Game on for Asia's e-sports scene

IN just a few years, e-sports has moved from being perceived as a teenage time-waster to its position today as a major global industry. It is estimated that by 2022, the value of the global e-sports market will be approaching roughly US$1.8 billion, increasing to over US$3 billion by 2022.

Twitch, one of the world's biggest streaming platforms for gamers, is estimated to have grown its audience by 31 per cent last year, and Steam, a video game digital distribution service, hit an all-time record of concurrent users in mid-2020 with over 24 million users.

Asia is a particularly fertile field for the trend.

According to market researcher Niko Partners, mobile e-sports games in Asia generated US$13.3 billion in 2019, comprising 68 per cent of the total global revenue. Overall, Niko found that Asia generated nearly half of all global e-sports revenue in 2019, hosting major events like Riot Games' League of Legends Championships.

This is the most popular e-sport in the world. The 2020 edition of "Worlds", the largest event for League of Legends each year - where teams from different regions of the world come together to compete - was broadcast in 16 different languages across 21 platforms. The Worlds underlined the consistent overall growth in e-sports' popularity by clocking up more than 139 million viewers.

Game data has become an increasingly important feature of many traditional sports, allowing fans to compare players' performance and predict match outcomes.

However, no sport is driven by data more than e-sports. Its focus on data and analytics has multiple impacts - on gameplay itself, on the broader opportunities for technical professionals, and on the growing community, including viewers. Data helps them learn as they watch.

Data analytics is essential to help players optimise gameplay. By using large samples of data, data analysts can discover different strategies, techniques, and gameplay to deliver victory.

Besides analysing and interpreting data based on players' spatial movements, game actions and reactions, data analysis can also be applied to determine optimal ways to manage in-game resources and money, and to deal with regular update patches and game changes.

INFORMATION VIA ANALYTICS

With games like League of Legends, matches can be re-watched and entered into databases to be examined further in the future. After every game, data is gathered and sorted, which can then be analysed and broken down step-by-step.

From the players' perspective, e-sports is all about competition and skill building, and data analytics helps a great deal in understanding the intricacies of their own gameplay and that of their competitors.

With data analytics, players can figure out the tactics and strategies the opposite team often uses and how to counter them. The information extracted via analytics helps players easily analyse their performance, strengths and weaknesses, and gives them an edge over their competitors. It's a clear example of how analytics is directly linked to the success of a team.

An indication of the power of data analytics comes from one of e-sports' real-world cousins - Formula One racing.

The overwhelming success of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One team in recent years is based on their ability to collect, analyse and interpret huge amounts of data from hundreds of thousands of channels in real time, and derive insights that have helped make them perennial winners. E-sports players have the opportunity to do just the same, adjusting their gameplay according to real-time data inputs.

From the overall industry point of view, escalating audience numbers and prize money from tournaments, as well as publicity for the industry, have simultaneously created an opportunity for analytics companies to build and outfit teams and gaming industry players with data software.

Participants, viewership numbers and game results are among the data points being analysed during tournaments by third parties seeking to enhance fan experiences and increase revenues.

As a result, game publishers and industry players will need to use management platforms to create products and distribute data that is consumable by the entire community.

These cloud-native application programming interface (API) management platforms enable third-party apps, mobile apps, and connected devices to interact with data outside the firewall, making the data sharing process simple, fast, and safe.

GOLDEN OPPORTUNITIES

This huge growth in the popularity of e-sports, driven uniquely by data and analytics, means golden opportunities for data experts.

Not only are teams and franchises hiring technical support analysts and engineers, but tournament organisers, broadcasters, hardware and software providers and third-party companies such as streaming services and betting companies are also increasingly on the lookout for top analytical talent to cater to the growing demand for data processing and management.

With more e-sports organisations being set up here and the backing of government agencies for various e-sports initiatives, the number of opportunities for local players in the region has also increased.

For example, in Singapore according to an IMDA 2019 survey, the e-sports industry will require about 2,700 info-communications and media professionals to support the games sector over the next two years.

Data analytics will go beyond aiding players and teams to enhance tactics, it will also enable them to increase their monetisation.

Teams, event organisers and third-party companies are now more than ever looking for data and patterns that can help them to further increase revenues by identifying ways to attract larger audiences and upsell to get existing fans to purchase more.

APIs are growing rapidly, helping to connect devices and data outside a game's firewall, making it easier for players to interact better. Most APIs are based on cloud technologies and provide an additional level of engagement for players and fans.

In gaming terms, "sandboxing" refers to the possibility of limitless exploration, similar to the way data analytics can be used in e-sports. So don't be a noob - get in the sandbox and reach the next level!

• The writer is senior vice president, EMEA & APJ, at TIBCO Software.