Viewer interface for first person shooter streaming

Abstract

Although eSports has stepped into the realm of mainstream entertainment, the first person shooters still lag behind other types of games in terms of viewer consumption. This is partly due to the genre's fast paced nature, which makes it difficult for new users to pick up or for experienced users to explain effectively during a stream; thereby limiting its accessibility to the general public. This paper presents an implementation of an interface, based on Epic's Unreal Tournament's spectator mode, which helps mitigate these problems by providing stream casters a way to guide their audience better through a more informative HUD display and predictive notifications for where potential action would take place. This work serves as a proof of concept for how to make first person shooters a more viable genre in the general eSports arena.