Video Game Streaming

Streaming

When we hear the word ‘stream’ in a digital context, our 2020 association typically draws the conclusion that Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime is involved. But looking closely at what ‘streaming’ entails actually takes us away from standard media, and into an outlet shaped by production and consumption. Streaming requires a producer and consumer; with this in mind, we can broaden streaming to restaurants where chefs ‘stream’ edible arrangements to hungry patrons. Similarly, streaming, while not an entirely old word, can be associated with early productions of media where silent films were created and ‘streamed’ to an audience via kinetoscope. The production and consumption start and end points create this area where just about anything can be ‘streamed,’ especially most recently: video games. The act of streaming video games, while relatively new, has changed the way players and spectators enjoy games both digitally and physically. Players are now able to experience their games while spectators from around the world watch in enjoyment, and actively participate — an act shaping how players create content, and consumers consume it.

To understand video game streaming, we must first cover a series of important key words including: streamer, platform, viewer / spectator, session, and chat. Gustavo Nascimento dissects these terms in his article, “Modeling and Analyzing the Video Game Live-Streaming Community.” Streamers are those who hold the stream, or channel, where viewership takes place; they are the player, master of ceremonies, and ring leader of the viewership. Platform is the site the streamer utilizes to reach an audience; for a majority of this piece, I will be focusing on ‘Twitch’ as the main streaming platform. The viewer or spectator is the person who watches the stream and actively participates through the chat, or through donations. The session is the time between the streamer beginning his stream and ending, this is when the viewer or spectator is able to view the streamer; session times vary but most streamers have developed scheduled session times throughout the week. The chat is the medium in which the streamer and spectator can communicate; while the spectator is able to hear the streamer through the stream itself, the chat box is the voice of the viewer, or community of viewers (Nascimento, 2014). Each of these terms will be used regularly, and have become standard vocabulary for streaming activities.

The ability to stream and be viewed streaming encompasses Digital Media and Society through many different sources. Tarleton Gillespie’s ‘The politics of platforms’ notes platforms emerge through, “progressive and egalitarian arrangement(s), promising to support those who stand upon it” (Gillespie, 2013). The platforms used by streamers accomplish just that, acting as the base for their trade in streaming, as well as helping project their voice to an audience who may not typically hear. Daniel Solove’s discussion of surveillance in ‘Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have Nothing to Hide’ notes privacy as the ability to not be watched or surveilled — a notion streamers voluntarily surrender in order to build a viewer community of both anonymous and subscribed spectators who watch from a distance, while the streamer cannot reciprocate the same levels of surveillance. Sarah Banet-Weiser defines ‘brand’ and ‘authenticity’ in her piece, ‘Authentic: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture’ where a brand is, “the perception — the series of images, themes, morals, values, feelings, and sense of authenticity conjured by the product itself” (Banet-Weiser, 2012). This definition relates primarily to the personal brands each streamer develops, and the level of authenticity viewers gravitate to. The combination of these three helps shape the sense that streaming is a central factor of how digital media and society interact.

History

Twitch, the streaming platform of focus, began its climb to stardom in 2011. In three short years, the platform adopted 45 million viewers per month thanks to its diversity in broadcasting (Nascimento, 2014). Viewers are able to access the site where they are directed to thousands of uniquely broadcasted channels. Once aboard a channel, they are able to live chat with the channel holder — the streamer, via the chat box (Smith, 2013). Twitch was one of the first streaming platforms to include ‘Game Integration’ which involves a service placed directly into a video game itself; players of the game can easily connect their game to the stream with a single click, avoiding large step-by-step streaming processes some platforms required. Soon, Twitch began monetizing their broadcasts; 30-second advertisements would be featured before viewers were able to access a stream, resulting in ad-revenue per viewer. To make the site even more profitable, ‘Twitch Turbo’ was introduced as a monthly membership fee for viewers to bypass the advertisements, as well as have their chats appear larger in the chat box (Smith, 2013). As the platform grew, Twitch began to offer streamers the ability to charge their own monthly fees to their viewers for special access to channel features, or fewer advertisements; this resulted in more money in the streamer’s pockets — an incentive to broadcast even more time on the site.

Active and Passive: Players and Viewers

The ability to stream a video game to a consumer base changed the way players played, and viewers viewed. Sub-communities of viewers soon emerged to watch their favorite streamers on a regular basis, they are the: ‘E-Sports’ community, ‘Let’s Play’ community, and ‘Speedrunning’ community. E-Sports players are competitive gamers, typically associated with a team or clan, who compete against one another in tournament settings. Let’s Play players are more informal than E-Sports players, and play games for entertainment purposes, typically commentating as they game. Speedrunning players, while the least popular sub-community, attempt to complete levels as fast as they can, tracking their times and constantly attempting to beat them (Smith, 2013). The viewers of these sub-communities can be broken down into active subscribers who actively connect with the streamers via chat box or donations, and passive viewers who utilize the free version of twitch, do not donate, and do not participate in the chat room. The streamers however, are constantly active as they are the producers of the content. The content, and success of the stream is correlated to the amount of work the streamer puts in. In ‘It’s like the gold rush: the lives and careers of professional video game streamers on Twitch.tv,’ Mark Johnson notes that streamers typically spend over 35 hours per week — equating to full-time employment (Johnson, 2017). Johnson also notes though, that the benefit of streaming makes the streamer their own boss; they manage their own schedules, choose when to stream and what to stream, and develop their own ways of interacting with their viewers (Johnson, 2017). Through interviewing successful Twitch streamers, Johnson was able to calculate that most of them are typically more social, as well as consistent with their work; each of these attributes helps fuel their personal brand and make them desirable to view.

E-Sports and Streaming

E-Sports competition has been ongoing since the 1990s, but it wasn’t until video game streaming that it was able to reach new audiences. Some of the first successful streamers were, or still are, E-Sports gamers who utilized other platforms before Twitch was introduced. “Many interviewees had come to streaming via YouTube, the dominant world-leader in video uploading and sharing, with a strong gaming community that is over a decade old” (Johnson, 2017). With the introduction of Twitch, gamers were now able to play and share their content in real time, creating a longer-running, less edited, raw version of content Nascimento notes is consumed by, “a small fraction of very assiduous streamers” (Nascimento, 2014).

E-Sports gamers quickly began to utilize the live atmosphere streaming in order to gain viewership for tournaments. Mehdi Kaytoue writes in, ‘Watch me Playing, I am a Professional: A First Study on Video Game Live Streaming,’ “typically, major tournaments are broadcasts, but generally a single player broadcast his games, chats, explains his game style and gives advices, which finally induces new kinds of relationships between him and his spectators” (Kaytoue, 2012). Viewers quickly began seeing E-Sports players as celebrities, similar to one’s favorite football or baseball player; streamers rapidly started to build fan bases on Twitch. The tournaments translated to clear growths of audiences; as the audiences grew, so too did income for the streamers.

Players gaining money from their streams did so through a few sources and Twitch outlets: ‘Partnered’ streamers are those with a large enough following that they earn percentages of the advertising revenue on their streams; they are also able to gain income through ‘cheers’ which Johnson explains are financial micro-transactions. Streamers are also able to make merchandising deals with affiliate programs through Amazon, collect tips, and other receive donations through PayPal (Johnson, 2017). It is at the ‘partner’ level that streamers begin to produce actual income capable of supporting a healthy lifestyle. Though many streamers opt to continue working standard jobs — to these players, streaming is an extra source of income, or a hobby that simply pays well.

The Future of Streaming

Two classes of opposing views have emerged from the success of streaming and Twitch: the positive futures, and the negative downfalls. Each places Twitch and video game streaming in a category they believe will either continue to evolve, or experience sudden declines in the future resulting in ruinous losses.

The optimists who believe streaming will continue into a new age of technology do so on the basis of technological evolution and adaption. In ‘The impacts of love streaming and Twitch.tv on the video game industry,’ Johnson notes how Twitch has been incredibly beneficial to the gaming culture, as well as how it can continue to pave its own road to success. Johnson notes three keys to a Twitch future as: game reviews, game visibility and game production. Streaming game reviews is noted to be one future of Twitch, working to replace the standard journalistic reviews of video games in the past. Typically, when a game is announced, a select group is able to demo, or play, the game ahead of its release. The reviews the game gets, much like that of a movie critic, affect how it will do in the consumer market. Twitch has now allowed users to demo games for an audience who gets to experience the game with the player for the first time, and gain comments on how the game plays from the player perspective. This idea of game reviewing utilizes a dialogue between the trusted streamer, and buyer (Johnson, 2019). The ability to accomplish this would not effectively eliminate journalistic reviews, but could easily add a layer of interaction before the purchase for a prospect buyer. Johnson describes Twitch game visibility as a second way for the platform to evolve into the future where streamers play games that are not at the forefront of the market. Boutique, indie, and classic games hold a lot of merit to certain viewers, and the playability of these games online opens doors for viewers to try something new. Classic console games that are no longer in development could create interesting viewer material for a base of spectators that appreciate it. The argument Johnson makes here connects to Twitch’s initial rise to fame in its ability to broadcast a multitude of creative content for a wide audience; enhancing the visibility, and lifespan, of these games could keep them in circulation (Johnson, 2019). The final point Johnson makes is for game production to be streamed. The industry standard for video game production is typically a paid university or apprenticeship in coding or other form of graphic design. The ability to stream these types of classes to an audience creates an entirely new population of designers, coders, and creatives who may be able to get a foot in the video game industry door. “The videogames industry has always drawn on different creative collaborative processes, and even the co-creation of players and developers, but this is now going further” (Johnson, 2019). Johnson describes the future aspects of Twitch as, “capable of reshaping how digital content is created, distributed, accessed and integrated with other industries” (Johnson, 2019), illuminating the way for a future of streaming and gaming online.

The less optimistic class of streamers believes the future of Twitch and video game streaming may not be as appealing as it seems. During his interviews with successful Twitch affiliates, Johnson notices an odd pattern occurring: streamers are prepping back-up plans for when the platform begins to miss the mark (Johnson, 2017). “I know realistically that I’m not going to be able to stream forever,” said one streamer regarding his current situation (Johnson, 2017). The streamer tied this statement to a multitude of reasons that could occur: perhaps streaming will not be viable in the future, or a personal problem could occur which takes time away from the streaming process for the content creator. Anything accidental could end a streaming career, and streamers are prepping for this ahead of time. Others note the jump streamers made from YouTube to Twitch, “so too are many streamers now seeing Twitch as a way to transition out into other more career paths seen as more stable such as the games industry, or working for Twitch itself instead of supporting oneself via Twitch’s broadcasting platform” (Johnson, 2017). The pattern of transitioning from one platform to the next notifies these streamers that perhaps Twitch will not last forever — perhaps the next jump could be next week, next year, or ten years from now; regardless of when it is, it could very easily happen again. Johnson notes the streamers who operate under the impression that their income in insecure and vulnerable as, “precariat, a class of people with perpetually insecure careers” (Johnson, 2017). Regardless of such doomsday occurrences, these streamers are still grateful to be able to earn a living, even if for a short time, doing what they are passionate about.

Conclusions

While the future of video game streaming may be unclear, the impact it has had on the gaming community as a whole is astounding. Twitch, along with other streaming platforms, has allowed players to create and share content with an eager to consume base. In the process, they have developed following, profited largely, and grown as a community. While I was aware there were successful gamers in the digital space, the research I conducted opened the door to a world of evolution and adaptation I did not know existed. The mass migration from platform to platform, culminating millions of viewers in the process all for the sake of viewing a person you do not physically know play a video game is quite a process to comprehend; but the word community is what stuck out to me most. The gaming community has grown exponentially since the introduction of streaming, allowing players and viewers to interact with one another more than ever. As technology progresses, I personally believe that streaming will grow even more — while it may not be Twitch that holds the mass majority of viewership in the future, a new site with even more streamer / viewer engagement will appear to take over. The study of interaction between this gaming community highlights just how digital media bonds in ever-changing ways to a society hell-bent on retaining these online connections.

Notes

Banet-Weiser, S. (2012). Authentic: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture. New York University Press.

Gillespie, T. (2013). The Politics of “Platforms.” A Companion to New Media Dynamics, 407–416. doi: 10.1002/9781118321607.ch28

Johnson, M. R., & Woodcock, J. (2017). ‘It’s like the gold rush’: the lives and careers of professional video game streamers on Twitch.tv. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2017.1386229

Johnson, M. R., & Woodcock, J. (2019). The impacts of live streaming and Twitch.tv on the video game industry — Mark R Johnson, Jamie Woodcock, 2019. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0163443718818363

Kaytoue, M., Silva, A., Cerf, L., Meira, W., & Raïssi, C. (2012). Watch me playing, i am a professional. Proceedings of the 21st International Conference Companion on World Wide Web — WWW 12 Companion. doi: 10.1145/2187980.2188259

Nascimento, G., Ribeiro, M., Cerf, L., Cesario, N., Kaytoue, M., Raissi, C., … Meira, W. (2014). Modeling and Analyzing the Video Game Live-Streaming Community. 2014 9th Latin American Web Congress. doi: 10.1109/laweb.2014.9

Smith, T., Obrist, M., & Wright, P. (2013). Live-streaming changes the (video) game. Proceedings of the 11th European Conference on Interactive TV and Video — EuroITV 13. doi: 10.1145/2465958.2465971

Solove, D. J. (2011, May 20). Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have ‘Nothing to Hide’. Retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127461/