bpremo50-blog

[bpremo50-blog]

Twitch Labor

Would you have believed you would get paid just to play games in front of people? It’s strange to think, but the introduction of Twitch- an online streaming service primarily aimed towards video gaming, allows people to do this. Twitch has over one hundred million regular viewers, and two million broadcasters. The labor, however, is much more involved than one may think. There’s more to it than just “getting paid to play videogames.” What seems really fun and laid back can often be a lot more involved than one may initially think. Game streaming has become a massive phenomenon to the point of rivaling major TV channels or even traditional sports broadcasting. Streaming represents a career path for many young people. We’ll be looking at the various aspects involved in regards to twitch streaming as a legitimate career path in today’s society. 

A good chunk of the physical labor involved in live streaming comes from interaction with viewers. This doesn’t sound too bad, but the difficulty comes from the streamer's continuous involvement in both the interactivity with the chat and the gameplay. Interactivity with viewers consists of receiving donations, chatting, staying engaged, and trying to humor their audience. On twitch, emotions are often modulated so the performance of the streamer isn’t affected.

Twitch streamers make their income in two ways. They first work on building an audience. The viewers can pay via a subscription service or the streamer can receive donations. The larger an audience, the higher an income the streamer will receive. The second method builds upon this. Once a streamer has a sizable audience, companies will offer to sponsor the streamer. This adds a layer of pressure to the streamer. One such experienced streamer, Ben Bowman (2017) states that within all the time that makes up one week, he is expected to be live for as many of those hours as he can. This can generate a serious emotional toll on the user. Bowman spent 12-16 hours a day for every day of the week within a two-year span. “This was the only way I could maintain growth.” A leaked video from the popular streamer, Ninja, shows him hungover before a stream starts, something that he probably wouldn’t want his viewers to see before he had started. This isn’t to say streamers must constantly put on a facade for the viewers, but there is a constant source of stress that comes with having to act a certain way and suppressing emotions.

Woodcock, Jamie, and Mark R. Johnson. “The Affective Labor and Performance of Live Streaming on Twitch.Tv.” Television & New Media, vol. 20, no. 8, Dec. 2019, pp. 813–823, doi:10.1177/1527476419851077. 

[bpremo50-blog]

Getting paid to play games?

Would you have believed you would get paid just to play games in front of people? It’s strange to think, but the introduction of Twitch- an online streaming service primarily aimed towards video gaming, allows people to do this. Twitch has over one hundred million regular viewers, and two million broadcasters. The labor, however, is much more involved than one may think. There’s more to it than just “getting paid to play videogames.” What seems really fun and laid back can often be a lot more involved than one may initially think. Game streaming has become a massive phenomenon to the point of rivaling major TV channels or even traditional sports broadcasting. Streaming represents a career path for many young people. We’ll be looking at the various aspects involved in regards to twitch streaming as a legitimate career path in today’s society.

A good chunk of the physical labor involved in live streaming comes from interaction with viewers. This doesn’t sound too bad, but the difficulty comes from the streamer’s continuous involvement in both the interactivity with the chat and the gameplay. Interactivity with viewers consists of receiving donations, chatting, staying engaged, and trying to humor their audience. On twitch, emotions are often modulated so the performance of the streamer isn’t affected.

Twitch streamers make their income in two ways. The first work on building an audience. The viewers can pay via a subscription service or the streamer can receive donations. The larger an audience, the higher an income the streamer will receive. The second method builds upon this. Once a streamer has a sizable audience, companies will offer to sponsor the streamer. This adds a layer of pressure to the streamer. One such experienced streamer, Ben Bowman (2017) states that within all the time that makes up one week, he is expected to be live for as many of those hours as he can. This can generate a serious emotional toll on the user. Bowman spent 12-16 hours a day for every day of the week within a two-year span. “This was the only way I could maintain growth.” A leaked video from the popular streamer, Ninja, shows him hungover before a stream starts, something that he probably wouldn’t want his viewers to see before he had started. This isn’t to say streamers must constantly put on a facade for the viewers, but there is a constant source of stress that comes with having to act a certain way and suppressing emotions.

Citations:

Woodcock, Jamie, and Mark R. Johnson. “The Affective Labor and Performance of Live Streaming on Twitch.Tv.” Television & New Media, vol. 20, no. 8, Dec. 2019, pp. 813–823, doi:10.1177/1527476419851077.

[bpremo50-blog]

Getting paid to play games?

Imagine being told that you can get paid just to play videogames? Would you believe it? Well, you can actually, but it’s not such a simple situation. Youtube has an ever-growing popular scene for the gaming crowd. This can come in the form of “Lets plays,” reviews, etc. Regardless of what you do, having an audience means a chance at getting monetized. Through YouTube's monetization, various youtube personalities are able to place advertisements on their videos whereas they’ll receive an income determined by how many views they received on the video. This gives them a sustainable income. YouTubers can benefit from this system making millions of dollars per year. Often by partnering through various ad companies such as fullscreen, you can make money off the ads viewed on your videos.

However, things are not as great as they seem. Youtube’s monetization has become increasingly more strict- leading to the dismay of many gaming youtube personalities. When a video is uploaded, it goes through two algorithms. The first determines whether it meets the community standards of youtube, the second determines whether the video is eligible for YouTube's monetization program.  (Pottinger, 2019)

The demonetization of various YouTubers can be traced relatively far back in youtube’s history. Youtube’s programmatic advertising would end up on objectionable content that sometimes contained hate speech. Youtube, as a result, has really tightened up on their ground rules, but this has also backfired for some people. This has especially been an issue for a lot of gaming personalities on youtube. There have been various inconsistencies. Some videos with explicit violence manage to stay monetized, and yet other videos get demonetized that have just as much violence. This is because of youtube’s faulty programmatic advertising. Because of this advertising agencies are now unable to determine what type of content their advertisements should or shot not appear on. (Pottinger, 2019).

Many content creators were losing a significant amount of money as a result of YouTube's flawed algorithm. One such Youtuber, known as RGT85, was hit with a demonetization for one of his videos discussing Mortal Kombat 11. After trying to appeal this, he was denied. He points out the hypocrisy of other videos showing violence in games such as Grand Theft Auto 5 not being hit with a demonetization. 

Some people use youtube as a full-time job, so having issues like this come up can pose a great risk. If you’re looking to be a content creator, or already are one, just know that this is now the risk that youtube imposes on people. It’s an ever-growing battle. Citation: 

Pottinger, N. E. (2019). don't forget to subscribe: Regulation of online advertising evaluated through youtube's monetization problem. The Kentucky Law Journal, 107(3), 515.

[bpremo50-blog]

Introduction

Hi everyone. For my class topic, I’ll be talking about how gaming has now become a culture in and of itself to the point where people can make money just playing games. It sounds too good to be true- and of course, in some aspects, it is. There’s a lot of loopholes to the process, but we see many online personalities who engage with gaming on such a wide scale, and get paid to play in front of others, whether pre-recorded, or live. As someone partially involved with this scene, I wanted to offer my takes on it, as well as my thoughts and feelings. I hope you enjoy reading.