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Speaker 1: Hey there, it's Jonathan Strickland, and I'm here to introduce

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Speaker 1: a playlist of ten episodes of my podcast tech Stuff

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Speaker 1: that are all about entertainment and entertainment related fields, from

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Speaker 1: video games to television series, two films to internet videos

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Speaker 1: from yesteryear. So I hope you guys enjoy these episodes.

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Speaker 1: You can go to the tech Stuff podcast page and

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Speaker 1: subscribe to listen to all sorts of episodes about tech

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Speaker 1: from all realms, and hopefully this will provide a little

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Speaker 1: bit of entertainment, a little bit of education, and probably

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Speaker 1: more than a few puns, because that's kind of how

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Speaker 1: I roll. Enjoy this playlist. Welcome to tex Stuff, a

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Speaker 1: production from my Heart Radio. Hey there, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive

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Speaker 1: producer with iHeart Radio and a love of all things tech,

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Speaker 1: and we are now going to view the history of

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Speaker 1: e sports in this classic episode. I hope you guys

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Speaker 1: enjoy it. E sports is something that has definitely gained

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Speaker 1: a lot of popularity and a small amount of respect

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Speaker 1: among uh outer circles. I think we're still got a

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Speaker 1: long way to go before people accept e sports as

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Speaker 1: being as valid as any other sport, but certainly the

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Speaker 1: fans treat it like, you know, like it's it's it's

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Speaker 1: a big, big deal. So let's take a listen. Today

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Speaker 1: we're gonna talk specifically about the realm of professional gaming

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Speaker 1: and professional gaming leagues, as well as how I tracking

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Speaker 1: technology is integrated into that world these days. So think

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Speaker 1: of this as the conclusion of that that loosely serialized

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Speaker 1: series of episodes. And then after this one, our next

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Speaker 1: episode will probably be about something completely unrelated. So if

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Speaker 1: you are uh satisfied, satiated, let us say, with video

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Speaker 1: game content, fear not, we will cover something different in

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Speaker 1: our next episode. If you love video game content, fear not.

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Speaker 1: Eventually I'll get back to it. It'll happen because it

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Speaker 1: plays a big role in tech. Now let's talk about

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Speaker 1: e sports. I've covered related topics, including some way back

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Speaker 1: in the old days of tech stuff, when Chris Palette

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Speaker 1: and I used to shout our podcast from the top

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Speaker 1: of a building in Buckhead in Atlanta, and the only

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Speaker 1: way you could hear it was if you were in

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Speaker 1: the general neighborhood. There is a classic episode titled Can

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Speaker 1: You Make a Living Playing Games? And that original episode

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Speaker 1: came out on July two thousand eleven. Holy cow, guys,

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Speaker 1: I've been doing this show a long time. The answer,

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Speaker 1: by the way, is yes, you can make money playing

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Speaker 1: video games if you're good enough. We're gonna talk a

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Speaker 1: bit today about the industry around competitive professional video game players,

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Speaker 1: better known as e sports. I'll have a chance to

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Speaker 1: chat with Robert o'caleny, VP of E sports products over

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Speaker 1: at Turner Sports, and later on I'll also chat with

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Speaker 1: Brian Desaias and David Chen of alien Ware to talk

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Speaker 1: about the use of eye tracking tech and E sports

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Speaker 1: and how it can enhance the experience. We've got a

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Speaker 1: lot of wonderful folks who gave over their time and

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Speaker 1: their expertise to help make this episode happen. So big.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to all of them, and I can't wait for

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Speaker 1: you guys to hear what they have to say, because

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Speaker 1: they're really fascinating people. But before we dive into that,

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Speaker 1: it's always fun, at least for me anyway, to talk

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Speaker 1: about the history of whatever the subject is at hand.

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Speaker 1: So how old do you think E sports to be.

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Speaker 1: Do you think it rose up in the nineties, like

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Speaker 1: maybe the late nineties over in South Korea, or maybe

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Speaker 1: you would go back to like the nineteen eighties, when

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Speaker 1: people like Billy Mitchell established world up record high scores

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Speaker 1: and arcade games like pac Man. Well, depending upon your

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Speaker 1: definition of e sports, the real birth of the industry

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Speaker 1: dates back to nineteen seventy two. That's when students at

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Speaker 1: Stanford University pitted their lead gaming skills and a tournament

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Speaker 1: of Space War. Now Steve Russell had led a small

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Speaker 1: group of designers way back in nineteen sixty two to

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Speaker 1: create Space War, which was one of the first examples

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Speaker 1: of a computer game to use a dynamic display. Now,

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Speaker 1: ever since we've had computers, people have been trying to

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Speaker 1: figure out ways to make those computers do stuff that

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Speaker 1: they weren't intended to do, like play games. The original

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Speaker 1: computers weren't meant to do that. But you get enough

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Speaker 1: people who are mathematically gifted together and they start thinking

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Speaker 1: about the potential for math to do practically anything. Eventually

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Speaker 1: they're gonna start creating programs that play games, including things

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Speaker 1: like Tic Tac Toe. But it wasn't until the nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixties that people were looking at the potential of creating

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Speaker 1: displays for computers. Otherwise you were getting readouts that were

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Speaker 1: either on paper or sometimes just a bank of lights

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Speaker 1: would light up a specific way, and that's how you

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Speaker 1: knew what the output was of whatever your input was.

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Speaker 1: So Space War was one of these early, early, early

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Speaker 1: examples of a game that uses such a dynamic display.

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Speaker 1: Players would control one of two spaceships. There was one

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Speaker 1: called the needle and one called the wedge, and they

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Speaker 1: were called that because obviously of their their shapes, and

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Speaker 1: these spaceships could fly around in a two dimensional plane,

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Speaker 1: so you can fly along that x, y axis, but

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Speaker 1: not the z There was no third dimension to this,

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Speaker 1: and it looked like a little space field and you

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Speaker 1: were technically you are flying around the gravity well of

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Speaker 1: a star so there was this gravitational effect that came

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Speaker 1: into play with the game, and your whole goal was

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Speaker 1: to destroy the other starship. So it was a player

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Speaker 1: versus player game that came out in nineteen sixty two,

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Speaker 1: and by came out, I mean it was developed for

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Speaker 1: a what at that time amounted to a supercomputer, and

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Speaker 1: if you also happen to have a supercomputer and you

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Speaker 1: could get a copy of the code, you could install

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Speaker 1: and play that game yourself, not even installed, run the game,

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Speaker 1: it's not really even installation because we're not talking about

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Speaker 1: a hard disk at this point. By nineteen seventy two,

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Speaker 1: several engineering and computer science schools had a version of

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Speaker 1: this game, and then the tournament was born. The grand

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Speaker 1: prize for this tournament back in nineteen seventy two was

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Speaker 1: a whole year's subscription to Rolling Stone magazine. The tournament

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Speaker 1: itself took place in the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab, so

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Speaker 1: one of the most important events to ever take place

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Speaker 1: in that ail in the history of mankind as far

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Speaker 1: as I'm concerned. Stewart Brand, who at the time was

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Speaker 1: a writer and editor for Rolling Stone, was the organizer

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Speaker 1: for this event. His peace and Rolling Stone equated the

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Speaker 1: players with athletes in traditional sports, so from the very

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Speaker 1: beginning there were parallels. Though at the time the treatment

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Speaker 1: might have been a touch tongue in cheek, maybe a

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Speaker 1: little playful satirical, but the version that the students were

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Speaker 1: playing of Space War was slightly altered from the one

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Speaker 1: that debuted back in nineteen sixty two. There was a

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Speaker 1: programmer named Ralph Goren who added in a couple of

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Speaker 1: elements to the game to make it more competitive and interesting.

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Speaker 1: He added in the capacity for ships to suffer partial

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Speaker 1: damage before being destroyed, so you can take more than

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Speaker 1: one hit. And he also threw in some space minds,

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Speaker 1: so some obstacles that you could deploy within the game

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Speaker 1: field and maybe your opponent would fly into them and

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Speaker 1: destroy himself, and that would just make the game more

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Speaker 1: interesting to play and watch. By the way, Ralph Gordon

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Speaker 1: would later go on to create the world's first spell checker.

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Speaker 1: So when you hear about some of these people who

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Speaker 1: were involved in this tournament, a lot of them went

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Speaker 1: on to do some very important things in the realm

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Speaker 1: of technology and computer science. Now, the winner of that

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Speaker 1: first tournament was a guy named Bruce baum Guard, and

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Speaker 1: baum Guard would go on to work at the Internet Archive,

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Speaker 1: and later on he would become the head of operations

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Speaker 1: at Cool c U I L. And you may owe

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Speaker 1: my drugs not remember what Cool is? Things changing so

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Speaker 1: scory nowadays and people quick to forget it. Cool was

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Speaker 1: one of those companies that when it launched, got a

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Speaker 1: lot of people poking fun at it for its name,

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Speaker 1: that c U I L being spelled cool. It was

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Speaker 1: a short lived search engine. It did not last very long.

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Speaker 1: It had really long entries, so when you did a search,

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Speaker 1: you would get the results with very long descriptors of

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Speaker 1: what those search results were, plus a thumbnail that would

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Speaker 1: appear next to every search result. But it just didn't

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Speaker 1: catch on. It ended up shutting down in September. But

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Speaker 1: while cool would come and go, video game tournaments were

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Speaker 1: really here to stay, and whether they were informal or

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Speaker 1: they were big twodus, they continued largely beneath the notice

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Speaker 1: of the general public. The introduction of the personal computer

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Speaker 1: and various gaming systems in the nineteen eighties helped a

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Speaker 1: little bits, as as did the rise of the arcade,

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Speaker 1: but by and large video game competitions remain confined to

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Speaker 1: a niche audience. In the late ninet nineties, gaming had

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Speaker 1: reached a new level, largely because personal computers were much

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Speaker 1: more common, and this would be the early days of

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Speaker 1: the high powered graphics processing units or GPUs, those dedicated

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Speaker 1: graphics cards, which were the devices that were actually giving

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Speaker 1: computers the horsepower needed to run games that had three

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Speaker 1: dimensional graphics, so stuff like Quake, and in fact, one

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Speaker 1: of the earliest tournaments of this time was a Quake competition.

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Speaker 1: It was held in nineteen and the organization holding It

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Speaker 1: was read Annihilation. It drew two thousand participants, and the

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Speaker 1: prize was a doozy. If you won, you got to

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Speaker 1: go home with a Ferrari that once belonged to John Carmack.

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Speaker 1: He was one of the lead developers of Quake. On

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Speaker 1: June seven, Angel Manuals founded the cyber Athlete Professional League

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Speaker 1: or the CPL. This was a group that organized various

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Speaker 1: tournaments and pioneered the field of e sports professional tournaments.

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Speaker 1: It operated out of the United States until two thousand eight,

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Speaker 1: when the company nearly dissolved due to an overcrowded scene,

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Speaker 1: got acquired and then sort of relaunched in China. But

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Speaker 1: in just a decade we saw that the environment had

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Speaker 1: changed from a curiosity into a pretty big industry. This

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Speaker 1: cyber Athlete Professional League went from being the only game

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Speaker 1: in town pun intended to being a a fish in

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Speaker 1: a very large pond that was growing completely beyond what

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Speaker 1: it originally was. Now. Early on, the emphasis in these

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Speaker 1: tournaments was on first person shooter games games like Quake.

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Speaker 1: Then sports titles also became popular in tournament play. Then

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Speaker 1: you might get things like fighting games. They've popped up

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Speaker 1: a little bit later and then real time strategy genre

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Speaker 1: games joined the ranks, and that's when the game StarCraft

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Speaker 1: brood War rose to prominence in the tournament scene. While

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Speaker 1: tournaments were still largely a niche interest in the United

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Speaker 1: States and other parts of the world, they had become

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Speaker 1: incredibly popular, and one of those regions was South Korea.

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Speaker 1: South Korea has two big game channels, on game Net

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Speaker 1: and NBC Game, both of which created leagues of professional

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Speaker 1: StarCraft players who would compete against each other for prizes.

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Speaker 1: The kind tree takes professional gaming extremely seriously. In fact,

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Speaker 1: when a scandal broke out in that some StarCraft players

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Speaker 1: were purposefully throwing games as part of a gambling scheme,

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Speaker 1: the government levied harsh punishments against the accused players, all

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Speaker 1: of whom were banned for life from professional StarCraft competition.

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Speaker 1: In two thousand, the World Cyber Games and Electronics Sports

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Speaker 1: World Cup both launched, and they gave professional gaming a

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Speaker 1: bigger spotlight. Two years later, the Major League Gaming Professional

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Speaker 1: Game League launched, and since then professional video game leagues

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Speaker 1: have been picking up speed. We've also seen other types

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Speaker 1: of games into this realm, including MOBA's things like Dota

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Speaker 1: Too and Smite, and League of Legends. Those have become

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Speaker 1: enormously popular in the professional gaming league scene. In recent years,

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Speaker 1: we've also seen a big push coming from major broadcasters

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Speaker 1: to elevate professional video game tournaments. I had a chance

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Speaker 1: to speak with Robert Ocellini, who overseas e League at

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Speaker 1: Turner to talk about it now. Robert, thank you so

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Speaker 1: much for joining us on text stuff. I want to

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Speaker 1: kind of get an idea about how eligue came about

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Speaker 1: and uh, and and sort of get an idea of

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Speaker 1: how it's evolved and and what you have seen so

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Speaker 1: far in that space. Because while the sports I think, uh,

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Speaker 1: it's something that more and more people are are aware of,

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Speaker 1: it's still sort of an emerging kind of form of

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Speaker 1: entertainment for a large part of the mainstream audience. I

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Speaker 1: think that's changing, especially among younger demographics. I think they're

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Speaker 1: far more aware, especially now that we're seeing video games

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Speaker 1: being used as a form just the playing of video

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Speaker 1: games being used as a form of entertainment throughout lots

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Speaker 1: of different platforms. But tell me specifically about eligue, sure, so, Uh.

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Speaker 1: Eleague was first announced about two years ago. Um, it

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Speaker 1: actually wasn't called elague at the time. We didn't have

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Speaker 1: a name it UM, but we were working on it,

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Speaker 1: I would say for probably six months or so before

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Speaker 1: that September two thousand fifteen announcement UM. And really it

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Speaker 1: came from the sort of interest came from the very

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Speaker 1: senior levels of Turner. So Kevin Reiley, who is the

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Speaker 1: head of TBS and tn T, came to the company

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Speaker 1: with a lot of contacts and gaming UM and you

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Speaker 1: know he's in l A and E sports has really

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Speaker 1: taken off in Los Angeles, and so he came in

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Speaker 1: with a lot of interest in the sports. And then

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Speaker 1: from the Turner Sports side, you know, Lenny Daniels and

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Speaker 1: David Levy UM had had a lot of interest in

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Speaker 1: the space. They saw, you know, they kept hearing that

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Speaker 1: this space was developing. They kind of saw what was happening.

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Speaker 1: And actually at first UM at of time, I was

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Speaker 1: working on the NBA's digital products here. I did seven

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Speaker 1: seasons working on the NBA mobile apps and over the

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Speaker 1: top apps and NBA League pass UM and for a

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Speaker 1: little while as a part time job, I was actually

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Speaker 1: going to meetings and working on this, and you know,

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Speaker 1: sort of my background is more in digital product, but

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Speaker 1: I'm a lifelong gamer and very interested in competitive gaming

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Speaker 1: and was actually the GM of competitive World of Warcraft guild.

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Speaker 1: Um So I kind of had my own long history

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Speaker 1: with with gaming and e sports on the fan side

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Speaker 1: and on the playing side. UM so I kind of

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Speaker 1: was able to bring that to the table. UM as

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Speaker 1: we looked into this, and then I think probably around

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Speaker 1: uh beginning of July July, we sort of decided what

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Speaker 1: direction we're going to go in, and at that time

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Speaker 1: they decided that if I wanted to work on this

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Speaker 1: full time, they give me that opportunity. And I really

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Speaker 1: haven't looked back, um, nor have nor has the company.

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Speaker 1: Um uh. So, you know, we we did this deal

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Speaker 1: with i MG Iligue as a joint venture with w

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Speaker 1: M E i MG, and we started meeting with teams.

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Speaker 1: We actually had a big team summit in September because

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Speaker 1: we were really the first big media brand to enter

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Speaker 1: into this e sports space and we wanted to make

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Speaker 1: sure that we were entering it with reverence, um with

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Speaker 1: you know, an eye towards authenticity. And then of course,

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Speaker 1: you know, we'd already decided at that point that we're

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Speaker 1: going to work with counter Strike um that we were

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Speaker 1: talking to and getting feedback from the counter Strike community. UM.

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Speaker 1: About two months later we came up with a name

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Speaker 1: and logo and all of that stuff and launched our website.

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Speaker 1: And then in January of two thousand sixteen, we did

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Speaker 1: our very first tournament UM the Road to Vegas, and

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Speaker 1: that was essentially sort of an open qualifier for one

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Speaker 1: of the scots in our inaugural season. Later in UM,

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Speaker 1: we really started the league and league play in earnest

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Speaker 1: in May of sixteen UM with our first counter Strike season.

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Speaker 1: We followed that up later in sixteen we had the

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Speaker 1: opportunity to do the Overwatch Open. We were like the

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Speaker 1: first big Overwatch tournament UM, and then we did a

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Speaker 1: second season of counter Strike. Around that time frame, we

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Speaker 1: were also awarded the first counter Strike Major of SEEN

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Speaker 1: UM and we did that in January. And then in

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Speaker 1: in SEEN we've we've branched out a little bit and

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Speaker 1: have done some stuff with street Fighter. We did a

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Speaker 1: series a docuseries around UH the International, which is the

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Speaker 1: big DODA World Championship. And then finally right now we're

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Speaker 1: running are what is essentially our third Counterstrike season of

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Speaker 1: the Premier UM and you know that's where Group D

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Speaker 1: starts tonight, uh, and then the finals the week of

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Speaker 1: October ten. So you know, it's been, uh, it's been

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Speaker 1: kind of a wild ride. We went from from you

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Speaker 1: know nothing and no organization to a thriving business with

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Speaker 1: a lot of employees and uh, you know, have done

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Speaker 1: a lot of tournaments at this point. Um, I think

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Speaker 1: you know, the only other thing I'll add that I

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Speaker 1: shouldn't have bloss over is the amazing studio that we

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Speaker 1: built downstairs that's built for sports, whether that game is

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Speaker 1: one v one or six P six. We have built

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Speaker 1: the studio in a way that, um, it can it

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Speaker 1: can easily support any game that we want to do.

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Speaker 1: And then of course we've got all of the you

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Speaker 1: know other stuff you would want, practice space for the players,

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Speaker 1: a player lounge, first class green room for our talent um,

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Speaker 1: and then all the tech that you would need to

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Speaker 1: to support doing something like a counter strike tournament, which

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Speaker 1: is a pretty big undertaking right where every tiny little

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Speaker 1: technical detail can end up uh having an influence on

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Speaker 1: actual gameplay. It is really important as well pointing out

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Speaker 1: to my listeners here that by going this route, by

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Speaker 1: having the tournament where you've got the system set up

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Speaker 1: where you know, you're going to have a really good

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Speaker 1: approach to running these games. It also means everyone's on

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Speaker 1: equal footing. It doesn't mean that, you know, you're not

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Speaker 1: worried about one who's souped up their game engine so

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Speaker 1: or their game system so much that they're going to

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Speaker 1: have an unfair advantage over anyone else. It really does

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Speaker 1: bring it down to skill and in the case of

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Speaker 1: games like Counterstrike, really good team communication and team uh cooperation.

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Speaker 1: I'm really fascinated by this, And since you've had experience

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Speaker 1: working in a realm that was UH that was focused

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Speaker 1: on traditional sports, something that I think a lot of

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Speaker 1: people can can kind of get their mind around for

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Speaker 1: For people who haven't made that that step from the

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Speaker 1: idea of well, a professional sport where you're playing physically

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Speaker 1: in a on a cord or on a field or

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Speaker 1: whatever it may be. That's one thing. But professional video

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Speaker 1: game playing, how is that something that you How can

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Speaker 1: you consider that person an athlete? Well, you've seen both worlds.

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Speaker 1: What's your kind of response to that sort of uh,

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Speaker 1: like think we wants asking questions or if they're just

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Speaker 1: expressing skepticism that someone could be an athlete playing video

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Speaker 1: games by the way, I'm totally on the board of

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Speaker 1: professional video games players are on a level that is far, far,

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Speaker 1: far beyond the capabilities of the average person. Sure, I mean, listen,

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Speaker 1: I think that that skepticism is a natural a natural thing, right,

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Speaker 1: Like I think with with physical sports, it's very easy

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Speaker 1: to tell that I cannot jump as high off the

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Speaker 1: ground as Lebron James, right. Um, But me sitting in

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Speaker 1: front of a computer, it doesn't look optically any different

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Speaker 1: than ol of Meister or Faker or any of these

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Speaker 1: sort of top tier esports players. But I will tell

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Speaker 1: you that, Um, from a talent perspective, from a commitment perspective,

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Speaker 1: these gentlemen are no and women are no different than

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Speaker 1: professional athletes and traditional stick and ball sports. They are

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Speaker 1: a cut above and you know, you if you were

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Speaker 1: to put an average or even above average sort of

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Speaker 1: casual video game athlete up against these guys, they would

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Speaker 1: just get completely and utterly wrecked. You know. I think

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Speaker 1: that one of the interesting things that we've done here

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Speaker 1: at Turner this year is we had an employee tournament

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Speaker 1: for street Fighters. So we did we did this uh

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Speaker 1: six week street Fighter season where we had the best

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Speaker 1: street fighter players in the world come to our campus

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Speaker 1: and play, and then UM, a couple of weeks after

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Speaker 1: that tournament was over, we had an internal tournament that

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Speaker 1: culminated with the finals that was played in the very

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Speaker 1: same studio where our street Fighter tournament was hosted. UM.

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Speaker 1: And you know, shirt Off Turners a pretty big company.

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Speaker 1: They're some really good street Fighter players here. But talking

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Speaker 1: to the sort of experts that we have on staff,

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Speaker 1: the guy who won the tournament would be like the

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Speaker 1: tenth best player at a local Atlanta semi professional tournament.

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Speaker 1: And the guy who would win that tournament wouldn't even

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Speaker 1: be in the top hundred in the world. You know,

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Speaker 1: there's there's a there's a big difference between the two

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Speaker 1: d and fifty guys who play counterstrike sort of at

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Speaker 1: the top level professionally and the seven or eight million

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Speaker 1: people who play it on a daily basis. UM. So

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Speaker 1: you know, I'm in definitely you can tell I'm in

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Speaker 1: the camp of this is no different than the other sports.

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Speaker 1: There's a scarcity of of talent and then the ability

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Speaker 1: to sort of focus that The commitment that it requires

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Speaker 1: to play these games at a top level UM is ridiculous.

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Speaker 1: I guess the last point i'd make on that is, Um,

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Speaker 1: it's also really hard to stay on top. And you

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Speaker 1: know there's one team currently that you know, last year

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Speaker 1: one i think five tournaments uh during the regular tournament season,

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Speaker 1: and this year made it to the finals of the Major.

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Speaker 1: But we've seen them slowly declined. The name of the

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Speaker 1: team as Burtis Pro and we love them. They won

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Speaker 1: our first season, UM, but we've seen them slowly decline

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Speaker 1: and they actually didn't make it to the playoffs of

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Speaker 1: our current tournament. And I think that that shows like

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Speaker 1: just how tight it is at the very top, right,

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Speaker 1: Like even just kind of in six months, a team

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Speaker 1: can go from being virtually unbeatable over a three or

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Speaker 1: four month time period to not even making it to

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Speaker 1: the late stages of any tournaments. There's that very top level.

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Speaker 1: Is it is the top of the pyramid in every way,

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Speaker 1: shape or form. Now in your experience of overseeing these

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Speaker 1: things being part of the the E League, UH, does

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Speaker 1: it feel like when there's a tournament going, when you

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Speaker 1: have these people at this these very elite levels of

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Speaker 1: performance competing against each other. Isn't a similar kind of

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Speaker 1: of atmosphere of excitement to watch people at that level

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Speaker 1: play similar to what you might see in a traditional

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Speaker 1: sporting arena. I think, you know, I think, for so

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Speaker 1: there are differences there that I would call out right

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Speaker 1: so um for some tournaments and and I'm not alluding

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Speaker 1: to ours, almost all of the competition except for the finals,

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Speaker 1: is played over the internet, right, and so you know

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Speaker 1: the spectator experience there is on Twitch and on YouTube,

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Speaker 1: and you know that the chat experience is like a

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Speaker 1: proxy for the arena, if that makes sense, almost like

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Speaker 1: a virtual proxy, I would say, though, at the very

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Speaker 1: top level, if you were to were to attend like

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Speaker 1: our finals at the Fox Theater in Atlanta for the Major,

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Speaker 1: or an e s L one in New York, or

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Speaker 1: the finals of a dream Hack, they have all of

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Speaker 1: the same trappings and crowd engagement that you know a

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Speaker 1: professional Atlanta sports team has. And you know, I go,

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Speaker 1: I'm a season ticket holder for our our new MLS team,

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Speaker 1: which probably has about as good fan engagement as you

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Speaker 1: could possibly have, and it feels the same to me

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Speaker 1: as the really Rabbit fans for the finals of our

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Speaker 1: Major or the finals the Dota to International. I went

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Speaker 1: to that this summer too, at Key Arena, which is

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Speaker 1: where the Sonics used to play in Seattle, so even

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00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:11,919
Speaker 1: the same buildings in some case, although I will also

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Speaker 1: say those buildings can sometimes not be the best venues

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Speaker 1: for watching the sports because you're trying to watch on

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Speaker 1: the screen and watch kind of what's going on stage.

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Speaker 1: But what's going on on stage a lot of the

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00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:29,439
Speaker 1: time is some guys in headsets yelling to each other, right, Like,

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00:27:30,119 --> 00:27:33,160
Speaker 1: the more interesting thing is the combination of what they're

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00:27:33,160 --> 00:27:37,399
Speaker 1: doing with what's happening on the screen. Right. Similar to

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Speaker 1: what we've seen with various platforms where people are setting

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00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:44,440
Speaker 1: up webcams to capture their their footage of how they

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Speaker 1: react while they're playing games, I imagine something similar is

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Speaker 1: useful in this kind of realm. When we come back,

434
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:53,959
Speaker 1: we'll talk more about the advances and technology that are

435
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:56,600
Speaker 1: making it easier and more enjoyable to watch gaming as

436
00:27:56,600 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 1: a professional sport. But first let's take a quick break

437
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:09,879
Speaker 1: to thank our sponsor. In a previous episode, I spoke

438
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:13,240
Speaker 1: with Oscar Warner over at Toby Tech about eye tracking technology,

439
00:28:13,280 --> 00:28:14,720
Speaker 1: and we talked a bit about how it could be

440
00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:17,439
Speaker 1: used in professional gaming, but to get a more thorough

441
00:28:17,480 --> 00:28:20,120
Speaker 1: perspective on it, I had a conversation with Brian Dazais

442
00:28:20,359 --> 00:28:24,119
Speaker 1: and David Chen of alien Ware about how it's transforming

443
00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:27,800
Speaker 1: e sports. Yeah. So, um, one of the things that

444
00:28:27,840 --> 00:28:29,959
Speaker 1: aileen Ware is always doing right, We're always trying to

445
00:28:30,080 --> 00:28:34,560
Speaker 1: look for the next innovative thing. What's going to help gamers,

446
00:28:34,640 --> 00:28:37,679
Speaker 1: whether they're professional or just you know, folks that just

447
00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:40,200
Speaker 1: want to have fun playing games. How can they have

448
00:28:40,320 --> 00:28:42,440
Speaker 1: more fun and how can they get better at their games?

449
00:28:43,120 --> 00:28:44,800
Speaker 1: In I just make it as in most of it

450
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:48,240
Speaker 1: as possible. UM. So you know, as as we launch

451
00:28:48,320 --> 00:28:52,280
Speaker 1: and look at new technologies, UM, one of the things

452
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:55,200
Speaker 1: that was coming down the pike several years ago, UM

453
00:28:55,280 --> 00:28:59,240
Speaker 1: is eye tracking. Now, historically you've thought of eye tracking

454
00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:03,080
Speaker 1: or you know, eye tracking mainly for some cool stuff

455
00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:06,680
Speaker 1: like trying to maybe log into a computer or something

456
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:10,160
Speaker 1: like that, kind of like facial recognition. UM. But as

457
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:13,720
Speaker 1: the technologies evolved, as it's gotten smaller, been able to

458
00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:18,480
Speaker 1: put into laptops and things like that. UM. It really

459
00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:23,160
Speaker 1: there's a lot of innovative ways to the things we

460
00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:26,200
Speaker 1: could do. As you're just tracing with the ice looking

461
00:29:27,280 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 1: and so what we started working with Toby on is

462
00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:33,760
Speaker 1: how can we adopt that and tie that into something

463
00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 1: meaningful for gamers. And at the same time, you know,

464
00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:43,480
Speaker 1: we've we've seen and known that gamers are always looking

465
00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:46,200
Speaker 1: for an advantage. So I'll give you an example. You know,

466
00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:49,560
Speaker 1: and most most gamers will at some point, if they're

467
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:51,640
Speaker 1: really into a game, right, they're gonna go to YouTube

468
00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:54,880
Speaker 1: or they're gonna go onto Twitch, and they're gonna try

469
00:29:54,960 --> 00:29:56,640
Speaker 1: and get better at their game. They're gonna look at

470
00:29:56,640 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 1: tips and tricks. And you know, I'm maybe doing it today. Um,

471
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:04,520
Speaker 1: I'm heavily invested in pub g and um it seems

472
00:30:04,560 --> 00:30:06,800
Speaker 1: like every other day, every day, I'm trying to see,

473
00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:08,640
Speaker 1: you know, we're going to get some tips and tricks

474
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:11,720
Speaker 1: and get better at it because I'm not very good, Jonathan,

475
00:30:11,760 --> 00:30:15,680
Speaker 1: But you know I dive in there anyway. I completely completely,

476
00:30:18,800 --> 00:30:21,720
Speaker 1: but it's too much fun to avoid. So but but

477
00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:25,600
Speaker 1: kind of that that nature and just wanting to get better, UM,

478
00:30:25,760 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 1: and I tracking prove as we're thinking about how leverage

479
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:35,520
Speaker 1: this provided a real, a real way to track how

480
00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:38,840
Speaker 1: the best players in the world as a specific game

481
00:30:39,400 --> 00:30:42,360
Speaker 1: or any game that they're playing. Where are they looking?

482
00:30:42,480 --> 00:30:45,280
Speaker 1: You know, gaming is so much about where you're looking,

483
00:30:45,280 --> 00:30:49,320
Speaker 1: where you're paying attention where your focus is. And I

484
00:30:49,560 --> 00:30:54,240
Speaker 1: tracking really enabled really the world and we'll talk some

485
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 1: definitely about this, but enabled gamers to see where the

486
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:00,840
Speaker 1: best players in the world are looking at any point

487
00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:03,680
Speaker 1: in time. So are they looking at the mini map,

488
00:31:03,760 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 1: are they looking down the corridor, They're looking down the hallway? Um,

489
00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:11,080
Speaker 1: right before you know, they fragged somebody or they get

490
00:31:11,120 --> 00:31:13,640
Speaker 1: tragged or whatever it might be happening in the match.

491
00:31:14,480 --> 00:31:18,680
Speaker 1: So we saw this real opportunity, this real thing that

492
00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:22,960
Speaker 1: gamers are looking to do, and that's get better and

493
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:27,960
Speaker 1: this technology that really allows a new level of data

494
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:31,360
Speaker 1: capture and you turn that into some analytics and you

495
00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 1: can actually put out, um, some pretty interesting information. So

496
00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:39,680
Speaker 1: that's kind of at the very beginning conceptually, when we're

497
00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:42,520
Speaker 1: just you know, sitting around with you know, our internal

498
00:31:42,560 --> 00:31:46,240
Speaker 1: product group teams, are internal marketing teams talking to e

499
00:31:46,360 --> 00:31:50,920
Speaker 1: sports organizations, um, and you know, our third party partners

500
00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:54,120
Speaker 1: like Toby talking about whether the priorities that we have

501
00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:57,000
Speaker 1: coming up. You know, this isn't just a something we

502
00:31:57,120 --> 00:32:00,240
Speaker 1: spoke about six months ago. This is year in the

503
00:32:00,320 --> 00:32:03,760
Speaker 1: making of understanding what gamers are looking for and working

504
00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:07,040
Speaker 1: with these technology partners. So that's kind of out it

505
00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:11,480
Speaker 1: all started and UM and and and David if you

506
00:32:11,520 --> 00:32:14,000
Speaker 1: have UM you obviously played an Intel part for us

507
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 1: here and getting this technology rolled out with UH, with

508
00:32:19,560 --> 00:32:22,000
Speaker 1: with Turner and the league. So, UM, there's anything you

509
00:32:22,040 --> 00:32:26,240
Speaker 1: want to add on on where this started? Police feel free? Yeah,

510
00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:28,320
Speaker 1: I would you say, And it's your point earlier A

511
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:32,040
Speaker 1: lot of this technology and research into this technology as

512
00:32:32,120 --> 00:32:34,560
Speaker 1: part of gaming even beyond gaming has been around for

513
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:36,880
Speaker 1: a couple of years now, and it hasn't really been

514
00:32:36,960 --> 00:32:40,440
Speaker 1: until now, until the technology has become uh, you know,

515
00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:43,160
Speaker 1: smaller and more nimble, that it's you know, hitting this

516
00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:45,880
Speaker 1: more consumer level focus. But I'm sure in the past

517
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:48,400
Speaker 1: they've been using eye tracking to look at how people

518
00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:50,800
Speaker 1: respond to add online, you know, when they do keep

519
00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:53,880
Speaker 1: mapping on websites and where people respond UM. And it

520
00:32:53,920 --> 00:32:55,760
Speaker 1: wasn't until I think a couple of years ago, probably

521
00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:57,600
Speaker 1: two or two years ago, that one of our partners,

522
00:32:57,600 --> 00:33:01,640
Speaker 1: t liquid UM they had done some research of their

523
00:33:01,640 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 1: own with I believe it was the Mayo Research Clinic

524
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:08,600
Speaker 1: over in California, UM and they had work with a

525
00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:13,080
Speaker 1: UH I believe the professor there who was researching kind

526
00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:15,600
Speaker 1: of eye tracking as part of video gaming. The level

527
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:18,960
Speaker 1: of cognition and just the uh, you know, research level

528
00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:23,400
Speaker 1: analytics between some of the oldest veteran players versus you know,

529
00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:25,920
Speaker 1: young hot starts who are coming out, you know, sixteen

530
00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:28,880
Speaker 1: seventeen and dominating the scene. UM. And the research that

531
00:33:28,960 --> 00:33:31,000
Speaker 1: he saw and some of these teams are really startling

532
00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:33,320
Speaker 1: as far as you know, veterans being able to still

533
00:33:33,400 --> 00:33:35,880
Speaker 1: keep the edge ahead through their experience and just how

534
00:33:36,320 --> 00:33:38,840
Speaker 1: quick their eyes are and being able to you know,

535
00:33:38,880 --> 00:33:43,000
Speaker 1: cycle between icons from you know, a hundred different characters

536
00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 1: and they have a lot more in their memory banks

537
00:33:44,920 --> 00:33:46,680
Speaker 1: to pull from and react from than a lot of

538
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:50,239
Speaker 1: younger players. UM. And again at that time, you know

539
00:33:50,280 --> 00:33:52,280
Speaker 1: that research is probably being done on a ten to

540
00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:55,120
Speaker 1: twelve thousand dollar piece of equipment that was tracking your

541
00:33:55,120 --> 00:33:57,880
Speaker 1: eyes and it was cumbersome, and now we're seeing it

542
00:33:57,960 --> 00:34:00,120
Speaker 1: to the point where again it's able to be up

543
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:02,920
Speaker 1: into a laptop and it's something that you know, pretty

544
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:05,719
Speaker 1: much a lot of consumers and teams UM have at

545
00:34:05,760 --> 00:34:08,879
Speaker 1: their immediate disposal. UM. And what I'm bringing the back

546
00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:12,319
Speaker 1: home between liquid you know, as more and more teams

547
00:34:12,400 --> 00:34:16,320
Speaker 1: are growing in the space, and as more and more

548
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:19,879
Speaker 1: traditional sports teams are also getting involved in the sports,

549
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:24,840
Speaker 1: there's this growing desire to understand again the dynamics of

550
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:28,480
Speaker 1: the athleticism or the cognition and skill of the traditional

551
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:31,680
Speaker 1: athlete versus an e sports athletes. And I think we're

552
00:34:31,680 --> 00:34:34,840
Speaker 1: barely scratching the surface of what that means today. UM

553
00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:37,840
Speaker 1: And as more and more other technology catches up, I

554
00:34:37,840 --> 00:34:42,280
Speaker 1: think we all dream of finding other big in cycul

555
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:46,359
Speaker 1: ways that the sports can provide a level of biometric data,

556
00:34:46,840 --> 00:34:49,920
Speaker 1: um to allow us to appreciate, you know, what's the

557
00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:52,880
Speaker 1: best you well uh and also how you know, average

558
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:57,160
Speaker 1: Joe's like you and I can strive to uh chase

559
00:34:57,280 --> 00:35:00,640
Speaker 1: after some of that greatness in certain categories. It's definitely

560
00:35:00,719 --> 00:35:05,719
Speaker 1: very very exciting. That's so cool and and and you know, I,

561
00:35:05,719 --> 00:35:10,600
Speaker 1: I too am chasing after that elusive chicken dinner over

562
00:35:10,640 --> 00:35:15,600
Speaker 1: at pub g and it it remains just outside my grasp.

563
00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:19,719
Speaker 1: So being able to see how not just not just

564
00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:22,520
Speaker 1: how well someone plays, but how they go about playing

565
00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:26,799
Speaker 1: that way, there is something really enticing about that, the

566
00:35:27,160 --> 00:35:31,080
Speaker 1: not just you know, when we watch professional sports, typically

567
00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:36,080
Speaker 1: we can see great, great displays of athleticism, but you know,

568
00:35:36,120 --> 00:35:39,600
Speaker 1: people are not machines. We can break things down and

569
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 1: use slow motion and various camera angles to kind of

570
00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:47,359
Speaker 1: analyze the basics. But to me, the fact that we're

571
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:50,360
Speaker 1: talking about a digital realm and then being able to

572
00:35:50,400 --> 00:35:53,560
Speaker 1: track our physical motions and map that to the actions

573
00:35:53,560 --> 00:35:55,800
Speaker 1: of a digital realm, it does seem like this is

574
00:35:56,280 --> 00:36:01,399
Speaker 1: uh much more conducive to breaking things down into quantifiable

575
00:36:01,760 --> 00:36:04,600
Speaker 1: aspects to really talk about, Well, you know, this person

576
00:36:05,120 --> 00:36:10,160
Speaker 1: is checking their mini map more frequently than someone who

577
00:36:10,280 --> 00:36:13,480
Speaker 1: is not a professional gamer. That's a really interesting stat

578
00:36:13,520 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 1: and could really inform people how to play the game

579
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:19,960
Speaker 1: at a slightly higher level than what they were doing before.

580
00:36:20,040 --> 00:36:24,520
Speaker 1: Knowing of course that it's not a magic substitute for

581
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:29,759
Speaker 1: the hours of practice, as you know, countless hours of

582
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:32,719
Speaker 1: practice for some of these professional gamers who will sit

583
00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:35,280
Speaker 1: down for eight or ten hours and play a game

584
00:36:35,320 --> 00:36:38,520
Speaker 1: and that's largely how they got as good as they are,

585
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:42,040
Speaker 1: but then also a tool for them to look at afterward.

586
00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:44,919
Speaker 1: Maybe they've played in a tournament, maybe they played really

587
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:47,040
Speaker 1: well and they want to see what what they were

588
00:36:47,080 --> 00:36:51,000
Speaker 1: doing and remember to really hone in on those particular

589
00:36:51,080 --> 00:36:54,239
Speaker 1: types of of of strategies and future tournaments, or they

590
00:36:54,239 --> 00:36:56,040
Speaker 1: didn't do so well and maybe they want to see

591
00:36:56,040 --> 00:36:59,880
Speaker 1: what the differences between their performance and someone else's. I

592
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:03,120
Speaker 1: also like the idea of this from if we're looking

593
00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:05,239
Speaker 1: beyond the sports, which we'll get back to in a second.

594
00:37:05,280 --> 00:37:07,759
Speaker 1: I don't want to leave that behind, but I like

595
00:37:07,880 --> 00:37:11,440
Speaker 1: this idea also from a game designer standpoint, the idea

596
00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:15,520
Speaker 1: of getting more information about what your players see as

597
00:37:15,600 --> 00:37:19,120
Speaker 1: important in your game means that game designers can actually

598
00:37:19,239 --> 00:37:22,520
Speaker 1: use that information to make more effective games down the

599
00:37:22,560 --> 00:37:27,000
Speaker 1: line um and beyond that. If you if you think

600
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:31,320
Speaker 1: about this technology reaching a point where it becomes more

601
00:37:31,400 --> 00:37:36,160
Speaker 1: of a kind of a a standard piece of tech

602
00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:40,920
Speaker 1: that gets rolled out into laptops in the future or

603
00:37:41,560 --> 00:37:44,040
Speaker 1: computers in general in the future, you could see this

604
00:37:44,120 --> 00:37:48,160
Speaker 1: being incorporated into games themselves, where it's not just analysis,

605
00:37:48,200 --> 00:37:51,080
Speaker 1: but it becomes an element of gameplay. Like I think

606
00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:56,160
Speaker 1: of a game, perhaps like l A Noir, where part

607
00:37:56,160 --> 00:37:59,840
Speaker 1: of that game involves the player watching a virtual characters

608
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:03,719
Speaker 1: action as you're interrogating the character, and that in turn

609
00:38:03,800 --> 00:38:05,960
Speaker 1: informs you as to whether or not that character is

610
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:08,160
Speaker 1: telling the truth they're telling a lie. Will imagine eye

611
00:38:08,160 --> 00:38:11,640
Speaker 1: tracking technology where the character appears to be aware of

612
00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:14,759
Speaker 1: where you are looking, and then that adds a whole

613
00:38:14,800 --> 00:38:18,200
Speaker 1: new game element. So to me, the eye tracking technology

614
00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:20,399
Speaker 1: in the gaming world, I mean, as you say, we're

615
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:22,680
Speaker 1: at the very beginning of it. Even if you just

616
00:38:23,239 --> 00:38:26,480
Speaker 1: and I don't mean to to to uh make this

617
00:38:26,560 --> 00:38:28,120
Speaker 1: sound less than what it is, but even if you

618
00:38:28,200 --> 00:38:32,600
Speaker 1: are restricting that attention to eat sports, there are so

619
00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:37,160
Speaker 1: many incredible potential applications for this technology. And it's really

620
00:38:37,160 --> 00:38:41,320
Speaker 1: exciting to be in these fairly early days talking about

621
00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:45,840
Speaker 1: where we're going right now. Um so getting back to

622
00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:48,400
Speaker 1: eat sports and getting back into that realm. Can you

623
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:52,440
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the relationships that have formed

624
00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:56,680
Speaker 1: now that uh, you guys are really kind of uh

625
00:38:56,960 --> 00:39:00,759
Speaker 1: getting more involved with incorporating eye tracking tech analogy and

626
00:39:00,840 --> 00:39:05,440
Speaker 1: the pro gaming realm. I want to hear more about this, uh,

627
00:39:05,480 --> 00:39:12,280
Speaker 1: this this relationship and how that has developed over time. Yeah. Absolutely,

628
00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:15,680
Speaker 1: you make some some great points, Jonathan. I think you know,

629
00:39:15,719 --> 00:39:18,799
Speaker 1: as we as we think about where we are, we

630
00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:23,360
Speaker 1: are very much um just that at the beginning point

631
00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:28,720
Speaker 1: of showcasing this kind of technology and I attracting technology

632
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 1: um to the world, right And I'll definitely jump into

633
00:39:33,520 --> 00:39:36,520
Speaker 1: the partners and talk about the partners and what we've

634
00:39:36,560 --> 00:39:40,360
Speaker 1: done um, but you you have made some really interesting

635
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:44,040
Speaker 1: comments about where is you know, who can get the

636
00:39:44,120 --> 00:39:48,360
Speaker 1: most benefit out of UH technologies like this, like eye

637
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:51,200
Speaker 1: tracking and and that kind of thing. And there's obviously

638
00:39:51,239 --> 00:39:57,320
Speaker 1: some very clear benefits for professional players and for amateurs

639
00:39:57,360 --> 00:39:59,719
Speaker 1: that are trying to become professional, right, just this no

640
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:03,000
Speaker 1: of getting better learning from the pros that are out there,

641
00:40:03,040 --> 00:40:07,080
Speaker 1: just like traditional sports. But one of the other parts

642
00:40:07,120 --> 00:40:10,760
Speaker 1: that really intrigued us here as we're trying to trying

643
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:14,920
Speaker 1: to roll out this kind of technology is for the

644
00:40:14,960 --> 00:40:17,480
Speaker 1: for just the viewer, um, for the fan. One of

645
00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:21,399
Speaker 1: the things that has not kind of cut up with

646
00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:25,759
Speaker 1: traditional sports is the viewing experience and the commentating. A

647
00:40:25,760 --> 00:40:28,560
Speaker 1: lot of the commentating in the past for the sports

648
00:40:28,719 --> 00:40:32,279
Speaker 1: has been around, you know, the commentator explaining what's going on,

649
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:37,319
Speaker 1: but verbally there really wasn't a visual visual cues or

650
00:40:37,400 --> 00:40:41,120
Speaker 1: visual explanations of what's happening in the match. You know.

651
00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:48,520
Speaker 1: Obviously with NFL or NBA there's a lot of analytic

652
00:40:48,560 --> 00:40:50,960
Speaker 1: things and things that happened through the broadcast, I think

653
00:40:50,960 --> 00:40:54,120
Speaker 1: of teleprompters and and things like that. Well, it really

654
00:40:54,200 --> 00:40:57,120
Speaker 1: wasn't that for e sports. And so as we were

655
00:40:57,200 --> 00:40:59,960
Speaker 1: introducing the technology and figuring out how can we bring

656
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:02,640
Speaker 1: this and how what should we be doing, and we

657
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:06,360
Speaker 1: really wanted to make that viewing experience better for you know,

658
00:41:06,440 --> 00:41:09,880
Speaker 1: the hundreds of millions of gaming fans that are watching

659
00:41:09,880 --> 00:41:13,880
Speaker 1: these sports globally. And then we have to decide, you know, okay,

660
00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:17,319
Speaker 1: how who can who shares our values, who can who

661
00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:21,319
Speaker 1: will work with us to to bring this technology to

662
00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:25,400
Speaker 1: the forefront. And you know, earlier this year in January,

663
00:41:26,480 --> 00:41:28,960
Speaker 1: UM we announced the partnership and we've been working very

664
00:41:29,040 --> 00:41:33,719
Speaker 1: closely with UM, with Turner and with Elige around all

665
00:41:33,760 --> 00:41:37,520
Speaker 1: the all the tournaments that they're running. And UM actually

666
00:41:37,600 --> 00:41:41,759
Speaker 1: just here in September for the first time UM partnership

667
00:41:41,880 --> 00:41:46,600
Speaker 1: between US, Toby and an Eleague. UM we rolled out

668
00:41:46,680 --> 00:41:51,960
Speaker 1: the the getting Technical segment on the Eligue broadcast and

669
00:41:52,040 --> 00:41:55,239
Speaker 1: really being able to to showcase the fans and to

670
00:41:55,360 --> 00:41:59,719
Speaker 1: the viewers this ideas technology that's being captured to the

671
00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:05,560
Speaker 1: tracking software at Tracking Software. So UM from a partnership side,

672
00:42:06,320 --> 00:42:10,200
Speaker 1: it has been it was it was very important to

673
00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:14,440
Speaker 1: us to select partners and work with partners that shared

674
00:42:14,560 --> 00:42:19,120
Speaker 1: quite honestly our vision of making this better for for

675
00:42:19,200 --> 00:42:21,840
Speaker 1: the viewer because we know professionals are going to continue

676
00:42:21,880 --> 00:42:25,200
Speaker 1: to innovate and get better where at the forefront working

677
00:42:25,280 --> 00:42:30,000
Speaker 1: with them on separate uh, separate programs. Amateurs are always

678
00:42:30,000 --> 00:42:32,600
Speaker 1: going to look to get better because they want they

679
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:36,320
Speaker 1: they want so badly to become a professional. But there's

680
00:42:36,880 --> 00:42:39,880
Speaker 1: a ton of people I just enjoy the sports because

681
00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:42,000
Speaker 1: of what it is, and how can we make it

682
00:42:42,080 --> 00:42:45,560
Speaker 1: better for them? So, um, David all hands over to

683
00:42:45,600 --> 00:42:47,960
Speaker 1: you because you again, I would love for you to

684
00:42:48,040 --> 00:42:50,960
Speaker 1: chime in and talk to uh just a relationship we

685
00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:53,560
Speaker 1: have with Turner and E League and how all that

686
00:42:53,600 --> 00:42:58,920
Speaker 1: came together. Yes, absolutely, and I feel like get bowed

687
00:42:58,920 --> 00:43:02,239
Speaker 1: back down to a point of trying to be a

688
00:43:02,280 --> 00:43:05,200
Speaker 1: good steward as far as a leader in the industry

689
00:43:05,200 --> 00:43:07,560
Speaker 1: on behalf of the sports and really just making it

690
00:43:08,400 --> 00:43:11,640
Speaker 1: a bit easier for viewers overall to get more out

691
00:43:11,640 --> 00:43:14,360
Speaker 1: of the viewing experience, whether their season veterans who have

692
00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:17,600
Speaker 1: been watching the games for a long time, or something

693
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:19,360
Speaker 1: maybe new to the game as well. We've seen the

694
00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:22,560
Speaker 1: studies who knew you that say a lot of sports

695
00:43:22,600 --> 00:43:24,799
Speaker 1: viewers don't even play the games that they watch. So

696
00:43:25,400 --> 00:43:28,160
Speaker 1: if we're trying to help the sports grow in the

697
00:43:28,200 --> 00:43:31,480
Speaker 1: Western world. That's likely going to be introducing the sports

698
00:43:31,520 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 1: to people who are very new to the game, maybe

699
00:43:34,120 --> 00:43:37,040
Speaker 1: your family, maybe your friends who put that um So,

700
00:43:37,120 --> 00:43:39,759
Speaker 1: when it came to working with Eligue, I think it

701
00:43:39,960 --> 00:43:43,520
Speaker 1: was no brainer for us to start off with counter Strikes.

702
00:43:43,800 --> 00:43:46,760
Speaker 1: When you look at the landscape of the sports titles

703
00:43:46,760 --> 00:43:49,080
Speaker 1: out there, you can look at your League of Legends,

704
00:43:49,080 --> 00:43:51,520
Speaker 1: your Dodas and your mobios out there, it does have

705
00:43:51,760 --> 00:43:54,200
Speaker 1: a rather high learning curve for people who may not

706
00:43:54,280 --> 00:43:57,160
Speaker 1: be yet familiar with the title. UM So, definitely we

707
00:43:57,200 --> 00:43:59,520
Speaker 1: look at a game like counter Strike, there's really nothing

708
00:43:59,560 --> 00:44:02,279
Speaker 1: to us understand about, you know, don't be on the

709
00:44:02,320 --> 00:44:05,439
Speaker 1: wrong point and end of the gun. Um and so

710
00:44:05,480 --> 00:44:08,120
Speaker 1: I think being able to find a game that immediately

711
00:44:08,600 --> 00:44:11,800
Speaker 1: resonates it and can be digested by a larger audience

712
00:44:11,800 --> 00:44:15,720
Speaker 1: helps us. Uh. Not only again brings to a wider audience,

713
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:18,560
Speaker 1: but then when you factor in the first person perspective

714
00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:22,240
Speaker 1: and what eye tracking can really bring in from a

715
00:44:22,360 --> 00:44:26,040
Speaker 1: synergy perspective there, it really made a lot of sense

716
00:44:26,040 --> 00:44:30,799
Speaker 1: to find the white partner like easy to have a

717
00:44:30,960 --> 00:44:33,920
Speaker 1: right tournament, where again counter Strikes with their bread and

718
00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:36,560
Speaker 1: butter for the better part of two years now. Um.

719
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:40,439
Speaker 1: They housted the Major in January to overwhelming success. UM,

720
00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:43,719
Speaker 1: and they're willing to continue to try and see how

721
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:45,759
Speaker 1: they can push the limits of counter Strike even further

722
00:44:45,760 --> 00:44:48,319
Speaker 1: and further as you look towards the future. But it

723
00:44:48,360 --> 00:44:51,360
Speaker 1: really boils down to what ways can we have this

724
00:44:51,480 --> 00:44:56,120
Speaker 1: experience be more digestible to a huge gaming audience out there.

725
00:44:56,400 --> 00:44:59,239
Speaker 1: So for eye tracking and counter strike, where was the

726
00:44:59,280 --> 00:45:02,399
Speaker 1: player looking, what were the context of you know, how

727
00:45:02,400 --> 00:45:05,440
Speaker 1: they made the decision that they did, um, And we've

728
00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:06,960
Speaker 1: seen a lot of assignment from it. We've seen a

729
00:45:06,960 --> 00:45:09,480
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of assignment from the fans. They've been really

730
00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:14,279
Speaker 1: uh receptive of the I cracking uh clips. They've been

731
00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:17,840
Speaker 1: telling us how they want to see you know, other players,

732
00:45:17,880 --> 00:45:21,279
Speaker 1: specific players get put under the microscope. UM. You know,

733
00:45:21,280 --> 00:45:23,120
Speaker 1: they would love to be able to get a better

734
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:25,719
Speaker 1: clear breakdown of exactly how they pulled off the ace

735
00:45:25,760 --> 00:45:27,600
Speaker 1: that they did. We're seeing a lot of really good

736
00:45:27,640 --> 00:45:30,719
Speaker 1: reception from the commentators as well. So when we look

737
00:45:30,719 --> 00:45:34,920
Speaker 1: at the league, uh, the you know enders U and

738
00:45:35,040 --> 00:45:37,440
Speaker 1: a lot of the guys who are providing kind of

739
00:45:37,440 --> 00:45:40,279
Speaker 1: the color uh you know playing by play commentary have

740
00:45:40,440 --> 00:45:42,160
Speaker 1: been excited to be able to talk, you know, a

741
00:45:42,239 --> 00:45:45,440
Speaker 1: little bit more about the nuances of for example, how

742
00:45:45,480 --> 00:45:48,399
Speaker 1: an in game leader on the team may index more

743
00:45:48,520 --> 00:45:51,120
Speaker 1: between the mini map and looking at the economy of

744
00:45:51,120 --> 00:45:53,879
Speaker 1: the team and the other four players who are more

745
00:45:53,960 --> 00:45:57,080
Speaker 1: of the you know, damage doers and the um you know,

746
00:45:57,120 --> 00:45:59,040
Speaker 1: the meet and guns of the team are just more

747
00:45:59,080 --> 00:46:02,000
Speaker 1: focused on playing UM and so I think it really

748
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:04,880
Speaker 1: opens up a way to present the game again, to

749
00:46:05,560 --> 00:46:08,600
Speaker 1: know why a variety of people, and it helps us

750
00:46:08,680 --> 00:46:12,520
Speaker 1: as a brand find meaningful ways to continue the game

751
00:46:12,560 --> 00:46:15,960
Speaker 1: back to the community rather than you know, just business

752
00:46:15,960 --> 00:46:21,000
Speaker 1: as usual logo branding and culsorship rights and things like that. Fascinating,

753
00:46:21,160 --> 00:46:23,879
Speaker 1: I think. I also find it really interesting that that

754
00:46:24,239 --> 00:46:28,600
Speaker 1: counter Strike is the sort of the go to game.

755
00:46:28,640 --> 00:46:32,720
Speaker 1: It makes perfect sense. But I recently did a multi

756
00:46:32,760 --> 00:46:36,920
Speaker 1: part series on the history of Valve, and so my

757
00:46:37,040 --> 00:46:39,920
Speaker 1: listeners now know that counter Strike that's a game that

758
00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:43,520
Speaker 1: originally was you know, a modification. Uh, it was a

759
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:47,920
Speaker 1: mod of Half Life that came out thousand that It's

760
00:46:47,960 --> 00:46:51,080
Speaker 1: gone through a couple of different variations, the source version

761
00:46:51,080 --> 00:46:53,600
Speaker 1: of it coming out a few years ago, I believe

762
00:46:53,600 --> 00:46:56,360
Speaker 1: it was And to see that that game is still

763
00:46:57,160 --> 00:47:02,080
Speaker 1: so so such a big part of E sports. It is,

764
00:47:02,280 --> 00:47:06,760
Speaker 1: which makes sense. It requires people to have very strong

765
00:47:06,840 --> 00:47:09,800
Speaker 1: skill sets as well as be very good team players

766
00:47:10,200 --> 00:47:12,320
Speaker 1: if you want to have a strong counter strike team,

767
00:47:12,520 --> 00:47:14,759
Speaker 1: and I can definitely see where that value comes in.

768
00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:19,359
Speaker 1: I remember distinctly when I attended a C E S

769
00:47:19,440 --> 00:47:25,120
Speaker 1: many years ago. UH. One of the the companies there,

770
00:47:25,160 --> 00:47:30,360
Speaker 1: one of the the computer companies. We're hosting Ubisoft's team

771
00:47:30,400 --> 00:47:34,040
Speaker 1: at the time, the frag Dolls, who were professional gamers,

772
00:47:34,600 --> 00:47:37,480
Speaker 1: and the frag Dolls were taking on all comers, and

773
00:47:37,520 --> 00:47:40,520
Speaker 1: so people would step up, they'd form a team of four,

774
00:47:40,640 --> 00:47:43,719
Speaker 1: and then three of the frag Dolls would just decimate them.

775
00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:45,880
Speaker 1: And it happened over and over and over again, and

776
00:47:45,920 --> 00:47:48,080
Speaker 1: it was exciting to watch. But it would have been

777
00:47:48,160 --> 00:47:51,760
Speaker 1: so much more interesting to actually see how they played

778
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:55,200
Speaker 1: together as a team, beyond just knowing that they're coordinating

779
00:47:55,239 --> 00:47:57,200
Speaker 1: much better, that they have a good knowledge of the maps,

780
00:47:57,200 --> 00:48:00,760
Speaker 1: being able to see where they're looking, and how frequently

781
00:48:00,760 --> 00:48:04,680
Speaker 1: they're looking around. Do they stare at one place for

782
00:48:04,719 --> 00:48:08,239
Speaker 1: any given time, where are they just constantly scanning? Uh,

783
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:10,640
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff would have been really interesting to see.

784
00:48:10,719 --> 00:48:13,080
Speaker 1: So I find this really exciting. And as you point out,

785
00:48:13,280 --> 00:48:17,080
Speaker 1: it also by giving more information. By informing the audience,

786
00:48:17,400 --> 00:48:21,960
Speaker 1: you spend less time, uh, trying to familiarize yourself with

787
00:48:22,040 --> 00:48:24,759
Speaker 1: the way the game is working. It becomes much more

788
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:27,600
Speaker 1: apparent early on if you're able to see what other

789
00:48:27,640 --> 00:48:31,719
Speaker 1: people are looking at, and I think it removes that barrier. Uh.

790
00:48:31,880 --> 00:48:38,760
Speaker 1: I think it also really illustrates how professional gamers are.

791
00:48:38,800 --> 00:48:41,799
Speaker 1: Are you know, just incredibly good at what they do

792
00:48:41,960 --> 00:48:46,759
Speaker 1: beyond raking up high scores, because I think still among

793
00:48:46,880 --> 00:48:50,719
Speaker 1: certain populations at least, the idea of professional gaming is

794
00:48:50,760 --> 00:48:55,320
Speaker 1: somewhat scoffed at. Whereas you know, we accept professional sports

795
00:48:55,400 --> 00:48:58,040
Speaker 1: pretty easily. That's been part of our culture for for

796
00:48:58,480 --> 00:49:02,279
Speaker 1: decades and that is pretty easy for folks to go

797
00:49:02,320 --> 00:49:05,840
Speaker 1: along with. I think before anyone gets a chance to

798
00:49:05,880 --> 00:49:10,160
Speaker 1: really see what pro e sports is all about, they

799
00:49:10,200 --> 00:49:14,000
Speaker 1: have an initial reaction of like, well, that's a game

800
00:49:14,040 --> 00:49:16,399
Speaker 1: that's not a sport. And it's not until you're able

801
00:49:16,440 --> 00:49:18,359
Speaker 1: to really kind of break it down in this way

802
00:49:18,360 --> 00:49:20,960
Speaker 1: and say, no, take a look at this. These these

803
00:49:21,000 --> 00:49:24,600
Speaker 1: are men and women who are doing things at a

804
00:49:24,719 --> 00:49:28,360
Speaker 1: level far beyond what the average person is capable of doing.

805
00:49:28,440 --> 00:49:32,880
Speaker 1: It is similar, if not, if not identical to what

806
00:49:33,080 --> 00:49:37,880
Speaker 1: you see in the actual physical sports realm. So I

807
00:49:37,920 --> 00:49:40,200
Speaker 1: like that aspect of it as well. It gives you

808
00:49:40,239 --> 00:49:43,759
Speaker 1: that extra I guess ammunition is the right way to

809
00:49:43,800 --> 00:49:46,359
Speaker 1: put it when you are talking about the sports and

810
00:49:46,360 --> 00:49:50,279
Speaker 1: trying to explain to someone how it really is a

811
00:49:50,640 --> 00:49:54,719
Speaker 1: level of performance beyond what the average person tends to

812
00:49:54,760 --> 00:49:58,480
Speaker 1: be able to do. Uh. Through this partnership, I'm sure

813
00:49:58,520 --> 00:50:01,480
Speaker 1: you've you've seen some really interesting stuff. Are there any

814
00:50:01,800 --> 00:50:07,879
Speaker 1: particular uh stories or particular revelations that you have encountered

815
00:50:07,920 --> 00:50:12,120
Speaker 1: as a result of this eye tracking technology being part

816
00:50:12,280 --> 00:50:15,880
Speaker 1: of this experience. Yeah, I mean I would definitely say

817
00:50:15,960 --> 00:50:23,120
Speaker 1: the just the little of nuanced gameplay between these counterslike

818
00:50:23,200 --> 00:50:27,480
Speaker 1: players is insane. I mean we talk about, you know,

819
00:50:27,520 --> 00:50:29,400
Speaker 1: these guys being able to be at the top of

820
00:50:29,440 --> 00:50:31,680
Speaker 1: their games. I mean, these are the guys who absolutely

821
00:50:31,680 --> 00:50:33,920
Speaker 1: can tell the difference between you know, two hundred and

822
00:50:33,960 --> 00:50:37,959
Speaker 1: sixty hurt versus a hundred and forty two hurts. There's

823
00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:40,080
Speaker 1: jokes out there about how these human I feel and

824
00:50:40,160 --> 00:50:42,399
Speaker 1: see you know thirty fps. That is completely not true

825
00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:44,920
Speaker 1: at all. Um. You know the counter start guys who

826
00:50:44,960 --> 00:50:46,919
Speaker 1: within the league and a lot of these guys here

827
00:50:46,960 --> 00:50:52,760
Speaker 1: are just very um uh, their their senses are extreme.

828
00:50:52,840 --> 00:50:54,600
Speaker 1: You know, when you also could have some of these

829
00:50:54,600 --> 00:50:56,480
Speaker 1: guys play. There's a player like j d M on

830
00:50:56,520 --> 00:50:58,919
Speaker 1: Team Liquid who means back, you know, three or four

831
00:50:58,960 --> 00:51:02,320
Speaker 1: ft behind it here, the distance between his eyes to

832
00:51:02,440 --> 00:51:06,440
Speaker 1: the screen is wildly different from you know, another player

833
00:51:06,920 --> 00:51:10,080
Speaker 1: who may be near seven inches away. Um. We found

834
00:51:10,080 --> 00:51:12,400
Speaker 1: that can be interesting in the studio setting when it

835
00:51:12,440 --> 00:51:15,320
Speaker 1: comes to calibrating the eye tracking units for the various

836
00:51:15,360 --> 00:51:17,840
Speaker 1: players and making sure that the way that they compete

837
00:51:17,920 --> 00:51:20,360
Speaker 1: is how they're being calibrated at the time. But I

838
00:51:20,400 --> 00:51:23,399
Speaker 1: think just at a very high level, um, people, once

839
00:51:23,400 --> 00:51:25,239
Speaker 1: we slow down the game and once we get to

840
00:51:25,320 --> 00:51:28,000
Speaker 1: replays and all the technologies finally as caught up to

841
00:51:28,040 --> 00:51:30,919
Speaker 1: be able to subtily break down the nuances of how

842
00:51:31,000 --> 00:51:34,480
Speaker 1: quick they are in terms of milliseconds and hundreds of milliseconds,

843
00:51:34,640 --> 00:51:37,920
Speaker 1: we're gonna quickly see just you know, the difference between

844
00:51:38,880 --> 00:51:41,040
Speaker 1: the top one percent of players and invest of us

845
00:51:41,040 --> 00:51:46,680
Speaker 1: out there. And uh, that'shing to be very exciting to see. Yeah,

846
00:51:46,760 --> 00:51:49,759
Speaker 1: and and you know something else that stood out to

847
00:51:49,800 --> 00:51:53,120
Speaker 1: me here with with the initial raud and it's kind

848
00:51:53,120 --> 00:51:56,640
Speaker 1: of the first the first time the getting technical SIGMENTA

849
00:51:56,640 --> 00:52:01,000
Speaker 1: started to run on the league coverage has been the reaction. So,

850
00:52:01,080 --> 00:52:03,839
Speaker 1: you know, I mentioned part of the reason that we're

851
00:52:03,840 --> 00:52:06,719
Speaker 1: doing this is we want to improve the viewership experience,

852
00:52:07,280 --> 00:52:10,360
Speaker 1: you know, selfishly for us as gamers and fans, because

853
00:52:10,840 --> 00:52:13,000
Speaker 1: we're watching these things ourselves and we want to be

854
00:52:13,080 --> 00:52:17,160
Speaker 1: able to us better viewing experience. Like if you look

855
00:52:17,160 --> 00:52:21,600
Speaker 1: at the feedback you know, just on on Facebook, comments

856
00:52:21,680 --> 00:52:25,000
Speaker 1: on what you see happening on Twitch on the Elite broadcast,

857
00:52:25,080 --> 00:52:29,759
Speaker 1: like the comments from fans is it's really encouraging around this.

858
00:52:29,920 --> 00:52:34,200
Speaker 1: They appreciate this technology, They appreciate being able to get

859
00:52:34,239 --> 00:52:39,880
Speaker 1: a better glint at how these professionals are performing real

860
00:52:39,920 --> 00:52:43,319
Speaker 1: time something we've never seen before. So you know, as

861
00:52:43,360 --> 00:52:46,520
Speaker 1: we as we roll on new new innovations and technologies,

862
00:52:46,560 --> 00:52:49,760
Speaker 1: we do obviously a ton of work, and we're working

863
00:52:49,760 --> 00:52:52,279
Speaker 1: with and talking with our fans and our customers and

864
00:52:52,360 --> 00:52:56,320
Speaker 1: just gamers overall too um to make sure we're delivering

865
00:52:56,320 --> 00:53:00,200
Speaker 1: what they want. Ultimately alien where is trying to over

866
00:53:00,280 --> 00:53:03,799
Speaker 1: that ultimate gaming experience. We feel this place right into that,

867
00:53:04,400 --> 00:53:08,560
Speaker 1: but it's always and it's always reassuring one when we

868
00:53:08,600 --> 00:53:11,600
Speaker 1: go down a path and we work with partners UM

869
00:53:11,640 --> 00:53:14,080
Speaker 1: and roll out new technologies and new features and so

870
00:53:14,280 --> 00:53:18,799
Speaker 1: on to see that. See the fan reaction is UM

871
00:53:19,000 --> 00:53:22,840
Speaker 1: is a positive, is coming back positive and that to

872
00:53:22,880 --> 00:53:25,320
Speaker 1: me has definitely said out of have and seen anything

873
00:53:25,360 --> 00:53:30,680
Speaker 1: negative around the technology, just a lot of appreciation from

874
00:53:30,680 --> 00:53:33,960
Speaker 1: from the game of community. Well, I love that. There

875
00:53:34,080 --> 00:53:37,240
Speaker 1: is what we do want to add in the fan feedback.

876
00:53:37,360 --> 00:53:42,960
Speaker 1: People have been clamoring about what a anti cheating tool

877
00:53:43,200 --> 00:53:46,160
Speaker 1: that may wind up being. UM. It's curious to see

878
00:53:46,200 --> 00:53:47,759
Speaker 1: because what if one day they you know, we all

879
00:53:47,800 --> 00:53:50,160
Speaker 1: had monitors that always tracked our eyes and you can

880
00:53:50,200 --> 00:53:54,120
Speaker 1: never disable that UM that that would be a very

881
00:53:54,160 --> 00:53:57,520
Speaker 1: interesting future. When we come back, we'll chat a bit

882
00:53:57,560 --> 00:54:00,040
Speaker 1: more with Robert from Turner about how they took a

883
00:54:00,200 --> 00:54:03,160
Speaker 1: challenge of taking the tech created by Toby and alien

884
00:54:03,200 --> 00:54:05,920
Speaker 1: Ware and they found a way to incorporate it into

885
00:54:05,960 --> 00:54:09,440
Speaker 1: e sports broadcasts. But first let's take another quick break

886
00:54:09,680 --> 00:54:18,920
Speaker 1: to thank our sponsor. So that kind of leads us

887
00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:23,840
Speaker 1: naturally into a discussion about the challenges of presenting e

888
00:54:24,080 --> 00:54:26,759
Speaker 1: sports to an audience in a way where they can

889
00:54:26,800 --> 00:54:30,240
Speaker 1: really appreciate what's going on, and that that ties into

890
00:54:30,320 --> 00:54:35,359
Speaker 1: this topic of the eye tracking technology. We know that

891
00:54:35,480 --> 00:54:38,920
Speaker 1: Toby Tech was the company to start working on the

892
00:54:38,960 --> 00:54:42,839
Speaker 1: actual hardware and the basic software, and we had Dell

893
00:54:42,960 --> 00:54:46,680
Speaker 1: and alien Ware that we're working on the various uh

894
00:54:46,800 --> 00:54:50,120
Speaker 1: consumer products that incorporate that technology. But when it comes

895
00:54:50,160 --> 00:54:53,440
Speaker 1: to actually implementing it in a way that makes sense

896
00:54:53,760 --> 00:54:57,439
Speaker 1: both from an administrative perspective, where you guys are trying

897
00:54:57,440 --> 00:55:02,160
Speaker 1: to find ways of adding value to the presentation, and

898
00:55:02,239 --> 00:55:05,200
Speaker 1: from a consumer perspective or from an audience perspective where

899
00:55:05,440 --> 00:55:10,480
Speaker 1: they can appreciate even more the capabilities of these elite

900
00:55:10,480 --> 00:55:13,320
Speaker 1: players because they're getting kind of insight into what's happening.

901
00:55:13,400 --> 00:55:15,600
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about that implementation and

902
00:55:15,600 --> 00:55:20,200
Speaker 1: what that experience was, Like, sure, yeah, and UM, you

903
00:55:20,239 --> 00:55:23,560
Speaker 1: know what I would say is it was birthed out

904
00:55:23,600 --> 00:55:28,440
Speaker 1: of actually a very casual conversation between David Chen and

905
00:55:28,480 --> 00:55:32,600
Speaker 1: I David Chen from Dell and I um at our

906
00:55:32,640 --> 00:55:36,920
Speaker 1: major actually and that was in January. Um, you know,

907
00:55:37,120 --> 00:55:41,040
Speaker 1: I had seen a demo of some behind the scenes

908
00:55:41,080 --> 00:55:43,920
Speaker 1: software that a League of Legends team was using to

909
00:55:44,000 --> 00:55:49,120
Speaker 1: improve their performance with eye tracking and thought, wow, this

910
00:55:49,200 --> 00:55:53,799
Speaker 1: is a really interesting, Um, how do we democratize that like,

911
00:55:53,840 --> 00:55:57,480
Speaker 1: how do we bring that to the audience watching the

912
00:55:57,480 --> 00:56:00,399
Speaker 1: game instead of making it like a back off its

913
00:56:00,440 --> 00:56:05,120
Speaker 1: tool that a team is using to try and optimize

914
00:56:05,560 --> 00:56:10,480
Speaker 1: its performance. And you know there are challenges for sure, right.

915
00:56:10,600 --> 00:56:14,960
Speaker 1: So in March, UM I went to Austin and we

916
00:56:14,960 --> 00:56:18,840
Speaker 1: we had a meeting, and in that meeting Toby actually

917
00:56:18,880 --> 00:56:23,279
Speaker 1: brought their ideas on how it could work. UM. But

918
00:56:24,320 --> 00:56:28,719
Speaker 1: you know, to be candid, UH, they hadn't ever run

919
00:56:29,040 --> 00:56:33,960
Speaker 1: a competitive gaming event, and as you alluded to earlier,

920
00:56:34,400 --> 00:56:40,480
Speaker 1: you know, competitive integrity is extremely important to us, extremely

921
00:56:40,520 --> 00:56:43,839
Speaker 1: important to the players, and so we have to be

922
00:56:43,960 --> 00:56:48,560
Speaker 1: very careful about what we do in the studio and

923
00:56:48,600 --> 00:56:52,759
Speaker 1: how we produce things. And as a result, UM, it

924
00:56:52,920 --> 00:56:55,400
Speaker 1: is certainly not as simple to do something like this

925
00:56:55,480 --> 00:56:59,640
Speaker 1: eye tracking as one would think it would be. UM.

926
00:56:59,680 --> 00:57:02,000
Speaker 1: So to kind of walk through the components of how

927
00:57:02,040 --> 00:57:06,919
Speaker 1: it works, UM, you need a computer with an eye

928
00:57:06,920 --> 00:57:11,560
Speaker 1: tracker connected to it, UM that is capturing gays in

929
00:57:11,680 --> 00:57:18,360
Speaker 1: real time. Then you also need a video feed of

930
00:57:18,480 --> 00:57:24,360
Speaker 1: the point of view of the player in real time. UM.

931
00:57:24,400 --> 00:57:26,960
Speaker 1: And the two things like the the eye tracker needs

932
00:57:27,000 --> 00:57:31,440
Speaker 1: to be synchronized for the resolution and aspect ratio that

933
00:57:31,480 --> 00:57:34,560
Speaker 1: the player is running the game at and of course

934
00:57:34,600 --> 00:57:37,960
Speaker 1: then the p o V feed of the gameplay also

935
00:57:38,080 --> 00:57:41,640
Speaker 1: needs to be exactly what the player is looking at,

936
00:57:41,760 --> 00:57:45,680
Speaker 1: so it can't be at a different aspect ratio or

937
00:57:45,800 --> 00:57:51,160
Speaker 1: resolution and have it make perfect sense, right. And then

938
00:57:51,240 --> 00:57:54,800
Speaker 1: you need to take those two things, that the video

939
00:57:54,920 --> 00:57:58,240
Speaker 1: feed of the gays and the actual p o V

940
00:57:58,960 --> 00:58:02,520
Speaker 1: and then use podcast production equipment to merge those two

941
00:58:02,560 --> 00:58:07,560
Speaker 1: things in real time so you're getting an accurate UM

942
00:58:07,960 --> 00:58:11,680
Speaker 1: feed of the two things. Well, in order to do

943
00:58:12,400 --> 00:58:16,960
Speaker 1: all of what I just mentioned, it actually requires two

944
00:58:16,960 --> 00:58:20,800
Speaker 1: computers that the players not even playing on. UM. We

945
00:58:20,920 --> 00:58:26,760
Speaker 1: have one machine that is the dedicated gaze tracker that's

946
00:58:26,760 --> 00:58:30,080
Speaker 1: actually outputting a green screen with the gaze on it.

947
00:58:30,240 --> 00:58:35,800
Speaker 1: So that computer is the tracker itself, is mounted underneath

948
00:58:35,880 --> 00:58:38,880
Speaker 1: the monitor that the player is sitting in front of

949
00:58:38,920 --> 00:58:43,800
Speaker 1: on stage. And then we're using UM this might be

950
00:58:43,840 --> 00:58:46,120
Speaker 1: a little too in the weeds, but we're using uh

951
00:58:46,800 --> 00:58:50,440
Speaker 1: USB Cat six extenders, so we're able to run the

952
00:58:50,560 --> 00:58:55,400
Speaker 1: USB three feet to a server room UM, and then

953
00:58:55,440 --> 00:58:59,160
Speaker 1: the actual computer that the gaze tracking software is running

954
00:58:59,160 --> 00:59:03,640
Speaker 1: on is in this server room hundreds of hundreds of

955
00:59:03,680 --> 00:59:08,160
Speaker 1: feet away from the actual stage. So we can't run

956
00:59:08,200 --> 00:59:10,960
Speaker 1: the games tracking software on the computer that the player

957
00:59:11,080 --> 00:59:14,200
Speaker 1: is playing on because we can't do anything that would

958
00:59:14,280 --> 00:59:20,800
Speaker 1: that could impact competitive integrity. Then for the p o

959
00:59:20,920 --> 00:59:25,600
Speaker 1: V UM, in order to get that p o V

960
00:59:25,920 --> 00:59:29,120
Speaker 1: we cannot take it from the player's computer. So we

961
00:59:29,200 --> 00:59:33,400
Speaker 1: don't ever take a video output from a player's computer

962
00:59:33,600 --> 00:59:38,160
Speaker 1: and feed that into our broadcast infrastructure. Because the output

963
00:59:38,160 --> 00:59:41,000
Speaker 1: from the video card on a player's computer needs to

964
00:59:41,080 --> 00:59:44,920
Speaker 1: go directly to the monitor, there cannot be anything in

965
00:59:44,960 --> 00:59:49,920
Speaker 1: that loop that introduces any latency. So uh and again,

966
00:59:50,000 --> 00:59:55,280
Speaker 1: in order to to maintain competitive integrity, we cannot use

967
00:59:55,440 --> 00:59:58,640
Speaker 1: the computer that the player is playing on to produce

968
00:59:58,760 --> 01:00:01,480
Speaker 1: the p o B foot that we're using to produce

969
01:00:01,640 --> 01:00:07,880
Speaker 1: this content. So instead, I have yet another computer in

970
01:00:07,920 --> 01:00:13,400
Speaker 1: the same server room that is connected to a relay

971
01:00:13,480 --> 01:00:18,919
Speaker 1: game server and is mimicking that player's point of view experience.

972
01:00:18,960 --> 01:00:23,560
Speaker 1: So what we've done is we very carefully keep track

973
01:00:23,640 --> 01:00:27,280
Speaker 1: of what aspect ratio the players running the game at

974
01:00:27,320 --> 01:00:31,920
Speaker 1: on stage, We mimic those settings and all of the

975
01:00:31,960 --> 01:00:38,720
Speaker 1: other settings that that players traditionally use on this secondary computer,

976
01:00:39,440 --> 01:00:43,720
Speaker 1: and then we're um linking it to that player so

977
01:00:43,800 --> 01:00:46,960
Speaker 1: that it shows their p o V the entire game

978
01:00:47,800 --> 01:00:51,800
Speaker 1: and then feeding that into our broadcast infrastructure, and then

979
01:00:51,920 --> 01:00:55,920
Speaker 1: upstream from all of that, there is a broadcast switcher

980
01:00:56,080 --> 01:01:00,960
Speaker 1: that is merging the gays out put with the green

981
01:01:01,080 --> 01:01:06,440
Speaker 1: removed obviously, and that POV footage and feeding that to

982
01:01:06,480 --> 01:01:09,040
Speaker 1: the control room where a producer can watch it in

983
01:01:09,120 --> 01:01:14,080
Speaker 1: real time and decide is this something I want our

984
01:01:14,160 --> 01:01:16,919
Speaker 1: talent to talk about or not talk about? And so

985
01:01:17,360 --> 01:01:20,720
Speaker 1: we're we've now done this for three weeks of this tournament,

986
01:01:21,680 --> 01:01:24,120
Speaker 1: and we're you know, to be honest with you, if

987
01:01:24,120 --> 01:01:28,320
Speaker 1: you had talked to me before the tournament, UM, I

988
01:01:29,760 --> 01:01:33,120
Speaker 1: I was very careful to say, I don't know what

989
01:01:33,160 --> 01:01:35,760
Speaker 1: we're going to get. I don't know what kind of

990
01:01:35,800 --> 01:01:38,080
Speaker 1: insights we're going to get. I don't know if this

991
01:01:38,160 --> 01:01:42,480
Speaker 1: is really going to be like super interesting content or

992
01:01:42,640 --> 01:01:46,360
Speaker 1: just interesting content. Is it going to reveal things or

993
01:01:46,400 --> 01:01:50,400
Speaker 1: not reveal things? Um? All I knew was that we

994
01:01:50,440 --> 01:01:52,640
Speaker 1: had a proof of concept that we could capture this,

995
01:01:53,320 --> 01:01:54,800
Speaker 1: and then we were going to see what we could

996
01:01:54,840 --> 01:01:58,040
Speaker 1: do with it. But I think we're really really pleased

997
01:01:58,160 --> 01:02:03,520
Speaker 1: with how the content has come come together, and the

998
01:02:03,560 --> 01:02:10,080
Speaker 1: fans are just blown away. UM. I think you know,

999
01:02:10,200 --> 01:02:14,160
Speaker 1: it's it's a statement about what Turner Sports brings to

1000
01:02:14,200 --> 01:02:17,360
Speaker 1: the e sports space where we're trying to you know,

1001
01:02:17,520 --> 01:02:22,439
Speaker 1: constantly be additive and constantly be innovative, but not doing

1002
01:02:22,480 --> 01:02:26,360
Speaker 1: innovation and additive things for the sake of doing them,

1003
01:02:26,440 --> 01:02:30,120
Speaker 1: doing them to enhance the fan engagement and the fan

1004
01:02:30,240 --> 01:02:34,440
Speaker 1: viewing experience. Um And with this, you know what I

1005
01:02:34,440 --> 01:02:38,640
Speaker 1: would say is there is no nothing analogous to this

1006
01:02:39,120 --> 01:02:43,360
Speaker 1: In traditional sports. You can see where a player runs,

1007
01:02:43,440 --> 01:02:46,400
Speaker 1: you can see them kick the ball, but you have

1008
01:02:46,440 --> 01:02:51,120
Speaker 1: no idea about like what they're looking at in real time,

1009
01:02:51,320 --> 01:02:55,200
Speaker 1: or what their intents are, or what they even consider. Right.

1010
01:02:55,800 --> 01:02:59,760
Speaker 1: You don't really have any raw data about their thoughts

1011
01:03:00,720 --> 01:03:05,840
Speaker 1: in traditional sports except what they tell you, right. But

1012
01:03:05,960 --> 01:03:10,160
Speaker 1: with this, this data, that this content, it reveals thought

1013
01:03:10,200 --> 01:03:14,200
Speaker 1: process in a way that nothing else in sports or

1014
01:03:14,240 --> 01:03:17,720
Speaker 1: e sports does. At this point, you see them look,

1015
01:03:18,360 --> 01:03:21,200
Speaker 1: you know, do their mental check what's my health? How

1016
01:03:21,280 --> 01:03:24,720
Speaker 1: much ammo? Do I have? You know where where the

1017
01:03:24,760 --> 01:03:27,360
Speaker 1: rest of my team on the map? Like you see

1018
01:03:27,400 --> 01:03:30,760
Speaker 1: that in real time in the content. We're not we

1019
01:03:30,800 --> 01:03:33,080
Speaker 1: haven't gotten to the point where we can really do

1020
01:03:33,120 --> 01:03:36,040
Speaker 1: this real time in a play areat Although I want

1021
01:03:36,040 --> 01:03:39,600
Speaker 1: to do that at some point. Um, and I'm so

1022
01:03:39,680 --> 01:03:45,280
Speaker 1: excited because it's it is really like this super interesting

1023
01:03:45,360 --> 01:03:53,400
Speaker 1: combination of biometric technology that is not very invasive and um,

1024
01:03:53,440 --> 01:03:57,000
Speaker 1: this sport that is like sort of made out of data,

1025
01:03:57,120 --> 01:03:59,560
Speaker 1: and it would be almost impossible to do this for

1026
01:03:59,600 --> 01:04:04,080
Speaker 1: tragal sports. Like you know, I I am, I'm very

1027
01:04:04,160 --> 01:04:07,680
Speaker 1: fortunate in that I'm I'm a part of the team

1028
01:04:07,760 --> 01:04:11,720
Speaker 1: that also does the production for our NBA games, also

1029
01:04:11,800 --> 01:04:15,120
Speaker 1: does the production for our MLB games, and so I

1030
01:04:15,160 --> 01:04:19,160
Speaker 1: get to hear some of the behind the scenes stuff

1031
01:04:19,680 --> 01:04:22,400
Speaker 1: that is considered and talked about. And we certainly don't

1032
01:04:22,400 --> 01:04:25,640
Speaker 1: treat E sports any differently than we do those other

1033
01:04:25,680 --> 01:04:28,960
Speaker 1: things from a thought process perspective. But you know, as

1034
01:04:29,000 --> 01:04:31,440
Speaker 1: I'm sitting in the meetings in the last couple of

1035
01:04:31,440 --> 01:04:36,560
Speaker 1: weeks and we're talking about MLB, like I'm actually thinking, Wow,

1036
01:04:36,600 --> 01:04:40,440
Speaker 1: wouldn't it be cool to see like gaze trace as

1037
01:04:40,480 --> 01:04:43,880
Speaker 1: a batter's in the batter's box and the pitches come again.

1038
01:04:45,120 --> 01:04:48,400
Speaker 1: But like, there is no way to do that but

1039
01:04:48,720 --> 01:04:52,240
Speaker 1: be super cool. So so this is like that though,

1040
01:04:52,720 --> 01:04:56,520
Speaker 1: this is a step in that direction, right, Um. So

1041
01:04:56,840 --> 01:04:59,880
Speaker 1: I mean for me, like I think it's super exciting,

1042
01:05:00,120 --> 01:05:03,440
Speaker 1: and I would love to see this sort of like

1043
01:05:03,600 --> 01:05:08,240
Speaker 1: intent based data capture. Um, you know, what did he

1044
01:05:08,280 --> 01:05:11,240
Speaker 1: really look at? What did he consider? I would love

1045
01:05:11,320 --> 01:05:15,919
Speaker 1: to see that in baseball or football or basketball. How

1046
01:05:15,960 --> 01:05:20,080
Speaker 1: cool would it be to see the quarterbacks checkdowns in

1047
01:05:20,160 --> 01:05:23,880
Speaker 1: real time in football? You know, Um, what did he

1048
01:05:23,920 --> 01:05:26,640
Speaker 1: consider before he threw the ball over there? And what

1049
01:05:26,680 --> 01:05:29,600
Speaker 1: did he see before he threw that ball? Like, there's

1050
01:05:29,640 --> 01:05:33,280
Speaker 1: there's just not anything like this. So so to tack

1051
01:05:33,320 --> 01:05:36,520
Speaker 1: back the esports though, um, and the content that we've

1052
01:05:36,600 --> 01:05:40,440
Speaker 1: captured so far, you know, I think it's some of

1053
01:05:40,440 --> 01:05:44,800
Speaker 1: it is has revealed, Oh that guy does exactly what

1054
01:05:44,840 --> 01:05:47,960
Speaker 1: we expected. And then in other cases it's like, wow,

1055
01:05:48,000 --> 01:05:52,480
Speaker 1: he spends a lot more time checking the more basic

1056
01:05:52,600 --> 01:05:55,680
Speaker 1: things than you would expect. And I think you know,

1057
01:05:55,720 --> 01:06:01,320
Speaker 1: with players, other players, like you know, regular stream of

1058
01:06:01,360 --> 01:06:07,120
Speaker 1: consciousness like everyday counterstrike players, Um, this is an opportunity

1059
01:06:07,120 --> 01:06:09,040
Speaker 1: for them to kind of learn, oh wow, when I

1060
01:06:09,080 --> 01:06:11,440
Speaker 1: go around that corner, I don't look at that box.

1061
01:06:11,800 --> 01:06:16,720
Speaker 1: I start over there and sort of optimize their game too. Yeah.

1062
01:06:16,760 --> 01:06:19,320
Speaker 1: I also I also like how you know, you you

1063
01:06:19,400 --> 01:06:23,840
Speaker 1: had this incredible challenge of being able to like all

1064
01:06:23,840 --> 01:06:25,680
Speaker 1: the pieces were there, but in order for them to

1065
01:06:25,720 --> 01:06:29,320
Speaker 1: actually work, you had to go to these enormous considerations

1066
01:06:29,320 --> 01:06:33,200
Speaker 1: so that you did not affect the performance of any

1067
01:06:33,240 --> 01:06:36,800
Speaker 1: player's machine, because clearly, uh, it would be the same

1068
01:06:36,840 --> 01:06:40,520
Speaker 1: as if you were to uh to mess with uh,

1069
01:06:40,520 --> 01:06:43,520
Speaker 1: you know, a professional athlete in a traditional sport, if

1070
01:06:43,520 --> 01:06:45,600
Speaker 1: they were to mess with their equipment, it would be

1071
01:06:45,680 --> 01:06:48,680
Speaker 1: almost like sabotage. So you're you know, you're talking about

1072
01:06:48,680 --> 01:06:51,760
Speaker 1: like the not wanting to put any kind of load

1073
01:06:52,160 --> 01:06:55,479
Speaker 1: on a graphics processing unit that is meant to run

1074
01:06:55,480 --> 01:06:57,920
Speaker 1: the game on the player's machine. I would say that

1075
01:06:57,920 --> 01:06:59,800
Speaker 1: that's sort of analogous to what you were saying with

1076
01:07:00,640 --> 01:07:03,440
Speaker 1: professional sports in the in the physical realm, the idea

1077
01:07:03,480 --> 01:07:07,200
Speaker 1: that we can't really do that eye tracking technique with

1078
01:07:07,560 --> 01:07:11,160
Speaker 1: traditional sports largely because it would require us to outfit

1079
01:07:11,280 --> 01:07:15,760
Speaker 1: professional players with additional equipment that would then in turn

1080
01:07:15,920 --> 01:07:19,080
Speaker 1: affect their performance. Thus you end up you end up

1081
01:07:19,080 --> 01:07:23,040
Speaker 1: with the classic quantum physics issue of anything you observe,

1082
01:07:23,320 --> 01:07:27,640
Speaker 1: you are affecting, right. So, so it's it's interesting that

1083
01:07:28,040 --> 01:07:30,800
Speaker 1: you know, you had to find that work around and

1084
01:07:30,880 --> 01:07:36,360
Speaker 1: the professional sports arena for for pro video gamers, and

1085
01:07:36,600 --> 01:07:38,880
Speaker 1: I think once you do consider that in the realm

1086
01:07:38,920 --> 01:07:41,000
Speaker 1: of the physical sports as well. Even if you're not

1087
01:07:41,040 --> 01:07:44,560
Speaker 1: familiar with professional video game sports or e leagues or

1088
01:07:44,600 --> 01:07:47,680
Speaker 1: anything of those that nature, you start to say, oh, well,

1089
01:07:47,680 --> 01:07:49,280
Speaker 1: now I'm getting it. Now I'm getting it. I see.

1090
01:07:49,320 --> 01:07:51,920
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, if if I walked up and

1091
01:07:51,920 --> 01:07:54,760
Speaker 1: I realized that the bat that I want to use

1092
01:07:55,160 --> 01:07:56,800
Speaker 1: is nowhere to be found, and I'm gonna have to

1093
01:07:56,880 --> 01:07:58,600
Speaker 1: use a different bat and it's one that's of a

1094
01:07:58,680 --> 01:08:01,880
Speaker 1: slightly different weight, and I'm not it's enough when you're

1095
01:08:01,920 --> 01:08:04,480
Speaker 1: talking about at that elite level of performance that it

1096
01:08:04,600 --> 01:08:08,840
Speaker 1: makes a measurable difference. So, Uh, I'm glad that we

1097
01:08:08,840 --> 01:08:11,720
Speaker 1: were able to have this conversation and and kind of

1098
01:08:11,760 --> 01:08:14,760
Speaker 1: get that perspective, because I think it does. It's very

1099
01:08:14,880 --> 01:08:19,759
Speaker 1: enlightening to people who are unfamiliar with the subject. Uh.

1100
01:08:19,920 --> 01:08:23,839
Speaker 1: Is there anything that you have witnessed in your time

1101
01:08:23,920 --> 01:08:27,840
Speaker 1: with the league that stands out as one of those

1102
01:08:28,200 --> 01:08:31,599
Speaker 1: really special moments, whether it was in a tournament or

1103
01:08:31,640 --> 01:08:34,679
Speaker 1: maybe it was maybe it was when you were when

1104
01:08:34,680 --> 01:08:37,920
Speaker 1: you saw this this eye tracking technology all kind of

1105
01:08:37,920 --> 01:08:41,000
Speaker 1: come together. But anything that kind of is particularly special

1106
01:08:41,040 --> 01:08:44,400
Speaker 1: in your mind. I mean, from my personal experience to

1107
01:08:44,520 --> 01:08:48,519
Speaker 1: kind of attack back to personal. There's kind of three

1108
01:08:48,560 --> 01:08:52,760
Speaker 1: moments for me, um to to take a question that

1109
01:08:52,840 --> 01:08:56,160
Speaker 1: asks for one and to answer with three. Um. You know,

1110
01:08:56,200 --> 01:09:00,080
Speaker 1: the first was the finals of our first tournament and

1111
01:09:00,360 --> 01:09:04,400
Speaker 1: we were we released game Command, which I have not mentioned,

1112
01:09:04,439 --> 01:09:07,679
Speaker 1: but it's a mosaic player, so like a user directed

1113
01:09:07,720 --> 01:09:12,599
Speaker 1: experience where uh end users can choose to watch any

1114
01:09:12,640 --> 01:09:15,080
Speaker 1: of the ten players who are playing in real time

1115
01:09:15,640 --> 01:09:20,639
Speaker 1: or actually watch all ten. UM. Releasing that out into

1116
01:09:20,680 --> 01:09:25,639
Speaker 1: the wild and seeing the fan feedback on it, because

1117
01:09:25,680 --> 01:09:28,600
Speaker 1: there was literally nothing like it in the in the

1118
01:09:28,720 --> 01:09:32,320
Speaker 1: world at that point. UM, and there there actually still

1119
01:09:32,360 --> 01:09:35,120
Speaker 1: isn't like there's still nothing where you can watch all

1120
01:09:35,200 --> 01:09:38,920
Speaker 1: ten players at the same time, um in one UI.

1121
01:09:39,080 --> 01:09:43,200
Speaker 1: But UM, that was the first, you know. The second

1122
01:09:43,520 --> 01:09:46,960
Speaker 1: was I've talked about the Major in January a few

1123
01:09:47,000 --> 01:09:51,040
Speaker 1: times already, but there was a moment during the finals

1124
01:09:51,640 --> 01:09:58,000
Speaker 1: where we crested a million concurrent viewers on Twitch, not

1125
01:09:58,200 --> 01:10:02,080
Speaker 1: just breaking the all time Twitch record, but shattering it

1126
01:10:02,200 --> 01:10:08,160
Speaker 1: by almost three hundred thousand viewers, and you know, setting

1127
01:10:08,160 --> 01:10:11,800
Speaker 1: the sort of bar for competitive e sports as far

1128
01:10:11,840 --> 01:10:15,559
Speaker 1: as viewership counts go. And then the third, honestly is

1129
01:10:15,640 --> 01:10:20,679
Speaker 1: this eye tracker stuff. Um, it's always interesting to start

1130
01:10:20,680 --> 01:10:23,160
Speaker 1: with the theory in I mean, I guess in March.

1131
01:10:23,280 --> 01:10:27,040
Speaker 1: We started with a theory and go to proof of

1132
01:10:27,080 --> 01:10:30,559
Speaker 1: concept in June and then be sitting at a desk

1133
01:10:30,560 --> 01:10:35,519
Speaker 1: with white knuckles in September hoping that that vision and

1134
01:10:35,600 --> 01:10:39,200
Speaker 1: all of the workarounds and hard work come together. And

1135
01:10:39,240 --> 01:10:44,040
Speaker 1: then to see the fans react so positively. I mean, really,

1136
01:10:44,080 --> 01:10:47,080
Speaker 1: that's what it's about, right. It's not about me or

1137
01:10:47,160 --> 01:10:50,559
Speaker 1: building a cool thing, as much as I love building

1138
01:10:50,600 --> 01:10:53,040
Speaker 1: cool things and that's kind of what I've made my

1139
01:10:53,160 --> 01:10:58,040
Speaker 1: living doing. Um, you know what's important is that other

1140
01:10:58,080 --> 01:11:01,040
Speaker 1: people are getting some value out of that, and no

1141
01:11:01,520 --> 01:11:05,320
Speaker 1: other people are more important than the like fans uh

1142
01:11:05,400 --> 01:11:09,519
Speaker 1: in the scene. So um to see that and then

1143
01:11:09,600 --> 01:11:12,080
Speaker 1: to see what they do with it, right like they've

1144
01:11:12,680 --> 01:11:17,080
Speaker 1: they've taken it and turned it into memes and jokes

1145
01:11:17,160 --> 01:11:20,480
Speaker 1: and everything like to me, that means it's been accepted,

1146
01:11:20,600 --> 01:11:23,519
Speaker 1: right like at the highest level. When they start making

1147
01:11:23,520 --> 01:11:27,839
Speaker 1: Reddit threads about joking about past tournaments with eye tracking

1148
01:11:27,880 --> 01:11:30,920
Speaker 1: turned on, then to me, that means we've we've done

1149
01:11:30,920 --> 01:11:35,479
Speaker 1: something new. Like those three moments for me are the

1150
01:11:35,520 --> 01:11:39,000
Speaker 1: are the three most special among many many special moments

1151
01:11:39,560 --> 01:11:42,959
Speaker 1: that the last three years, those are those are great stories.

1152
01:11:43,040 --> 01:11:46,320
Speaker 1: And I love that this trend has been picking up

1153
01:11:46,479 --> 01:11:49,200
Speaker 1: steam for the last not to use a valve joke,

1154
01:11:49,479 --> 01:11:51,799
Speaker 1: but it's been picking up steam for the past few years,

1155
01:11:52,280 --> 01:11:56,879
Speaker 1: and seeing not just the the professional video game sports

1156
01:11:57,360 --> 01:12:00,719
Speaker 1: industry really coming into its own in the United States.

1157
01:12:00,760 --> 01:12:02,960
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously it's been a big deal in other

1158
01:12:02,960 --> 01:12:05,479
Speaker 1: places as well. It started really in the US, but

1159
01:12:05,600 --> 01:12:07,559
Speaker 1: I would say that it kind of blossomed in South

1160
01:12:07,640 --> 01:12:10,800
Speaker 1: Korea and then as now finding more acceptance in the

1161
01:12:10,880 --> 01:12:13,519
Speaker 1: United States, which which is great. But we're also seeing

1162
01:12:13,920 --> 01:12:19,240
Speaker 1: uh people turning into kind of an entertainment figure through

1163
01:12:19,320 --> 01:12:23,000
Speaker 1: their video game playing and reaching audiences that way. Clearly

1164
01:12:23,680 --> 01:12:29,719
Speaker 1: there is a a uh interested invested audience they get,

1165
01:12:30,280 --> 01:12:34,960
Speaker 1: they get really attached to certain players and certain titles. Uh.

1166
01:12:35,040 --> 01:12:40,040
Speaker 1: It's exciting, and I'm glad that we're kind of like

1167
01:12:40,320 --> 01:12:44,080
Speaker 1: right at the point where I think it's going to explode,

1168
01:12:44,120 --> 01:12:46,360
Speaker 1: like it's already. I guess you could argue hitting a

1169
01:12:46,439 --> 01:12:50,120
Speaker 1: million concurrent twitch viewers all at once, that's kind of

1170
01:12:50,120 --> 01:12:54,640
Speaker 1: an explosion all in of itself. But seeing this, this

1171
01:12:54,640 --> 01:12:58,040
Speaker 1: this cusp of acceptance is really exciting to me because

1172
01:12:58,040 --> 01:13:01,360
Speaker 1: I've been following professional game aiming for a while in

1173
01:13:01,400 --> 01:13:05,880
Speaker 1: its various formats, whether it was through UH league, you know,

1174
01:13:05,920 --> 01:13:09,160
Speaker 1: tournament league play, or whether it was a group of

1175
01:13:09,240 --> 01:13:12,719
Speaker 1: sponsored players who were there to help represent a particular

1176
01:13:12,760 --> 01:13:16,080
Speaker 1: game developer, anything like that. I've been following that stuff

1177
01:13:16,120 --> 01:13:18,840
Speaker 1: for years and seeing it now get to a point

1178
01:13:19,320 --> 01:13:24,920
Speaker 1: where there's there's a real awareness and celebration of it

1179
01:13:25,000 --> 01:13:29,439
Speaker 1: is exciting to me. I love games. I love playing games.

1180
01:13:29,920 --> 01:13:34,960
Speaker 1: I am awful at them, but I still enjoy it. Uh. Yeah,

1181
01:13:35,040 --> 01:13:38,559
Speaker 1: we were talking before we started recording about the games

1182
01:13:38,600 --> 01:13:41,719
Speaker 1: that that we would stream, and I believe you mentioned

1183
01:13:41,720 --> 01:13:46,240
Speaker 1: a very popular M m O RPG that you occasionally

1184
01:13:46,240 --> 01:13:49,120
Speaker 1: would play. Yeah, I'm not afraid to break out World

1185
01:13:49,160 --> 01:13:53,160
Speaker 1: of Warcraft on occasion. That's fair among other games. Yeah,

1186
01:13:53,200 --> 01:13:56,320
Speaker 1: I I my go to SO I I used to

1187
01:13:56,560 --> 01:14:00,439
Speaker 1: UH so people can know interest a full disclosure. I

1188
01:14:01,600 --> 01:14:04,160
Speaker 1: the game I'm most known for streaming, because I don't

1189
01:14:04,160 --> 01:14:07,400
Speaker 1: do it very frequently is Minecraft, because I would hold

1190
01:14:07,560 --> 01:14:11,200
Speaker 1: a marathon session of Minecraft as part of a charity

1191
01:14:11,240 --> 01:14:14,600
Speaker 1: event every year, and I would play twenty four hours

1192
01:14:14,600 --> 01:14:18,760
Speaker 1: straight of Minecraft and then for whatever when people would

1193
01:14:18,760 --> 01:14:21,719
Speaker 1: make donations at whatever level they would donate, I would

1194
01:14:21,720 --> 01:14:26,519
Speaker 1: build a monument in Minecraft out of materials that were, uh,

1195
01:14:26,640 --> 01:14:29,400
Speaker 1: comparatively difficult to find. So the more you donated, the

1196
01:14:30,400 --> 01:14:33,160
Speaker 1: more rare the material had to be in order for

1197
01:14:33,240 --> 01:14:36,479
Speaker 1: me to make a monument significant for that donation. And

1198
01:14:36,479 --> 01:14:39,000
Speaker 1: I it was not creative mode. It was you know,

1199
01:14:39,080 --> 01:14:42,720
Speaker 1: regular mode, turned on all the enemies everything, and um,

1200
01:14:42,840 --> 01:14:45,599
Speaker 1: let me tell you somewhere around our number sixteen, things

1201
01:14:45,600 --> 01:14:49,519
Speaker 1: get special. But uh, but yeah, I I have a

1202
01:14:49,600 --> 01:14:52,240
Speaker 1: love of this as well. So I cannot wait to

1203
01:14:52,320 --> 01:14:55,439
Speaker 1: check out the the E League play. I cannot wait.

1204
01:14:55,520 --> 01:14:58,760
Speaker 1: I plan to actually be at the finals, so I

1205
01:14:58,800 --> 01:15:02,439
Speaker 1: cannot wait to see that in person. And uh, where

1206
01:15:02,479 --> 01:15:06,519
Speaker 1: can people go to experience this? I mean Elite dot

1207
01:15:06,520 --> 01:15:10,040
Speaker 1: com is is the one stop shop for everything you'd

1208
01:15:10,080 --> 01:15:13,760
Speaker 1: want when we're live. That will point you to all

1209
01:15:13,800 --> 01:15:17,200
Speaker 1: the different viewing experiences that we have and it'll give

1210
01:15:17,240 --> 01:15:21,839
Speaker 1: you schedule information anything else you would want. Excellent, Robert,

1211
01:15:21,880 --> 01:15:25,080
Speaker 1: thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it,

1212
01:15:25,280 --> 01:15:27,439
Speaker 1: and I hope we get a chance to talk again

1213
01:15:27,560 --> 01:15:30,200
Speaker 1: in the future. Awesome. Thanks for having me on. I

1214
01:15:30,240 --> 01:15:34,439
Speaker 1: really appreciate the conversation. Clearly there's a healthy audience out

1215
01:15:34,479 --> 01:15:38,879
Speaker 1: there for professional gaming, from entertainment personalities to tournament players,

1216
01:15:39,040 --> 01:15:40,840
Speaker 1: and it will be really interesting to see how the

1217
01:15:40,840 --> 01:15:43,880
Speaker 1: industry evolves from here. Could we one day see video

1218
01:15:43,920 --> 01:15:46,639
Speaker 1: games take a place with traditional sports and something as

1219
01:15:46,680 --> 01:15:50,000
Speaker 1: celebrated as the Olympics, or will there always be at

1220
01:15:50,080 --> 01:15:52,759
Speaker 1: least some level of stigma in place that will prevent

1221
01:15:52,840 --> 01:15:56,120
Speaker 1: that from ever happening. And doesn't really matter as long

1222
01:15:56,160 --> 01:15:59,000
Speaker 1: as people are having a good time playing or watching games.

1223
01:15:59,840 --> 01:16:03,559
Speaker 1: I can say this. I am in my early forties

1224
01:16:04,000 --> 01:16:07,879
Speaker 1: and I watch a lot of let's play style videos

1225
01:16:07,920 --> 01:16:11,920
Speaker 1: and live streams. I enjoy watching people play games. I'm

1226
01:16:12,000 --> 01:16:15,439
Speaker 1: dazzled by the skills of pro level gamers, and I

1227
01:16:15,479 --> 01:16:19,760
Speaker 1: find myself thoroughly entertained by certain personalities when they interact

1228
01:16:19,960 --> 01:16:25,200
Speaker 1: with each other while playing together. Cough achievement Hunter cough.

1229
01:16:25,800 --> 01:16:28,120
Speaker 1: I think there's plenty of room for growth in that

1230
01:16:28,200 --> 01:16:30,960
Speaker 1: realm of entertainment. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode

1231
01:16:30,960 --> 01:16:32,880
Speaker 1: about the history of the sports. If you have any

1232
01:16:32,960 --> 01:16:35,680
Speaker 1: suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuffs, reach out to

1233
01:16:35,720 --> 01:16:38,280
Speaker 1: me on Twitter or on Facebook to handle I use

1234
01:16:38,320 --> 01:16:40,720
Speaker 1: it both as Text Stuff H s W and I'll

1235
01:16:40,720 --> 01:16:47,960
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is an

1236
01:16:47,960 --> 01:16:51,679
Speaker 1: I heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,

1237
01:16:52,000 --> 01:16:55,200
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

1238
01:16:55,280 --> 01:17:00,439
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. Two