People Behind BLAST's next feature is about all things new and innovative as we sat down with BLAST's VP of Research and Development - Niels Borgbjerg Møller.
Innovation has always been at the heart of BLAST since the days of Pro Series and this goes hand in hand with the work Niels and his RnD team do to keep elevating BLAST's ecosystems.
Prior to BLAST, Niels was busy innovating the insurance industry building award-winning software for one of Denmark's biggest Insurance companies.
Collaborating with BLAST since the very beginning in 2017, Niels has been at the heart of innovation since the start and has implemented numerous changes and ideas that have helped shaped BLAST's journey over the past seven years.
So how long have you been at BLAST?
I have been working with BLAST since the first event in 2017, and have been involved in most events ever since.
And what were you doing before BLAST?
Before joining BLAST, I founded a company together with Lasse Kempf, BLAST’s VP of Technology, where we supplied a wide range of technical services within broadcast and esports - and this is also how we got started working with BLAST. We were acquired by BLAST in 2020, and have worked here as full-time employees since then.
Before that, I had worked for a long time in esports doing productions for Danish LAN events, and at one point had one of the most popular channels streaming CS:GO. This also led to me moving to Milan, Italy to work at FACEIT for a brief period managing their broadcast technology - back when it was only a handful of employees.
Before going all-in on esports, I worked with insurance software at one of the first fully digital insurance companies in Denmark disrupting a very conservative industry - and winning a few awards for our solutions.
So you are BLAST’s VP of Research and Development, what exactly does that entail?
My job is a lot of fun. I get to work with new technologies and try to apply them to our different products and ecosystems to create a better experience - both for the audience and people working at the event.
What this means, in reality, is that my team and I work with all the different games we feature here at BLAST and build integrations to better our products. This includes among other things automations, statistics, data visualisations and even custom mods for games.
We always try to push the boundaries to ensure we are at the forefront of technology but also use it in a meaningful way that creates value for our products. Because of this, there is always a lot of trial and error when testing out new things, which also means that some projects don’t always make their way to our audience. This is also what I think is key to the approach in everything we do at BLAST - not just doing something because it is cool or fun, but because it actually adds value to our product.
One of the most amazing things about this job is also to see your work displayed on large LED screens in arenas as well as broadcast to millions of people worldwide.
Out of all the innovations you’ve helped to design/implement what would be your highlight/proudest achievement?
It’s hard to pick a single one, but I think one of the most interesting and challenging projects was developing our solutions for Fortnite LAN events. We worked closely with EPIC to build an entire suite of services so that we could manage the huge undertaking of putting on such an event. Some of the solutions include automatically routing the 100 player cameras to different destinations based on game data, advanced live statistics, custom observing tools as well as live breakdowns of which players were featured for how long on the broadcast.
How does your job during an event vs outside of an event differ?
At events we are very much in setup and maintenance mode - we are basically there to ensure our solutions are running and if something goes wrong, we fix it. This often leads to working long days in a fast-paced environment, because everything we do is live, so you can’t just re-do it after the fact.
Outside events it’s more of a normal office job, where we further develop our software to make the following events even better.
Without revealing all the secrets is there a specific technology or area that you’re focussing on as a team at the moment?
We have worked a lot with machine learning over the last year or so, and that’s definitely an area that can be utilised for many different aspects in this space.
This year we also built our own in-house broadcast graphics system, and with anything new, there is always a plethora of different areas to explore as we figure out new ways it can be utilised.
Does the RnD team have a goal or target for 2024?
We have 2 goals in our team:
1. Build cool things
2. Have fun while doing it
You must have travelled to many different countries for events, is there a standout destination?
I think one of the most memorable destinations was Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, where I worked on the Asian RMR for the 2023 CS:GO Major.
The event itself wasn’t necessarily anything special, but it was a very different country compared to most other places I’ve visited. The changing weather (sunny and warm one day, snowstorm the next), the very raw nature outside the cities and how people (even in the city) lived in yurts for parts of the year.
What’s been your favourite event and why?
I think my favourite event (at least looking back at it now) was BLAST Pro Series Madrid in 2019 because this was the first event where we took over the entire in-game production from a third-party supplier. We had spent many months working on it, and then seeing so much of your hard work displayed in the arena and on broadcast in front of so many people was quite emotional - not to mention super stressful, as I was just waiting for something to go wrong until the very end of the final.
Is there a particular event this year that you are looking forward to?
I’m looking forward to our Fortnite event in Texas later this year. Fortnite LAN events are always very fun as they are so different from most other games we do, and have a lot of technical challenges just due to the scale of it.
Let's say you’ve become a part of the BLAST Broadcast in front of the camera, what role would you play? (Analyst, host, player, coach?)
Definitely coach. I have never been much of a broadcast talent (tried for like 10 minutes) and gave up playing as my skills just weren’t there - and they definitely haven’t gotten better with age.
What do you like to do outside of work? Any hobbies?
Other than gaming, I spend a lot of my time (and money) on watches. I have collected watches for quite a few years now, and I’m also experimenting with servicing older watches in my spare time. I will occasionally meet up with other enthusiasts to talk about and see different watches.
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