Esports in Education - Live Streaming Esports Tournaments

Understanding the history of video games helps students and educators put our current place in history into perspective. Let's review some of the milestones in the video gaming industry.

Esports has a long and cultured history. Competitive video gaming has really taken off in recent years. Yet you may be surprised just how long competitive video gaming has been around for.

In this day and age, video games have become integrated into the everyday lives of young people around the world. While the study of video games has been active ever since the video game revolution took off in the early 1980’s, most average video gamers today have never been taught how to “study” a video games inner workings. The use of video games in education has been well documented in many different forms over the years. Research is now readily available for educators to explore the advantages that video games can bring into the classroom. While research on the positive effects of learning with video games in education are well-known, it is important to review just how quickly academic thinking has evolved over the past two decades. Today, the question on many educators' minds is not video games value for education, but it’s validity as a varsity level sport. How is video gaming culture affecting students in school today and how will thinking change as Esports becomes more integrated into the education system?

Esports have come a very long way from the inconspicuous beginnings of October 1972, when Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab (Los Altos, California) hosted the first-ever competitive video game event. What used to be viewed as a teenage obsession, reserved for adolescents who had a hard time making friends in real life (at least, in parents' view) has morphed into an international phenomenon. Esports now has the potential to disrupt and irreversibly alter the way we create and consume competitive sports (Baker & Baker, 2016).

Today, Esports is already a multibillion-dollar industry. It is growing at a pace never seen before in the history of all sports. Milestones that have taken global sports like basketball, baseball, football, soccer and tennis the better part of the last century to achieve, will be reached and eclipsed by Esports before the first quarter of this century is over. Just last year a 16 year old Fortnite player won more than Tiger Woods at the Masters golf tournament. Yet, the interesting thing is that most adults do not know that this is happening. While teenage video game heros are making more than the worlds top golf and tennis players, only two out of ten adults past the age of 35 know that Esports exist (“The Global Games Market Will Generate $152.1 Billion in 2019 as the U.S. Overtakes China as the Biggest Market | Newzoo,” n.d.).

Established colleges and universities are now starting to offer Esports programs across the United States and the world. Today, there are more than 125 varsity level Esports programs registered with the national governing body NACE (National Association of Collegiate Esports). Educational organizations that have long been on the spectator side of online gaming are becoming hubs for innovation in Esports. Schools are starting to offer scholarships for excellence in Esports to attract the talent they need to build teams that can compete on a national stage.

In an earlier chapter, you learned that several universities now have standard Esports teams participating in league-based tournaments and competitions. Many of these educational institutions are introducing new programs and facilities to help prepare the next generation of students to pursue careers in the Esports industry.

You may be thinking to yourself, “Hey, I’m a good candidate for helping my school start an Esports club.” Many school districts do not yet have Esports set up as an official sport and therefore, creating a club may be the best place to start. Until competitive Esports become an official sport at your school, you can take the following basic steps to start organizing a school-sponsored club.

Hosting an Esports Tournament

Esports tournaments provide an amazing opportunity for students interested in video games to get out of their at-home gaming environments and into a community environment. While many parents see video gaming as a solo-activity, there are a variety of ways that kids can now become involved in local community activities. Scott Novism, the owner of Bavous Youth Esports, has started an Esports league called Evolve Youth Esports with the noble mission to “Transform a love for gaming into a true sporting experience.” Evolve Youth Esports is one of the many video game leagues that are determined to offer “more than just video games” to students in their area.

Novism is positive that getting kids together can help develop social skills. In fact, a recent study published in American Psychologist reports that “70% of gamers play with a friend” and “Playing video games, including violent shooter games, may boost children’s learning, health, and social skills” (APA, 2014). Many parents worry that video gaming as a sport lacks the team-based community-building aspects of say a baseball team that meets up at the baseball field each week. The lack of in-person community based get-togethers could lead to what Novism calls “Synthetic Autism.” Synthetic Autism is a term Novism uses to describe gamers spending too much time in front of screens which can in turn affect social development skills.

While a common fear among parents is that children who play video games will suffer from social isolation, the studies prove otherwise. A team of researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology found “that video games are not the cause of some adolescent issues. Rather, the reason a child spends his or her time playing video games, like social isolation from peers, is more relevant.” The study includes data from interviews with 873 students surveyed every two years for six years. The results did provide insights that confirm video games are being used to “fill a child’s need to belong and desire to master tasks” and “Children who struggle socially are more likely to turn to video games for entertainment” but overall the study shows video games in a positive light. Perhaps using video games as a mechanism to help children meet up in local communities can help build social development skills after all. Many students who play video games at local Esports tournaments or gaming centers are able to build new relationships with friends in their local area. Novism says “when we bring the students back together… it doesn’t take that long… if you get kids in the right environment where they are playing face to face… It is amazing how given the right opportunity, they will teach each other, learn from each other, and grow together…. That is what is missing online. It’s the non-verbal teaching that you get from your peers that share your interests” (Maricopa, 2019).

When you help your local school or community host an Esports tournament, you could be helping to foster more than just video gameplay. If you look at the experience of bringing children together to learn social skills, the experience is more of an engaging educational method. Given how attracted children are to video games, competitions, and events, host Esports tournaments will become a popular way to get kids together in new and innovative ways. Which brings us to our next chapter, live streaming your Esports tournament, to make it that much more exciting and powerful.

Live Streaming a Basic Esports Tournament

If you have never live-streamed video gameplay before it may seem like a crazy idea. Why would other people want to watch you play video games? It’s possible that nobody actually wants to watch you play video games, but it’s also possible that people online are interested in what you are doing. The excitement surrounding live streaming Esports is incredible. For parents and educators, the live streaming aspect of Esports opens up the opportunity to bring competitive or casual gaming into a new perspective that connects you with the world at large.

Today’s top Esports stars have complicated streaming systems that include fancy overlays, interactive extensions, and picture in picture setups. Broadcasters in the Esports world can often take gaming to the next level by interacting with their live audience and involving thousands, even millions of viewers with their gameplay. You can capitalize on the excitement of Esports in a group setting when you live stream an Esports tournament. This can be a great opportunity to position yourself as someone who understands Esports. Esports tournaments are amazing spaces that can create common ground for generations young and old to collaborate and spend time together.

In this chapter, you will learn how to live stream a very simple production of Esports tournament. Through this process you can involve students in production, camera operation, social media, announcing, journalism and much more surrounding the event. You can create a production team like the Griswold High School or you can simply manage a one computer streaming system on your own. Whatever you choose to do, you will find that students appreciate your efforts and become attracted to the idea of competitive Esports gaming.

Let’s start with the basic concept of adding a live streaming element to an Esports tournament. When Esports tournaments are in session, there is generally a computer that is dedicated to the task of being an “Observer” of the game. An “Observer PC” is a computer that is connected to the same network as all of the computers that are playing competitively. This computer has the ability to view the game being played from any player’s point of view. During a RocketLeauge tournament, for example, this computer will show sweeping camera views of the players who are closest to the action. This Observer PC can be used by your play-by-play announcer to quickly get an idea of what is going on in the game. The video output of this Observer PC can also be used by your production team to capture and stream the essence of most Esports tournaments.

As you can see in the diagram above, the Production PC has a camera and microphone that is used for capturing a play by play announcer. While the main screen focus may be the output of the Observer PC, it’s very popular to have a picture in the picture element of the broadcast that includes a play by play announcer. There are a couple of different ways to capture the video from the Observer PC and bring it into your production PC. In the next chapter you will learn how to use a free software called OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) with a plugin called NDI. But for this chapter, the demonstration will use a professional HDMI to USB capture card with an HDMI loop through.

The HDMI Pro Capture Card here is used to capture the HDMI going from the Observer PC computer to the Observer PC monitor. The device is able to pass through the HDMI output and produce a USB 3.0 video output that you can connect to your Production PC. Using one of the many popular live streaming production software solutions available today, you can mix the Observer PC video with the video from your camera attached to the Production PC. In your video production software you have a camera input for your play by play announcer, you have a video/audio input from your observer PC and you have an audio input for the announcer as well. You can use a pair of headphones to tweak the audio levels between the play by play announcer and the gameplay audio. You can also consider adding some compression on the play by play announcers microphones, but this is something you can learn more about in the books included online course.

This is a very high level look at a simple production for a basic Esports tournaments. In the next chapter, you will learn how to capture unique gameplay from each player, add webcam views for each player, and organize a modern Esport tournament with your own local area network. At the 2019 StreamGeeks Summit, one of the goals was to provide students with real world jobs surrounding the Esports gameplay and that is what you will learn in the next chapter.

The StreamGeeks Summit happened on November 8th, 2020 in New York City. The tournament featured a 3 on 3 Rocket League setup with seven computers and a production PC all connected together on one LAN (Local Area Network). There was a stage area with two students play by play announcers on camera with microphones for audio pickup. The production crew had multiple PTZOptics NDI camera available to use in order to zoom into the play by play announcers but also capture angles that show each of the gaming stations. Students from the S.A.R high school broadcast club were able to produce a 100% student-run live stream with the available video and audio sources spread across the local area network. The entire student-run production was then live-streamed to Twitch.

So where do you begin?

Let’s start with capturing the gameplay of each player and include a webcam video feed as well. With 6 players spread out hundreds of feet from each other, the USB capture card method mentioned our basic setup would not be possible. Most live streamers do not recommend the use of more than two capture cards with a single computer. This is due to USB bandwidth constraints built-in to most computers. Instead of using expensive capture cards and video extensions you can use IP video that leverages the ethernet cabling already connecting every computer.

Each of the RocketLeague computers should be connected to a local area network as a prerequisite to hosting the tournament. A local area network or LAN is basically an interconnected system that connects each computer for gameplay with ethernet cabling using networking equipment. This same networking infrastructure can also be used to connect each gaming computer to the production PC.

In the planning stages of your Esports tournament, you will want to know exactly how many computers and devices you will have on your LAN (local area network). Most networks can handle 254 connected devices, all communicating with unique IP addresses, without advanced configurations. The brain behind your LAN is generally a piece of networking equipment called a router. A router is used to manage all of your computers and other devices connected on your network. All devices on your network will need unique IP addresses in order to communicate. This is not something you generally have to worry about and it will be covered in more detail in the included Esports Streaming Course. But for now just understand, each device can be assigned an IP address manually or automatically using DHCP. Assuming your router is set up to handle DHCP, it will automatically give any device connected to your network an IP address unless the device has already been assigned an IP address manually.

Take the above network for example. The modem providing internet to your router is optional. If you plug a modem with internet access into your router, it will allow you to give all of the devices on your network internet connectivity. Internet connectivity is generally important for Esports tournaments, not just for live streaming but also for updating game software with the latest builds.

Connected to the router is a network switch. Network switches are used to connect devices together using ethernet cabling. As you can see there are 6 “Esports Computers” connected to the network switch. Because they are connected to the network, the router will assign each computer an IP address using DHCP. Once each computer is connected to the same local area network the RocketLeague software will automatically see each computer running the game on the network and allow the students to play the game together in your tournament. Also connected to your network you can see your Observer and Production PCs. These computers can be used to send and receive video over IP as well on the local area network. Your production PC will be receiving video from all 7 computers on your network by the end of this setup.

As you can see the video production computer is running software called Wirecast. Wirecast is a great software for video production and the students from the S.A.R High School operating the system use it to produce traditional sports like Basketball all the time. On each Esports computer, you can install a piece of software called OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) to capture the gameplay and a webcam connected to the computer via USB. OBS can be used to combine a screen capture of the gameplay and a picture in picture source of the USB webcam source together. OBS is an amazing free tool for video production and it can output an IP standard called NDI with a plugin. Once you are running OBS on each of the Esports computers you can choose to customize your IP NDI video output. NDI can be used as a low-latency video output from OBS which is used to transport each Esports computer video source into your production computer over the LAN. Because all of these computers are connected over the same local area network, all of the OBS NDI outputs can be pulled in with Wirecast over the network.

Another important part of the production connected to your LAN is the Observer PC. The Observer PC can also run OBS to capture the video gameplay and output the video via IP using NDI. The “Observer” feature of the RocketLeague software is available in almost all other competitive video games as well and it has become an important tool for play by play announcers. The Observer PC should be set up in view for your play by play announcers who will be using the monitor to do their job. Your production team should consider the Observer PC video input one of the staples of their production. Just like regular sports production you want to give the audience a good overview of field as the play develops. Transitioning to individual gamers screens should be reserved for special occasions happening during gameplay.

Your play by play announcers will, of course, have microphones for capturing their performances. Microphones are generally used with XLR connections that can be connected to a USB audio interface. A standard USB audio interface can mix together multiple XLR microphones and connect to your production PC with a simple USB cable. The play by play announcers will also be captured via video using a camera connected to your system. In the diagram above, you can see the system has added multiple NDI capable PTZOptics cameras and the audio system for the play by play announcers. NDI cameras can output video directly to your computer without the need of a capture card. PTZOptics NDI cameras also feature PoE (Power over Ethernet) capabilities which allow teams to connect a single ethernet cable to power the camera, control the camera, and connect to their software for video.

Another IP connected device that gives students an important role in the production is an IP joystick. In this example, there is a PTZOptics IP joystick that is connected to the network which is able to operate the pan, tilt, and zoom operations of the PTZOptics 20X NDI cameras. Both the joystick and the camera can be powered over Ethernet assuming you are using a power over ethernet capable network switch. The IP joystick uses the PTZOptics camera’s static IP address to communicate. Unlike the Esports computers that use DHCP to get their IP addresses, devices like PTZ cameras usually keep static IP addresses. You can of course control PTZOptics cameras directly inside software like Wirecast or OBS but a dedicated joystick controller can make your production easier to manage so that your student producer can focus on the production.

So that’s the basics of a simple 3 on 3 Esports tournament local area network with a broadcast setup for two play by play announcers. In the next chapter, you can dig in deeper and understand what it really takes to pull of an Esports tournament live stream like this.

With new games coming out every month, you may think it could be a near-impossible task for parents and coaches to keep up with the latest games. Should parents be worried about any potential harmful influences video games can have on their children? How will Esports coaches discourage video games with mature and even crude content? This is a question a lot of parents and school administrators ask and their worries are justified.

Given that many games involve graphic scenes of violence and mature content that can include sexual themes, gambling, and drug use, it’s no wonder parents worry. These concerns are often amplified when young people sit for hours playing games that can easily be downloaded from the internet. Luckily, a few concerned individuals and institutions have raised legitimate questions about the physical, mental, and emotional health risks posed by video games. The problem is made more difficult by the fact that most adults are unfamiliar with video gaming culture. Parents of “Millennials” also known as “Generation Y” often voice opinions about being unequipped to decide which video games are helpful or harmful to young people.

As with other kinds of technology, the question becomes - are video games good or bad? This is a hard question to answer. There is no straightforward answer because a lot depends on the game in question. Results can also vary depending on the individual who is playing and the way they interact with the game. However, is there a way for adults to determine what games are good? Can video games be used for educational and developmental purposes? Luckily, there are available methods for ascertaining the usefulness of video games.

During the 2019 NAB Show, I hosted a panel on Esports with three industry professionals who are doing great things in Esports. The panel included Tim Vandenburg of vMix, Stu Grubbs of LightStream, and Norris Howard from CheckPointXP. Along with my co-host, Tess Protesto, I had a chance to chat with these gentlemen about various aspects of the industry. This group of panelists have been in Esports long enough to know the unique challenges players face and what the future holds for the sport. Here is a summary of the salient points in the interview.

Learn how to make Etherenet cables with us! Here is a step by step guide on how to make Ethernet cable for your video productions and Esports tournaments!

Learn how to make SDI cables with us! Here is a step by step guide on how to properly make these cables for your video production.

As promised, here is a look at using Google Sketchup to layout a space for hosting an esports tournament.