Nvidia is on the ground in Seattle for the second year in a row, collaborating with Valve for the $20 million Dota 2 championship as the official graphics card of the tournament. In addition to featuring the largest prize pool in the history of eSports, The International (TI6) is also the first major tournament played using GeForce GTX 1080 GPUs—which James Grunke, head of global eSports at Nvidia, said is the fastest GPU on earth—on 180Hz G-Sync Asus HD monitors.
“The International keeps growing in excitement,” Grunke said. “We expect the audience to set records again this year. It’s amazing in digital media, the way eSports has exploded, and Dota 2 is truly a global phenomenon, bringing kids together from around the world.”
Another first for the tournament is the launch of Valve’s Dota 2 VR Hub, which allows HTC Vive owners to experience the eSports action with up to 15 friends in a public lobby or an invite-only private viewing party. The Hub features both live and recorded matches in a virtual theater.
Mark Smith, worldwide manager of developer relations for games at Nvidia, said that Valve set up Vive demo stations at KeyArena to showcase various VR games, including AudioShield, Project Arena, Space Pilot Simulator, Hover Junkers and the Dota 2 VR Hub.
“All of these demos are running on the GeForce GTX 1080,” Smith said. “You can check out the mixed reality stream to get a peek at the VR games being shown live on Twitch.”
Smith said virtual reality opens up exciting opportunities for new ways to view and engage with eSports content.
“The Dota 2 VR Hub is a great example of this,” Smith said. “It allows players to experience the Dota 2 matches in VR, allowing users to watch games either in a virtual theater or by diving into the game to get an eye-level view of the action. It enables fans who can’t make the trip to the TI6 a way to have a similar social experience as watching the matches live at KeyArena.”
Grunke said a five-man video crew has been on the ground this week to capture exclusive content for the Nvidia Gaming Network.
“Our philosophy for providing content for our viewers is behind-the-scenes and human stories for fans that don’t have the opportunity to talk to players themselves,” Grunke said. “We’re not a play-by-play highlight film outlet; we’re a human story outlet. We also focus on performance for our audience, helping them become better gamers.”
Nvidia is actively engaging with this audience via social media. Its Twitter channel has over one million followers.
“Our Twitter feed has a ton of content with pro players and fans,” Grunke said. “We do short behind-the-scenes content that helps the fans to understand what it’s like to be a player in this league.”
Nvidia is currently running a TI6 Game Ready promotion where fans can vote for their favorite teams to win. For each vote received, the contest raises the bar for GPU prizes that range from GTX 1060s all the way to GTX 1080s with G-Sync monitors.
Grunke said having Dota 2 showcased at TI6 running on the latest Nvidia hardware is a great way to market this technology directly to the global eSports fan base. “G-Sync technology removes all of the visual noise to allow players to have a better view of the action, which enables higher performance for the pro players themselves,” Grunke said.
Valve isn’t doing a sponsor village at The International this year. The software and technology giant also doesn’t officially work with sponsors or play commercials during livestreams. “We’re there in force as a partner,” Grunke said. “Our branding is on the floor and around the VR activities. It’s our responsibility to make the news known.”
Grunke said the International is the highlight of an increasingly frenetic eSports season that is driving not only the PC industry, but new kinds of entertainment. “This isn’t a regional phenomenon,” Grunke said. “People all over the world play the same games, and follow the same teams.”
Nvidia also works with ESL and has run two CS:GO majors with GeForce GTX and G-Sync technology in addition to three ESL One Dota 2 tournaments. When a character runs past a crack in the door, a normal monitor shows just a blur, but Grunke said that with GeForce GTX and G-Sync, you can see details like their shoelaces.
