The Challenge

Covering launch events for a new game is a challenge, as the game is not yet released. Our team needed to develop a broadcast strategy, build and train an observer team, and manage the production crew.

Our Solution

Together with our long-time partner, Siteline Productions, we were tasked to producing an in-depth multi-day lives stream event (Europe and North America streams) to introduce the english-language version of Throne and Liberty to the global audience. The production was based out of the Amazon Game Studioscontrol room and studio in downtown Seattle washington.

Throne and Liberty is a MMORPG originally developed by NCSoft and was very succesful in Korea. Amazon Game Studios was the developer and publisher for the international versions of the game for the US, Europe, LATAM, Oceania, Middle East and Japanese markets.

The popularity of the game meant that the international version was highly anticipated, and many MMORPG fans were excited to get a first look at the game. Throne and Liberty featured several gameplay modes including the smaller 3v3 Arena, mid-scale Conquest mode, and the massive Castle Seige mode where thousands of players clash in huge game maps.

It was important to introduce each distinct game mode to the community, each requiring a different approach to broadcast. The small/medium game modes are similar to other games in the genre, but Castle Siege with several thousand active players is extremely unusual and was a unique challenge for the broadcast team.

To cover the Castle Siege game modes, our team deployed a team of skilled observer camera operators that deployed in-game automation scripts to quickly navigate the maps, and setup fixed and mobile camera positions across the map. A team of four observers and a gameplay director managed 16 observer machines (4 each). 8 channels of instant replay were used to cover all the action, and allow us to explore key moments of the games.

The Castle Siege players featured a huge list of top streamers, incluencers and content creators in the MMORPG community, which created a cool dyanmic where each streamer's community teamed up to create massive guilds, that combined forces to take on the other guilds Castle Siege event. Thousands of players particpated in the event. These key streamers were simultanously live streaming to their own channels, and were integrated into the event with unique perspectives on the action.

Siteline Productions developed the show narative and script, as well as the design and fabriation of the unqiue studio set, where our hosts and influencers lead the audience through the game. The multi-camera production featured a complete production control room, custom graphics package, redundant live stream encoders, and instant replay systems to capture the action from multiple angles.

The show was broadcast on the Amazon Games Twitch channel, and featured Twitch Drops, incentivizing viewers to catch all the action. Viewership was outstanding for a game launch, due to the intest public interest around the game, quickly jumpstarting the commnity interest. Throne and Liberty has gone on to become a popular MMORPG and is still in active developmenta and is played by millions around the world