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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.
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.