[Original #1] The Empire of Video Game Live Streaming

While many of us are talking about the amazing social impact brought by social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, let me focus on something else in my post for a change. Social media is truly a huge topic. Except for the typical social networking service, there are many other media that are gradually transformed into new social tools and are thus considered as parts of social media. Among them is what I am about to talk about today – video game live streaming.

Whenever we heard video games, we are likely to create this image in our brain: 

  

source: giphy.com

Yes, it should be admitted that gamers around the world have long been depicted as good-for-nothing, not self-disciplined and socially dysfunctional weirdos. Even now many of us have changed our mind and label video games with “a way of amusement, killing time and creative learning”, we seldom link video games with socializing or social interaction: Seriously, when you play video games, you are locking yourself in your own imaginary world. So how could it carry a function of socializing? However, video games have great potential on helping people make friends, become popular, or succeed in a highly associated society. Actually, we are witnessing the rise of a new social media empire building upon the great possibility of video games.

Starting From Video Games

We tend to think video games are often single-player activities, but many examples would tell a different story. At every beginning, video games were designed for multi-playing. One of the earliest video game ever made, Tennis for Two (1958), is a tennis simulation game which allows two player fight against each other on a digital tennis field. Sharing the fun of video games gain more popularity after network massively accessed to many households in North America and Europe. The Internet empowered players to play games not only with people who are close to them, but also their peers living on every corner of this planet. Some gaming consoles are even sold as the necessary part of family gathering events, including Nintendo’s Wii, whose advertisements are always about family members sitting together playing racing or sports games.

Source:gamespot.com

It is not exaggerated to say that video games could do anything any other social media are able to do. They amuse us; they create popular sub-cultures; they embody the power of communicating and sharing. Individuals forge friendship while they cooperate with each one to achieve some certain goals in games, or compete to decide who is the final winner. Master gamers share their gaming experience, or video record on blogs and Youtube and become famous. Gamers create pages, topics or hashtags on social media, following with heated discussion and debates about games and gaming events. And today, video gaming as a way of communicating and sharing has come to a higher stage, thanks to the video game live streaming.

The Empire of Video Game Live Streaming

Although many early video games have already carry the function of multiplayer, it is at the beginning of this decade that video games really became the “shared happiness”. Video game live streaming, as is indicated, refers to the practice of live streaming the play of video games. It is hard to tell why you can find as much as fun by watching someone else’s gameplay online. It might because that you need to pay for a video game, but it is totally free to watch game streaming, or maybe it is because viewers are really into high-level playing or entertaining commentary of those streamers.

Typically, it is simple and easy to become a game streamer, just like becoming a blogger or Youtuber. What you need are a gaming device (PC, game console or even your smartphone), a microphone set and confidence. You start your own streaming by hobby, but it might evolve into a profession or even a large business.

BrownMan is a famous streamer on game streaming platform Twitch who is good at playing a variety of genres and making jokes (See an example video on the right side).

He has been operating his current channel full time since 2015, and now has around 430,000 followers on Twitch. His source of income includes viewers’ subscriptions, fans’ donations, and advertising – Cooperating with famous streamers have become the new way of thinking of many video game producers and gaming device manufacturers. In Q4 2017, there are over 27,000 streamers on Twitch, over 82,000 on YouTube Gaming, and many of them are, like BrownMan, employing their talent on video games, starting a business, becoming famous.

This new empire of game streaming is now in rapid expansion. A report from SuperData Research indicates that more people watch online gaming videos than HBO, Netflix, ESPN, and Hulu all combined together. An estimated 666 million viewers in 2017 watch YouTube’s gaming content or Twitch live streaming, while the number of HBO’s subscribers at the same period was 130 million. The game streaming market is still growing at high speed. Game streaming platforms are significantly ahead of other social live streaming platforms (such as Facebook Live and Periscope) regarding the total number of average concurrent streamers and viewers. In 2017, the tipping volume hit the $100 million milestones, making video game live streaming a real lucrative business.     

Video gamers used to be marginalized by major media and the public, but now playing video games seems to be a new fashion on the social network. Would it enjoy a long lifespan, or would it be replaced by something more advanced?