This Friday, ESL One New York will partner with VR platform Sliver.TV for the first-ever VR-streamed Counter-Strike: Global Offensive esports event. On Oct. 1 and 2, spectators will be able to access a special broadcast intended for virtual reality on smartphones or VR headsets.
By utilizing the program feed and a third-party application, viewers will be able to watch the live stream while also accessing a third-person, "god's eye" view of the map. They'll be able to look around and peer at different avenues and lines of sight, which means seeing competitive CS:GO from a whole new angle.
"It's great, because you get the best of both worlds, the first-person and third-person," said Mitch Liu, CEO of Sliver.TV. "[In] the higher-up view for strategy, you can see how the team comes together, or how a teammate comes around the corner and who covers his back."
The nature of virtual reality in esports has become a hot topic, especially since The International 6, where Valve premiered both VR and AR (augmented reality), features for viewers of its competitive Dota 2 games. All matches at TI6 were available to spectate in VR, from both an overhead and on-the-ground view. Heroes were also displayed on the program feed in real-time using AR technology, allowing the production crew to display hero picks and compositions in new ways.
Paul "RedEye" Chaloner, who hosted TI6 in Seattle this year, said he has been blown away by what Valve has shown him in VR but is still skeptical about its use in broadcasts.
"I think it's very novel right now. I don't think we've necessarily figured out how to use it best yet," Chaloner said. "I think, like all new technologies, it's very cool right now. It's great to show off and show people what it can do. I don't think we've necessarily nailed how it fits into a broadcast properly, for the benefit of the viewer, and likewise as a spectator in the game."
Sliver.TV's solution seems to work similar to Valve's in offering a mixed-view solution; one way to watch the events that is native and familiar, and a second option that breaks the conventions of current esports broadcasts. Liu told us Sliver.TV wants ESL One New York to be a tipping point for VR, and the company is already looking into contacting other tournament organizers to offer VR solutions.
"We have an opportunity to transform the esports spectator experience," Liu said. "We believe that we can really take the esports live event to a whole new level."
For Chaloner and others on the production and broadcasting side, the issue is not introduction, but integration. The difficulty is finding a happy medium between drawing too much attention to something and ignoring it. Like lower-third screen overlays, statistics and motion graphics, virtual reality can be a powerful storytelling tool -- in the right hands and with the right approach.
"It's more about [the question] 'Does it add to the broadcast experience for the viewer?'" Chaloner said. "Does it add something that they [couldn't] get out of another event, and therefore would then crave at big events [in the future]? [In other words,] would it become expected that you would have this technology at every event?"
ESL One New York will be a proving ground for both Sliver.TV and virtual reality for spectatorship at competitive events. The experience, which will be available through Sliver's application on the Google and Apple app stores on multiple devices, will be one step forward in the ongoing experiment of integrating virtual reality into modern broadcasts.