SAP becomes the official analytics partner of the EPICENTER Major

German IT giant SAP, the market leader in enterprise application software, becomes the official partner of the EPICENTER Major Dota 2 series. For the first time in its history, EPICENTER series acquired an international IT brand, which is specialized in collecting in-game data and statistics for professional esports teams.

The company’s technology collects and displays in-game figures such as net worth*, patch records, and other useful facts in real time, connecting them to esports tournament broadcasts. This allows fans, observers and broadcasters to experience the full picture and get a better understanding for the esports athlete’s decisions in less intuitive games such as Dota 2.

“With 117 different heroes with completely different abilities, there are thousands of different constellations that make sure that no two Dota games are the same,” says Milan Cerny, Partner Manager and Innovation lead at SAP. “At the EPICENTER Major, we continue to provide value to fans of the Dota Pro Circuit by putting context to in-game data analysis and enhance the experience during all phases of each game.”

Alexander Kim, ESforce Holding Commercial Director: “It is difficult to imagine modern professional football, basketball or hockey without nuanced and detailed statistical analysis. Correct information processing is often key to great achievements and genius coaching decisions. Products offered by SAP to esports will not only increase broadcast quality for the viewers of our major tournaments, but also elevate esports industry to a completely new professional level.”

As opposed to the traditional sports, esports operate with a much higher amount of data which is standardized and available via the developer’s API*. SAP has developed a cloud-based analytics solution based on their SAP HANA platform, allowing esports athletes to review their opponents’ in-game strategies – picks and bans, players’ hero win ratios, etc. – much faster and more effectively.

Streamlining replay review processes is another function of SAP esports application. SAP managed to automate a previously time-consuming process thanks to its data-handling framework. Team Liquid was the first team to enjoy the practical application of the esports analytical platform provided by SAP in 2018.

Epic Esports Events (a member of ESforce Holding) EPICENTER Major will be the second Major class series tournament held in Russia. The first ever Major to be held in Russia was 2018 EPICENTER XL in Moscow, which became the second most viewed Dota 2 event in 2018 worldwide and the most viewed Dota 2 event in the world among the series hosted by independent organizers.

Epic Esports Events specializes in organizing international competitions and is the organizer of EPICENTER series in Dota 2 and CS:GO in Moscow and Saint Petersburg throughout 2016-2018. Their first Dota 2 series was deemed the best Live Entertainment event by a leading European award EUBEA 2016, and EPICENTER XL 2019 was awarded the first place in nomination Russian Event per Eventex Awards.

*in-game character’s total worth

**Application Programming Interface