: is the big DODA World Championship. And then finally right
Speaker 1: now we're running our what is essentially our third counter
Speaker 1: Strike season, the Premier UM and you know that's where
Speaker 1: Group D starts tonight, uh and then the finals the
Speaker 1: week of October ten. So you know, it's been, uh,
Speaker 1: it's been kind of a wild ride. We went from
Speaker 1: from you know, nothing and no organization to a thriving
Speaker 1: business with a lot of employees and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: have done a lot of tournaments at this point. UM.
Speaker 1: I think you know, the only other thing I'll add
Speaker 1: that I shouldn't have gloss over is the amazing studio
Speaker 1: that we built downstairs that's built for e sports, whether
Speaker 1: that game is one v one or six v six.
Speaker 1: We have built the studio in a way that um
Speaker 1: it can it can easily support any game that we
Speaker 1: want to do. And then of course we've got all
Speaker 1: of the you know other stuff you would want, practice
Speaker 1: space for the players, a player lounge, first class green
Speaker 1: room for our talent um, and then all the tech
Speaker 1: that you would need to to support doing something like
Speaker 1: a counter Strike tournament, which is a pretty big undertaking
Speaker 1: right where every tiny little technical detail can end up
Speaker 1: UH having an influence on actual game play. It is
Speaker 1: really important as well pointing out to my listeners here
Speaker 1: that by going this route, by having the tournament where
Speaker 1: you've got the system set up where you know you're
Speaker 1: going to have a really good approach to running these games,
Speaker 1: it also means everyone's on equal footing. It doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that you know, you're not worried about someone who's souped
Speaker 1: up their game engine so or their game system so
Speaker 1: much that they're going to have an unfair advantage over
Speaker 1: anyone else. It really does bring it down to skill
Speaker 1: and in the case of games like Counterstrike, really good
Speaker 1: team communication and team UH cooperation I'm really fascinated by this,
Speaker 1: and since you've had experience working in a realm that
Speaker 1: was uh that was focused on traditional sports, something that
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people can can kind of
Speaker 1: get their mind around. For For people who haven't made
Speaker 1: that that step from the idea of well, a professional
Speaker 1: sport where you're playing physically in a on a cord
Speaker 1: or on a field or whatever it may be, that's
Speaker 1: one thing. But professional video game playing, how is that
Speaker 1: something that you How can you consider that person an athlete? Well,
Speaker 1: you've seen both worlds. What's your kind of response to
Speaker 1: that sort of uh, like, if everyone's asking questions or
Speaker 1: if they're just expressing skepticism that someone could be an
Speaker 1: athlete playing video games. By the way, I'm totally on
Speaker 1: the board of professional video games players are on a
Speaker 1: level that is far, far, far beyond the capabilities of
Speaker 1: the average person. I mean, listen, I think that that
Speaker 1: skepticism is a natural, a natural thing, right, Like I
Speaker 1: think with with physical sports, it's very easy to tell
Speaker 1: that I cannot jump as high off the ground as
Speaker 1: Lebron James, right. Um, but me sitting in front of
Speaker 1: a computer, it doesn't look optically any different. Than Olive
Speaker 1: Meister or Faker or any of these sort of top
Speaker 1: tier e sports players. But I will tell you that, UM,
Speaker 1: from a talent perspective, from a commitment perspective, these gentlemen
Speaker 1: are no and women are no different than professional athletes
Speaker 1: and traditional stick and ball sports. They are a cut
Speaker 1: above and you know, you if you were to put
Speaker 1: an average or even above average sort of casual video
Speaker 1: game athlete up against these guys, they would just get
Speaker 1: completely and utterly wrecked. You know. I think that one
Speaker 1: of the interesting things that we've done here at Turner
Speaker 1: this year is we had an employee tournament for street fighters.
Speaker 1: So we did we did this uh six week street
Speaker 1: fighter season where we had the best street fighter players
Speaker 1: in the world come to our camp us and play.
Speaker 1: And then, UM, a couple of weeks after that tournament
Speaker 1: was over, we had an internal tournament that culminated with
Speaker 1: the finals that was played in the very same studio
Speaker 1: where our street Fighter tournament was hosted. UM. And you know,
Speaker 1: sure enough, Turners a pretty big company. There's some really
Speaker 1: good street fighter players here. But talking to the sort
Speaker 1: of experts that we have on staff, the guy who
Speaker 1: won the tournament would be like the tenth best player
Speaker 1: at a local Atlanta semi professional tournament, and the guy
Speaker 1: who would win that tournament wouldn't even be in the
Speaker 1: top hundred in the world. You know, there's there's a
Speaker 1: there's a big difference between the two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: guys who play counter strike sort of at the top
Speaker 1: level professionally and the seven or eight mill in people
Speaker 1: who play it on a daily basis. UM. So you
Speaker 1: know I'm in definitely you can tell I'm in the
Speaker 1: camp of this is no different than the other sports.
Speaker 1: There's a scarcity of of talent and then the ability
Speaker 1: to sort of focus that. The commitment that it requires
Speaker 1: to play these games at the top level UM is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: I guess the last point I'd make on that is, UM,
Speaker 1: it's also really hard to stay on top. And you
Speaker 1: know there's one team currently that you know, last year
Speaker 1: one I think five tournaments UH during the regular tournament season,
Speaker 1: and this year made it to the finals of the Major.
Speaker 1: But we've seen them slowly declined. The name of the
Speaker 1: team is Burtis Pro and we love them. They won
Speaker 1: our first season, UM, but we've seen them slowly decline
Speaker 1: and they actually didn't make it to the playoffs of
Speaker 1: our current tournament. And I think that that shows like
Speaker 1: just how tight it is at the very top, right,
Speaker 1: Like even just kind of in six months, a team
Speaker 1: can go from being virtually unbeatable over a three or
Speaker 1: four months time period to not even making it to
Speaker 1: the late stages of any tournaments. There's that very top level.
Speaker 1: Is it is the top of the pyramid in every way,
Speaker 1: shape or form. Now in your experience of overseeing these
Speaker 1: things being part of the the E League, Uh, does
Speaker 1: it feel like when there's a tournament going, when you
Speaker 1: have these people at this these very elite levels of
Speaker 1: performance competing against each other. Isn't a similar kind of
Speaker 1: of atmosphere of excitement to watch people at that level play,
Speaker 1: similar to what you might see in a traditional sporting arena.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I think for so it's there
Speaker 1: are differences there that I would call out right so um,
Speaker 1: for some tournaments, and and I'm not alluding to ours,
Speaker 1: almost all of the competition except for the finals is
Speaker 1: played over the internet, right, and so you know the
Speaker 1: spectator experience there is on twitch and on YouTube, and
Speaker 1: you know that the chat experience is like a proxy
Speaker 1: for the arena, if that makes sense, It most like
Speaker 1: a virtual proxy. I would say, though, at the very
Speaker 1: top level, if you were to were to attend like
Speaker 1: our finals at the Fox Theater in Atlanta for the Major,
Speaker 1: or an e s L one in New York, or
Speaker 1: the finals of a dream Hack, they have all of
Speaker 1: the same trappings and crowd engagement that you know a
Speaker 1: professional Atlanta sports team has. And you know, I go,
Speaker 1: I'm a season ticket holder for our our new MLS team,
Speaker 1: which probably has about as good fan engagement as you
Speaker 1: could possibly have, and it feels the same to me
Speaker 1: as the really rabid fans for the finals of our
Speaker 1: Major or the finals of the Dota to International. I
Speaker 1: went to that this summer too, at Key Arena, which
Speaker 1: is where the Sonics used to play in Seattle. So
Speaker 1: even the same buildings in some case, although I will
Speaker 1: also say those buildings can sometimes not be the best
Speaker 1: venues for watching the sports because you're trying to watch
Speaker 1: on the screen and watch kind of what's going on stage.
Speaker 1: But what's going on on stage a lot of the
Speaker 1: time is some guys in headsets yelling to each other, right, Like,
Speaker 1: the more interesting thing is the combination of what they're
Speaker 1: doing with what's happening on the screen right. Similar to
Speaker 1: what we've seen with various patforms where people are setting
Speaker 1: up webcams to capture their their footage of how they
Speaker 1: react while they're playing games. I imagine something similar is
Speaker 1: useful in this kind of realm. When we come back,
Speaker 1: we'll talk more about the advances and technology that are
Speaker 1: making it easier and more enjoyable to watch gaming as
Speaker 1: a professional sport. But first let's take a quick break
Speaker 1: to thank our sponsor. In a previous episode, I spoke
Speaker 1: with Oscar Warner over at Toby Tech about eye tracking
Speaker 1: technology and we talked a bit about how it could
Speaker 1: be used in professional gaming, but to get a more
Speaker 1: thorough perspective on it, I had a conversation with Brian
Speaker 1: Dazaias and David Chen of alien Ware about how it's
Speaker 1: transforming e sports. Yeah. So, um, one of the things
Speaker 1: that is always doing right. We're always trying to look
Speaker 1: for the the next innovative thing, what's going to help
Speaker 1: whether they're professional or just you know, folks just want
Speaker 1: to have fun playing games. How can they have more
Speaker 1: fun and how can they get better at their games?
Speaker 1: I'm in front, I just make it as the most
Speaker 1: of it as possible. UM. So you know, as as
Speaker 1: we launch and look at new technologies, UM. One of
Speaker 1: the things that was coming down the pike several years ago,
Speaker 1: UM is eye tracking. Now, historically you've thought of eye
Speaker 1: tracking or you know, eye tracking mainly for some cool
Speaker 1: stuff like trying to maybe log into a computer or
Speaker 1: something like that, kind of like facial recognition. UM. But
Speaker 1: as the technologies evolved, as it's gotten smaller, been able
Speaker 1: to put into laptops and things like that. UM. It
Speaker 1: really there's a lot of innovative ways to the things
Speaker 1: we could do as you're just tracking with the eyes looking.
Speaker 1: And so what we started working with Toby on is
Speaker 1: how can we adopt that and tie that into something
Speaker 1: meaningful for gamers. And at the same time, you know,
Speaker 1: we've we've seen an known that gamers are always looking
Speaker 1: for an advantage. So I'll give you an example. You know,
Speaker 1: when most most gamers will at some point, if they're
Speaker 1: really into a game, right, they're gonna go to YouTube
Speaker 1: or they're gonna go onto Twitch, and they're gonna try
Speaker 1: and get better at their game. They're gonna look at
Speaker 1: tips and tricks and you know, I'm maybe doing it today.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm heavily invested in pub G and um it
Speaker 1: seems like every other day, every day, I'm trying to see,
Speaker 1: you know, we're going to get some tips and tricks
Speaker 1: and get better at it because I'm not very good, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: but you know, I dive in there anyway. I completely
Speaker 1: completely sympathize. But it's too much fun to avoid. So
Speaker 1: but but kind of that that nature and just wanting
Speaker 1: to get better. UM and I tracking prove as we're
Speaker 1: thinking about how leverage, this provided a real, a real
Speaker 1: way to track how the best players in the world
Speaker 1: as a specific game or any game that they're playing.
Speaker 1: Where are they looking? You know, gaming is so much
Speaker 1: about where you're looking, where you're paying attention, where your
Speaker 1: focus is. And eye tracking really enabled really the world.
Speaker 1: And we'll talk to some definitely about this, but enabled
Speaker 1: gamers to see where the best players in the world
Speaker 1: are looking at any point in time. So are they
Speaker 1: looking at the mini map, are they looking down the corridor,
Speaker 1: They're looking down the hallway. Um, right before you know,
Speaker 1: they fragged somebody or they get tragged or whatever it
Speaker 1: might be happening in the match. So we saw this
Speaker 1: real opportunity, this real thing that gamers are looking to do,
Speaker 1: and that's get better and this technology that really allows
Speaker 1: a new level of data capture and then you turn
Speaker 1: that into some analytics and you can actually put out, um,
Speaker 1: some pretty interesting information. So that's kind of at the
Speaker 1: very beginning conceptually, and we're just you know, sitting around
Speaker 1: with you know, our internal product group teams, are internal
Speaker 1: marketing teams talking to the sports organizations, um, and you know,
Speaker 1: our third party partners like Toby talking about whether the
Speaker 1: priorities that we have coming up. You know, this isn't
Speaker 1: just a something we spoke about six months ago. This
Speaker 1: is years in the making of understanding what gamers are
Speaker 1: looking for and working with these technology partners. So that's
Speaker 1: kind of out it all started. And UM and and
Speaker 1: and David, if you have, UM you obviously played an
Speaker 1: Intel park for us here and getting this technology rolled
Speaker 1: out with UH with with Turner and the league. So, UM,
Speaker 1: there's anything you want to add on on where this started?
Speaker 1: Police feel free? Yeah, I would you say, And it's
Speaker 1: your point. Earlier a lot of this technology and research
Speaker 1: into this technology as part of gaming, even theon gaming
Speaker 1: has been around for a couple of years now, and
Speaker 1: it hasn't really been until now, until the technology has
Speaker 1: become uh, you know, smaller and more nimble than it's
Speaker 1: you know, hitting this more consumer level focus. But I'm
Speaker 1: sure in the past they've been using eye tracking to
Speaker 1: look at how people respond to add online, you know,
Speaker 1: when they do keep mapping on websites and the where
Speaker 1: people respond UM. And it wasn't until I think a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, probably two or three years ago,
Speaker 1: that one of our partner's team, liquid UM, they had
Speaker 1: done some research of their own with I believe it
Speaker 1: was the Mayo Research Clinic over in California, UM and
Speaker 1: they had worked with ah I believe the professor there
Speaker 1: who was researching kind of eye tracking as part of
Speaker 1: video gaming, the level of cognition and just the uh
Speaker 1: you know, research level analytics between some of the oldest
Speaker 1: veteran players versus you know, young hot starts who are
Speaker 1: coming out, you know, sixteen seventeen and dominating the scene. UM,
Speaker 1: and the research that he saw on some of these
Speaker 1: teams are really startling as far as you know, veterans
Speaker 1: being able to still keep the edge ahead through their
Speaker 1: experience and just how quick their eyes are and being
Speaker 1: able to you know, cycle the between icons from you know,
Speaker 1: a hundred different characters, and they have a lot more
Speaker 1: in their memory banks and pull from and react from
Speaker 1: than a lot of younger players. UM And Again, at
Speaker 1: that time, you know that research is probably being done
Speaker 1: on a ten to twelve thousand dollar piece of equipment
Speaker 1: that was tracking your eyes and it was cumbersome, And
Speaker 1: now we're seeing it to the point where again it's
Speaker 1: able to be equipped into a laptop and it's something
Speaker 1: that you know, pretty much a lot of consumers and
Speaker 1: teams UM have at their immediate disposal. UM and what
Speaker 1: I'm bringing this back home between liquid you know, as
Speaker 1: more and more teams are growing in the space, and
Speaker 1: as more and more traditional sports teams are also getting
Speaker 1: involved in the sports, there's this growing desire to understand
Speaker 1: again the dynamics of the athleticism or the cognition and
Speaker 1: skill of a traditional athlete versus an e sports athletes.
Speaker 1: And I think we're barely scratching the surface of what
Speaker 1: that means today. Um and has more and more other
Speaker 1: technology catches up, I think we all dream of finding
Speaker 1: other big in cycled ways that E sports can provide
Speaker 1: a level of biometric data, um to allow us to
Speaker 1: appreciate you know what the best you well and also
Speaker 1: how you know, average Joe's like you and I can
Speaker 1: strive to chase after some of that greatness in certain categories. UM.
Speaker 1: So it's definitely very very exciting. That's so cool. And
Speaker 1: and and you know I, I too am chasing after
Speaker 1: that elusive chicken dinner over at pub g and it
Speaker 1: it remains just outside my grasp. So being able to
Speaker 1: see how not just not just how well someone plays,
Speaker 1: but how they go about playing that way, there is
Speaker 1: something really enticing about that. The not just you know,
Speaker 1: when we watch professional sports typically we can see great,
Speaker 1: great displays of athleticism, but you know, people are not machines.
Speaker 1: We can break things down and use slow motion and
Speaker 1: various camera angles to kind of analyze the basics. But
Speaker 1: to me, the fact that we're talking about a digital
Speaker 1: realm and then being able to track our physical motions
Speaker 1: and map that to the actions of a digital realm,
Speaker 1: it does seem like this is uh a much more
Speaker 1: conducive to breaking things down into quantifiable aspects to really
Speaker 1: talk about well, you know, this person is checking their
Speaker 1: mini map more frequently than someone who is not a
Speaker 1: professional gamer. That's a really interesting stat and could really
Speaker 1: inform people how to play the game at a slightly
Speaker 1: higher level than what they were doing before, knowing of course,
Speaker 1: that it's not a magic substitute for the hours of practice,
Speaker 1: as you know, countless hours of practice for some of
Speaker 1: these professional gamers who will sit down for eight or
Speaker 1: ten hours and play a game and that's largely how
Speaker 1: they got as good as they are. But then also
Speaker 1: a tool for them to look at afterward. Maybe they've
Speaker 1: played in a tournament, Maybe they played really well and
Speaker 1: they want to see what what they were doing and
Speaker 1: remember to really hone in on those particular types of
Speaker 1: of of strategies and future tournaments. Or they didn't do
Speaker 1: so well, and maybe they want to see what the
Speaker 1: differences between their performance and someone else's. I also like
Speaker 1: the idea of this from if we're looking beyond the sports,
Speaker 1: which we'll get back to in a second, I don't
Speaker 1: want to leave that behind, but I like this idea
Speaker 1: also from a game designer standpoint. The idea of getting
Speaker 1: more information about what your players see as important in
Speaker 1: your game means that game designers can actually use that
Speaker 1: information to make more effective games down the line um
Speaker 1: and beyond that, if you if you think about this
Speaker 1: technology reaching a point where it becomes more of a
Speaker 1: kind of a standard piece of tech that gets rolled
Speaker 1: out into laptops in the future or computers in general
Speaker 1: in the future, you could see this being incorporated into
Speaker 1: games themselves, where it's not just analysis, but it becomes
Speaker 1: an element of gameplay. Like I think of a game,
Speaker 1: perhaps like l A Noir, where part of that game
Speaker 1: involves the player watching a virtual character's reaction as you're
Speaker 1: interrogating the character, and that in turn informs you as
Speaker 1: to whether or not that character is telling the truth
Speaker 1: they're telling a lie. Will imagine eye tracking technology where
Speaker 1: the character appears to be aware of where you are looking,
Speaker 1: and then that adds a whole new game element. So
Speaker 1: to me, the eye tracking technology in the gaming world,
Speaker 1: I mean, as you say, we're at the very beginning
Speaker 1: of it. Even if you just and I don't mean
Speaker 1: to just to to make this sound less than what
Speaker 1: it is. But even if you are restricting that attention
Speaker 1: to e sports, there are so many incredible potential applications
Speaker 1: for this technology, and it's really exciting to be in
Speaker 1: these fair early days talking about where we're going right now. UM,
Speaker 1: so getting back to eat sports and getting back into
Speaker 1: that realm. Can you talk a little bit about the
Speaker 1: relationships that have formed now that you guys are really
Speaker 1: kind of getting more involved with incorporating eye tracking technology
Speaker 1: and the pro gaming realm. I want to hear more
Speaker 1: about this, uh, this this relationship and how that has
Speaker 1: developed over time. Yeah. Absolutely, you make some some great
Speaker 1: point shock and I think you know, like we as
Speaker 1: we think about where we are, we are very much
Speaker 1: um just at the beginning point of showcasing this kind
Speaker 1: of technology and I attracting technology um to the world
Speaker 1: right and I'll definitely talk jump into the partners and
Speaker 1: talk about the partners and what we've done. Um. But
Speaker 1: you you have to make some really interesting comments about
Speaker 1: where is who can get the most benefit out of
Speaker 1: uh technologies like this, like eye tracking and and that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. There's obviously some very clear benefits for
Speaker 1: professional players and for amateurs that are trying to become professional, right,
Speaker 1: just this notion of getting better learning from the pros
Speaker 1: that are out there, just like traditional sports. But one
Speaker 1: of the other parts that really intrigued us to you
Speaker 1: as we're trying to trying to roll out this kind
Speaker 1: of technology is for the partition of viewer um for
Speaker 1: the fan. One of the things that has not kind
Speaker 1: of cut up with traditional sports is the viewing experience
Speaker 1: and the commentating. A lot of the commentating in the
Speaker 1: past for the sports has been around, you know, the
Speaker 1: commentator explaining what's going on, but verbally, there really wasn't
Speaker 1: a visual visual cues of visual explanations of what's happening
Speaker 1: in the match. You know, obviously with NFL or NBA
Speaker 1: there's a lot of analytic things and things that happened
Speaker 1: through the broadcast I think of teleprompters and and things
Speaker 1: like that. Well, it really wasn't that for e sports.
Speaker 1: And so as we were introducing the technology and figuring
Speaker 1: out how can we bring this and how what should
Speaker 1: we be doing, we really wanted to make that viewing
Speaker 1: experience better for you know, the hundreds of millions of
Speaker 1: gaming fans that are watching these sports globally. And then
Speaker 1: we have to decide, you know, okay, how who can
Speaker 1: who shares our values, who can who will work with
Speaker 1: us to to bring this technology to the forefront and
Speaker 1: you know earlier this year in January, UM we announced
Speaker 1: the partnership and we've been working very closely with UM,
Speaker 1: with Turner and with Elik around all the all the
Speaker 1: tournaments that they're running. And UM actually just here in
Speaker 1: September for the first time UM partnership between US, Toby
Speaker 1: and an e League. UM we rolled out the the
Speaker 1: getting Technical segment on the E League broadcast and really
Speaker 1: being able to to showcase the fans and to the
Speaker 1: viewers this I gave technology that's being captured to the
Speaker 1: tracking software, my tracking software. So UM, from a partnership side,
Speaker 1: it has been it was it was very important to
Speaker 1: us to select partners and work with partners that shared
Speaker 1: quite honestly our vision of making this better for for
Speaker 1: the viewer because we know professionals are going to continue
Speaker 1: to innovate and get better where at the forefront working
Speaker 1: with them on separate UH separate programs. Amateurs are always
Speaker 1: going to look to get better because they want they
Speaker 1: they want so badly to become a professional. But there's
Speaker 1: a ton of people I just enjoy the sports because
Speaker 1: of what it is and how full we make it
Speaker 1: better for them. So UM, David, I'll hands over to
Speaker 1: you because you again, I would love for you to
Speaker 1: chime in and talk to uh just a relationship we
Speaker 1: have with Turner and E League and how all that
Speaker 1: came together. Yes, absolutely, I mean I feel like just
Speaker 1: boils back down to a point of trying to be
Speaker 1: a good steward as far as a leader in the
Speaker 1: industry on behalf to be e sports, and really just
Speaker 1: making it a bit easier for viewers overall to get
Speaker 1: more out of the viewing experience, whether they're season veterans
Speaker 1: who have been watching the game for a long time,
Speaker 1: or something may be new to the game as well.
Speaker 1: We've seen the studies who knew you that day. A
Speaker 1: lot of the exports viewers don't even play the games
Speaker 1: that they watched. So if we're trying to help the
Speaker 1: sports grow in the Western world, that's likely going to
Speaker 1: be introducing e sports to people who are very new
Speaker 1: to the game. Maybe your family and maybe your friends
Speaker 1: who put that um So when it came to working
Speaker 1: with Eleague, I think it was no brainer for us
Speaker 1: to start off with counter strikes. When you look at
Speaker 1: the landscape of the sports titles out there, you can
Speaker 1: look at your league legends, your Dodas and your mobiles
Speaker 1: out there, it does have a rather high learning curve
Speaker 1: for people who may not be yet familiar with the title. UM.
Speaker 1: So definitely we look at a game like counter Strike,
Speaker 1: there's really nothing to misunderstand about, you know, don't be
Speaker 1: on the wrong point and end up gun um. And
Speaker 1: so I think being able to find a game that
Speaker 1: immediately resonates it and can be digested by a larger
Speaker 1: audience helps us, uh not only again bring us to
Speaker 1: a wider audience, but then when you factor in the
Speaker 1: first person perspective and what eye tracking can really bring
Speaker 1: in from a synergy perspective there, it really made a
Speaker 1: lot of sense to find the right partner like easy
Speaker 1: to have a right tournament. Where again, counter strikes with
Speaker 1: their bread and butter for the better part of two
Speaker 1: years now um they hosted the Major in January to
Speaker 1: overwhelming excess UM and they're willing to continue to try
Speaker 1: and see how they can push the limits of counter
Speaker 1: Strike even further and further as you look towards the future.
Speaker 1: But it really boils down to what ways can we
Speaker 1: have this experience be more digestible to a huge gaming
Speaker 1: audience out there. So for eye tracking and counter strike,
Speaker 1: Where was the player looking, what were the context of
Speaker 1: you know, how they made the decision that they did, um.
Speaker 1: And we've seen a lot of excitement from it. We've
Speaker 1: seen a tremendous amount of assignment from the stands. They've
Speaker 1: been really uh receptive of the eye tracking uh clicks.
Speaker 1: They've been telling us how they want to see you know,
Speaker 1: other players, specific players get put under the microscope. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, they would love to be able to get
Speaker 1: a better clear breakdown of exactly how they pulled off
Speaker 1: the eight that they did. We're seeing a lot of
Speaker 1: really good reception from the commentators as well. So when
Speaker 1: we look at the league, uh, the you know, enders
Speaker 1: and a lot of the guys who are providing kind
Speaker 1: of the color uh you know, play by play commentary
Speaker 1: have been excited to be able to talk, you know,
Speaker 1: a little bit more about the nuances of for example,
Speaker 1: how an in game leader on the team may indext
Speaker 1: more between the mini map and looking at the economy
Speaker 1: of the team and the other four players who are
Speaker 1: more of the damage doers and the um you know,
Speaker 1: the meet and guns of the team are just more
Speaker 1: focused on plane UM. And so I think it really
Speaker 1: opens up a way to present the game again, to
Speaker 1: know why I variety of people, and it helps us
Speaker 1: as a brand find meaningful ways to continue to the
Speaker 1: game back to the community rather than you know, just
Speaker 1: business as usual logo branding and culsorship rights and things
Speaker 1: like that. Fascinating, I think. I also find it really
Speaker 1: interesting that the counter Strike is the sort of the
Speaker 1: go to game. It makes perfect sense. But I recently
Speaker 1: did a multi part series on the history of Valve,
Speaker 1: and so my listeners now know that counter Strike, that
Speaker 1: the game that originally was you know, a modification, Uh,
Speaker 1: it was a mod of Half Life that came out
Speaker 1: thousand that it's gone through a couple of different variations,
Speaker 1: the source version of it coming out a few years
Speaker 1: ago twelve, I believe it was. And to see that
Speaker 1: that game is still so so such a big part
Speaker 1: of E sports it is, which makes sense. It requires
Speaker 1: people to have very strong skill sets as well as
Speaker 1: be very good team players if you want to have
Speaker 1: a strong counter Strike team, and I can definitely see
Speaker 1: where that value comes in. I remember distinctly when I
Speaker 1: attended a c E S many years ago. Uh, one
Speaker 1: of the the companies there, one of the the computer companies.
Speaker 1: We're hosting Ubisoft's team at the time, the frag Dolls,
Speaker 1: who were professional gamers, and the frag Dolls were taking
Speaker 1: on all comers, and so people would step up the
Speaker 1: form a team of four and then three of the
Speaker 1: frag Dolls would just decimate them, and it happened over
Speaker 1: and over and over again, and it was exciting to watch.
Speaker 1: But it would have been so much more interesting to
Speaker 1: actually see how they played together as a team, beyond
Speaker 1: just knowing that they're coordinating much better, that they have
Speaker 1: a good knowledge of the maps, being able to see
Speaker 1: where they're looking and how frequently they're looking around. Do
Speaker 1: they stare at one place for any given time, where
Speaker 1: are they just constantly scanning? That sort of stuff would
Speaker 1: have been really interesting to see. So I find this
Speaker 1: really exciting. And as you point out, it also by
Speaker 1: giving more information by informing the audience, you spend less time, uh,
Speaker 1: trying to familiarize yourself with the way the game is working.
Speaker 1: It becomes much more apparent early on if you're able
Speaker 1: to see what other people are looking at, and I
Speaker 1: think it removes that barrier. Uh. I think it also
Speaker 1: really illustrates how professional gamers are are you know, just
Speaker 1: incredibly good at what they do beyond raking up high scores,
Speaker 1: Because I think still among certain populations at least, the
Speaker 1: idea of professional gaming is somewhat scoffed at. UH. Whereas
Speaker 1: you know, we accept professional sports pretty easily. That's been
Speaker 1: part of our culture for for decades, and that is
Speaker 1: pretty easy for folks to go along with. UH. I
Speaker 1: think before anyone gets a chance to really see what
Speaker 1: pro e sports is all about, they have an initial
Speaker 1: reaction of like, well, that's a game that's not a sport,
Speaker 1: and it's not until you're able to really kind of
Speaker 1: break it down in this way and say, no, take
Speaker 1: a look at this. These these are men and women
Speaker 1: who are doing things at a level far beyond what
Speaker 1: the average person is capable of doing. It is similar,
Speaker 1: if not, if not identical, to what you see in
Speaker 1: the actual physical sports realm. So I like that aspect
Speaker 1: of it as well. It gives you that extra I
Speaker 1: guess ammunition is the right way to put it when
Speaker 1: you are talking about e sports and trying to explain
Speaker 1: to someone how it really is a level of performance
Speaker 1: beyond what the average person tends to be able to
Speaker 1: do uh through this partnership. I'm sure you've you've seen
Speaker 1: some really interesting stuff. Are there any particular uh stories
Speaker 1: or particular revelations that you have encountered as a result
Speaker 1: of this eye tracking technology being part of this experience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I would definitely say the just the middle
Speaker 1: of nuanced gameplay between these counterslight players is insane. I
Speaker 1: mean we talk about, you know, these guys being able
Speaker 1: to be at the top of their games. I mean,
Speaker 1: these are the guys who absolutely can tell the difference
Speaker 1: between you know, two hundred and sixty hurts versus a
Speaker 1: hundred and forty two hurts. There's jokes out there about
Speaker 1: how the human I till and see you know thirty fps.
Speaker 1: That is completely not true at all. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: the counterstrect guys within the league, and a lot of
Speaker 1: these guys here are just very um uh, their their
Speaker 1: sensors are extreme, you know, when when you also could
Speaker 1: how some of these guys play. There's a player like
Speaker 1: j d M on Team Liquid who means back, you know,
Speaker 1: three or four feet behind his chair. The distance between
Speaker 1: his eyes to this screen is wildly different from you know,
Speaker 1: another player who maybe near seven inches away. Um, we
Speaker 1: found that could be interesting in the studio setting when
Speaker 1: it comes to calibrating the eye tracking units for the
Speaker 1: various players and making sure that the way that they
Speaker 1: compete and how they're being calibrated at the time. But
Speaker 1: I think just at a very high level, um, people,
Speaker 1: once we slow down the game and once we get
Speaker 1: to replays and all the technologies finally as caught up
Speaker 1: to be able to subtily break down the nuances of
Speaker 1: how quick they are in terms of middleseconds and hundreds
Speaker 1: of middleseconds, we're gonna quickly see just you know, the
Speaker 1: difference between the top one percent of players and investing
Speaker 1: what that there and uh not going to be very
Speaker 1: exciting to see. Yeah. And and you know something else
Speaker 1: that stood out to me here with with the initial
Speaker 1: ROD and it's kind of the first the first time
Speaker 1: the getting Technical segment started to run on the the
Speaker 1: league coverage has been the fan reaction. So you know,
Speaker 1: I mentioned, you know, part of the reason that we're
Speaker 1: doing this is we want to improve the viewership experience,
Speaker 1: you know, selfishly for us as gamers and fans, because
Speaker 1: we're watching these things ourselves and we want to be
Speaker 1: able to a better viewing experience. Like if you look
Speaker 1: at the feedback you know, just on on Facebook comments
Speaker 1: on what you see happening on Twitch on the Elite broadcast,
Speaker 1: Like the comments from fans is it's really encouraging around this.
Speaker 1: They appreciate this technology, They appreciate being able to get
Speaker 1: a better glint at how these professionals are performed in
Speaker 1: real time, something you've never seen before. So you know,
Speaker 1: as we as we roll out new new innovations and technologies,
Speaker 1: we do obviously a ton of work, and we're working
Speaker 1: and talking with our fans and our customers and just
Speaker 1: gamers overall too UM to make sure we're delivering what
Speaker 1: they want. Ultimately alien where is trying to deliver that
Speaker 1: ultimate gaming experience. We feel this place right into that.
Speaker 1: But it's always a it's always reassuring one when we
Speaker 1: go down a path and we work with partners UM
Speaker 1: and roll out new technologies and new features and so
Speaker 1: on to see that. See the fan reaction is UM
Speaker 1: is a positive is coming back positive and that to
Speaker 1: me has definitely said out of and seen anything negative
Speaker 1: around the technology. Just a lot of appreciation from from
Speaker 1: the Game of community. Well, I love that There is
Speaker 1: one thing I do want to add in the FANTE back.
Speaker 1: People have been clamoring with what a anti cheating tool
Speaker 1: that may wind up being. Um, it's curious to see
Speaker 1: because what if one day they you know, we all
Speaker 1: had monitors that always tracked our eyes and you can
Speaker 1: never disable that. UM, that would be a very interesting future.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we'll chat a bit more with
Speaker 1: Robert from Turner about how they took the challenge of
Speaker 1: taking the tech created by Toby and alien Ware and
Speaker 1: they found a way to incorporate it into e sports broadcasts.
Speaker 1: But first let's take another quick break to thank our sponsor.
Speaker 1: So that kind of leads us naturally into a discussion
Speaker 1: about the challenges of presenting e sports to an audience
Speaker 1: in a way where they can really appreciate what's going on,
Speaker 1: and that that ties into this topic of the eye
Speaker 1: tracking technology. We know that Toby Tech was the company
Speaker 1: to start working on the actual hardware and the basic software,
Speaker 1: and we had Dell and alien Ware that we're working
Speaker 1: on the various UH consumer products that incorporate that technology.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to actually implementing it in a
Speaker 1: way that makes sense both from an administrative perspective where
Speaker 1: you guys are trying to find ways of adding value
Speaker 1: to the presentation and from a consumer perspective or from
Speaker 1: an audience perspective where they can appreciate even more the
Speaker 1: capabilities of these elite players because they're getting kind of
Speaker 1: insight into what's happening. Can you talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about that implementation and what that experience was, Like? Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, um, you know what I would say is
Speaker 1: it was birthed out of actually a very casual conversation
Speaker 1: between David Chen and I David Chen from Dell and
Speaker 1: I um at our major actually and that was in January. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I had seen a demo of some behind
Speaker 1: the scenes software that a League of Legends team was
Speaker 1: using to improve their performance with eye tracking, and thought, wow,
Speaker 1: this is a really interesting, Um, how do we democratize that, Like,
Speaker 1: how do we bring that to the audience watching the
Speaker 1: game instead of making it like a back off its
Speaker 1: tool that a team is using to try and optimize
Speaker 1: its performance. And you know there are challenges for sure, Right.
Speaker 1: So in March, um I went to Austin and we
Speaker 1: we had a meeting, and in that meeting, Toby actually
Speaker 1: brought their ideas on how it could work. UM, but
Speaker 1: you know, to be candid, uh, they hadn't ever run
Speaker 1: uh competitive gaming event. And as you alluded to earlier,
Speaker 1: you know, competitive integrity is extremely important to extremely important
Speaker 1: to the players, and so we have to be very
Speaker 1: careful about what we do in the studio and how
Speaker 1: we produce things. And as a result, UM, it is
Speaker 1: certainly not as simple to do something like this eye
Speaker 1: tracking as one would think it would be. UM. So
Speaker 1: to kind of walk through the components of how it works, UM,
Speaker 1: you need a computer with an eye tracker connected to it,
Speaker 1: UM that is capturing gays in real time. Then you
Speaker 1: also need a video feed of the point of view
Speaker 1: of the player in real time. UM. And the two
Speaker 1: things like the the eye tracker needs to be synchronized
Speaker 1: for the resolution and aspect ratio that the player is
Speaker 1: running the game at. And of course then the p
Speaker 1: o V feed of the gameplay also needs to be
Speaker 1: exactly what the player is looking at, so it can't
Speaker 1: be at a different aspect ratio or resolution and have
Speaker 1: it make perfect sense. And then you need to take
Speaker 1: those two things that the video feed of the gays
Speaker 1: and the actual p o V and then use broadcast
Speaker 1: production equipment to merge those two things in real time
Speaker 1: so you're getting an accurate UM feed of the two things. Well,
Speaker 1: in order to do all of what I just mentioned,
Speaker 1: it actually requires two computers that the players not even
Speaker 1: playing on. UM. We have one machine that is the
Speaker 1: dedicated gaze tracker that's actually outputting a green screen with
Speaker 1: the gaze on it, So that computer is the tracker itself,
Speaker 1: is mounted underneath the monitor that the player is sitting
Speaker 1: in front of on stage age. And then we're using UM.
Speaker 1: This might be a little too in the weeds, but
Speaker 1: we're using UH USB Cat six extenders, so we're able
Speaker 1: to run the USB three hundred feet to a server
Speaker 1: room UM. And then the actual computer that the gaze
Speaker 1: tracking software is running on is in this server room
Speaker 1: hundreds of hundreds of feet away from the actual stage.
Speaker 1: So we can't run the gays tracking software on the
Speaker 1: computer that the players playing on because we can't do
Speaker 1: anything that that could impact competitive integrity. Then for the
Speaker 1: p o V UM, in order to get that p
Speaker 1: o V, we cannot take it from the players computer,
Speaker 1: So we don't ever take a video output from a
Speaker 1: player's computer and feed that into our broadcast infrastructure. Because
Speaker 1: the output from the video card on a player's computer
Speaker 1: needs to go directly to the monitor, there cannot be
Speaker 1: anything in that loop that introduces any latency. So and again,
Speaker 1: in order to to maintain competitive integrity, we cannot use
Speaker 1: the computer that the player is playing on to produce
Speaker 1: the p o V footage that we're using to produce
Speaker 1: this content. So instead, I have yet another computer in
Speaker 1: the same server room that is connected to a relay
Speaker 1: game server and is mimicking that player's point of view experience.
Speaker 1: So what we've done is we very carefully keep track
Speaker 1: of what aspect ratio the players running the game at
Speaker 1: on stage, we mimic those settings and all of the
Speaker 1: other settings that that players traditionally use on this secondary computer,
Speaker 1: and then we're um linking it to that player so
Speaker 1: that it shows their p o V the entire game,
Speaker 1: and then feeding that into our broadcast infrastructure, and then
Speaker 1: upstream from all of that, there is a broadcast switcher
Speaker 1: that is merging the gays output with the green removed obviously,
Speaker 1: and that p o V footage and feeding that to
Speaker 1: the control room where a producer can watch it in
Speaker 1: real time and decide is this something I want our
Speaker 1: talent to talk about or not talk about. And so
Speaker 1: we're we've now done this for three weeks of this tournament,
Speaker 1: and we're you know, to be honest with you, if
Speaker 1: you had talked to me before the tournament, UM, I my,
Speaker 1: I was very careful to say, I don't know what
Speaker 1: we're going to get. I don't know what kind of
Speaker 1: insights we're going to get. I don't know if this
Speaker 1: is really going to be like super interesting content or
Speaker 1: just interesting content. Is it going to reveal things or
Speaker 1: not reveal things? Um? All I knew was that we
Speaker 1: had a proof of concept that we could capture this
Speaker 1: and then we were going to see what we could
Speaker 1: do with it. But I think we're really really pleased
Speaker 1: with how the content has come come together and the
Speaker 1: fans are just blown away. UM. I think you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's a statement about what Turner Sports brings to
Speaker 1: the E sports space, where we're trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: constantly be additive and constantly be innovative, but not doing
Speaker 1: innovation and additive things for the sake of doing them,
Speaker 1: doing them to enhance the fan engagement and the fan
Speaker 1: viewing experience. UM. And with this, you know, what I
Speaker 1: would say is there is no nothing analogous to this
Speaker 1: in traditional sports. You can see where a player runs,
Speaker 1: you can see them kick the ball, but you have
Speaker 1: no idea about like what they're looking at in real time,
Speaker 1: or what their intents are or what they even consider. Right,
Speaker 1: you don't really have any raw data about their thought
Speaker 1: process in traditional sports except what they tell you, right.
Speaker 1: But with this, this data, that this content, it reveals
Speaker 1: thought process in a way that nothing else in sports
Speaker 1: or e sports does. At this point, you see them look,
Speaker 1: you know, do their mental check? What's my health? How
Speaker 1: much ambo do I have? You know, where where the
Speaker 1: rest of my team on the map? Like you see
Speaker 1: that in real time in the content. We're not we
Speaker 1: haven't gotten to the point where we can really do
Speaker 1: this real time in a play are yet, although I
Speaker 1: want to do that at some point. Um. And I'm
Speaker 1: so excited because it's it is really like this super
Speaker 1: interesting combination of biometric technology that is not very invasive
Speaker 1: and um, this sport that is like sort of made
Speaker 1: out of data, And it would be almost impossible to
Speaker 1: do this for traditional sports, Like you know, I I am,
Speaker 1: I'm very fortunate in that I'm on. I'm a part
Speaker 1: of the team that also does the production for our
Speaker 1: NBA games, also does the production for our MLB games,
Speaker 1: and so I get to hear some of the behind
Speaker 1: the scenes stuff that is considered and talked about. And
Speaker 1: we certainly don't treat E sports any differently than we
Speaker 1: do those other things from a thought process perspective. But
Speaker 1: you know, as I'm sitting in the meetings in the
Speaker 1: last couple of weeks and we're talking about MLB, like,
Speaker 1: I'm actually thinking, Wow, wouldn't it be cool to see
Speaker 1: like Ace trace as a batter's in the batter's box
Speaker 1: and the pitches coming in. But like, there is no
Speaker 1: way to do that but be super cool. So so
Speaker 1: this is like that though, this is a step in
Speaker 1: that direction, right, Um, So I mean for me, like,
Speaker 1: I think it's super exciting and I would love to
Speaker 1: see this sort of like intent based data capture. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, what did he really look at? What did
Speaker 1: he consider? I would love to see that in baseball
Speaker 1: or football or basketball. How cool would it be to
Speaker 1: see the quarterbacks checkdowns in real time? In football? You know? Um,
Speaker 1: what did he consider before he threw the ball over
Speaker 1: there and what did he see before he threw that ball? Like,
Speaker 1: there's there's just not anything like this. So so to
Speaker 1: tack back the esports though, um, and the content that
Speaker 1: we've captured so far, you know, I think it's some
Speaker 1: of it is has revealed Oh that guy does exactly
Speaker 1: what we expected. And then in other cases it's like, wow,
Speaker 1: he spends a lot more time checking the more basic
Speaker 1: things than you would expect. And I think you know,
Speaker 1: with players, other players, like you know, regular stream of consciousness,
Speaker 1: like every day counter strike players, Um, this is an
Speaker 1: opportunity for them to kind of learn, oh wow, when
Speaker 1: I go around that corner, I don't look at that box,
Speaker 1: I start over there and sort of optimize their game too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I also I also like how you know, you you
Speaker 1: had this incredible challenge of being able to like all
Speaker 1: the pieces were there, but in order for them to
Speaker 1: actually work, you had to go to these enormous considerations
Speaker 1: so that you did not affect the performance of any
Speaker 1: players machine because clearly, uh, it would be the same
Speaker 1: as if you were to uh to mess with uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a professional athlete in a traditional sport, if
Speaker 1: they were to mess with their equipment, it would be
Speaker 1: almost like sabotage. So you're you know, you're talking about
Speaker 1: like the not wanting to put any kind of load
Speaker 1: on a graphics processing unit that is meant to run
Speaker 1: the game on the player's machine. I would say that
Speaker 1: that's sort of analogous to what you were saying with
Speaker 1: professional sports in the in the physical realm, the idea
Speaker 1: that we can't really do that eye tracking technique with
Speaker 1: traditional sports largely because it would require us to outfit
Speaker 1: professional players with additional equipment that would then in turn
Speaker 1: affect their performance. Thus you end up you end up
Speaker 1: with the classic quantum physics issue of anything you observe
Speaker 1: you are affecting, right, So so it's it's interesting that
Speaker 1: you know, you had to find that work around in
Speaker 1: the professional sports arena for for pro video gamers. And
Speaker 1: I think once you do consider that in the realm
Speaker 1: of the the physical sports as well, even if you're
Speaker 1: not familiar with professional video game sports or e leagues
Speaker 1: or anything of those that nature, you start to say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: now I'm getting it. Now I'm getting it. I see.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, if if I walked up and
Speaker 1: I realized that the bat that I want to use
Speaker 1: is nowhere to be found, and I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: use a different bat, and it's one that's of a
Speaker 1: slightly different weight, and I'm not it's enough when you're
Speaker 1: talking about at that elite level of performance that it
Speaker 1: makes a measurable difference. So Uh, I'm glad that we
Speaker 1: were able to have this conversation and and kind of
Speaker 1: get that perspective, because I think it does. It's very
Speaker 1: enlightening to people who are unfamiliar with the subject. Uh.
Speaker 1: Is there anything that you have witnessed in your time
Speaker 1: with the E League that stands out as one of
Speaker 1: those really special moments, Whether it was in a tournament
Speaker 1: or maybe it was maybe it was when you were
Speaker 1: when you saw this this eye tracking technology all kind
Speaker 1: of come together, but anything that kind of is particularly
Speaker 1: special in your mind. I mean from my personal experience
Speaker 1: to kind of attack back to personal there's kind of
Speaker 1: three moments for me, um to to take a question
Speaker 1: that asks for one and to answer with three. Um.
Speaker 1: You know. The first was the finals of our first
Speaker 1: tournament we were we released game Command, which I have
Speaker 1: not mentioned, but it's a mosaic player, so like a
Speaker 1: user directed experience where UH end users can choose to
Speaker 1: watch any of the ten players who are playing in
Speaker 1: real time, or actually watch all ten. Um. Releasing that
Speaker 1: out into the wild and seeing the fan feedback on it,
Speaker 1: because there was literally nothing like it in the in
Speaker 1: the world at that point. Um, and they're there actually
Speaker 1: still isn't like there's still nothing where you can watch
Speaker 1: all ten players at the same time, um in one UI.
Speaker 1: But UM, that was the first, you know. The second
Speaker 1: was I've talked about the Major in January a few
Speaker 1: times already, but there was a moment during the finals
Speaker 1: where we crested a million concurrent viewers on Twitch, not
Speaker 1: just breaking the all time Twitch record, but shattering it
Speaker 1: by almost three hundred thousand viewers, and you know, setting
Speaker 1: the sort of bar for competitive e sports as far
Speaker 1: as viewership counts go. And then the third, honestly is
Speaker 1: this eye tracker stuff. Um, it's always interesting to start
Speaker 1: with the theory in I mean, I guess in March
Speaker 1: we started with a theory and go to proof of
Speaker 1: concept in June and then be sitting at a desk
Speaker 1: with white knuckles in September hoping that that vision and
Speaker 1: all of the workarounds and hard work come together and
Speaker 1: then to see the fans react so positively. I mean, really,
Speaker 1: that's what it's about, right, It's not about me or
Speaker 1: building a cool thing, as much as I love building
Speaker 1: cool things and that's kind of what I've made my
Speaker 1: living doing. Um. You know what's important is that other
Speaker 1: people are getting some value out of that, and no
Speaker 1: other people are more important than the like fans uh
Speaker 1: in the scene. So um to see that, and then
Speaker 1: to see what they do with it, right like they've
Speaker 1: they've taken it and turned it into memes and jokes
Speaker 1: and everything like, to me, that means it's been accepted,
Speaker 1: right like at the highest level. When they start making
Speaker 1: Reddit threads about joking about past tournaments with eye tracking
Speaker 1: turned on, then to me, that means we've we've done
Speaker 1: something new. Like those three moments for me are the
Speaker 1: are the three most special among many many special moments
Speaker 1: that the last three years. Those are those are great stories.
Speaker 1: And I love that this trend has been picking up
Speaker 1: steam for the last not to use a valve joke,
Speaker 1: but has been picking up steam for the past few
Speaker 1: years and seeing not just the the professional video game
Speaker 1: sports industry really coming into its own in the United States,
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously it's been a big deal in other
Speaker 1: places as well. It started really in the US, but
Speaker 1: I would say that it kind of blossomed in South
Speaker 1: Korea and then as now finding more acceptance in the
Speaker 1: United States, which which is great, but we're also seeing
Speaker 1: uh people turning into kind of an entertainment figure through
Speaker 1: their video game playing and reaching audiences that way. Clearly
Speaker 1: there is a a uh interested invested audience they get.
Speaker 1: They get really attached to certain players and certain titles. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's exciting, and I'm glad that we're kind of like
Speaker 1: right at the point where I think it's going to explode,
Speaker 1: like it's already. I guess you could argue hitting a
Speaker 1: million concurrent Twitch viewers all at once that's kind of
Speaker 1: an explosion all in of itself. But seeing this, this
Speaker 1: this cusp of acceptance is really exciting to me because
Speaker 1: I've been following professional gaming for a while in its
Speaker 1: various formats, whether it was through UH league, you know,
Speaker 1: tournament league play, or whether it was a group of
Speaker 1: sponsored players who were there to help represent a particular
Speaker 1: game developer, anything like that. I've been following that stuff
Speaker 1: for years and seeing it now get to a point
Speaker 1: where there's there's a real awareness and celebration of it
Speaker 1: is exciting to me. I love games. I love playing games.
Speaker 1: I am awful at them, but I still enjoy it. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we were talking before we started recording about the games
Speaker 1: that we would stream, and I believe you mentioned a
Speaker 1: very popular M m O RPG that you occasionally would play. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not afraid to break out World of Warcraft on occasion.
Speaker 1: That's fair among other games. Yeah, I I might go
Speaker 1: to so I I used to. Uh, so people can
Speaker 1: know interest of full disclosure. I the game I'm most
Speaker 1: known for streaming, because I don't do it very frequently
Speaker 1: is Minecraft, because I would hold a a marathon session
Speaker 1: of Minecraft as part of a charity event every year,
Speaker 1: and I would play twenty four hours straight of Minecraft,
Speaker 1: and then for whatever when people would make donations, at
Speaker 1: whatever level they would donate, I would build a monument
Speaker 1: in Minecraft out of materials that were, uh, comparatively difficult
Speaker 1: to find. So the more you donated, the more rare
Speaker 1: the material had to be in order for me to
Speaker 1: make a monument significant for that donation. And I it
Speaker 1: was not creative mode, it was you know, regular her mode,
Speaker 1: turned on all the enemies everything, and um, let me
Speaker 1: tell you somewhere around our number sixteen, things get special.
Speaker 1: But uh, but yeah, I I have a love of
Speaker 1: this as well, so I cannot wait to check out
Speaker 1: the the elague play. I cannot wait. I plan to
Speaker 1: actually be at the finals, so I cannot wait to
Speaker 1: see that in person. And uh, where can people go
Speaker 1: to experience this? I mean, Elite dot com is is
Speaker 1: the one stop shop for everything you'd want when we're live.
Speaker 1: That will point you to all the different viewing experiences
Speaker 1: that we have and it'll give you schedule information anything
Speaker 1: else you would want. Excellent, Robert, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for your time. I really appreciate it, and I hope
Speaker 1: but we get a chance to talk again in the future. Awesome.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate the conversation.
Speaker 1: Clearly there's a healthy audience out there for professional gaming,
Speaker 1: from entertainment personalities to tournament players, and it be really
Speaker 1: interesting to see how the industry evolves from here. Could
Speaker 1: we one day see video games take a place with
Speaker 1: traditional sports and something as celebrated as the Olympics, or
Speaker 1: will there always be at least some level of stigma
Speaker 1: in place that will prevent that from ever happening, and
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter as long as people are having a
Speaker 1: good time playing or watching games. I can say this.
Speaker 1: I am in my early forties and I watch a
Speaker 1: lot of let's play style videos and live streams. I
Speaker 1: enjoy watching people play games. I'm dazzled by the skills
Speaker 1: of pro level gamers, and I find myself thoroughly entertained
Speaker 1: by certain personalities when they interact with each other while
Speaker 1: playing together. Cough achievement hunter cough. I think there's plenty
Speaker 1: of room for growth in that realm of entertainment, even
Speaker 1: if it never truly reaches the level of acceptance of
Speaker 1: traditional sports. But I'm curious what you guys think. Are
Speaker 1: you a fan of watching other people play games? Do
Speaker 1: you just find that completely incomprehensible. If you do find
Speaker 1: it incomprehensible, do you watch sports, and where do you
Speaker 1: think the gap is in between them. I'm really curious
Speaker 1: to hear more about this. I kind of wanted to
Speaker 1: be a conversation and maybe in a few episodes, maybe
Speaker 1: a month or two down the line, I'll revisit this
Speaker 1: and talk about some of the listener feedback. I got
Speaker 1: so I really want you guys to respond. If you
Speaker 1: want to reach out to me, you can always email me.
Speaker 1: The address for this show is tech Stuff at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. You can drop me a line
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Speaker 1: is tech Stuff hs W. Remember every Wednesday and Friday,
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Speaker 1: for me. I'll talk to you guys again really soon
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Because
Speaker 1: a housetop works dot com, which