Goals
Esports Team Twente aims to take esports to the next level through a combination of cutting edge research on esports performance, participation in large (inter)national competitions and large-scale marketing campaigns to showcase what Twente has to offer to those interested in gaming and esports. In our vision, our combined team members will be more than a conventional esports association, but will help push the frontiers of state of the art research and data analysis connected to esports and gaming, contribute to the value translation of esports findings in other fields and raise awareness on the potential behind gaming. Esports Team Twente will be a catalyst for esports-related innovation and networking, and aims to promote Twente as the esports university: When people think of gaming, they will think of Twente!
BRINGING ESPORTS TO TWENTE, THAT'S OUR VISION
Esports Team Twente - Highlights
Our ambition is twofold: push esports to the next level and showcase that for anyone interested in gaming or esports, Twente is the place to be. To achieve this, we work together with many relevant partners, both UT and external, to pursue interesting collaborations, raise awareness on gaming or achieve valuable results. A few highlights of the larger projects we are currently working on:
- Already participate in five different esports games on an (inter)national level to showcase the Twente’s esports talent.
- Establishing a brand new esports & gaming facility together with Blueshell and the Student Union at the University of Twente.
- Work together with the Royal Dutch Navy in exploring how to apply esports to training of military personnel.
- Work with local partners to build up and expand the esports network in Twente.
Our members work in one of the following four departments: Competition, Research, Data Analysis and Marketing & Communication, which work together on a variety of fun and challenging projects.
Our activities
Not only is data required for research, it provides many opportunities by itself! One of the advantages of gaming is that all the data is readily accessible. For students with some IT background, this offers many interesting and challenging projects. Some examples:
• Determine recoil patterns and compensation training for CS:GO.
• Analyze early-game behavioral patterns in League of Legends.
• Find (optimal) boost patterns for Rocket League.
From simple to complex, we have a many ideas to apply data analysis on esports. After establishing some basic dashboards to share our findings and perform data-analysis on games we are active in, we hope to automatically generate recommendations for players to improve their play, as well as support coaches and analysts in their decision-making.
Most of the improvements in esports performance and training are through trial-and-error, best-practices and simply a lot of experience. However, at the University of Twente we are the first to actually bring research to the table to provide a scientific perspective on how to improve esports performance. Some example research topics:
• How can we apply gaming to train social skills (e.g. leadership, communication)?
• Determine the effect of hand temperature on reflexes.
• Find the optimal sitting posture for performance and focus.
• Determine the effect of communication strategies on teamplay.
We collaborate with the Esportslab, led by Guido Bruinsma, to help students find interesting graduation and internship projects and enable them to pursue research questions in line with their expertise. Students interested in gaming can contact us to see whether there are any possibilities to link esports to their study background.
Our competition department includes all of our athletes, coaches, managers and analysts, who work on achieving results in the name of Twente, as well as create content to showcase what competitive gaming is like. Our athletes primarily come from Twente, where they currently participate in (inter)national competitions and tournaments for League of Legends, Rocket League, FIFA, Simracing and soon CS:GO. Among others, we are currently working on:
• Expanding the games where we are active. This means finding skilled students to play for us, as well as coaches and managers for the teams.
• Setting up a knowledge-base and structure to translate our findings to provide players with a competitive edge.
• Create a platform where our followers can learn to become even better players.
In the coming few months, we seek to continue these activities and will constantly be on the lookout to participate in more esports. Talented players, coaches or analysts are welcome to reach out to us!
Perhaps the greatest challenge of all: showcasing esports to a large audience as a brand new organization. Marketing & Communication has the challenge to actually get our message across, be it from achievements from Esports Team Twente or raising awareness on new developments in general. So far, our team members have been building up a follower base, setting up a steady stream of content for our social media platforms, and professionalizing the promotional structure of Esports Team Twente. This includes (but certainly is not limited to):
• Announcements, content and interesting messages on social media on a daily basis.
• Design of logos, templates for promotion, banners, flags and even merchandise.
• Collaboration with external parties to expand our reach.
• (Social) media campaigns aimed specifically at different target audiences.
Not only do we hope to show the world what Esports Team Twente is doing, we also want to raise awareness of the value gaming and esports can bring. In the future, we hope to improve on the content we can create and truly establish a huge platform to spread our message.