The Gaming World.
Video games have always been an important part of the Internet ever since it was introduced back in the days which results in a new definition of ‘gaming culture’. This is not an unfamiliar term to us, who was born during the rise of the digital age since gaming has been a vital part of our lives, especially me where my entire childhood is based on video games. In this week's discussion, I will discuss the gaming cultures and game live streaming.
First, what is video games? Granic, Lobel, and Engels (2014) defined video games as digital electronic interaction between the player and the virtual environment, online games, however, is the interaction between a person and others through a third-party interface. The gaming culture has changed over the past decades, starting from hardcore gamers want to try out new games and experience the features into gamers watching other playing video games. This also results in E-sport, “a form of electronic sport where the team competes to gain victory and reputations” (Jenny, Manning, Keiper and Olrich 2016), the most popular E-sport competition is The International organized by Valve were teams coming from all over the world to compete over the game called Dota 2 with the prize reached approximately US$34,330,068 in total. This has significantly changed the perspective of both gamers and non-gamers that gaming can make money, A LOT of money. With the reputation of The International by Valve and Worlds by Riot Games (another tournament compete by League of Legends), the gaming culture rises as one of the most profitable industry in the world, highly developed countries immensely invest in a professional team and spend millions of dollars to recruit professionals players so that they can form a team where they can outweigh others and win the championship.
Live Streaming, is another aspect of the gaming culture, Taylor (2018) proposed that live streaming is a newly introduced proposition of gaming culture, people participated in live streaming are considered ‘viewers’, they come to watch or even interact with the ‘streamers’. The most well-known streaming platforms can be mentioned are Twitch and Youtube Gaming which have the most viewers counts compared to other platforms. Hilvert-Bruce, Neill, Sjöblom, and Hamari (2018) discussed that people logging in to Twitch for multiple reasons, social interactions, entertainment, meeting new people and information seeking but mostly to watch their favorite streaming playing and interacting with their viewers. Live streaming forms a social digital community where people seek to one particular person to share the same interest and a person does not have to be in one community but rather in multiple communities.
Reference
Granic, I, Lobel, A & Engels, R (2014), The benefits of playing video games, American Psychologist, vol. 69, no. 1, pp. 66-78.
Hilvert-Bruce, Z, Neill, J, Sjöblom, M & Hamari, J (2018), Social motivations of live-streaming viewer engagement on Twitch, Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 84, pp. 58-67.
Jenny, S, Manning, R, Keiper, M & Olrich, T (2016), Virtual(ly) Athletes: Where eSports Fit Within the Definition of “Sport”, Quest, vol. 69, no. 1, pp. 1-18.
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
