The cultural phenomenon of watching others play games online is arguably at its peak. In June 2020, Amazon-owned streaming giant Twitch.tv broke records with over 6.5 million concurrent viewers. Those kinds of numbers are enough to put even the world’s biggest media giants to shame. And that’s without counting Twitch’s competitors such as YouTube. The story of how things got to this point is long and complex, but today we’ll be asking a different question.
How does streaming impact the gaming industry? How did this new form of consuming media leave a footprint on gamers today, and the world at large? Let’s take a quick look at some of the most impactful effects of video game streaming.
Streaming is Word-of-Mouth En Masse
Game streaming as marketing is a wholly new beast on the industry’s landscape. However, the first thing we have to consider is how live streamers bring small titles to the forefront of the community.
Just consider games like Rocket League or Among Us. Had they been released just a few years earlier, they would have been consigned to spend their days as small, unknown indie games. The best they could hope for would be a small but dedicated player base, and perhaps the nebulous status of a ‘cult classic.’
Which is where streamers picked up the torch. Thanks to audiences of millions, all a small game needs to reach people is to simply be fun. No fancy graphics, presentations at E3, or million-dollar marketing budgets are required.
Sure, word-of-mouth was always a factor in the success of any product or service. This is something older than both streaming and online gaming content in general. But where once it was just one of the ways information about video games spread, now it’s the premier way to turn a tiny one-man project into an industry-changing hit.
Games For and By Streamers
The massive prevalence of streaming introduced a whole new problem for game makers. More accurately, it introduced a new factor into defining what makes a game good or marketable. “Is the game good for streaming?” is a question we’re assuming most developers are asking themselves these days.
There are already several examples through mechanics called Twitch integration. It’s an easy concept to understand – it allows the viewers of a given stream to directly affect what happens in-game. Popular examples include Dead Cells, Warhammer: Vermintide 2, and The Jackbox Party Packs. It’s a simple concept and a win-win situation. Streamers get to engage with their audience, while games with Twitch integration get some much-needed exposure.
It’s also a very visible example of how streaming quite literally affects game design. Moreover, the advent of game streaming brought about wholly new forms of entertainment.
In the world of online gambling, we have the notion of live dealer casino gaming. Even older than Twitch streaming, this form of iGaming connects players to video streams of dealers in casino-like studios. Live casinos are a world onto their own, and a lengthy topic at that. If you want to know more about it, check out Live Casinos. The website contains all the information you need on how live dealer gaming works, how to play, and the wealth of games and options out there.
Streaming as Game Marketing
Those of you who have been online long enough may remember that the gaming industry was not exactly quick to embrace new media. Specifically, we’re talking about copyright infringement. Streaming, say, a movie to online audiences without permission is quite obviously illegal. Is it not the same for games? The answer to that is not quite clear-cut. And some companies were quick to throw their legal weight around in the early days of video game content.
Nowadays, though, the situation is vastly different. It took a few huge hits to get the game publishers to see the light. However, once the industry big-wigs saw the huge successes we mentioned earlier, they were quick to whistle a different tune. Especially if you consider the incredible return-on-investment marketing games through streamers bring.
Bringing your product to millions of potential customers used to be an expensive and tricky matter. This applies to all traditional forms of game marketing – from billboards to TV ads and even gaming publications. Get a streamer to like your game, though, and suddenly millions are exposed to it. Largely in a positive light, we might add.
It’s quite easy to see that, as a marketing tool, streamers have surpassed game reviewers, journalists, broadcast networks, and any other channel you can think of.
Whether stream marketing is a good thing or not is a matter of some debate. Many fans praise the fact that this approach allows devs to allocate more funds towards innovative gameplay rather than advertising. Others may point at negative effects such as the rise of microtransactions and streamers paid to present games in a skewed light. Either way, seeing a whole new form of media rise from nothing is quite fascinating.
The Rise of eSports
Let’s start by stating the obvious – competitive gaming predates any form of streaming as we know it today. Professional gamers have existed for pretty much decades now. However, esports was never quite taken seriously before it could be effectively presented to large audiences. And that’s chiefly how streaming impacted esports.
Back in the day, most broadcast networks saw esports as a niche product at best. First of all, it’s hard to say any one country or audience had a worthwhile number of people willing to watch esports. This put competitive gaming at a rough spot – where and how can they be broadcast? As a sport, a live presentation is crucial. But what large network is going to give up prime time to show a bunch of kids playing League of Legends?
Therein lies another advantage to streaming esports. IT can reach anyone, anywhere, as long as they have a decent internet connection. Once streaming took off, so did esports.
Nowadays, esports boast viewership in the millions. By that, we’re not referring to ill-fated ESPN Esports. Most events and competitions are streamed directly to platforms such as Twitch and Youtube via official channels. That’s how the bulk of esports fans consumes this content, which is not very likely to change.