UPDATE 24/01/2022: ALGS commissioner John Nelson tells TheGamer that the team is "hoping to continue expanding upon the feature and bringing it to new regions." You can read his 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:full statement here.
The Apex Legends Global Series is the pinnacle of𒁏 Apex Legends; the best players in the world compete for money and glory. Mostly glory to be honest, but there’s a bit of cash on the side, too, for the Playoffs. The Sp🔥lit 1 Playoffs kicked off last weekend, which saw Team Singularity take victory in South America and DreamFire controversially clutch the win in a nine-game thriller in the APAC South region.
Ther🎉e’s more action this weekend, as the most popular regions do battle for a slice of $250,000 each. However, EA has today announced that it is employing a new way of watching the tournaments, called Multiview, which debuts on Twitch for the EMEA and North American tournaments this weekend. Don’t worry, we’ll get to APAC North later.
Multiview allows viewers to select up to four player POVs to watch on-stream and listen in on their communications. Following the action in a battle royale is always a difficult task, so this will either place the onus on viewers to do a better job of following things than the official team, or will allow fans of specific teams to follow their squad no matter how boring the l༒ooting gets or how long the rotation is.
Of course, this was already an option if you watched you🔴r favourite streamer. Not everyone streams tournaments of course, but TSM&rs♏quo;s Phillip ‘ImperialHal’ Dosen regularly draws bigger crowds to his POV than the official stream does. Will Multiview mode pull viewers from players’ streams and to the official broadcast? It’s hard to tell, but the anonymising of the kill feed suggests that this could be the case.
For those unfamiliar with the other major change to the Match Point system, kill feeds are now anonymous. This has a lot of repercussions, mostly surrounding teams that are Match Point Eligible and would often be griefed as soon as their names appeared in the feed, but now player POV streams will offer less information than the main broadcast. Coupled with the fact that you can now follow your favourite team on the main stream (and potentially opponents too), it seem🎃s like the best option to watch if you want the most information and experience. With team communications too, viewers who prefer to mute the official commentary are catered for, as well.
As revolutionary as this could be for Apex Legends and battle royale esports, it is worth thinking about how EA views its players and teams in all this. Obviously the company wants to attract mo♏re viewers to its own stream to please advertisers and partners, but these changes could pull viewers away from the players who are competing, without whom there would be no ALGS.
On the other hand, allowing viewers to customise their experience benefits those who already watched the official stream - and could potentially shine a light on lesser-known players and teams if viewers are browsing the POVs. 🅺Ultimately, it’s difficult to tell exactly how Multiview will impact viewership across the board ahead of time, and is at the very least a welcome addition to those loyal to the PlayApex channel.
What is more concerning than the split viewership, however, is the focus on two regions out of five. Why was Multiview not employed for the South America and APAC South regions last weekend, and why is it not available for APAC North this weekend? There are obvious differences in that the tournaments are streamed on partner channels like and , but why isn’t Twitch’s Command Center available to all? And why aren’t regions outside of NA and EMEA broadcast on the PlayApex channel anyway? ALGS Commissioner John Nelson has that other regions have the option to stream on the PlayApex channel but choose not to, despite the exposure that could bring them. EA did not respond to a request for comment about Multiview’s NA and EMEA exclusivity in time for publication. (Editor's note 24/01/2022: you can now read the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:full statement from John Nelson here)
Apex Legends’ NA/EMEA-centric broadcasts cause some friction in the community, and the addition of Multiview to only these streams could increase the animosity between fans of each region. A cynic might sugge🦋st that animosity may be encouraged ahead of a hopeful return to LAN even🧸ts for the Split 2 Playoffs to create an exciting atmosphere, but I think that’s a stretch too far.
Apex Legends’ Multiview streams will be an exciting experiment to watch, and no doubt a great experience for fans who choose to use it. However, EA needs to think about its players and wider regions if it wants to create a unified and sustainable esport - 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:another set of Twitch Drops isn’t enough.
