Behind the Streams:
the off-camera labour of game live streaming
Keywords:
Twitch, Livestreams, Labour, Platforms, Game WorkersAbstract
The live streaming of digital and analogue gaming has emerged as a major new topic in games research. One element involves understanding the labour of streaming: studies to date have focused on examining the ‘on-camera’ labour of streamers, but what has yet to be examined is their ‘off-camera’ labour. This includes developing stream aesthetics, networking with other streamers and viewers, building communities on other platforms and management and maintenance activities. These forms of labour are undertaken by those who broadcast for leisure purposes and those who aspire to a part-time or even full-time job in game streaming. Drawing on extensive interview data with professional and semi-professional live streamers, this paper explores off-stream labour and the demands it makes on game broadcasters. The article sheds new light on the behind-the-scenes labours and lives of aspirational gaming live streamers, who are collectively becoming increasingly influential in global gaming communities.
Downloads
References
ABIDIN, C. Cyber-BFFs: Assessing women’s ‘perceived interconnectedness’ in Singapore’s commercial lifestyle blog industry. Global Media Journal Australian Edition, v. 7, n. 1, p. 1-20, 2013.
ABIDIN, C. Communicative intimacies: Influencers and perceived interconnectedness. Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, n. 8, p. 1-16, 2015.
ASK, K.; SPILKER, H. S.; HANSEN, M. The politics of user-platform relationships: coscripting live-streaming on Twitch.tv. First Monday, v. 24, n. 7, 2019. Disponível em: <https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v24i7.9648>. Acesso em: 21 dez. 2023.
BULUT, E. Playboring in the tester pit: the convergence of precarity and the degradation of fun in video game testing. Television & New Media, v. 16, n. 3, p. 240-258, 2015.
BURROUGHS, B.; RAMA, P. The eSports Trojan horse: Twitch and streaming futures. Journal For Virtual Worlds Research, v. 8, n. 2, p. 1-5, 2015.
CATÁ, A. S. Convergence of rhetoric, labour, and play in the construction of inactive discourses on Twitch. Digital Culture & Society, v. 5, n. 2, p. 133-148, 2019.
CHAN, B.; GRAY, K. Microstreaming, microcelebrity, and marginalized masculinity: Pathways to visibility and self-definition for black men in gaming. Women’s Studies in Communication, v. 43, n. 4, p. 354-362, 2020.
CHAMAZ, K. Qualitative interviewing and grounded theory analysis. In: GUBRIUM, J. F.; HOLSTEIN, J. A. (org.). Handbook of interview research: Context & method. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2002. p. 675-694.
CONSALVO, M. Kaceytron and transgressive play on Twitch.tv. In: JORGENSEN, K.; KARLSEN, F. (org.). Transgression in Games and Play. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2018. p. 83-93.
CONSALVO, M.; PHELPS, A. Performing game development live on Twitch. In: Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 52., 2019, Honolulu. Proceedings […]. Honolulu: University of Hawai, 2019. p. 8-11.
CUNNINGHAM, S.; CRAIG, D.; LV, J. China’s livestreaming industry: Platforms, politics, and precarity. International Journal of Cultural Studies, v. 22, n. 6, p. 719-736, 2019.
DALY, A.; MOLONEY, D. Managing corporate rebranding. Irish Marketing Review, v. 17, n. 1-2, p. 30-36, 2005.
GANDOLFI, E. To watch or to play, it is in the game: the game culture on Twitch.tv among performers, plays, and audiences. Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds, v. 8, n. 1, p. 63-82, 2016.
GRAHAM, M.; ANWAR, M. A. Digital labour. In: ASH, J.; KITCHIN, R.; LESZCZYNSKI, A. (org.). Digital Geographies. London: SAGE, 2018. p. 177-188.
GRAHAM, M.; WOODCOCK, J. Towards a fairer platform economy: introducing the fairwork foundation. Alternate Routes, v. 29, p. 242-253, 2018.
GRAY, K. L. They’re just too urban: Black gamers streaming on Twitch. In: DANIELS, J.; GREGORY, K.; MCMILLAN COTTOM, T. (org.). Digital Sociologies. Bristol: Polity Press, 2017. p. 355-368.
GUARRIELLO, N. B. Never give up, never surrender: game live streaming, neoliberal work, and personalized media economies. New Media & Society, v. 21, n. 8, p. 1750-1769, 2019.
GUEVARA-VILLALOBOS, O. Cultures of independent game production: examining the relationship between community and labour. In: DiGRA 2011, Conference: Think Design Play, 11., 2011, Utrecht, Proceedings […]. Utrecht: Utrecht School of the Arts, 2011.
HAMILTON, W. A.; GARRETSON, O.; KERNE, A. Streaming on Twitch: fostering participatory communities of play within live mixed media. In: Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 32., 2014, Toronto, Proceedings […]. Toronto: Association for Computing Machinery, 2014. p. 1315-1324.
HARVEY, A.; FISHER, S. Making a name in games: Immaterial labour, indie game design, and gendered social network markets. Information, Communication & Society, v. 16, n. 3, p. 362-380, 2013.
HARVEY, A.; FISHER, S. “Everyone can make games!”: the post-feminist context of women in digital game production. Feminist Media Studies, v. 15, n. 4, p. 576-592, 2015.
HERNANDEZ, P. The Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one. The Verge, 16 jun. 2018. Disponível em: <https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/16/17569520/twitch-streamers-zero-viewersmotivation-community>. Acesso em: 21 dez. 2023.
IQBAL, M. Twitch revenue and usage statistics. Business of Apps, 2020. Disponível em: <https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitch-statistics/>. Acesso em: 2020.
JACKSON, N. Understanding memetic media and collective identity through streamer persona on Twitch.tv. Persona Studies, v. 6, n. 2, p. 69-87, 2021.
JOHNSON, M. Behind the streams: the off-camera labour of game live streaming. Games and Culture, v. 16, n. 8, 2021, p. 1-20.
JOHNSON, M. R.; CARRIGAN, M.; BROCK, T. The imperative to be seen: the moral economy of celebrity video game streaming on Twitch. tv. First Monday, v. 24, n. 8, 2019. Disponível em: <https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v24i8.8279>. Acesso em: 21 dez. 2023.
JOHNSON, M. R.; WOODCOCK, J. It’s like the gold rush: the lives and careers of professional video game streamers on Twitch.tv. Information, Communication & Society, v. 22, n. 3, p. 336-351, 2017.
JOHNSON, M. R.; WOODCOCK, J. “And today’s top donator is”: how live streamers on Twitch.tv monetize and gamify their broadcasts. Social Media+ Society, v. 5, n. 4, p. 1-11, 2019.
KAIKATI, J. G.; KAIKATI, A. M. A rose by any other name: rebranding campaigns that work. Journal of Business Strategy, v. 24, n. 6, p. 17-23, 2003.
KEOGH, B. The cultural field of video game production in Australia. Games and Culture, v. 16, n. 1, p. 1-20, 2019.
LEECH, B. L. Asking questions: Techniques for semistructured interviews. PS: Political Science and Politics, v. 35, n. 4, p. 665-668, 2002.
MALONEY, M.; ROBERTS, S.; CARUSO, A. ‘Mmm… I love it, bro!’: Performances of masculinity in YouTube gaming. New Media & Society, v. 20, n. 5, p. 1697-1714, 2018.
MARWICK, A. E. Status update: celebrity, publicity, and branding in the social media age. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013.
MIHAILOVA, T. Navigating ambiguous negativity: a case study of Twitch.tv live chats. New Media & Society, v. 24, n. 8, p. 1-22, 2020.
NIEBORG, D. B.; POELL, T. The platformization of cultural production: theorizing the contingent cultural commodity. New Media & Society, v. 20, n. 11, p. 4275-4292, 2018.
NORTON, L. The philosophical bases of grounded theory and their implications for research practice. Nurse Researcher, v. 7, n. 1, p. 31-43, 1999.
PANNETON, C. Appropriating play: Examining Twitch.tv as a commercial platform. 2019. 92f. Thesis (Master of Arts degree in Media Studies) – Faculty of Information and Media Studies, University of Western Ontario, Ontario, 2019.
PARTIN, W. C. Watch me pay: Twitch and the cultural economy of surveillance. Surveillance & Society, v. 17, n. 1/2, p. 153-160, 2019.
PARTIN, W. C. Bit by (Twitch) Bit: “Platform Capture” and the evolution of digital platforms. Social Media + Society, v. 6, n. 3, p. 1-12, 2020.
PELLICONE, A. J.; AHN, J. The game of performing play: understanding streaming as cultural production. In: Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 35., 2017, Denver, Proceedings […]. Denver: Association for Computing Machinery, 2017. p. 4863-4874.
POSTIGO, H. The socio-technical architecture of digital labor: converting play into YouTube money. New Media & Society, v. 18, n. 2, p. 332-349, 2016.
RAYMOND, M. Brand publics and online video game streaming. 2018. 68f. Thesis (Master of Science in Marketing) – John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, Montreal: Concordia University, 2018.
RECKTENWALD, D. Toward a transcription and analysis of live streaming on Twitch. Journal of Pragmatics, v. 115, p. 62-81, 2017.
RUBERG, B.; CULLEN, A. L. L. Feeling for an audience: the gendered emotional labor of video game live streaming. Digital Culture and Society, v. 5, n. 2, p. 133-148, 2020.
RUBERG, B. B.; LARK, D. Livestreaming from the bedroom: performing intimacy through domestic space on Twitch. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, v. 27, n. 3, p. 1-17, 2020.
SCHOLZ, T. Digital labor: the internet as playground and factory. New York: Routledge, 2013.
SEERING, J.; SAVAGE, S.; EAGLE, M.; CHURCHIN, J.; MOELLER, R.; BIGHAM, J. P.; HAMMER, J. Audience participation games: Blurring the line between player and spectator. In: Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, 12., 2017, Edinburgh, Proceedings […]. Edinburgh: Association for Computing Machinery, 2017. p. 429-440.
SENFT, T. M. Camgirls: celebrity and community in the age of social networks. New York: Peter Lang, 2008.
SIUTILA, M. The gamification of gaming streams. In: International GamiFIN Conference, 2., 2018, Pori, Proceedings […]. Pori: University Consortium of Pori, 2018. p. 131-140.
SJÖBLOM, M.; HAMARI, J. Why do people watch others play video games? An empirical study on the motivations of Twitch users. Computers in Human Behavior, v. 75, p. 985-996, 2017.
SONG, H. The making of microcelebrity: AfreecaTV and the younger generation in neoliberal South Korea. Social Media + Society, v. 4, n. 4, p. 1-10, 2018.
SPILKER, H. S.; ASK, K.; HANSEN, M. The new practices and infrastructures of participation: how the popularity of Twitch. tv challenges old and new ideas about television viewing. Information, Communication & Society, v. 23, n. 4, p. 605-620, 2020.
TAYLOR, T. L. Watch me play: Twitch and the rise of game live streaming. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018.
TÖRHÖNEN, M.; HASSAN, L.; SJÖBLOM, M.; HAMARI, J. Play, playbour or labour? The relationships between perception of occupational activity and outcomes among streamers and YouTubers. In: Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 52., 2019, Honolulu. Proceedings […]. Honolulu: University of Hawai, 2019. p. 1-10.
TWITCHTRACKER. Twitch statistics and charts. TwitchTracker, 2020. Disponível em: https://twitchtracker.com/statistics. Acesso em: 2020.
WALKER, A. Watching us play: postures and platforms of live streaming. Surveillance & Society, v. 12, n. 3, p. 437-442, 2014.
WITKOWSKI, E.; RECKTENWALD, D.; MANNING, J.; GE, Z. Livestreaming in theory and practice: four provocations on labour, liveness and participatory culture in games livestreaming. In: International Symposium on Electronic Art, 22., 2016, Hong Kong. Proceedings […]. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 2016. p. 429-431.
WOHN, D. Y. Volunteer moderators in Twitch micro communities: how they get involved, the roles they play, and the emotional labor they experience. In: Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 37., 2019, Glasgow. Proceedings […]. Glasgow: Association for Computing Machinery, 2019. p. 1-13.
WOHN, D. Y.; FREEMAN, G. Audience management practices of live streamers on Twitch. In: ACM International Conference on Interactive Media Experiences, 2020, Barcelona. Proceedings […]. Barcelona: Association for Computing Machinery, 2020. p. 106-116.
WOODCOCK, J.; JOHNSON, M. R. The affective labor and performance of live streaming on Twitch.tv. Television & New Media, v. 20, n. 8, p. 813-823, 2019.
WULF, T.; SCHNEIDER, F. M.; BECKERT, S. Watching players: an exploration of media enjoyment on Twitch. Games and Culture, v. 15, n. 3, p. 328-346, 2018.
YU, E.; JUNG, C.; KIM, H.; JUNG, J. Impact of viewer engagement on gift-giving in live video streaming. Telematics and Informatics, v. 35, n. 5, p. 1450-1460, 2018.
ZHANG, G.; HJORTH, L. Live-streaming, games and politics of gender performance: the case of Nüzhubo in China. Convergence, v. 25, n. 5-6, p. 807-825, 2019.
ZOLIDES, A. Lipstick bullets: labour and gender in professional gamer self-branding. Persona Studies, v. 1, n. 2, p. 42-53, 2015.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Mark Johnson
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
A submissão de originais para Revista Culturas Midiáticas implica na transferência, pelos autores (as), dos direitos de publicação impressa e digital. Os direitos autorais para os artigos publicados são do autor (a), com direitos da Revista Culturas Midiáticas sobre a primeira publicação. Em virtude de sermos um periódico de acesso aberto, permite-se o uso gratuito dos artigos em aplicações educacionais, científicas, não comerciais, desde que citada a fonte (por favor, veja a Licença Creative Commons no rodapé desta página).
