We help augment the understanding of new media users’ preferences and choices in an attention economy, wherein human attention is conceptualized as a scarce resource. In sum, our study makes theoretical contributions to the literature by analyzing the thriving live stream phenomenon from a uses and gratifications perspective. On the other hand, whereas tension release served as a consistent mediator, the cognitive needs had no significant mediation effects.
Game streaming, in particular, generated significant indirect impacts on all the support behaviors under consideration. The results revealed that gratifications varied drastically across different content types. To fill this void, we employed an online survey ( n = 583) to empirically examine the associations between popular live stream content types on Douyin (i.e., the TikTok app for China) and their viewers’ psychological and social gratifications and typical support behaviors. However, limited attention has been given to how distinct types of streaming contents influence viewers’ psychological and behavioral responses. Contents of general interest, such as e-commerce shopping, talent shows, and cute pets, started to prevail in today’s landscape of live streaming. While previous research into live streaming was predominantly focused on video games, its content creation and provision has tremendously evolved, extending well-beyond game streams. The article concludes that live streaming is a major new force in the games industry, creating new links between developers and influencers and shifting our expectations of game play and game design, and is consequently a platform whose major structural effects are only now beginning to be understood. To do so, we draw on empirical data from offline and online fieldwork, including 100 qualitative interviews with professional live-streamers, offline ethnography at live-streaming events, and online ethnography and observation of Twitch streams. We explore three cases: streaming newly released games and the attendant role of streaming in informing consumer choice the visibility and added lifespan that streaming is affording to independent and niche games and older games and the live streaming of the creation of games, shedding light on the games industry and subverting ordinarily expensive or highly competitive game-design courses, training and employment paths. We focus not on live streaming as a form of media production and consumption, but instead explore its newly central role in the contemporary political economy of the whole video games ecosystem. This article explores the growing importance of live streaming, specifically on website and platform, to the games industry.
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