Setting the digital stage: Defining game streaming as an entertainment experience

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.entcom.2019.100309Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We position game streaming as a form of collaborative game play.

  • We first review the social history of gaming.

  • Performance, interactions, and synchrony are three core dimensions of game streaming.

  • We explicate game streaming from both communication and media psychology studies.

  • We discuss motivation, information processing, sociality, and performance.

Abstract

Game streaming—viewing live or recorded broadcasts of others’ video game play—has become widely popular in recent years due to the emergence of platforms such as Twitch and YouTube Gaming. We position game streaming as a form of collaborative game play, with implications for how we study games and communication. We first review the social history of gaming before explicating game streaming as a gaming activity that involves public performance and varying levels of social interaction and synchrony. The influence of these three core elements on the uses, processes, and effects of game streaming as an entertainment activity are discussed through the twin perspectives of communication and media psychology.

Section snippets

Video games as public spectacles: A brief history

Although discussions of game streaming tend to refer to digital spectatorship in its modern form (i.e., spectating and streaming video games via computer networks), it is important to note that the general concept of video gaming as a spectator sport is much older. Due in part to a lack of computer processing power or basic artificial intelligence systems, the very first computer games required multiple co-located players. Games such as SpaceWar! in the early 1960 s operated as digital

Defining game streaming

As of now, there is no consensus as to a definition of game streaming, and existing definitions are insufficient to describe the commonalities between different types of game streaming. Most of the existing literature has focused on esports (professional gamers who play in front of gathered and online crowds; cf. [23]) or specific live streaming technologies and platforms (such as Twitch, cf. [37]). In particular, Cryan [23] suggested that game streaming (as a form of esports) is:

“live and

Game streaming and current theories of communication and media psychology

Defining game streaming as comprised of performance, synchronicity, and interaction, we turn to scholarship from the twin areas of communication and media psychology to suggests areas of future research relevant to the motivations for and consequences of streaming.

Uses and gratifications of streaming. One of the most basic frameworks for understanding explicit motivations for engaging with media products is the uses and gratifications approach (U&G: [45]). At its core, U&G argues that audiences

Discussion and conclusion

As game streaming becomes a common way to engage in video game content, more research is needed to understand how interacting with game content through streaming influences both players and audiences’ performance and enjoyment. However, such research cannot meaningfully progress without a more specific understanding of the core elements of game streaming. In this paper, we have suggested that game streaming involves more than simply displaying one’s gameplay for others, but can more

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors and this research do not have any conflicts of interests.

Acknowledgement:

This scholarship was supported by the Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences at the National Chiao Tung University (grant #105W947); and Ministry of Science and Technology (grant #103-2628-H-009-002-SS4 and grant #107-2410-H-004-061-SS3).

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