Allied Esports Entertainment has teamed up with Xsens to bring motion-captured animated broadcasters to esports tournaments.
Xsens makes motion-capture body suits that can capture an actor’s movements and translate them into realistic 3D animations. And Allied Esports will take that technology and turn its human esports broadcasters, or shoutcasters, into animated figures in esports shows.
Allied Esports will debut the technology in esports broadcasts at places like its HyperX Esports Arena in Las Vegas.
Xsens’ MVN motion capture systems have been used in popular films and series such as Black Panther and The Mandalorian. Allied Esports will transform its tournament casters into animated characters. The exclusively designed live motion avatars will provide fans with an engaging viewing experience specific to the game being played, and create unique, innovative opportunities for brand and product integration.
The idea is to push the boundaries of competitive gaming viewing experiences, CEO Jud Hannigan said in an interview with GamesBeat.
“We’re always looking for new trends in the industry that we can kind of grab on and create new experiences for our audiences,” Hannigan said. “This concept of Vtubing (where animated characters star in YouTube videos) has been growing in popularity over the last several months.”
In particular, the team noticed that Code Miko, a Vtuber on Twitch with 600,000 followers, has been catching on for hilarious hijinks.
“She’s blowing up and we were doing a little research on people tuning into animated streamers and content creators,” Hannigan said. “So we dug into it and thought about how we could make this work for our audience.”
Allied Esports will use the tech in the three-day, $5,900, winner-take-all Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Legend Series tournament, featuring teams Apeks, Club Brugge, Nexus, and NLG. The show will be produced out of Allied Esports’ AE Studios in Hamburg, Germany from April 10 to April 12 and be live-streamed on Allied Esports’ North American and European Twitch channels.
“Xsens captures all of their [body] motions,” Hannigan said. “It’s a first of its kind viewing experience for an esports audience when. We’ll have animated characters and their real personalities.”
Inside the motion capture suits will be casters Robert Jan Kortooms (@RJcasts) and Thiadrik Oldersma (@Toldersma), who will inject their personalities and CS:GO expertise into the animated characters and tournament broadcast.
Through its data and video rights partnership with Grid, a leading esports data provider that delivers official data to regulated bookmakers and sports betting platforms, Allied Esports’ CS:GO Legend Series live-server data will be distributed to participating sportsbooks, allowing bettors to engage with the event in real time.
Created in 2017, Allied Esports’ original Legend Series tournament brand was designed to expand the competitive ecosystem and total prize pool for teams ranked outside of the first tier, as well as provide a broadcast platform for regulated esports betting.
Allied Esports’ $59,000 prize pool VIE.gg CS:GO Legend Series in September drew 1.7 million unique viewers, generated over 1 million hours watched and reached 98,000 peak viewers. Allied Esports has 30 employees.