An overview of the departments and objectives of ETT: part 1/2

With the first official four months behind us, the ETT members can look back on a successful start of the newest UT student team. Though not all set objectives are achieved in the past few months, we can be happy with the progress we made so far. In this short two-part blog, I will review what ETT and her members have been doing so far. Especially in the second part of this blog I will also discuss what our specific plans and goals are for the upcoming five years! So, stay tuned and have fun reading!

To give you a good understanding of the three main components of the ETT-machine, lets first start with an overview of the different departments and their respective objective. First and foremost, as a student-research-team we have the data-analysis and research department. This dual department focusses on developing the understanding of optimal Esports performance. Through research projects the research department aims to analyse the optimal mental and physical state for Esports players to perform. This can be in the form of psychically oriented research into the effect of posture, eye-movement or hand-temperature but also aimed at the more psychological side with personal mentality, voice-tone recognition or communication and training strategies. The other component is the data-analysis department, where the focus is on the analysis of the in-game data. To give you an impression, every input, every button press and position is recorded by the game and all this data can be used to investigate every part of a played game. With this we can for example analyse how much a specific FIFA-player focusses on the right-side of the football field using a specific strike pattern. All these patterns combined can help the player himself or his opponents to better prepare during practice. This department is the main pillar of ETT as we are the first Dutch academic organisation to focus on research aimed at Esports. Especially in the Netherlands the Esports research & analysis branch is nearly non-existing compared with the Americas and Asia. Because of this our team and the UT can become a frontrunner in Esports research. Before long, all the Dutch, Belgian and even German and French Esports teams will come to the UT for a detailed analysis of their performance.

In the past four months our research and data analysis departments have focussed on five main topics:
⦁ Military application of the shooter Counterstrike Global Offensive during training of the marines
⦁ Resource usage and in-depth positioning heatmap of Rocket League players
⦁ Real-time win chance predictor during the game itself and a replay-analyser of League of Legends
⦁ End screen analyser of the football game FIFA
⦁ Impact on the psychological state of Esports players on the performance and motivation
⦁ Teamwork and communication analyser-tool using tone and voice recognition software
But you will all be able to read the details in the research-updates blogs coming each month on this website!

Up next, we have our Esports competition department, this component of ETT is all about competing at the highest level and managing the players and coaching staff. Many people fail to realize that the manager of an Esports team has the same tasks as the manager of a Football team. Tournaments and competitions need to be selected, practice and review moments need to be scheduled, athletes need personal guidance, coaching and analysts need to be hired and Esports related content need to be designed and made. Between 5 and 15 hours a week our coaching staff and the players are practicing via so called scrims, where our team plays versus the team of another Esports organisation. Do not be fooled, playing a casual game cannot be compared to the stress and teamwork that is involved in these scrims. We currently have three different branches in the Esports competition department: our League of Legends branch, our FIFA-branch, and our Rocket League branch. We are planning to expand at the start of March, adding the simulation-racing to our repertoire. A race-gaming rig accompanied with a small army of simulation racing oriented researchers, athletes and a managing staff will be joining us over 2 months. We are also looking to add a Counterstrike Global Offensive branch to our team, but so far, we do not have the necessary managing and research staff required to expand into another branch but stay tuned as this expansion is still scheduled to happen this year!

In the past few months, our Esports teams have competed in the (inter)national Esports scene and new collaborations have been setup:

• Our League of Legends team is on a winning-streak in the Dutch College League, winning their first four games. In addition to further develop our players and coaching staff the League of Legends branch has started a close collaboration with Esports organisation THRLL.
• Our Rocket League team is also doing well for themselves by placing second in the European Winter Cup. Out of 64 European teams only a London-based team was too strong for our glorious 3-man Rocket League team. In the Dutch weekly Rocket League competition, they are on a winning streak as well with a relatively clean score of 10 wins and 2 losses, resulting in a comfortable first place.
• Our FIFA athlete is competing in the Weekend League currently placed nicely as Elite I with a 90%-win rate over 30 games. Just before the end of 2020 he also competed in the THRLL FIFA tournament, achieving the second place. Our FIFA branch also has a close collaboration with FC Twente, starting in February 2021 our athletes will practice together on a bi-weekly basis to strengthen the FIFA-position of Twente!
  Keep a look out for our YouTube channel and social media as new content and our achievements will all be displayed on there!

Our final department which we will discuss today is the Marketing and Communication department. This component of ETT manages and directs the third main goal of our student team. To promote and develop Esports as a whole in Twente and in the Netherlands. Via demos, social media content and events we aim to further promote Esports to the youth of Twente and transform the UT as the university of Esports where students from all over the Netherlands want to study because of our expertise with gaming and Esports. Our M&C department aims to reach as many people as possible to grow the UT and ETT as an Esports brand. We have designers, social media experts, video editors and brand managers in this department all focussing to create ETT content and promote our achievements to the world. In 2021 we also have our ETT web shop ready for use, our fans can buy beanies, mugs, and other fun merchandise to support their favourite Esports team!

Over the past four months the M&C department has various efforts to promote the team even though physical events and physical promotion are not possible:
⦁ Our Instagram where we post daily updates has reached 125 followers.
⦁ We have ordered our team hoodies (hype video and media coming soon!!)
⦁ For all athletes ETT jerseys have been ordered! (More hype media!
⦁ A webshop has been made where all the ETT merchandise can be purchased
⦁ The website is kept up to date and a complete revamp of all the pages is almost ready for publication! All designed and programmed by the M&C team.
Keep up to date with all the research updates and interesting blogs by our social media, we will always post a new update on our Twitter and Instagram!

In the upcoming follow-up blog, we will talk about the short- and long-term goals of Esports Team Twente. Which objectives do we have for 2021? Where do we expect ETT to be in 2026? What achievements are aiming for? Stay tuned as next week we will give an insight into the direction of Esports Team Twente.