Appropriating Play: Examining Twitch.tv as a Commercial Platform

This thesis critically analyzes Twitch.tv, a gaming-oriented, online live-streaming site. Viewing the site as a ‘lean platform’ (Srnicek, 2017), it analyzes many aspects of Twitch’s business operations, including ownership structure, video game industry affiliations, use of data, and the monetization of user activity. This analysis then identifies three major areas of concern arising from these operations: the tendency toward monopolization in the gaming industry and its peripheral activities; the intensification of audience commodification; and, the tendency to turn professional streamers into precarious creative labourers. All of these implications point to a growing need for concerted labour organization. The goal of this thesis is to address gaps in the existing literature about Twitch and to provide a foundation for future critical inquiries into the site

Laboring Artists: Art Streaming on the Videogame Platform Twitch

The relationship between labor and play is complex and multifaceted, particularly so as it relates to the playing of games. With the rise of the online streaming of games and play these platforms and activities have expanded the associated practices in ways that are highly nuanced and dictated in part by the platform itself. This paper explores the question as to whether the types of labor practices found in games hold across other non-game activities as they engage with streaming through an observational study of art streamers on Twitch. By examining art streamers and comparing their labor to that of games and game streaming, we find that not only are they similar in practice, but that that the structure of Twitch and platforms such as YouTube push this conformity. Thus, play and labor are not opposed and are in fact intermingled in these activities, in ways that are becoming highly platformized

Let's Play Together through Channels: Understanding the Practices and Experience of Danmaku Participation Game Players in China

Live streaming is becoming increasingly popular in recent years, as most channels prioritize the delivery of engaging content to their viewers. Among various live streaming channels, Danmaku participation game (DPG) has emerged in China as a mixture of live streaming and online gaming, offering an immersive gaming experience to players. Although prior research has explored audience participation games (APGs) in North America and Europe, it primarily focuses on discussing prototypes and lacks observation of players in natural settings. Little is known about how players perceive DPGs and their player experience. To fill the research gap, we observed a series of DPG channels and conducted an interview-based study to gain insights into the practices and experiences of DPG players. Our work reveals that DPGs can effectively synergize live streaming and online games, amplifying both player engagement and a profound sense of accomplishment to players

Introduction to the Minitrack on Performing Game Development Live on Twitch

This study is a preliminary exploration of how professional game developers live stream their creative work on Twitch.tv. It asks how and in what ways these developers engage in co-creative acts with their viewers and how they engage in game talk in their design process. It further analyzes discourse about the act of streaming development as presented in professional and popular journalistic and personal sites online

Performing Game Development Live on Twitch

This study is a preliminary exploration of how professional game developers live stream their creative work on Twitch.tv. It asks how and in what ways these developers engage in co-creative acts with their viewers and how they engage in game talk in their design process. It further analyzes discourse about the act of streaming development as presented in professional and popular journalistic and personal sites online

Shared Spaces as Authenticity: Exploring the Connectedness of the Physical Environments of Microstreamers and their Audience

This work examines how the on-camera environments of small streamers with extremely limited audiences (i.e. microstreamers) generate a form of authenticity and charm directly from the unstaged nature of said environments, and through the multi-purpose nature of these locations. While much of the current research on streaming has focused on larger, more professionalized (and monetized) activity, the microstreams explored here are significant in that they create a very different sense of audience engagement. The combination of (a) the unstaged nature of microstreaming environments, combined with (b) unscripted and unplanned actors and interruptions (pets, other members of the household, etc.) as well as (c) widely varying production values that range from nonexistent to low-budget mimicry of more professionalized streamers work together to generate a kind of intimacy that is consciously or unconsciously leveraged by the streamer themselves. In their failure to successfully demarcate frontstage and backstage efforts, microstreamers successfully engage audience members in the messiness of life

Spanish Twitch streamers: Personal influence in a broadcast model akin to television

Following the migration of influencers from YouTube to Twitch and the boom in popularity experienced by the latter social network, this paper explores if brands are capitalizing on the influence capacity of streamers or if streamers might be getting money from their own content. In order to investigate this, it was necessary to perform a quantitative analysis on the publication schedules and broadcast formats used by streamers. This facilitated the simultaneous identification of another main finding: Spanish streamers are using a broadcast model on Twitch that resembles that of open linear television. Although they only broadcast content related to video games, trends towards other types of audiovisual content have already been identified. Moreover, it has been found that influential streamers prioritize Twitch over other social networks even though feedback flows have been detected, especially from Twitch to other platforms. This work represents a contribution to knowledge in terms of understanding Twitch and understanding platforms and influencers. It is important to determine whether these new forms of broadcasting and interaction could be considered a hybrid model between linear television and social media streaming.This work was supported by Department of Education, University and Professional Training of the Xunta de Galicia (Spain). Consolidation 2020 GPC GI-1641 New Media (Trends, Cybermedia, Printed) - NEW MEDIA (2020-PG027). Ref. ED431B2020 / 20S

Fame! I wanna stream forever! Analysis and Critique of Successful Streamers' Advice to the Next Generation

This paper examines the practice of large-scale and successful streamers in creating ‘how-to’ videos with advice for smaller streamers and content creators. The goal of this study was to investigate how successful streamers encourage newcomers and/or smaller streamers to “grow” on Twitch, examining such factors as the advice they offer, the evidence that such advice works, and their reasons for sharing such information. More critically, how do their materials invoke rhetorics of meritocracy, and how does the creation of such videos further entrench those creators as successful, able to deploy “streaming capital” to buttress their claims? While the initial focus was on Twitch, this research led to a wider ranging exploration as the advice of successful streamers was to employ other platforms in combination, as the field of live streaming has extended far beyond Twitch itself

Online users' behaviours and behavioural intentions with reference to live streaming : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand. EMBARGOED until 26 March 2023.

Embargoed until 26 March 2023Live streaming, as a new medium, allows users to participate in real-time interaction. It has attracted a large number of online users, and become a new social commerce venue and lucrative business, especially in China where the live streaming industry is growing explosively and is the largest in the world. This thesis aims to comprehensively investigate users’ behaviours and behavioural intentions in live streaming through both qualitative and quantitative approaches using the Chinese live streaming as an example. This thesis contains four studies to investigate from both streamers’ and viewers’ aspects. Firstly, we conducted two qualitative studies to investigate users’ online behaviours in the social commerce practice in live streaming by exploring how streamers attract viewers (Chapter 2) and encourage gifting (Chapter 3). Novel multiple triangulation was used, including data source triangulation and methodological triangulation. Through multiple triangulation, three behaviours for viewer attraction and four behaviours for gifting encouragement were identified. These two chapters help to comprehensively understand streamers’ online behaviours in this new form of social commerce. Next, we conducted two quantitative studies to explore why viewers continue to watch streams (Chapters 4 and 5). Based on expectation-confirmation theory (ECT), in Chapter 4, we modified the post-acceptance model of information system continuance and re-defined the constructs in a structural equation model of predictors of continuance intention of watching live streams. Chapter 4 successfully connects intention and continuance intention of watching, and integrates disparate understandings of viewers’ watching behaviours. To solve the deficiencies identified in current ECT-based models and further increase the explanation of variance in continuance intention of watching, in Chapter 5, we proposed a value-based continuance intention model (V-ECM), which theoretically extends ECT-based studies by including a process of overall practical assessment between users’ perceived benefits and perceived sacrifices. V-ECM appears to be a better model for explaining users’ continuance intention in the stream-watching context. Also, V-ECM could be used broadly in online and/or technology-related fields. Overall, this thesis comprehensively investigates both streamers’ and viewers’ behaviours and behavioural intentions in live streaming. Insights from this thesis can improve the design, functions and marketing within live streaming platforms. Also, this thesis provides strong foundations for further online behaviour studies, for example, stream-watching addiction

The Labor of Play: the Political Economy of Computer Game Culture

This dissertation questions the relationship between computer game culture and ideologies of neoliberalism and financialization. It questions the role computer games play in cultivating neoliberal practices and how the industry develops games and systems making play and work indistinguishable activities. Chapter 1 examines how computer game inculcate players into neoliberal practice through play. In chapter 2, the project shows Blizzard Entertainment systematically redevelops their games to encourage perpetual play aimed at increasing the consumption of digital commodities and currencies. Chapter 3 considers the role of esports, or professional competitive computer game play, to disperse neoliberal ideologies amongst nonprofessional players. Chapter 4 examines the streaming platform Twitch and the transformation of computer gameplay into a consumable commodity. This chapter examines Twitch’s systems designed at making production and consumption inseparable practices. The dissertation concludes by examining the economic, conceptual, and theoretical collapses threatening game culture and the field of game studies