The role of practices and synchronicity in the production of commented gameplay videos. A qualitative interrogation of German gaming content creators

What the spectator expects in the game of watching: Twitch.tv, materiality, and game consumption through and beyond spectatorship

Understanding streaming platforms as capable of supporting and promoting new languages, trends, and online consumption practices, this article relates game media itself to cultural phenomena and social processes around play-watch activities in game streams on Twitch.tv. Analyzing the materiality (structure, affordances, socio-technical and economic aspects) of the leading platform in the live streaming market, we carry out a preliminary understanding of how these digital territories influence and harbor experiences of watching and playing games. Addressing the tools and uses of Twitch.tv, we present concepts that help us understand practices within the community that transcend watching and modify gaming – the sociability in participatory communities of play (Hamilton et al. 2014), the co-creation in multiplayer entertainment (Shear 2019), and the interactivity and agency in crossplay –, as well as the role of the industry and its neoliberal agenda on shaping game spectatorship and domesticating subversive conducts in the game of watching.

Monetization and Gamification in Twitch Game Live Streaming

Esports Viewer Perspectives on Cheating in Competition

The Authenticity Engine: Livestreaming on Twitch

The Impacts of Live Streaming on the Video Game Industry

Game Streaming Revisited: Some Observations on Marginal Practices and Contexts

The focus of this paper is on the spectating phenomenon of live streaming gameplay, which has been described as “marginal.” After reviewing important non-gaming factors capable of bringing game streaming from the analytical margins to the center, we discuss the larger context in which game streaming is embedded, plus its implications. Data were gathered via in-depth interviews with game stream viewers, analyses of game streaming-related forum posts, and an online survey. According to our observations, game streaming should not be viewed as only a game-related phenomenon or extended gameplay practice, but also as a type of cross-media entertainment involving multiple media consumption characteristics—a form of stage performance, a space for social interaction, and as entertainment similar to hosted variety shows and reality television. Consumers tend to move among multiple streaming activities serving assorted media functions in search of entertainment, with their identities changing according to personal time restrictions and social situations.

Conversation, Discourse and Play: Interaction and Moderation in Twitch.tv Live Streaming

Audiencing on Twitch

Collegiate eSports as Learning Ecologies: Investigating Collaborative Learning and Cognition During Competitions

We explore the ways that a collegiate esports team’s play and performance evidences micro-level shifts in learning, domain mastery and expertise through simultaneously collaborative and competitive game play. Specifically, to this aim, we evaluate how esports provide evidence of processes and practices that are important for learning-relevant trajectories in and beyond higher education. Collegiate players demonstrate decision-making, reflection and elements of individual and collaborative learning during high stakes matches. Our findings help highlight evidence of perceptual learning, as it occurs over time and through the refinement of individual and collective skills, which is demonstrated through the players’ flexibility to adapt to increasingly complex challenges. We further see evidence of task cohesion and psychological safety, which corresponded with productive risk taking and group potency (or collective self-efficacy). Players also exhibit integration of effective reflection techniques and improved task and outcome interdependence. We contend that findings underscore the importance of esports as meaningful and noteworthy learning ecologies.