The brief was to elevate HP’s annual esports tournament, The OMEN Challenge in order to reach a greater audience than previous years.
On 20th September 2019, The OMEN Challenge gave esports fans something they’d never seen before: esports’ first mixed reality broadcast.
Taking the physical world and mixing it with the game, the tournament broadcast from within the game, delivering unmatched insight play by play, match by match by physically placing hosts and athletes in the heart of in-game replays.
The tournament used a bespoke CS:GO map, drawing design cues from the physical event, to pit the world’s best team players against each other, in a unique 1 vs 1 tournament.
The live broadcast featured an augmented reality caster’s studio that allowed the hosts to present from different vantage points inside the game. It also doubled as a portal to transition to within the game for live mixed reality replays and dissection of decisive moves.
The OMEN Challenge was no.1 on Twitch, creating a cultural moment in esports, with 3.2 million viewers drawn to the stream, over 23.5 million minutes watched and 152 million total impressions, further strengthening OMEN by HP’s position as the top PC gaming brand in Europe.