Esports is growing.
Even before the events this year disrupted so much of what we all do, there has been explosive growth in the numbers of streamers and viewers worldwide, and the pandemic has only accelerated this trend. Industry estimates are that by 2022 esports viewers will exceed 670M worldwide, and 70% of Americans between 13 and 64 already play games.* With the growth in gaming and esports, we’re excited to announce the MSN Esports Hub for these gamers and fans. (Just in case you don’t know, “esports” is a multiplayer competition using video games including spectating, usually via livestream.)
The MSN Esports Hub – available here – is a one-of-a-kind destination that brings esports news, streams, tournaments, and stats together into a single hub, organized into four sections:
- “Home” blends streams, news, scores and schedules into an overview
- “Watch” focuses on livestreams and video content
- “Calendar” shows events and tournaments by day
- “News” pulls together articles and updates from around the web.
It’s built with Microsoft Bing intelligence and other cutting-edge technology to consolidate news, game streams, matches, tournaments, and team stats from multiple platforms together a fast, intuitive experience on desktop and mobile.
We believe that what matters most to gamers is the game, not the streaming platform…
We believe that what matters most to gamers is the game, not the streaming platform, so we integrate streams from both YouTube and Twitch (with more platforms coming soon). We also leverage web-scale aggregation to provide the freshest content from hundreds of gaming news sites, including top esports content providers like DotEsports, GamesRadar, ESTNN, GosuGamers, and many more.
Built using AI
In addition to the data and intelligence you would expect from Microsoft Bing, some of what makes this experience unique is “Watch For,” an AI system built by Microsoft Research. “Watch For” applies cutting-edge machine vision models to analyze tens of thousands of streams real-time to identify the most interesting content. It can identify details like streamers playing a specific character or map or determine which Fortnite players have the most eliminations mid-game. This means it’s easier for users to find great content from top streamers, but also makes it possible to catch something you wouldn’t normally see, like an amateur streaming their best game ever.
With all this content in one place, it’s important to make sure users can easily find the games or teams they care about…
This is why we focused on intuitive filtering from an esports enthusiast’s perspective. With one click, you can filter to see only Call of Duty game streams, jump to Valorant player rankings, see the tournament schedule for League of Legends, or see scores for your Dota 2 team. (Current games include League of Legends, Valorant, CounterStrike: Go, Dota 2, Overwatch, Fortnite, PubG, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Rainbow 6, and Rocket League.)
Across titles, there are more tournaments and online competitions now than ever.
Over the last 12 months we tracked more than 1275 tournaments around the world. To ensure you can find the events that matter to you, we pull from game studios, esports websites, esports data aggregators, and amateur event organizers to provide you with the fullest picture possible of what is going on. Whether it’s an amateur tournament in your neighborhood or the League of Legends World Championships, our goal is to make sure you know about it. The MSN Esports Hub can even help you find out important dates, prize pools, and more, we’re even working with event organizers to integrate amateur tournament info and prize pools, and to help people find how to register to compete!
The MSN Esports Hub was built by gamers and fans from across Microsoft and is available here. You can also read more from the Bing team here.
We think it’s a great addition to the world of esports.
Whether you are just getting started gaming or doing research on another team before your next tournament, we hope you’ll check it out and tell the team what you think – send suggestions on Twitter or chat with us on our Discord.
*According to a 2019 CTA study
