Introduction to the Minitrack on Performing Game Development Live on Twitch

Abstract

This study is a preliminary exploration of how professional game developers live stream their creative work on Twitch.tv. It asks how and in what ways these developers engage in co-creative acts with their viewers and how they engage in game talk in their design process. It further analyzes discourse about the act of streaming development as presented in professional and popular journalistic and personal sites online.

Motivations for the Use of Video Game Streaming Platforms: The Moderating Effect of Sex, Age and Self-Perception of Level as a Player

“…In this respect, Taylor [ 11 ] points out how the content generated on these platforms and the endlessly expanding audience is altering the way we currently understand communication media. Other studies focus on new content creators (streamers), addressing the context in which video games and streaming become professionalized, and examine the contribution made to shaping contemporary digital culture [ 12 ]; the difficulties streamers experience when their audience grows [ 13 ] and how it can affect their performance as players [ 14 ]; as well as the different ways in which they stream and create content with their viewers [ 15 ]. Among the lines of research focused on the audience are those that explore the motivations and types of use underlying viewer participation [ 10 , 11 ].…”

Streaming into the Void: An Analysis of Microstreaming Trends and Behaviors Utilizing a Demand Framework

“…Consalvo and Phelps provide an analysis of a professional art streamer [24] and compare that activity to a development streamer in the context of game creation. Building upon that work, Phelps and Consalvo note in a further study of the subject several relevant behaviors across a study of "approximately 280 [art] streamers" [25].…”

Laboring Artists: Art Streaming on the Videogame Platform Twitch

“…Yet as we see more nuanced attention to game live streaming, researchers have also begun to investigate play-adjacent practices on Twitch. For example, Consalvo and Phelps have studied game developers who live stream themselves building games [13], and Wohn has interviewed moderators for streamers to better understand their motivations and beliefs about the job [41]. Yet even as we move away from a focus on games or play itself, the centrality of labor to the process -in various forms -is undeniable, if even in a playful sense.…”

“…First is the engagement in the work of the activity itself. Past research on Twitch streamers who engage in game development found that one of the stated motivations of such streamers is to force themselves into a daily practice [13] -i.e. that streaming motivates a daily commitment via the platform.…”

“…This form of additional streaming management, in combination with the creation and narration of the work itself, is intended to elicit feedback from likeminded art streamers and critics alike. This involves the work of seeking and cultivating an audience, negotiating feedback cycles and chat monitoring while also working live, learning to give critique to others and to make effective use of feedback, and navigating when to take feedback during the creation of workall processes similar to game and game development streamers [13,14] as previously presented. Yet we witnessed multiple art streamers attempting to impose additional rules on their Twitch-chat or Discord to limit feedback on their work to certain times or modalities, such that the audience was giving more feedback at highly structured times (i.e.…”