Open AccessEXPLORING VIDEO-GAME PRODUCTION’S CONTINGENCY ON LIVE-STREAMING PLATFORMS: THE CASE OF TWITCH
Author(s) -
Charis Papaevangelou,
Elina Roinioti
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
selected papers of internet research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2162-3317
DOI - 10.5210/spir.v2021i0.12223
Subject(s) - video game , game design , game developer , game art design , game design document , video game development , embeddedness , production (economics) , computer science , revenue , video game design , appropriation , contingency , game mechanics , multimedia , business , economics , microeconomics , sociology , linguistics , philosophy , accounting , anthropology
This article studies the cultural contingency of video-gameproduction on Amazon’s live-streaming platform, Twitch. It looks at this phenomenon from apolitical-economic perspective to unearth Twitch’s platformisation strategy to betterunderstand what it means for the video-game industry. Platformisation signifies theinfrastructural embeddedness of platforms, supported by a business strategy of expandingbeyond their services’ boundaries to standardise appropriation, processing and exploitationof data, resulting in a dependency of content creators on digital platforms. Subsequently,we wish to grasp what dependencies are created and how it is made possible. We argue thatTwitch is transforming into an integral part of the video-game production cycle by expandingits services to every stage of a game’s life cycle. Consequently, game developers areincentivised to apply these features in their game design, thus creating an economicfeedback loop that a) aspires to increase user acquisition, retention and revenue, b)locks-in game developers and viewers alike, and c) “platformises” the gamingexperience.