New details on how Activision is going to expand Esports

With the date of the upcoming CS: GO Major drawing near, the currently Activision-owned MLG will be holding its very first tournament in a professional stadium. However, the plans don’t stop there for the tournament.

In April 1 the CS: GO tournament will kick off at Nationwide Arena, Ohaio. Teams will be competing in the game for the prize pool of $1 million in front of 9500 fans in the stadium live. Activision has some tricks that it wants to test, in order to cater to more people and potential fans.

Viewers at the stadium as well as those in their homes will get to see the “Future of Esports” like the company called it, as it’s going to try few new things that will be visible for people watching live or on a stream. One of the new innovations is to have a 30-foot screen behind each player to provide important data on the player as he plays and competes in real time.

The shown data will help the fans understand more about the strategies be it CS: GO or other games in the future. As for the live stream viewers, they’ll have the option of showing certain data around the video as the match goes on.

“Imagine with 30 seconds left, there’s one player alive on a team and it’s all up to him,” Sepso said. “You’d most likely wind up being fed info and a headshot of the player indicating how well he performs in clutch situations, etc. There will also be live team stats, leaderboards, and that type of data.”

Another thing to be added is storylines, with a commentary touching upon each player’s own storyline similarly to other sports like NHL. This will give casual audience more reasons to watch a match or cheer for a player even if they don’t know the rules exactly.

“We want to use technology to innovate and over-service the core audience, so they’re getting a more enhanced experience, but also draw in and make it more accessible to people who not as familiar with eSports—but are sports fans,” Sepso said. “That’s part of what makes the current version of most eSports content somewhat inaccessible [to the mainstream viewer].”