Setting the digital stage: Defining game streaming as an entertainment experience

•We position game streaming as a form of collaborative game play.•We first review the social history of gaming.•Performance, interactions, and synchrony are three core dimensions of game streaming.•We explicate game streaming from both communication and media psychology studies.•We discuss motivatio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEntertainment computing Vol. 31; p. 100309
Main Authors Tammy Lin, Jih-Hsuan, Bowman, Nicholas, Lin, Shu-Fang, Chen, Yen-Shen
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Elsevier B.V 01.08.2019
Subjects
Audience effects
Game streaming
Media psychology
Self-determination
Twitch
YouTube gaming
Game streaming
Media psychology
Twitch
YouTube gaming
Performance
Audience effects
Self-determination
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Summary:•We position game streaming as a form of collaborative game play.•We first review the social history of gaming.•Performance, interactions, and synchrony are three core dimensions of game streaming.•We explicate game streaming from both communication and media psychology studies.•We discuss motivation, information processing, sociality, and performance. Game streaming—viewing live or recorded broadcasts of others’ video game play—has become widely popular in recent years due to the emergence of platforms such as Twitch and YouTube Gaming. We position game streaming as a form of collaborative game play, with implications for how we study games and communication. We first review the social history of gaming before explicating game streaming as a gaming activity that involves public performance and varying levels of social interaction and synchrony. The influence of these three core elements on the uses, processes, and effects of game streaming as an entertainment activity are discussed through the twin perspectives of communication and media psychology.
ISSN:1875-9521
1875-953X
DOI:10.1016/j.entcom.2019.100309