Exploring viewer participation in online video game streaming: A mixed-methods approach

Highlights

• We identify the critical stimulus in the VGS context through a mixed-methods approach.

• We highlight the stimulus from three paramount perspectives.

• We illuminate the critical role of emotional state in determining viewers’ participation.

Abstract

Video game streaming (VGS) has attracted hundreds of millions of viewers all over the world to not only watch but also participate in a variety of VGS activities, such as interacting with streamers and other co-viewers, gift-giving, and social sharing of the viewing experience. The success of the VGS paradigm depends on the active participation of the viewers, since it creates economic, hedonic, and social values. This study applied a mixed-methods approach to explore the critical environmental stimuli evoking viewers’ cognitive and emotional state and empirically tested a research model examining viewers’ participation. Using qualitative interviews, three environmental stimuli were identified (i.e., broadcaster appeal, medium appeal, and perceived co-viewer involvement), which were adopted in the quantitative research model. The research findings suggested that environmental stimuli were positively related to both cognitive and emotional organisms, namely cognitive involvement and arousal, which in turn impacted viewers’ participation.

Introduction

In recent years, video game streaming (VGS) has gained momentum all around the world (Hilvert-Bruce et al., 2018; Sjoblom & Hamari, 2017; Twitch, 2019). This new social phenomenon has attracted hundreds of millions of viewers to spend their time watching broadcasters playing video games and socializing with each other on the platforms (Sjoblom & Hamari, 2017). Twitch, the world’s leading VGS platform, has more than 3 million broadcasters streaming each month in 2019 with the number of daily viewers being more than 15 million and, more interestingly, the average viewership at any given moment being more than 1.3 million (Twitch, 2019). As of June 2019, the number of online live streaming users in China has reached 433 million, an additional increase of 36.46 million compared to 2018, accounting for 50.7 % of the total netizen (CNNIC, 2019). Furthermore, the mushrooming growth of the VGS platform is galvanizing the development of the Chinese streaming industry in which the number of monthly active viewers of two leading platforms (i.e., Huya TV and Douyu TV) has exceeded 15 million (iiMedia Research, 2019).

In essence, the paradigmatic atmosphere in the VGS has created a novel virtual environment for broadcasters and viewers to indulge in (Sjoblom & Hamari, 2017). By uploading the real-time gaming videos, VGS streamers evoke viewers’ desire to capture the liveliness of a gaming event and viewers’ emotional resonates of playing the game (Yu et al., 2018). With the facilitation of bullet-screen function, VGS motivates viewers to actively interact with broadcasters and other co-viewers, such as regarding their passion and experience of playing the game (Sjoblom et al., 2017). The enthusiastic atmosphere is created since co-viewers altogether engage in and co-experience the live-streaming progress. Consequently, virtual gifts are sent to the streamers (Sun et al., 2019; Yu et al., 2018); multi-party bullet-screen interactions are initiated and live-streamed to the world (Hu et al., 2017); and the streaming content are co-created (Sjoblom, Törhönen, Hamari, & Macey, 2018). Thereby, different from other forms of media, live streaming can be seen as a hybrid involving video content, real-time communication, and consumption (Hou, Guan, Li, & Chong, 2019).

In the realm of Information Systems research, researchers refer to VGS as a “virtual third place, in which informal communities emerge, socialize, and participate” (Hamilton et al., 2014, p.1). Similar to other emerging technologies, VGS enables all forms of participation (Hamilton et al., 2014). Besides, VGS platforms take these participatory aspects one step further as the participating behaviors are taking place and streamed in real-time (Sjoblom & Hamari, 2017). Therefore, given viewers’ active participation, the value of a VGS can be co-created by both the broadcasters and the viewers in terms of the above-mentioned attractiveness of streaming content (Sjoblom & Hamari, 2017), social benefits (Hu et al., 2017), and hedonic and commercial values (Zhao et al., 2018). With the evolution of media features, the participatory and interactive nature of the emerging form of media bridges the divide between games and traditional media (Sjoblom et al., 2017). Due to this evolution of the media landscape towards user participatory behavior (Zhao et al., 2018), VGS vis-à-vis user participation has piqued mounting interest in recent years.

Albeit still at its embryonic stage, the investigation of live streaming has attempted to embark on the phenomenon of VGS mostly since 2017 (e.g. Hamari & Sjoblom, 2017; Hilvert-Bruce et al., 2018; Chen & Lin, 2018; Hou, Guan, Li, & Chou, 2019). Recent research has investigated viewer engagement and gift-giving behavior in live streaming platforms (Yu et al., 2018). In light of VGS, studies have explored the determinants of viewers’ continuous watching intention (Hu et al., 2017), the relationship of video game genres, content type and viewer gratifications (Sjoblom et al., 2017), and the determinants of broadcasters’ continuous broadcasting intention (Zhao et al., 2018). Although these pioneering studies attempted to understand the audience’s viewing behaviors, they starkly focused on behavioral intention or continuous intention (Hu et al., 2017). Yet, the viewer’s actual behaviors are not de facto limited to behavioral intentions in the novel atmosphere of VGS (Hilvert-Bruce et al., 2018; Kaytoue et al., 2012). It is of paramount importance to note that a scarcity of research has been conducted to uncover the rationale of VGS viewers’ participation behaviors. In addition, there is a paucity of a scientifically fine-grained theoretical framework to explain viewers’ participation in the context of VGS as existing studies have yet to provide a holistic view of the VGS environmental stimuli, which can affect the internal psychological processes leading to viewers’ participant behaviors.

Given that VGS is an emerging field that has not been fully investigated, it is rather difficult to deduce general findings on the antecedents of viewers’ participation because the pertaining research is quite scarce and fragmented. To our best knowledge, no prior study has incorporated all or even most of the potential explanatory variables to examine their importance in stimulating viewers. Whereas a plethora of possible stimuli could be applied for the scientific investigation, the existing body of knowledge has been largely dominated through quantitative research which makes a priori assumption that certain anticipants in a predetermined research model may not provide a comprehensive understanding regarding this new phenomenon. Hence, towards a holistic investigation vis-à-vis scientific relevance and rigor, a qualitative study, which is exploratory in nature and seeks to explain how and why a particular phenomenon occurs in a particular context, is necessary to identify these contextual stimuli relevant to the current research prior to the quantitative approach. In an effort to address the research gaps, the current study employs a mixed-methods approach (Venkatesh et al., 2013; Venkatesh et al., 2016) to deeply extract the factors in determining viewers’ participation in the VGS environment. In essence, this study combines qualitative and quantitative research methods to develop holistic insights into these influential factors in the particular context of VGS viewers’ participation. To be specific, this study conducts interviews with experienced VGS viewers to elicit particular stimuli evoking the internal psychological process (organism) that could then be applied in the following quantitative study evaluating viewers’ participation behavior. Drawing on the framework of stimulus-organism and response (S-O-R), this study proposes a research model to answer the following research questions. (1) What are the factors influencing VGS viewer’s internal processes? (2) How do these factors affect VGS viewers’ participation?

The rest of this study unfolds as follows. It begins with a review of relevant literature to establish a theoretical foundation for proposing a research model. Subsequently, a qualitative study is conducted to identify critical environmental stimuli that can be applied to the research model evaluating VGS viewer’s participation. Afterward, the research model is constructed with a quantitative examination. Then, the discussion of the results is presented. The study concludes with theoretical and practical implications.