Designing Spectator Interfaces for Competitive Video Games

Abstract

E-sports is an emerging trend in the video game industry. The amount of spectators and prize pools rise every year. Although a lot of game developers have started looking at having an e-sports scene for their game, many use it is a buzzword for marketing purposes. Having a dedicated spectator interface is an important part of becoming a popular e-sports game. This master thesis aims to produce guidelines on what to consider when designing the spectator interface of an e-sports game. This will be done by analyzing the spectator interfaces of popular e-sports games, regular sports and their video game equivalents, and making redesigned interfaces for four of the games; Starcraft 2, Hearthstone, Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Spectatorship and interface theory will also be considered in order to produce satisfactory redesigns and guidelines. The redesigns will be exposed to the communities of each game in order to gather feedback, both through questionnaires, interviews and comments in an iterative process. The guidelines will be based on the lessons we learn from the redesigns, feedback and theory.