Is eSport sport?   That is a good question to ask sports fans at a dinner party if you want to get a good discussion going.   Luckily the question we were asked was: “Can SportsML handle eSports”? And that seemed like a more straightforward question to answer.   Here is a short clip that shows how big eSport really is, and also touches on the question at the beginning of this article:     SportsML is an IPTC standard that covers all aspects of sports when it comes to scheduling, tournaments, results, live reporting, standings and statistics. And even if eSports is very different to traditional sports, on this level it is very similar. All eSports consist of games between teams or players, much like football, hockey, tennis or any other event where the competitors meet “head-to-head”. From those games we have results, standings and statistics, which are all supported in SportsML.   But there are some areas of difference to note. Home and away teams In traditional sports that meet in this way, the concept of home and away is often important. For example, the home team can have first choice in colour, starting side, familiar playing ground etc. And in some football tournaments, goals scored away from the team's home location can be worth more if the game is tight. Plus, often the home team have a much bigger crowd to cheer them on.   In eSports, there is really no concept of home or away. Technically, players can be anywhere and play connected through the internet. Players of the same team do not have to sit together. In reality, though, for bigger tournaments the players will usually gather in an arena with big screens and a huge audience watching. If players are in separate locations, the quality of their internet connection will be a factor.   In SportsML we still have to handle one side as home and the other as away using the alignment attribute. Pre-game actions Another difference in eSports is that actions can take place before the official start of the game. For example, teams can choose or reject characters or maps from the game they are playing. This is an important part of the game, since each team's aim is to get characters and/or maps that they are good at into the game, while rejecting the characters and/or maps that their opponent is best at.   It is as if Argentina and Portugal would meet in football and Portugal could reject Messi from the available players for Argentina while managing to have Ronaldo still in their own squad. Or if Arsenal and Tottenham were playing and they could “battle” over which field to play on.   In SportsML we have something called actions that can be used to represent pre-game actions: <actions> <action sequence-number="1" team-idref="team_9572" type="esacttype:remove" comment="Nuke"></action> <action sequence-number="2" team-idref="team_6134" type="esacttype:remove" comment="Inferno"></action> <action sequence-number="3" team-idref="team_9572" type="esacttype:choose" comment="Cache"></action> <action sequence-number="4" team-idref="team_6134" type="esacttype:choose" comment="Train"></action> <action sequence-number="5" team-idref="team_9572" type="esacttype:remove" comment="Overpass"></action> <action sequence-number="6" team-idref="team_6134" type="esacttype:remove" comment="Dust2"></action> <action sequence-number="7" type="esacttype:remaining" comment="Mirage"></action> </actions> Read more...

Last week's 2019 IPTC Photo Metadata Conference was again hosted in association with the CEPIC Congress. This year's conference was held in a slightly rainy Paris but at least that meant that we didn't mind staying indoors in late May. Read more...

At the IPTC Spring Meeting in Lisbon, the IPTC Standards Committee signed off on version 3.1 of SportsML. Read more...

We're excited that the biggest week in the photo metadata calendar has arrived - the IPTC Photo Metadata Conference 2019 will be held in Paris this Thursday, 6 June. Read more...