What is Esports and Why is It Important?
It's a Sunday in October 2021, and approximately one million viewers worldwide are tuned into the livestream from Arena Națională in Romania to watch Team Spirit face off against PSG.LGD in the battle for The International 10 title. Behind this global spectacle, a dedicated team uses advanced data visualization tools to analyze data in near real-time and ensure everything runs smoothly. A new Twitch.tv tooltip extension enables viewers to interact with the content on their screens, accessing more information or switching between statistics. At one point, peak viewership reaches around 3 million people globally, setting a new record.
This is the world of esports, a rapidly growing sector in the entertainment and media industry, where data and analytics are central to its expansion. Gaming, once a niche hobby, has now become one of the world’s most popular pastimes. Even in its early days, competitive multiplayer gaming sparked interest, leading to small-scale tournaments in places like internet cafés. Fast forward to today, esports has evolved into a mainstream industry, with a projected $1.8 billion in revenue by 2025. For example, The International 10, a Dota 2 tournament, had a prize pool of $40 million in that year. Similarly, League of Legends' World Championship in 2022 drew a peak viewership of over 5 million people globally. The massive rise of esports as a global entertainment powerhouse has coincided with its increasing reliance on data-driven strategies. In this article, we will explore how data and analytics are helping shape the present and future of this dynamic industry.
How Data and Analytics Impact the Esports Industry
With the operation of multiple virtual leagues and tournaments over extended periods, there’s an enormous amount of data to manage. Much like traditional sports, esports has developed its own tracking system to measure long-term performance and records. However, this is just the beginning of the role data and analytics play in the esports sector today.
1. For Investors and Sponsors:
As a newer sector within the media and entertainment landscape, esports must demonstrate long-term viability to attract sustainable investments. In the past decade, esports has witnessed phenomenal growth, and revenues from sponsorships and media rights are expected to reach $1.2 billion by 2023, with investments continuing to rise in the future. Despite this, there remains skepticism about return on investment (ROI), which often leads to hesitance among potential investors. For a relatively young industry like esports, data-driven insights are essential for investors and sponsors to make informed decisions about where to invest. Resources like escharts.com provide real-time, accessible data for a wide array of games and events, underscoring the significance of data in the esports ecosystem. Predictive analytics can also enhance this data, helping forecast trends and making informed investment choices crucial for the industry's ongoing growth.
2. Tournaments and Events – Improving the Viewer Experience:
Storytelling is vital to the success and longevity of any league or tournament, and statistics are critical for production teams and commentators to create compelling narratives. Much like traditional sports, having access to the right insights—such as which players or teams are performing well, or which key statistics impacted a game—can elevate the viewing experience. Databases and APIs, when paired with user-friendly dashboards, allow audiences to delve deeper into the action, enabling them to follow key performances and moments. Furthermore, for newcomers to esports or casual viewers unfamiliar with the specifics of a game, detailed visuals and live data tracking help commentators explain complex concepts, enriching the experience while weaving a compelling narrative.
3. Competition Beyond Live Tournaments:
In a discussion, Lapointe Jameson, CEO of Evil Geniuses (EG), spoke about how her organization is increasingly leveraging data to guide its strategy and plans for the future. She emphasized how employing analysts and engineers to collect data on in-game metrics, bioinformatics (including genomic and metabolic data), and experimental findings is essential for identifying top-tier talent. This data-driven approach extends to coaching, where live data feeds and tablets may replace traditional strategy notebooks, freeing up valuable time for coaches to focus on more strategic decision-making.
4. For Developers Behind the Scenes:
Unlike traditional sports, esports titles (the games themselves) are continuously monitored and periodically updated by their developers to maintain fair and engaging gameplay. Riot Games, the creator of League of Legends, has previously stated that they rely exclusively on data to balance and update their game. They analyze both professional tournament data and everyday online gameplay statistics for this purpose. Throughout the history of online multiplayer gaming, cheating and hacking have always posed a threat to the integrity of the game, and developers must maintain accurate data. With the sheer volume of matches taking place, it’s impossible to monitor everything manually. To combat this, developers have increasingly turned to artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to help detect and prevent cheating. Riot’s Vanguard anti-cheat system and Valve’s Anti-Cheat (VAC) system are examples of such efforts, with the goal of one day eliminating the need for human intervention in detecting cheaters through advanced AI and data analysis.
Data-Driven Decisions for a Growing Industry
Esports has emerged during a time when technology plays a central role in daily life, a trend that will only continue for future generations. Understanding how analytics and AI are transforming the media and entertainment industry can provide valuable insights for consumers while helping businesses refine their investment strategies and budget allocations across various sectors like advertising, marketing, and travel. Data and analytics will likely become an essential tool for investors and venture capitalists, who are often the primary financial backers of teams and event organizers, making well-informed decisions based on reliable forecasts rather than speculative trends.
From casual fans watching from their homes to investors seeking the industry's future potential, data and analytics are becoming the key to unlocking the full promise of this young and exciting sector.
This article marks the first in a series focusing on today’s Media & Entertainment industry. Be sure to follow us on social media so you don't miss out on the upcoming installments.
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