Videogamers battle it out in Cyberspace
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During the day, these competing gamers have regular day jobs or study. Rather than battle in the office or on the sports field, the battles are fought in cyberspace. At night time and in spare time, they aim to win big-figure prizes and prestige not known to their real-world colleagues.
Videogaming giants’ Vega Squadron, ASUS Republic of Gamers, MSI and Acer are just a few of the latest partners of the new Cyberspace venue which opened on 1 July, that is equipped with the very latest presentation technology innovations.
A 16m wide main stage in front of a spectator audience capable of accommodating five-hundred gamers at any one time. It uses the latest imaging technology and as such comes with the unique challenges of reproducing large format graphics at high frame rates for smooth and flicker-free reproduction of fast moving visuals.
“Cyberspace is an amazing new space that is quite out of the ordinary, so it needed an extraordinary projection combination,” enthused Ekaterina Pechkurova, commercial director at AV Stumpfl CIS, the official distribution partner for AV Stumpfl media serving and projection screen technology.
With this in mind, AV Stumpfl CIS provided turnkey media supplier, Digisky with two Fullwhite screens measuring 8 by 4.5m and 7.2 by 4.5m that are positioned on stage in front of competing gamers and spectators. The Fullwhite surface material is attached to the back side of the screen frame with special hooks, in order to create a perfectly smooth surface, without black borders.
Dual stacked wide-angle Epson EB-L1504U laser projectors fitted with high-performance lenses are used to create a super bright image for each screen and optional HDBaseT signal transmission is used for demanding visuals. Two screens are used for tournaments as well as presentations or events that the venue hosts.
eSports – competitive organised play for videogames – has blown up into a $465m global industry, according to market researcher Newzoo, and will hit $3.5bn by 2021 as predicted by Juniper Research and cited in Forbes Magazine.
Russia’s new Cyberspace combines extensive retail shopping from the world’s leading brands with large presentation areas, a VR zone, simulators, Player vs Player VR Arena, a PC zone, VIP rooms for special guests and a recording studio.
(Jim Evans)
