Hasta La Motion!

Fighters, get ready for a new battle! Red Bull has announced the return of Red Bull Conquest, challenging the top fighting game players in the United States to RISE, RALLY and CONQUER tournament circuit featuring popular fighting titles Street FighterV: Arcade Edition and TEKKEN 7, and newcomer Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late. Qualifiers will take place across eight cities, kicking off on 24 August and culminating with the Red Bull Conquest 2019 National Finals in November. Winners from each qualifying event will experience a new, unique competitive format in which they form a three-person team to earn the title of Conquest champions at the finals.

Red Bull Conquest united the leading fighting game communities (FGC) across the country by encouraging local pride during the circuit’s events.

Hopeful players can attend RISE events to scout out competition and practice ahead of their region’s qualifier (hint: players can assess strengths and weaknesses of other teams for training purposes). Competitors will then RALLY and compete to earn the top spot in their respective title at their local qualifier event. Lastly, the winning competitors from the eight RALLY events in each of the three games will come together to form a team for the Red Bull Conquest national finals, where only one region will CONQUER and hoist the trophy for their region.

The shift to eight qualifiers for Red Bull Conquest 2019 will ensure a deeper pool of talent and more intense competition at each stop as top players are welcomed from around the nation. Beyond rekindling old rivalries, the qualifiers will serve as a shot for redemption from last year’s events.

Red Bull will also be bringing back renowned FGC commentators and personalities Tasty Steve, Yipes, Persia and Vicious to host each of the regional qualifying events in the Conquest series. The hosts will serve as on-the-ground ambassadors at each of the regional qualifying events this summer to stream and share their FGC expertise.

In 2018, more than 3,000 players embarked on the Red Bull Conquest journey and competed in RISE, RALLY and CONQUER events. New York City emerged victorious during the National Finals in Washington D.C., claiming the highly coveted title of top fighting game region in the United States against other top competing regions, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta and more. Team New York City was comprised of Victor “Punk” Woodley, Eli “LostSoul” Rabadad and Anthony “Mr.Whooppee”

The official partners for Red Bull Conquest 2019 are Alienware and HyperX. Both partners will be providing their latest hardware for all competitors at each regional qualifier and the finals.

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Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame has dethroned James Cameron’s colossus Avatar (2009) to become the top-grossing film of all time at the worldwide box office, as Marvel chief Kevin Feige announced at San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC). 

Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, Endgame saw the end of Thanos and few of our beloved “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” leaving the superhero squad. 

“A huge congratulations to the Marvel Studios and Walt Disney Studios teams, and thank you to the fans around the world who lifted Avengers: Endgame to these historic heights,” said Disney Studios co-chairman and chief creative officer Alan Horn said in a statement.

According to Disney, Avengers: Endgame‘s global gross was $2.7892 billion, $500,000 behind Avatar‘s $2.7897 billion as of Friday. By Sunday, Endgame‘s total reached $2.790 billion. At the end of last weekend, Endgame trailed Avatar by $7 million. 

Avatar is now part of ‘The House of  Mouse’ empire following Disney’s acquisition of much of 21st Century Fox in late March.

“Of course, even with the passage of a decade, the impact of James Cameron’s Avatar remains as powerful as ever… The talented filmmakers have much more in store, and we look forward to the future of both the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Pandora,” added Horn.

Avengers: Endgame has shattered numerous records since debuting in cinemas in late April. The superhero extravaganza scored the biggest global opening of all time with $1.22 billion, including an all-time high of $357.1 million domestically and $866.5 million overseas.

The film is the fourth outing in the blockbuster Avengers series and the 22nd film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In late June, Avengers: Endgame was re-released in theaters with roughly six minutes of new footage in a bid to surpass Avatar.

Avengers: Endgame now stands with a total of $853.4 million domestically and $1.9358 billion internationally.

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Massive fire broke out at Kyoto Animation Studio as a man screaming “You die!” burst into the studio, splashed flammable liquid and set it on fire on Thursday. This resulted in the death of 33 people in an attack that shocked the country and brought an outpouring of grief from anime fans.

36 others were injured, some of them critically, in a blaze that sent people scrambling up the stairs towards the roof to escape what proved to be Japan’s deadliest fire in nearly two decades. Others emerged bleeding, blackened and barefoot. Japanese media reported the fire might have been set near the front door, forcing people to find other ways out.

Kyoto Animation in fire

The suspect, identified as a 41-year-old man who was not an employee of the studio, was injured and taken to a hospital. Police gave no details on the motive, but a witness told Japanese TV that the attacker angrily complained that something of his had been stolen, possibly by the company.

Most of the victims were employees of the studio, Kyoto Animation, which works on movies and TV productions but is best known for its mega-hit stories featuring high school girls. The tales are so popular that fans make pilgrimages to some of the places depicted.

The blaze started in the three-story building in Japan’s ancient capital after the attacker sprayed most probably gasoline, police and fire officials said.

“There was an explosion, then I heard people shouting, some asking for help. Black smoke was rising from windows on upper floors. Ten there was a man struggling to crawl out of the window,” a witness told TBS TV. 

Fire expert Yuji Hasemi at Waseda University told NHK that paper drawings and other documents in the studio also may have contributed to the fire’s rapid spread. A witness who saw the attacker being approached by police told Japanese media that the man admitted spreading gasoline and setting the fire with a lighter. She told NHK public television that the man had burns on his arms and legs and complained that something had been stolen from him.

“He seemed to have grudges against society, and he was talking angrily to the policemen, too, though he was struggling with pain. He also seemedto have a grudge against Kyoto Animation,” she told Kyodo News.

Kyoto Animation, better known as KyoAni, was founded in 1981 as an animation and comic book production studio, and its hits include Lucky Star of 2008, K-On! in 2011 and Haruhi Suzumiya in 2009.

The company does not have a major presence outside Japan, though it was hired to do secondary animation work on a 1998 Pokemon feature that appeared in U.S. theaters and a Winnie the Pooh video.

“My heart is in extreme pain. Why on earth did such violence have to be used?” company president Hideaki Hatta said. Hatta said the company had received anonymous death threats by email in the past, but he did not link them to Thursday’s attack.

Anime fans expressed anger, prayed and mourned the victims on social media. A crowd-funding site was set up to help the company rebuild.

Fire officials said more than 70 people were in the building at the time. The death toll exceeded that of a 2016 attack by a man who stabbed and killed 19 people at a nursing home in Tokyo.

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Artificial intelligence (AI) has been an integral part of gaming since the time of inception from 1950s. With time, technology in sports is growing rapidly and evolving the traditional ways. In football, for instance, new devices are used for different reasons such as to help referees in decision-making and to quantify the athletes’ performance during a game, thus helping the coach to calibrate the training program and the game strategy. In addition to that, in today’s day and age, audience engagement has become a crucial part of the ongoing sports events with the help of the technology and rise of fantasy sports.

In conversation with AnimationXpress Roanuz founder and CEO Anto Kaspar shared that “The technology has always been the very essence of gaming. We may be under the impression that the gaming has evolved within a short span of time but it was the breakthroughs in the computing technologies of over the last five decades. It was even very much primitive for the last two decades and now, the gaming has gone far ahead than we thought off. But, it would be a big mistake if we think that we have now reached the pinnacle of technological evolution in gaming.”

With time the technology has played a significant role in today’s  gaming and Kaspar has shared a few influential elements which are  listed  down below:

Artificial intelligence: This has been the game-changer in the industry and brought liveliness in the game. AI has been widely used in the game movements and bringing the virtual world to life. It primarily engages the game players and provides incredible gaming experience to the users. This also allows the users to evaluate the players’ credits before purchasing them in the team.

 Online play:  An online playing game makes it more convenient for the users based their preference for the games. Irrespective of the geographical boundaries, the users can engage and play the games. One of the modern-day games has swept the gaming market recently, which is a fantasy league. Fantasy league has been considered as one of the modern-day games which engage the majority of the fans than other games.

Advanced Touch technologies: It has been unimaginable to play a game by swiping and touching the screen few years before but it makes it possible by the recent touch technology and it has been the of the one of the game-changer in the IT industry. Game developer around the world is trying their best to take advantage of touch screen technology while creating the games

Though AI is still niche technology to get completely absorbed in the Indian ecosystem according to Kaspar however the rush of fantasy sports in the industry has pushed the brands to incorporate AI technology in the Indian Fantasy sports ecosystem. He said “The AI is still the early stages integration and lots of experiments are undergoing in order to give a greater user experience. After five years, the industry can experience a more realistic view of gaming experience and will able to connect the game character easily.” Here is the excerpt which reveals deeper insights of the AI technology in the Indian fantasy sports ecosystem:

Where Fantasy sports will head in 2020?

Though the fantasy leagues kick-started in early 1952 in USA and 2001 in India respectively, it has hit like a storm among the users for the last few years by the emergence of smartphones and the advantages technologies. India is set to witness a massive growth in fantasy sports and the gaming industry, growing from Rs. 43.8 million to reach Rs.118.8 billion by FY 23 at CAGR 22.1 per cent according to a report by Indian Federation of Sports Gaming (IFSG). And the number of users is estimated to cross over 100 million by 2020. According to the Orbis research, the global sports fantasy gaming market is forecasted to grow from $13 billion to $33 billion by 2025. Currently, Indian fantasy league is predominately dominated by cricket but the other sports are also expected picked up sooner than the later.

How the API for fantasy sports work?

The Fantasy Sports APIs provide URIs used to access fantasy sports data. The APIs are based on a RESTful model. Therefore, resources like game, league, team, player, etc. and collections like games, leagues, teams, players from the building blocks for these APIs. It is a tedious process for the game developers to store the data and to enter them. It requires a data team to manage the data and to update them on a daily basis. For example: While the match is live, there are a lot of chances that a player may go out and the new player may come in. That information can be updated only if the team is well maintained and scheduled. Hence, the API for fantasy sports reduces the manual effort and saves a lot of time, cost,  resources to build a system. It is mainly used for the start-ups. It has given a lot of income opportunities to start-ups companies by helping them in their research, analysis.

What usually the requirements for the AI in the market? How it is transforming gaming business?

AI has flung its presence on almost every industry and no industry is left untouched by AI, but only for the better..AI is tremendously contributing to every industry in the market in many ways and transformed the way a particular industry functions and operates, particularly in analysis and decision making. Already AI has been deployed into various sectors, such as finance, national security, health care, criminal justice, transportation and smart cities. These industries are already reaping the impact of AI in significant ways. The gaming industry heavily depends on technology and the impact of the AI on it will be quite substantial.

How gaming becomes more realistic and personalised with AI.

AI has brought a realistic gaming experience for the users and the game characters become more realistic and natural than ever before. AI has the potential to improve the way game characters express and can create something more natural and realistic. Since the games are more realistic, the users are connecting to the character while playing which makes AI technology as compelling in the game industry.

Through AI, the user is able to personalise the game which allows the user to choose their preferred players using the available credits in their basket which make the game more personalised

Apart from fantasy sports how  AI technology is transforming mainstream gaming?

The gaming in this decade is the combination of laws and AI algorithms. The games are endlessly procedural, generating environments and situations on the fly, and allow players to perform any action in a virtual world that they could in the real one. Going even further, it responds to the emotional and psychological state of its players, adapting and responding to human behaviour and evolving over time. Every game with AI technology has strict laws and rules. The game which is built using AI tech is 50 per cent psychological and 50 per cent AI. It is completely built on how humans react to each situation and move. Every game has an AI technology from PAC Man to Mario to Dungeon Crawler Dead Cells. In this year, the home has been transformed into an AI-controlled system in most of the countries like the US, Japan, and much more. In the next 10 years, the technologist believes that everything is AI from transport to war in almost all the countries.

Is AI a viable career option for students?

Yes, it is viable for students. The demand for the AI professional has been enhanced over the last few years since AI technology has been deployed in every industry.AI professional are getting 60 to 80 per cent hike while switching jobs, compared with an average of 20 to 30 per cent in other skill areas. AI professionals can easily adapt to any new kind of technologies as well in the near future. As of now, AI seems to be a better career option for the students.

What is the investment rate for AI technology in India?

According to the report, AI has the potential to add $957 billion or 15 per cent of India’s current gross value in 2035. The driving forces behind the growth are technology, data and talents which make industry compelling and expect to have a substantial growth in the future.

So far India Artificial intelligence startups have attracted investors from around the globe. In 2018, the startup raised an all-time high capital, registering a 368 per cent growth from 2017. In 2018, startups with operations in India and globally raised approximately $529.52 million which big sign of improvement for the AI companies compared to other companies.

 Could you share the business plan of Roanuz?

Roanuz operates in three verticals and it is a BtoB product.

1. Roanuz Sports provides real-time sports scores and stats API. 1000+ customers. A. I powered editor software, stats and fantasy. Customers subscribe to different packages which grant them access to different levels of data. Both Pay-as-you-go and subscription-based pricing model are used.
2. Roanuz Thursday Wine – A.I Powered solution. Roanuz has years of experience in building application which utilise A.I based technologies such as Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing. Roanuz Thursday Wine is an in-house A.I powered software development kit or framework. Now, are we looking for an opportunity to utilise our Roanuz Thursday Wine for third-party vendor solution? Hence, the Business model is an offer or build A.I powered solutions for customers.
3. Roanuz 8H – software development as a service.

AI has been a crucial part of gaming for a while now and we hope it will evolve more in time now.

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