Twitch, YouTube and the Gaming Community

It’s impossible to talk about gaming communities without talking about the community of streamers and content creators, primarily those on the more-successful platforms of YouTube and Twitch. Twitch, launched in 2011, allows streamers to broadcast to potentially millions from their home, and includes a chat feature and allows for viewers to pledge five to twenty-five dollars a month to their favorite creators (called subscribers as opposed to the free subscriptions of YouTube) (Delfino, “'What is Twitch?'”). Twitch also features a variety of global emotes, and those addable by individual streamers, that have created a sitewide slang and features like raids allow streamers to connect with each other and build community by sending their viewers to someone else after they’re done. Let’s Plays of various videogames can, while showing users simple game play, also change the game itself by introducing other elements that add new meaning--- ranging from comedy commentary to criticism to creating new ways to play the game, as Catherine Burwell describes in her 2017 article Game Changers: Making New Meanings and New Media with Video Games. Certain games, notably cooperative games, do very well on both platforms--- for instance Fortnite, particularly in its 2016 boom, allowed creator Ninja to reach the all-time high for paid subscriptions on Twitch--- almost 250,000 (for context, the current most-subscribed Twitch streamer is variety streamer Ludwig). Minecraft, similarly, reaches huge audiences on both Twitch and YouTube, partially due to popularity of various creators over the years, Stampylonghead, CaptainSparklez, and Dream come to mind, but no doubt also due to the popularity of the game itself--- Minecraft is the most played video game in the world, with millions of players each day across the world (Barseghian, “How Community-Based Video Games Came To Dominate The Market”). The sandbox nature of Minecraft allows streamers and players alike endless possibility for entertainment----from multiplayer servers like Hypixel to the intense roleplay of the Dream SMP, which has a very large and very active Twitter following and garners hundreds of thousands of viewers for large story events (Asarch, “Inside YouTube's Minecraft boom”). During the pandemic, Twitch viewership has reached new highs, especially in a time period where traditional media, like television and movies was rendered unable to produce content (Lufkin, “How online gaming has become a social lifeline”). Even content that’s not exclusively gaming content can explode on Twitch--- currently variety streamer Ludwig is doing an uncapped subathon where for every subscription given to his channel he will stream for another 20 seconds in an effort that has had him live continuously since March 14 and includes him sleeping, showering (in shorts), working out and eating on stream, and has caused him to trend on Twitter twice while asleep (Lorenz, “The Endless Stream). As of the evening of March 23 he still has at least 43 hours to go. Other streamers have used their platforms to raise massive amounts of money for charity, including gaming streamer and YouTuber Jacksepticeye’s “Thankmas,” which raised money for Red Nose Day, just chatting streamer Maya Higa’s auction that raised over half a million dollars for a bird sanctuary and Minecraft streamer Ranboo’s subathon for the Trevor Project (Asarch “Twitch streamers helped 'Bird Girl'”; Dodgson “One of YouTube's biggest streamers”; Woods, “Ranboo The Trevor Project Charity Stream”). The power of Twitch streaming, especially in light of the pandemic’s limitation, has caused even more traditional celebrities, like musicians Soulja Boy and Doja Cat, to turn to Twitch streaming as a new hobby and way to interact with the community (Haasch, “Doja Cat announced...”).

Works Cited

Asarch, Steven. “Inside YouTube's Minecraft boom: how an exclusive roleplay server helped a group of streamers dominate the platform's charts.” Insider, https://www.insider.com/dream-changed-face-of-minecraft-content-with-his-smp-series-2021-2. 16 February 2021.

Asarch, Steven. “Twitch streamers helped 'Bird Girl' Maya Higa raise over $500,000 to build her own animal sanctuary.” Insider, https://www.insider.com/twitch-streamer-mayahiga-raises-money-animal-sanctuary-2021-2. 12 February 2021.

Barseghian, Alex. “How Community-Based Video Games Came To Dominate The Market.” Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2019/05/15/how-community-based-video-games-came-to-dominate-the-market/?sh=392434e42a1f. 15 May 2019.

Burwell, Catherine. “Game Changers: Making New Meanings and New Media with Video Games.” The English Journal, vol. 106, no. 6, 2017, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26359545. Accessed 23 March 2021.

Delfino, Devon. “'What is Twitch?': Here's what you need to know about the world's leading live-streaming platform for gamers.” Business Insider, https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-twitch. 11 June 2020.

Dodgson, Linday. “One of YouTube's biggest streamers is trying to raise over $500,000 this holiday season for charity, highlighting the skyrocketing success of livestreaming.” Insider, https://www.insider.com/jacksepticeyes-fundraising-goal-highlights-2020-livestreaming-boom-2020-12. 10 December 2020.

Haasch, Palmer. “Doja Cat announced that she was 'getting on Twitch,' and big streamers like Corpse Husband and Pokimane responded.” Insider, https://www.insider.com/doja-cat-twitch-channel-stream-corpse-husband-pokimane-2021-3. 16 March 2021.

Lorenz, Taylor. “The Endless Stream.” The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/style/ludwig-ahgren-twitch-livestream.html?smid=url-share. 18 March 2021.

Lufkin, Bryan. “How Online Gaming Has Become A Social Lifeline.” BBC, https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20201215-how-online-gaming-has-become-a-social-lifeline. 16 December 2020.

Woods, Sam. “Ranboo The Trevor Project Charity Stream – What Records Were Broken and How Can You Support?.” Dualshockers, https://www.dualshockers.com/the-trevor-project-danboo/. 21 February 2021.