Gaming Communities, Social Gaming and Live Streaming
As online platforms have become more prominent in today's society, video games have become more social. Taylor (2018, p. 6) discusses the growing video game community and how Twitch and live streaming allow users to share their gaming experiences with others. This has enabled people to interact and converse with others who share their interests.
Gaming services such as Twitch, Discord, and even YouTube enable individuals to establish communities, play games, and have fun together. The gaming network is one of the world's largest communities of individuals. Gaming does not discriminate, and you may be whatever you want to be.
The good in gaming is limitless, the sense of community, the ability to keep youngsters off the streets and out of danger, the intense rivalry within these communities, but it isn't always good that comes from these Billion Dollar companies and gaming fans.
Unfortunately, the outcome is a basic distortion of gaming minority, namely females. Women, on the other hand, are carving out their own places in gaming, and by 2020, 41% of gamers will be female (Yokoi, 2021 (McDivitt, 2020). This indicates that an increasing number of female gamers are drawn to the enjoyment, flexibility, and independence that gaming provides across several devices. This is especially true in Asia, where mobile phones have become the primary internet-enabled device for many individuals, increasing by 19% since 2019 (BBC, 2020).
Social gaming is growing in modern digital age, thanks to the numerous newly developed platforms. We can do almost everything online, and gaming is a big part of that. Online gaming is one of the fastest-growing sectors, and it will only grow in the future as the industry expands.
REFERENCES
McDivitt, A. (2020, October 29). TOXIC VIDEO GAME CULTURE AND WHY I DON’T CALL MYSELF A “GAMER”. Retrieved from Blog : https://blog.degruyter.com/toxic-video-game-culture-and-why-i-dont-call-myself-a-gamer/
Taylor, TL 2018, ‘Broadcasting ourselves’ (chapter 1), in Watch Me Play: Twitch and the Rise of Game Live Streaming, Princeton University Press, pp.1-23






