The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Esports Viewership Trends

Abstract Multi-player gameplay competitions, live streaming of gameplay, and viewing gameplay are significant segments of esports’ rapidly growing consumer online gaming community. In 2021, the esports industry was forecast to generate over $1 billion USD worldwide in revenue (Esports Earnings, 2019). Twitch.tv, the largest esports online platform, integrates multiple user-to-player, user-to-user, and user-to-community communication tools, thus creating social interaction opportunities. This study explored online or digital esports viewership activity and the importance of community interaction opportunities on the Twitch.tv digital platform. For the purpose of this study, a broad definition of esports viewership and community participation is used because esports roles may easily change during a single user’s session on esports platforms. A competitor in a tournament may easily and quickly become a streamer of content. An esports streamer may become the viewer of a tournament, or a viewer may become a streamer. The Twitch.tv platform usage data for analysis is limited and does not distinguish between the user’s role or geographic location. This is a known limitation of this research. There are few rigorous statistical examinations of English-language Twitch.tv esports platform data in the current literature beyond the presentation of histograms in trade media, especially on how esports platform viewership changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study seeks to inform reviewers on changes in esports viewership and participation before-, during-, and after- the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic stay-at-home orders, public health advisory and social restrictions in 2020 using academic methods. It draws on social identity theory and habit theory to explain the motivation for changes in consumer esports viewership trends. This mixed-methods study analyzes esports viewership on the largest platform, Twitch.tv, based on peak viewership accessed in the English language. According to Streamlabs’ Q1 2021 Report, Twitch.tv leads the global market with live stream viewers in 4Q 2020 and 1Q 2021, of 6.34 billion hours, representing 72.3% of the market share of esports hours viewed. This study defines pre-COVID as October 2019-February 2020, during- as March-July 2020, and post- as August to December 2020, see Figures 7 and 8 for additional details (CDC, 2021). This study includes a quantitative analysis of peak Twitch.tv platform viewership data and qualitative interviews with active esports viewers during the same period. Whether you are a game designer, platform creator, marketing, or media executive, this study documents the continued growth of Twitch.tv as an important go-to platform and medium for entertainment and social interactions, as demonstrated by its popularity among people isolated during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. This engaged scholarship study documents, both quantitatively and qualitatively, the change in esports content viewership resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. This may signal a significant change in consumer media consumption behavior and media expectations where consumers seek integrated entertainment and community interactions

Passive, Active, or Co-Active? The Link Between Synchronous User Participation and Willingness to Pay for Premium Options

Social media-enabled business models have transformed the content industry. To increase users’ willingness to pay (WTP), many of today’s content providers have changed from mere content provision towards offering social content experiences. Recent research has confirmed that users’ participation activities, e.g. commenting on content, increase the WTP for social content services’ premium options. So far, social content has been available predominantly on-demand, only allowing asynchronous user participation. Recently, social live content services emerged, which facilitate synchronous user participation and enable so-called co-active behavior. With this study, we conceptualize co-active behavior as the interplay between users while co-experiencing content together, and empirically show that co-active behavior has a stronger effect on WTP for premium options than the classic forms of passive and active behavior. Our work provides theoretical contributions on the WTP for social content as well as implications for the management of social content services

iTeleScope: Intelligent Video Telemetry and Classification in Real-Time using Software Defined Networking

Video continues to dominate network traffic, yet operators today have poor visibility into the number, duration, and resolutions of the video streams traversing their domain. Current approaches are inaccurate, expensive, or unscalable, as they rely on statistical sampling, middle-box hardware, or packet inspection software. We present {\em iTelescope}, the first intelligent, inexpensive, and scalable SDN-based solution for identifying and classifying video flows in real-time. Our solution is novel in combining dynamic flow rules with telemetry and machine learning, and is built on commodity OpenFlow switches and open-source software. We develop a fully functional system, train it in the lab using multiple machine learning algorithms, and validate its performance to show over 95\% accuracy in identifying and classifying video streams from many providers including Youtube and Netflix. Lastly, we conduct tests to demonstrate its scalability to tens of thousands of concurrent streams, and deploy it live on a campus network serving several hundred real users. Our system gives unprecedented fine-grained real-time visibility of video streaming performance to operators of enterprise and carrier networks at very low cost.Comment: 12 pages, 16 figure

Livestreaming Vico: Imagination and the Ecology of Literacy in Online Gaming

The following research thesis seeks to understand the connection between Giambattista Vico’s conception of imagination and literacy in online spaces. This research delves into how users of the video game based live streaming platform Twitch.tv utilize imagination in written communication primarily through pictographs commonly referred to as emotes, and how broadcasters and moderators on the platform act as literacy sponsors for these unique language practices on the platform

What Drives Streamers? Users’ Characteristics and Motivations on Social Live Streaming Services

With platforms such as YouNow, Periscope and Ustream, a new type of social networking services (SNSs) became popular, namely general social live streaming services (SLSSs). SLSSs combine Live-TV and social media, leading to video-based social computing. In the empirical part of the paper, we are going to answer three research questions: (1) What are the motivations of the streamers? (2) Is there a relation between motivations and streamed contents? (3) Do gender-specific and generational differences in motivation exist? As research methods, we worked with the systematic observations and content analysis of live online videos (N = 7,667)

Exploring the Emerging Domain of Research on Video Game Live Streaming in Web of Science: State of the Art, Changes and Trends

In recent years, interest in video game live streaming services has increased as a new communication instrument, social network, source of leisure, and entertainment platform for millions of users. The rise in this type of service has been accompanied by an increase in research on these platforms. As an emerging domain of research focused on this novel phenomenon takes shape, it is necessary to delve into its nature and antecedents. The main objective of this research is to provide a comprehensive reference that allows future analyses to be addressed with greater rigor and theoretical depth. In this work, we developed a meta-review of the literature supported by a bibliometric performance and network analysis (BPNA). We used the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis) protocol to obtain a representative sample of 111 published documents since 2012 and indexed in the Web of Science. Additionally, we exposed the main research topics developed to date, which allowed us to detect future research challenges and trends. The findings revealed four specializations or subdomains: studies focused on the transmitter or streamer; the receiver or the audience; the channel or platform; and the transmission process. These four specializations add to the accumulated knowledge through the development of six core themes that emerge: motivations, behaviors, monetization of activities, quality of experience, use of social networks and media, and gender issues

Big five personality and influencer marketing related behaviors and attitudes : an exploration

With social media deeply rooted into individual’s lives, influencer marketing has become one of the most used marketing tools by brands. However, it is still necessary to conduct more empiric research to understand the factors involved in consumer’s answers to influencer market. This study aims to explore relations between consumers’ personality, supported by the Big Five personality theory, and influencer marketing related attitudes and behaviors. To do so, data was collected through an online survey targeted at Millennials and Generation Z. Results were tested for covariance and significante mean differences. Findings indicate correlation between extraversion and active engagement with influencers, and between conscientiousness and previous purchases made by influencer recommendation. When it comes to platform utilization, there was evidence of higher conscientiousness in users of LinkedIn, while Twitter users showed a lower score in this personality trait. Meanwhile, TikTok users demonstrated higher neuroticism and Twitch users demonstrated lower extraversion. Higher conscientiousness and openness to experience were found in followers of influencers on LinkedIn, lower openness to experience was found in followers of influencers on YouTube, and lower extraversion when it comes to followers of influencers on Twitch. Additionally, higher agreeableness was found in followers of celebrities, higher conscientiousness in fashion and beauty followers, lower conscientiousness was found in gamming followers and lower extraversion in humor followers. Lastly neuroticism was lower in users preferring travel content, conscientiousness was higher in users preferring fashion and beauty content and extraversion was lower in users preferring lifestyle content. This research intends to complement and extend the literature in influencer marketing and consumer behavior, and to provide relevant guidelines to the definition of brands’ influencer marketing strategy.Com as redes sociais enraizadas na rotina das pessoas, o influencer marketing tornouse uma das ferramentas de marketing mais utilizadas pelas marcas. No entanto, é ainda necessário desenvolver estudos empíricos para compreender melhor os fatores que afetam a resposta dos consumidores ao influencer marketing. Este estudo pretende contribuir para esta lacuna na investigação, ao explorar as relações entre a personalidade dos consumidores, suportada pela teoria de personalidade dos Cinco Fatores, e as suas atitudes e comportamentos face ao influencer marketing. Nesse sentido foram recolhidos dados através de um questionário junto de uma amostra de consumidores das gerações Millennial e Z. Os resultados foram testados para a covariância e diferenças significativas de médias. As evidências indicam que existe uma correlação entre a extroversão e o envolvimento ativo com influenciadores e entre a conscienciosidade e as compras passadas, feitas devido a recomendações de influencers. No que diz respeito às plataformas, os utilizadores do LinkedIn, revelaram uma conscienciosidade mais alta, enquanto os do Twitter registaram um valor mais baixo nesta dimensão da personalidade. Por outro lado, os utilizadores do TikTok demonstraram um neuroticismo mais elevado e os do Twitch uma menor extroversão. Indivíduos que seguem influencers no LinkedIn denotam uma maior conscienciosidade e abertura a novas experiências, aqueles que os seguem no YouTube caracterizam-se por uma mais baixa abertura a novas experiências e os que o fazem no Twitch apresentam valores mais baixos de extroversão. Relativamente às categorias de conteúdo, os seguidores de conteúdos de celebridades revelaram valores mais altos de amabilidade, os de moda e beleza uma maior conscienciosidade, os de gamming uma menor conscienciosidade e os de humor uma menor extroversão do que não seguidores destes temas. Por último, o neuroticismo registou valores mais baixos em indivíduos que preferem conteúdo de viagens, a conscienciosidade foi mais elevada em quem prefere conteúdo de moda e beleza e a extroversão foi mais baixa em quem prefere conteúdo de estilo de vida. Os resultados deste estudo contribuem para completar e alargar a literatura sobre influencer marketing e comportamento do consumidor, e trazem contributos relevantes para a definição da estratégia das marcas que recorrem a esta ferramenta

Interpersonal Relations and Social Actions on Live Streaming Services. A Systematic Review on Cyber-social Relations

This article provides a systematic review on interpersonal relations and social actions on live streaming services as, for instance, Twitch, Chaturbate, YouNow, or Taobao Live. Are those relations social, parasocial, or is there another specific kind of relation? Based on 77 articles, we give a short bibliometric overview and discuss interactions on live streaming services, social actions of streamers, social actions of viewers, shopping relations on live streaming services, and the streamers’ and viewers’ intentions to continuous actions leading (also supported by elements of gamification) the audience to a kind of stickiness towards individual streams, streamers, and services. Due to highly interactive communication between audience and broadcasters and among the viewers, social actions on live streaming services take a middle position between social and parasocial relations and―concerning shopping―also a middle position between physical event-shopping and ordering on an e-commerce platform. They form a new human-human relation, which we name “cyber-social relation.