Gaming emotions

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I’ll approach a complex topic: gaming emotions. I’ll try to describe the complex problem of real emotions caused by virtual entities and how they remain in the real world. What happens to the emotions after quitting the game? Is gaming friendship real friendship? I’m not sure, how I should approach this topic, so let’s find out.

Fotw #17 [1] was concluded with the idea that one of the main reasons for playing computer games are emotional rewards. Computer games offer a lot of opportunities to experience a lot of different emotions: happiness and pride after a strong enemy is defeated. The fear of getting ambushed by something unknown. Strong excitement just before looting a treasure. The pleasure of helping someone who is very thankful for the player’s efforts. etc.

But how can the intensity of these emotions be defined? The emotions are real, because players are happy, sad or scared. But how real do they are? Sneaking through a forest and fearing to be ambushed by something unknown in a game could be quite scary. However, the intensity of sneaking in the real world through a forest can’t be compared to a „safe“ virtual world. On the other side, as long as the player is immersed in the gameplay, the virtual forest feels like the real forest.

This applies to almost every other possible interaction a player can do in a computer game. Playing a racing game can be very intense. Winning a race after a hard battle for the first position can feel like winning a real Formula One Grand Prix. (Well, I’ve never experienced driving in the Formula One, so I hope it does. But I like to, so if any team chef is looking for a new driver, please consider this blog post as an application.) However, after quitting the game, there’s a break between the two realities. The player still has the emotions of winning a hard race but sees that it only happened in a racing simulation.

Apart from the experience of the environment, it’s hard to define the interpersonal emotions of a player in a virtual world as well. Interpersonal emotions in a computer game can have two different dimensions. Computer games can be differentiated into two main categories: singleplayer and multiplayer games. Interpersonal emotions in a singleplayer game are only emotions between the player–a human being–and virtual characters, who only exist in a particular game world. Multiplayer games do have also the opportunity of connecting two human beings in the same virtual world. Especially MMORPGs are excellent examples because these games foster social bondings among players.

Player-to-player relationships can be defined as an interpersonal relationship that is only taking place in virtual environments where players can interact with each other through an avatar. Like other media based communication, computer games can be seen as a platform to connect players from all over the world. This relationship is, apart from the fact that the players are only communicating through their avatars, like typical relationships among human beings. The emotions are real because they’re caused by real people. Additionally, these emotions and the friendship itself can exist without the game. The players can stay in touch through other games, chat-clients or even real life meetings.

Player-to-game character relationships are much more complicated to define. If the game design has created game characters that behave almost like human beings, express emotions and react towards the player’s action, then the player can start building up a certain kind of friendship towards these game characters. These game characters can accompany the player and thus increase the idea of friendship between them. The Mass Effect series [2] has created very realistic game characters and players can start building up friendships while playing the game.

As long as the players are immersed in the game and act as if they’re the avatar, these friendships seem to be real. But what if the player leaves the gaming environment? As said before, the emotions are real for the player. Considering this, the player-to-game character relationship must be real as well. However, if players have finished the game, they do not have any opportunity to stay in touch with their game character friends. Maybe player-to-game character friendships can be seen as relationship among colleagues: they last as long as the job connects them.

I think the complexity of the gaming emotions derives from the break between the two realities. The emotions survive the gap between the game world and the real world. The player still feels the emotions even after quitting the game. However, after quitting the game, the player isn’t immersed anymore and realises that it was just a game.

This leaves me–and hopefully you as well–with the still unanswered question: how real are real gaming emotions and how can they be defined?

Game spectatorship: Charity events

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This is the eighth part of the video game / e-sport spectator series. This time, I’ll focus on a special use of streaming: creating charity events to support organizations.

As already mentioned in the previous e-sport spectator parts, watching live broadcasts is interesting, attracts many people and works world wide. Interested spectators from all over the world are able to follow the gameplay of one single player.

But live broadcasts aren’t just interesting for spectators that like to follow an expert player. Broadcasters with a high amount of viewers do have the opportunity to take advantage of their attention: they can gain the trust of their viewers and influence them. They can also use their audience to support other projects: they’re able to host charity events.

These events range from marathon gaming sessions [1] to competitions [2] between expert players. The aim of these events is to use the popularity of the broadcaster and the games that are played to attract as much viewers as possible. The attention of the users is used for fundraising for charitable trusts [3] or hospitals with a special focus [4]. Spectators do have the opportunity to donate some money to the particular charity events that goes directly to the supported organization.

In contrast to local fundraising events, gaming charity events do have one major advantage: they’re global. Spectators from all over the world can participate and support the event with a donation.

This can be illustrated with last years Dragon Soul Challenge [5]. Athene [6] had invited four popular and successful World of Warcraft guilds to compete against each other. The goal of each guild was to complete the Dragon Soul raid instance as fast as possible [7].

The charity event was a success [8]: Over 55.000 viewers watched the main stream (400.000 viewers followed the event in total) and over $16.000 were donated during the competition. To better compare the number of viewers: 50.287 fans can be seated in the Yankee Stadium [9].

Although there’ve been only few other big events, the example shows the potential of global charity events using the potential of streaming gameplay.

Comparability

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: A journey mostly ends with the presentation of a lot of pictures. A journey through a game world mostly ends with the credits … What might be the reason why there’s  almost no talking about the latest playthrough? How could these two different immersive experiences be compared? What makes it so hard to talk about the latest gaming experience?

Computer games are designed to be doable. There’s no uncertainty like doing a supersonic parachute jump from 128.100 feet [1]. There’re also no limitations which can prohibit the player from beating the game: the player doesn’t need to qualify to play a game. A computer game can be played as long as the challenge lasts and whenever the player likes to play it. Of course, the content in games like World of Warcraft can be adjusted (or „nerfed“) by the designers to make it more accessible for the majority of the users. In this case, some hard challenges might only have a certain life span.

Playing computer games can’t be compared to other media leisure activities. Watching tv is a passive activity: the recipient just follows the narration without doing anything actively. Reading a book isn’t passive, but does not allow the recipient to have influence on the outcome of the actions. The reader only enjoys the narration without being able to interact with it.
Gaming allows the player to follow the narration and to interact with it. Additionally, the player’s decisions can have a deep impact on the outcome of the narration. The player is immersed in the gameplay and has a deeper and more personal experience of the actions.

Considering this, computer games can be compared to special but regular activities: going on a hike, doing sports or any other complex activity. But even if it’s a great personal experience for players to beat a hard challenge, they don’t have anything in particular to share with their friends. In today’s life it has become common to take pictures of current activities and share it with friends over the internet. Furthermore, watching pictures and talking about the experiences has become a new leisure activity that adds an additional feature to the original activity: it now can be shared.

But what about computer games? Players can take screenshots while playing a game. But sharing in-game experience by sharing screenshots over the internet isn’t very common today. Additionally, while playing a game, players have to make difficult decisions or experience complex situations. If this would be easily comparable to the real world, many people might be interested in hearing about these experiences.

One reason might be the complexity of the games. Every game has different rules and requires a different gameplay. Things that might be easy in one game can be hard in an other game. Additionally, every game has its own rules and own background story. To understand the player’s experiences, it’s necessary to know all the important facts and rules about the particular game world. If some informations are lacking, it can be hard to understand the achievements of the player because there’s no relation to the real world.

Furthermore, it’s complex to understand all the things a player might have learnt during the gameplay. Often, it’s hard to compare human skill requirements in a computer game to human skill requirements of real world activities. Future (my!) research should achieve a better understanding between the real and the game world.

But even if gamers can’t share their experience or don’t have any real reward for their success, they’re still rewarded: the emotions during are a playthrough are real [2]. These emotional rewards are one of the main reasons for playing computer games.

Finally, presenting screenshots of the last game journey could be a new trend …

References:

[2] McGonigal, Jane (2011): Reality Is Broken, New York.

How much rng?

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: Turn-based strategy games can be quite challenging by using methods to create a certain randomness. Players have to adapt their strategies and don’t experience the same on a second playthrough.

Recently, I began with a new playthrough of XCOM – Enemy unknown[1] on the highest difficulty level (appropriately called „Impossible“ [2] difficulty) with „ironman“ [2] mode enabled. The ironman mode increases the difficulty by disabling the option to reload older savegames and the progress is automatically saved. By using this option all the player’s decisions are final for that particular playthrough. However, XCOM is a turn-based strategy game and thus requiring a thoughtful gameplay. Therefore, the ironman mode is mostly increasing the need for well considered decisions.

Headquarter

On impossible difficulty, the first phase of the game is the most important one. Doing something wrong during this period makes it harder to win the game or can even screw the whole playthrough. Considering this, the player is challenged to develop a strategy to survive the beginning of the game.
The game has four different aspects: Turn-based fights, research and development, base building and strategic planning. All these four aspects influence each other and need to be mastered to successfully play the game.

However, during the first month of the game, the player is short on funds and there’re only three ways of increasing the player’s funds: Completing missions, receiving new funds at the end of a month or selling rare resources (the worst way of making money). The amount of fundings is increased by protecting the nations of the XCOM Project [3].
If the player wants to protect a nation, they need to build a satellite and place it above the particular nation. This is an expensive process, especially during the first month. Additionally, at the end of the first month, the player is in danger of loosing four nations, if they haven’t build four satellites. This leaves the player with only one option: building four satellites until the end of the first month is the only strategy to survive the first month without losing any nation.

Nations of XCOM

This strategy requires the right choices and the luck to receive the first three missions of the game within the first 15 days of the game [4]. If the player is unlucky and only receives two missions, they might have a second chance and gather enough resources to sell during these two missions. However, this isn’t granted at all.
In conclusion, the player has only one strategic option to keep every nation in the XCOM Project. The game on the other hand is very random. As mentioned before, the player can be unlucky and doesn’t receive all the resources needed for the ideal strategy.

The fortune of the player is determined by the random-number-generator (rng) [5] of the game. Among other things, the rng determines the dates of the missions and the resources gathered by completing a mission. Rng can be implemented through an pseudo-random number generator algorithm that can create a sequence of numbers without almost no pattern [6].

Adding randomness to a game can help a virtual world seem more real [7]. The Player isn’t experiencing the same during a new playthrough and there’s no right strategy to play the game successfully [5]. Additionally, the gameplay of strategy games can benefit from unpredictable events: the player has to adapt their strategy.
However, the rng only works well, if there’re enough ways to win the game by changing the strategy. As mentioned before, XCOM has only one ideal strategy but uses the rng.

Naturally, the game isn’t lost, if the player loses some nations after the first month, but it gets even harder for the player to survive. There’s no way of adapting the strategy because the development of the player’s base is determined by the available fundings. Additionally, the difficulty of the game increases every month by sending new and stronger aliens against the player.

To wrap things up, rng keeps the game fresh [5], if there’re enough ways to succesfully play the game. However, if the game uses rng but only has one ideal strategy, the player might lose the game without any chance to prevent their doom.

[5] Brathwaite, Brenda; Schreiber, Ian (2009): Challenges for Game Designers, Boston.

[7] Perry, David; DeMaria, Rusel (2009): David Perry on Game Design: A Brainstorming Toolbox, Boston.

Game spectatorship: Twitch client implemented in CoH2

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This is the seventh part of the video game / e-sport spectator series. This time, I’ll focus on the internal twitch.tv client of „Company of Heroes 2“.

Company of Heroes 2 (CoH2), a real-time strategy game, was released this week on June 25th. But it’s not the release of the game itself I want to talk about. It’s one litte feature implemented in CoH2: It has an own twitch.tv broadcasting client.
Typically, to broadcast the own gameplay over twitch.tv, the user has to install a small broadcasting client. This client captures the video and sound output of a game and streams it over the user’s twitch.tv channel.
The developers of CoH2 implemented this feature directly into the game. The user just has to connect CoH2 to their twitch.tv account to broadcast the own gameplay.

CoH2 Twitch Client

But what makes this internal streaming client so special? From my point of view, it indicates that game developers become aware of the importance of broadcasting gameplay. As already discussed in this spectatorship series, watching other player’s gameplay is entertainment for various reasons. But from the point of view of a game company, gameplay broadcasts are cost-free advertisement.

If the gameplay seems to be entertaining, interested players might buy the game and start playing it themselves. By allowing all active players to broadcast their gameplay without having the issue of setting up a broadcasting software, the game company might increase the numbers of broadcasting players. This approach could result in an increased amount of spectators who might get interested in playing the game.

Game spectatorship: Spectating tournaments

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This is the sixth part of the video game / e-sport spectator series. This time, I’ll focus on the spectatorship of tournaments: Spectators are sitting on a tribune and watching their favorite players performing on a stage.

I’ve listed four ways of spectating computer games in the first part of the spectator series. However, one additional method should be discussed: Watching competitive gameplay live in the arena during a tournament.

Major tournaments and grand finals, like the Grand Final [1] of the World Cyber Games (WCG) [2], are taking place in exhibition and convention centers. Typically, these events are taking place on a stage in front of a tribune. Several computers are set up on the stage and thus are creating the playing field. The stage itself provides a huge screen allowing all the spectators to watch the matches between the players. Finally, the gameplay is spectated and commentated by a commentator.

This kind of spectating gameplay is comparable to watch a sport event in a stadium. Apart from enjoying the gameplay, most of the entertainment derives from spectating in a crowd [3]. Fans are cheering for their favorite players and a excellent gameplay is honored with applause.

These live events do also have a social and a society aspect. Spectators can see the attending expert players performing live and walking around on the venue. Additionally, depending on the country and the interest in e-sports of the society [4], these tournaments evoke a huge media coverage.

However, the two main spectator personas of this spectatorship series, can’t benifit much from visiting these events. Watching these live events can be almost compared to watching live broadcasts [5]: The Interested hasn’t ever played the game. Thus the fast paced gameplay of expert players could blur the impression of the avarage gameplay of the game.
The Pupil likes to improve its own gameplay and analyze the tactics of the expert players. Like watching a live broadcast, the Pupil can’t pause the action and rewatch critical situations. However the commentator might provide some useful information.

[3] Cheung, Gifford; Huang, Jeff (2011): Starcraft from the stands: understanding the game spectator, in: CHI 2011 Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference on Human factors in computing systems, pp. 763 – 772.

Game spectatorship: Let’s play videos

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This is the fifth part of the video game / e-sport spectator series. This time, I’ll focus on „Let’s play“ videos (LP). I’ll mostly explain my own obervations of watching LPs and thus try to define what „Let’s play“ videos are.

A LP is a full video coverage of the playthrough of a computer game, which is, in most cases, commentated by the player. A playthrough of a game in case of a LP has not necessary to end with the beating of the game [1]. Players can even stick to some contraints like playing until a particular character dies or playing until the player gets defeated by the game without reloading older save games [2][3]. In this case, a LP ends before the player beats the game.

LPs belong the user generated content [4]: In most cases, LPs are uploaded to video platforms like youtube and aren’t created by professionals.

A playthrough of a regular video game takes several hours (in most cases between 10 to 30 hours). Therefore, a LP is split into several videos and thus creating a movie series [5]. Recipients of a LP series are following the story of the computer game not by playing the game itself. Instead, they’re watching every part of a series and thus are experiencing the same story as the player. However, they do not have the experience of the importance of their own decisions in critical situations. This removes one of the key aspects of experiencing a computer game: the oppurtunity to be in control of the situation. Watching a LP is like watching a movie or reading a book: The recipient can’t influence the actions.

One very interesting fact about LPs is the additional narrative part: A LP is recorded while the player is progressing through the game. During this process, the player is interacting with the game and reacting to events. In this case, the player becomes an additional actor of the full gameplay coverage [5].

On the one hand, the player is interacting with the game itself. A certain part of the entertaining aspect of watching LPs derives from the uncertainty of the player’s actions. As the recipients are watching a LP episode, they’re thinking about the situations the player is in. They start making up own solutions how to deal with a particular situation. However, they’re not in control of it. Thus they’re entertained by watching how the player’s actions unfold.

On the other hand, the player is creating another story arc to the gameplay by commentating the own actions or by speaking as if the player is the own avatar or a person directly involved in the current gameplay situation.

Commentating the gameplay let the viewers experience how the player’s feeling about the situation. By doing so, the LP are loaded with an additional narrative part: the experiences of the progressing player. This might be the most entertaining, when the game caught the player off guard [5].

Acting as if the player is a part of the game can be quite entertaining as well. The player can respond to communications of the game:
Game character: „Hello!“
Player: „Hello!“
The viewer of the LP gets the impression, as if the player is directly responding to the game and thus interacting with it.

Finally, players can act as if they’re the own avatar. This mostly happens while a role-playing game is being played. The player starts talking to non-player characters and is reacting to new situations as if they are really in that particular situation [6].

As a conclusion, LPs are special form of experiencing the gameplay of computer games. The gameplay can be enhanced with an additional story arc through the interaction of the player with the game. Even if the recipient of a LP can’t take actions in the game, they can experience the whole gameplay of it. Finally, the accompanying commentary creates an important aspect of the entertainment of watching LPs.

[4] Daugherty, Terry.; Eastin, Matthew, S.; Bright, Laura (2008): Exploring consumer motivations for creating user-generated content, in: Journal of Interactive Advertising, 8 (2), pp. 16 – 25.

Game spectatorship: Spectatorship methods in detail

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This is the fourth part of the video game / e-sport spectator series. This time, I’ll focus on two of the spectatorship methods: Watching over the player’s shoulder and watching recorded videos.

Watching over the player’s shoulder (wotps) can be separated into two different methods: Sitting physically next to the performing player and watching video game live streams like Twitch. For the rest of this article, these two methods will be defined as real wotps and virtual wotps.

As already discussed last week, real wotps has some disadvantages due to the requirement of physical presence. However, real wotps can be very useful for the Interested. The Interested likes to get additional information about the gameplay. Sitting next to the performing player allows the Interested to directly ask questions and to experience the gameplay live.
The use of real wotps for the Pupil is depending on the skill level of the Pupil and the performing player. If the player and the spectator are at the same skill level or the player is even better than the Pupil, then real wotps can be useful for the Pupil. However the Pupil won’t be able to get new knowledge, if the Pupil has a higher skill level than the player.
The Pupil can observe how the player is reacting to critical situations and the player can explain the own actions. The explanations can compensate the lack of the possibility to replay important situations.

Virtual wotps can provide the same information for the Interested as the real wotps. The Interested can experience the gameplay from the same pov as the player. Additionally, the player and the Interested can communicate using the implemented chat function. Finally, it’s up to the Interested to chose a stream, which suits them best. Compared to the real wotps, the virtual wotps allow the Interested to easily switch between different players. Thus the Interested is given the opportunity to gather as much oppinions as desired.
Virtual wotps has a great advantage over the real wotps for the Pupil. The Pupil can chose the appropriate video game live stream. In most cases, the Pupil likes to analyze the gameplay of expert players. World wide streaming platforms like Twitch allow the Pupil to watch the gameplay of expert players, even if they are physically far away.
Live streams in general do not have a replay function. This might be the only disadvantage for the Pupil, because they can’t analyze critical situations in detail. However, the implemented chat function and the possibility of commentating the own actions can compensate the lack of control.

Watching recorded videos is a very broad and even blurred aspect of spectatorship. Recorded videos can be classified into five categories: Review, tutorial, proof of success, commentated replays and let’s play.

Gameplay reviews [1] are mostly giving a general overview over the gameplay of a particular game. The performing player is demonstrating the most important facts of the gameplay and is concluding with a recommendation about the whole game. Considering this, gameplay reviews are very useful for the Interested.

Tutorial videos [2] are mostly focused on a particular part of the gameplay and how to master it. To understand a tutorial video, basic knowledge about the gameplay is required. These videos are created to improve the gameplay of others. Considering this, tutorial videos are very useful for the Pupil.

Proof of success videos [3] are mostly created to proof the own success. These videos demonstrate the way how an encounter is defeated by a player or, in the case of multiplayer games, a group of players. These videos can be useful for both spectator personas. The Interested can inform themselves about the endgame gameplay. The Pupil can analyze the gameplay in detail and rewatch situations if needed.

Commentated replays [4] can be defined as delayed live streams. Games like StarCraft2 do have a function to save replays of the own gameplay. These replays can be watched using the replay function of the game, which can be compared to the spectator mode. By doing so, the replay offers the same information as if the gameplay is watched live using the spectator mode.
In conclusion the replay function allows to watch the gameplay as if it’s live. In this case, commentators can create videos by commentating the action. These videos look like a live broadcast.
Watching these videos can be very useful for the Pupil because they can pause the video, rewatch critical situations and even gain additional knowledge by listening to the commentator.

Let’s play videos [5] are a special form of video based gameplay coverage. These videos show the playthrough of a video game from the pov of the player. In most cases these videos are additional commentated by the player. By watching a let’s play series, the Interested can experience the complete game and in the process, gain a complete impression of the game. The Pupil won’t benefit much from watching these videos, because they already know the gameplay and the focus of these videos isn’t on critical situations or high performance gameplay.

However, let’s play videos are a complex case which I’ll cover in the next part of the game spectorship series.

Game spectatorship: Ecosystem Twitch

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This is the third part of the video game / e-sport spectator series. Last week, two main ways of spectating were discovered for the Pupil and the Interested: Watching over the player’s shoulder and watching recorded videos. Before I can focus on these two methods, I have to present and analyze an important video gameplay streaming platform at first. In this episode, I’ll focus on Twitch, a video gameplay streaming platform, which can also be used for a world wide „watching over the player’s shoulder“.

Normally, watching over the player’s shoulder can be almost seen as a face-to-face interaction. The player and the spectator are physically in the same room and the spectator is watching the player’s gameplay. However, this concept is limited to only a few persons at the same time. On the one hand, only few persons can assemble around a player at the same time. On the other hand, the spectators are limited by the distance: Visiting a friend playing a particular game in the neighborhood works well. Visiting a player on the other side of the world might work as well, but the travel costs would be quite high. Considering this, watching over the player’s shoulder has a disadvantage for the Pupil, because this spectator persona likes to watch the gameplay of expert players, who are scattered over the whole world.

By now, there exists another method of watching over the player’s shoulder: personal live streams using the Twitch.tv platform. Watching these streams „is becoming a new entertainment on its own„[1]: There’s already a new web community evolving around the live streams of video games [1].

Twitch allows players to broadcast their own gameplay all over the world by providing a platform to create an unique player channel. This cannel is the connection between the performing player and their audience. On the one hand, players can comment the own gameplay using a microphone or use a webcam to show themselves playing. Spectators watching a player’s channel do have the opportunity to use the implemented chat function to communicate with the player [1]. Taking this into consideration, Twitch becomes the virtual way of watching over the player’s shoulder. Additionally, distance and space problems are solved.

Twitch has created a new business ecosystem [2] in this process. Twitch, as a provider of a broadcasting platform, can be defined as the keystone of the business ecosystem. Keystones are crucial for the development of an ecosystem. They try to improve the health and the productivity of their ecosystem by providing a common set of assets [2]. For that purpose, Twitch tries to improve and simplify the streaming of video games by providing a common video streaming platform. Broadcasters using Twitch can be defined as niche players [2]. Niche players try to differentiate from other niche players by offering unique content in the same ecosystem. In the case of video game broadcasting, they try to develop an unique gameplay to attract the attention of the the Twitch viewers.

The specific characteristic of a business ecosystem is the interdependency of all the players in a particular system. The keystone is winning, if it’s leveraging the niche creation. Niche players are winning, if the keystone is providing a healthy and well developed environment. In the case of Twitch as a keystone, Twitch is winning, if enough video game players are using Twitch to broadcast their gameplay. Video game players are winning, if they do have a platform to share their gameplay with others.

However, Twitch doesn’t provide this service for free. As a business, Twitch wants to generate revenue. By providing the broadcasting platform, Twitch benefits from the attention of viewers drawn by the performing video game players. Twitch uses this attention to allow another niche player to evolve: advertisers.

„Twitch offers a full suite of ad products including high impact frontpage takeovers and in-stream video advertising, as well as turnkey, custom solutions.“ [3] Through providing a streaming platform, Twitch allows every video game player to broadcast their gameplay for free. The easy way of sharing the own gameplay experience with the whole world attracts a lot of video game players, who start streaming their gameplay. The streamed gameplay attracts spectators. Just by providing the streaming platform, Twitch reaches, according to internal analytics, over 34 million unique visitors [3]. This attention is highly valuable for advertisers, who pay for the service of placing advertisement. Therefore, Twitch’s business strategy can be called „charge third parties“ [4].

Consequently, video game players who stream on a regular basis are crucial for Twitch’s business strategy. In order to keep these video game players active on Twitch, a partner program was created: „As a Twitch Partner, you earn a share of the revenue generated from the videos you broadcast. We take care of everything: you just collect a check.“ [5]

To wrap things up, the interest of the gaming video community in spectating other’s gameplay has created a healthy ecobusiness system. The friendly coexistence is beneficial for every player in this system.

Additionally, Twitch allows to rewatch broadcasted streams and is also used for broadcasting tournaments from all over the world. Twitch combines the different methods of spectatorship in one platform.

[1] Kaytoue, Mehdi; Silva, Arlei; Cerf, Loïc; Meira, Wagner Jr.; Raïssi, Chedy (2012): Watch me playing, i am a professional: a first study on video game live streaming, in: Proceedings of the 21st international conference companion on World Wide Web, pp. 1181 – 1188.

[2] Iansiti, Marco; Levien, Roy (2004): Strategy as Ecology, in: Harvard Business Review, 82 (3), pp. 68 – 78.

[3] Twich.tv (2013a), twitch.tv/p/advertise, retrieved on 2013/06/01.

[4] Bryce, David J.; Dyer, Jeffrey H.; Hatch, Nile W. (2011): Competing Against Free, in: Harvard Business Review, 89 (6), pp. 104 – 111.

[5] Twitch.tv (2013b), twitch.tv/p/partners, retrieved on 2013/06/01.

Game spectatorship: The Pupil and the Interested

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This is the second part of the video game / e-sport spectator series. This time, I’ll focus on the „pupil“ and „inspired“ spectator personas [1].

The Pupil has already deep knowledge about the game and is, in most cases, also a passionated player. The Pupil tries to improve its own gameplay by spectating the gameplay of others. For that purpose, the Pupil prefers spectating from the point-of-view (pov) of the performing player. Furthermore, the Pupil likes to analyze critical situations by watching them in detail.

As mentioned last week, there’re four different ways of spectating a game: Spectator mode, watching over the player’s shoulder, live broadcasts and watching recorded videos.

The spectator mode can be useful for the Pupil, if an option for displaying the actions of the performing player is available. Using the spectator mode allows the Pupil to follow the gameplay of a player in real-time. While spectating the game, the Pupil has the opportunity of observing the timing of actions and how the player is reacting to unknown situations. Additionally, the Pupil is in control of the camera and can watch the action from the perspective which suits them best.
On the other hand, the real-time aspect doesn’t allow the spectator to watch the gameplay again. In order to gain new knowledge about the game, the Pupil likes to pause the gameplay or to watch critical situations again in order to analyze them.

Watching over the player’s shoulder might be one of the best options to learn. During this process, the Pupil can take advantage of directly asking questions about the player’s gameplay, actions and choices. Additionally, the Pupil has the same pov as the player does.
The Pupil can’t pause the action but the opportunity of asking questions can easily compensate the missing replay function.

Live broadcasts are quite similar to the spectator mode. The spectator can watch the gameplay in real-time. In contrast to the spectator mode, the spectator has no option to control the camera. Instead the spectator has to accept the influence of the commentator. The real-time broadcast of the gameplay has the same disadvantage for the Pupil as the spectator mode: The Pupil has no direct option to pause or replay critical situations. However, the commentator might also give useful insights into the player’s strategy.

Watching recorded videos has, apart from watching over the player’s shoulder, the best opportunities for the Pupil to improve the own gameplay. Due to the fact that the gameplay is recorded, the spectator is able to pause and replay every situation as often as desired. Thus the Pupil can analyze every situation in detail. However it’s still important that the gameplay is recorded from the pov of the player and the player’s interface is shown.

The inspired can be separated into two different forms: The first form, the inspired spectator, is playing the game as well. While spectating other’s gameplay, inspired spectators develop the desire to play the game themselves.
The other form of the inspired spectator is not yet playing the game, but is interested in playing it in the near future. In this case, the inspired spectator is watching other’s gameplay to decide if the game is worth buying. I define this type of spectator as the interested spectator.
In this article, I’ll mainly focus on the interested spectator.

Due to the fact that the spectator mode is implemented in the game itself, the spectator mode isn’t available for the Interested.

Watching over the player’s shoulder is, as already mentioned, a great way to get new information about the game. The spectator has the same pov as the player and can directly ask questions. In this case, the Interested can get all the information to decide whether to buy the game or not.
Additionally, the player can inform the Interested about issues with the game and thus give a recommendation.

Live broadcasts can be helpful for the Interested as well. The real-time aspect allows the Interested to observe the pace and the flow of the gameplay.
However, live broadcasts focus in most cases on tournaments. The tournament players are experts of the game and do perfom at a very high skill level. The commentator mostly focusses on the strategies of the players and uses the camera control to show the biggest actions of the gameplay. Thus the impressions of the gameplay might be blurred for the Interested.

Watching recorded videos has the best opportunities for the Interested to inform about the game. Video portals like youtube offer a broad variety of videos. Using such a video portal allows the Interested to easily skip between different videos in order to gain as much insights into the gameplay as possible.

Next week, it’ll be all about the ways of spectating a game. Mostly, I’ll focus on recorded videos and watching over the player’s shoulder.

[1] Cheung, Gifford; Huang, Jeff (2011): Starcraft from the stands: understanding the game spectator, in: CHI 2011 Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference on Human factors in computing systems, pp. 763 – 772.