Esport Factory (Maze): electronic entertainment and production studios meet with Blackmagic

Blackmagic technology powers the broadcasts and daily audiovisual operations at Esport Factory (Maze), a dedicated eSports venue in Osnabrüc, Germany.

The Esport Factory centre stands as one of the first eSports facilities in Europe. Combining overnight accommodation, exclusive studios and a large space for hosting all kinds of events, the cross-cutting nature of this facility allows it to adapt to all kinds of contexts, as well as to offer customised services to numerous companies. For Marvin Rohmann, CEO of Maze, “Blackmagic technology has been fundamental to our success at the Esport Factory”. “It allows us to design efficient workflows and deliver top notch productions across all our gaming and esports projects,” he says.

Esport Factory’s audiovisual production is structured around a fully equipped control room with solutions that can be adapted to the needs of each client. As Rohmann says: “Effective signal distribution across our studios is crucial, especially for large scale productions where multiple spaces need to work seamlessly together. Blackmagic has been a key partner, enabling us to manage both the structural and technical demands of our facility.”

For live webcasts, Maze uses a variety of mixers, including ATEM Constellation 8K models, as well as macro-controlled Videohub switching matrices. This system allows Maze to tackle highly complex projects, such as the Twitch broadcast of the Friendly Fire charity event, which this year alone attracted more than 800,000 viewers and raised almost two million euros.

The production team also receives numerous signals in this control room, including those from cameras in the mobile unit, a studio and the stage, as well as those from Facecam devices or the games themselves: “We rely on an array of Blackmagic hardware, from the Micro Studio Camera 4K G2 for capture to the Smart Videohub CleanSwitch 12×12 and MultiView 16, which let us decide which signals to send to the vision mixer at any given moment.”