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The Plan To Bring Analytics To eSports
An anonymous reader writes: We're used to seeing instant replays, halftime analysis and in depth analytics in traditional sports, but now they're coming to eSports too. A new start-up, Dojo Madness, is hoping to bring the same techniques to games like League of Legends and Dota, in the hopes players can learn from their mistakes in a game when shown them. In a new interview, founder and former Electronic Sports League boss Jens Hilgers reveals that the company's main product, Dota training and replay site Bruce.GG, will use machine learning to teach itself what are good and bad plays — and he hopes to bring the tech to other games, like Counter-Strike, too. "The feedback of the users watching these videos, these input points, are allowing us to determine the relevancy of what we have done and the system will learn from that and get smarter," he says.
Ever listen to football commentary or basketball? Its all color commentary or idiotic observations like "team X won because they scored more points"... no shit, fucktards.
The eSports commentary is vastly more incisive in most cases. They'll talk about tactics and strategies... they'll get into issues like the micro if we're talking about starcraft.
We don't need analytics and the last thing we want to emulate is the professional sports commentary for ANYTHING besides the quality color commentary.
And the issue there is that color commentary is actually already pretty good in esports. There are some commentators that are HILARIOUS while at the same time actually making good points about what is going on.
Watch three or four esports games with commentary from the esports community. THEN watch an normal sports game on tv. Whole thing... watch it all... all four hours of it or whatever.
Try as best you can to do apples to apples comparisons. eSports doesn't need any pointers from traditional sports coverage. Its already better.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Their website URL is http://dojomadness.com
Instead of my mistakes why not show me what the play would have looked like if I did it perfect?
Then I can see how good I really think I am!
The scam to bring some kind of relevance to something totally irrelevant. It's just like sports, people watch them, but they created all those stat boards to try and legitimize all the jobs around them. In the end, they are useless figures on something that doesn't matter.
Think what you will, but the scene speaks for itself. Writing it off as "playing games" is disingenuous.
esports is just a popular label for it, and no professional gamer gives a shit if they're "officially" in the same category as Football/F1 or not. But again, the scene speaks for itself in that it has:
events with over 1 million concurrent viewers
events with a prize pool over 10 million dollars
pros who train in regimented schedules down to what meals they eat, with coaching staff, dedicated practice partners, and big name team sponsors
ongoing team leagues
dedicated full time casters/analysts, news coverage, and talk shows
thriving sports betting market (and all the problems it brings)
Again, no fan or pro cares if it's "officially" a sport or not. It's just about giving the fans what they want. Regardless, the scene is massive, and it's growing insanely fast. With the numbers that it has, don't be surprised (or irrationally angry) if you see esports headlines on the top of news outlets in the coming years.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00...
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Aren't all sports classified as 'games'?
It's certainly true that the impact of playing a field game vs. playing a computer game is likely to be different for the player(whether it will actually be healthier depends on how brutally the field sport chews up the human resources vs. how badly inactivity and carpal tunnel syndrome get you); but from the perspective of the audience there isn't much difference.
It's not as though watching intense phsyical exertion gives you exercise by osmosis; so while I'd tend to agree that gamers are not 'athletes', I have little time for the people who are sitting on the couch with a beer and a bowl of chips, decrying the physical passivity of the gamer geeks.
Remember the last time you got an all-field shot during a NFL game? That's right, it's illegal to do that, because only players and coaches get to see everything that's happening on the field at the same time.
Not sure if a troll or just ignorant, but with such a determined statement I would really like to see your argument to why that is the case.
I don't question it being competitive. Or requires training and skill. Hell, I even don't question that it's a sport. Or rather, I don't want to get into a discussion about it because, well, it's useless. There still is a reason why your playing of DOTA or whatever else the game du jour is will replace Superbowl Sunday any time soon: It's boring to watch.
And sadly that's true for ALL so called eSports. It simply isn't interesting to watch someone play a computer game. Yes, maybe due to novelty some people will wanna know what the hubub is about, but as soon as the novelty factor wears off, it's back to "meh". It's simply no fun to watch people play a computer game when you can play it yourself instead.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Think what you will, but the scene speaks for itself. Writing it off as "playing games" is disingenuous.
esports is just a popular label for it, and no professional gamer gives a shit if they're "officially" in the same category as Football/F1 or not. But again, the scene speaks for itself in that it has:
events with over 1 million concurrent viewers
events with a prize pool over 10 million dollars
pros who train in regimented schedules down to what meals they eat, with coaching staff, dedicated practice partners, and big name team sponsors
ongoing team leagues
dedicated full time casters/analysts, news coverage, and talk shows
thriving sports betting market (and all the problems it brings)
Again, no fan or pro cares if it's "officially" a sport or not. It's just about giving the fans what they want. Regardless, the scene is massive, and it's growing insanely fast. With the numbers that it has, don't be surprised (or irrationally angry) if you see esports headlines on the top of news outlets in the coming years.
So what makes sports better than professional wrestling or monster trucks?
Chess isn't sports, curling isn't sports, shooting isn't sports, archery isn't sports, bowling isn't sports, racewalking isn't sports, javelin throw isn't sports, hockey isn't sports.
Maybe if you try to define sports first you'll get to decide what is and what isn't sports. Does sports have to be physical? Javelin throwers won't get sweaty. Are games like hockey sports? What about games like golf? Players don't run, they don't have to be physically fit. Is motorsports sport? Driver on most case shave to be in good enough physical shape (this applies to eSports as well), but the competition doesn't happen between their physical abilities. Chess is classified as a sport usually. Players might get sweaty, but not because of physical efforts. How about sharpshooting? All you have to do is point a gun at right direction and hold it steady while you pull the trigger, not physically exhausting, not rreally even a game, just a competition of accuracy.
Those are strictly designed for entertainment from top to bottom, while professional gaming is first and foremost a competition of skill between two players or teams. The casting and money came from a grassroots movement to get the games to players who wanted to watch people at the top of their game play.
As far as competitive activities goes gaming is objectively quite different from other skill competitions. It's a mix of elements that you don't see come together in other arenas. It is a competition of skill though, and very demanding on the players. For example, top Korean pro Starcraft players are playing at about 300 apm when the action is heavy, which means they're sending about 5 commands per second to the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbpCLqryN-Q
Starcraft would be a mix of chess (strategy/tactics/practicing openers), poker (mindgames, you know he knows you know, etc), and F1 (extreme high speed eye/hand coordination).
If you can be beaten in your "eSport" by a random 12 year old kid then its not a sport. Oh and show me a game where someone had a million viewers.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Counter strike is far more limited in the range of possibilities of what that can happen in a single match. Not only are the matches far shorter (and as such does not have phases like dota) given a map there are only a handful of strategies possible to use. A bunch of other reasons too, statistically mine a game like dota to me seems to be an impossible task, there is just too much variation between matches.
Actually the pros do care a lot if it considered a sport or not, it can make it a lot easier to travel (getting visas for example), get incentives from their governments (tax breaks and such), companies can have a "sports budget" to sponsor sport teams and guess what, they can not use that budget if it is not an sport.
In short, the pros don't care what it is labeled as long as their governments (and the governments of the countries they will visit) recognize them as sports or at least have a specific rules for competitive eletronic games.
If you can be beaten in your "eSport" by a random 12 year old kid then its not a sport.
A random 12 year old can't beat any professional player in any eSport I've heard of.
Once someone gets sponsorship backing and starts to practice in a teamhouse with a coach they will run in circles around any random nobody that shows up, be it a 12 year old or a 30 year old.
Oh and show me a game where someone had a million viewers.
The International 2014
Valve announced that over 20 million unique viewers streamed the tournament. At its peak, concurrent viewers were over 2 million.
The matches were broadcasted on mainstream TV where I live, the viewership is not included in Valves numbers.
as long as their governments (and the governments of the countries they will visit) recognize them as sports
And many people are probably unaware that the United States does recognize eSports, and there are at least a few dozen progamers living in the United States on athlete visas.
.: Semper Absurda
I am not from the US, but do they recognize eSports as actual sports or is it a different category? If so what are the difference between each category?
I wasn't familiar with the specifics so I found this Wiki page. Apparently P visas are a general category for athletes, entertainers and their families who either represent something culturally unique, are part of an exchange program, or are internationally recognized (the main kind, P-1).
According the LA Times article linked in the Wiki page, programers have received P1-A visas specifically - the same subcategory as for any athlete.
.: Semper Absurda
When the kids were playing baseball and then grew up to play in the MLB... would it make sense to point at the crowd and talk about kids?
There's a difference. Activision Blizzard owns the exclusive rights to its games and has shown itself eager to enforce them (as in the bnetd case). Publishers of fighting games have been known to demand public performance royalties from tournament organizers or even to deny a license entirely and shut down a tournament's stream. I can fetch citations from Ars Technica and elsewhere if you want. By contrast, nobody owns the exclusive rights to baseball. Leagues like MLB can't ban people from baseball; they can only ban people from playing on MLB teams or MLB-affiliated minor league teams. Baseball leagues independent of MLB have existed and continue to exist.
But again, the scene speaks for itself in that it has:
...copyright strikes from a game's publisher against a league for broadcasting the league's matches.
That's the one big difference between physical sports and electronic sports: electronic sports are almost always non-free. See "Why Nintendo can legally shut down any Smash Bros. tournament it wants" by Kyle Orland.
This lack or presence of ownership allows or disallows you from doing what exactly?
The lack of ownership of a sport allows a competing league to begin operation without having to first seek permission from the owner of the sport. This allows for competition among leagues.
The kids need to buy baseballs and bats.
From any of several competing equipment manufacturers. Only Blizzard can sell copies of StarCraft.
And if you play professionally you're going to sign on with an official team or you won't be professional.
In any of several competing leagues, not just the one endorsed by the owner of a sport.
No one needs Blizzard's permission to have a SC tourney
Technically they do, at least if they're streaming the tourney to the public. The graphics of StarCraft and StarCraft II are copyrighted.
so... again... what is the restriction?
It's considered performing the video game publicly. Video games are considered audiovisual works in U.S. copyright law, and the owner of copyright in an audiovisual work has the exclusive right to perform that work publicly. Doing so without express permission is copyright infringement, as if you were offering to stream . Please see the article "Why Nintendo can legally shut down any Smash Bros. tournament it wants" by Kyle Orland and this appellate brief from a moot court.
No one needs Blizzard's permission to have a SC tourney
Blizzard disagrees. It filed suit.
cite an instance of Blizzard either demanding money for a tourney or denying someone a right to have a tourney.
As to dumb things Nintendo has done recently... everyone in the gaming world is well aware of that. And honestly... after some bitching no one cared because Nintendo's most recent offerings have been garbage. They just had a really bad generation.
I hope they do better next time but ... they're having a hard time.
Anywho... when it comes to esports we're talking about SC, Counterstrike... etc So... can you show me an instance of blizzard of valve shutting a tourney down?
Otherwise I'm going to yawn and hand wave.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
cite an instance of Blizzard either demanding money for a tourney or denying someone a right to have a tourney.
From the article "Crafting an Industry: An Analysis of Korean Starcraft and Intellectual Properties Law" by Jacob Rogers:
So yes, Blizzard filed a lawsuit against a broadcaster of a tournament.
you can shift to other games in the same genre if you need to put leverage on a particular company that is being irritating.
For one thing, a lot of skills won't transfer, especially the need to re-learn how everything is balanced. It'd be like trying to switch from Tetrinet to Puyo Pop or from baseball to cricket or from soccer to Gaelic football. For another, once a league switches to a different game, how can the league be sure that the new game's copyright won't get sold, such as at acquisition or bankruptcy, to another "company that is being irritating"? I can't see any way other than making sure the game is free software or has some other sort of irrevocable guarantee of non-interference with public performance for profit.
the issue there is more about people making money off the league
Independent baseball leagues are free to make money without having to negotiate with any owner of exclusive rights to a sport, as were the African-American leagues before them.