How Live Streaming and Twitch Have Changed the Gaming Industry

Live streaming in itself has become a booming industry in which its content consists of “streamers” who live broadcast numerous events and real-time interactions while simultaneously chatting with viewers drawing huge and increasing numbers (Adamovich). Twitch has especially excelled at garnering attention as one of the most popular live streaming platforms that focuses on broadcasting and viewing video game content (Adamovich). Twitch has grown rapidly within the last few years asserting its dominance as one of the major forces in the games industry and becoming a multi-billion-dollar industry (Adamovich). For example, according to Descrier, in 2016 there were approximately 292 billion total minutes watched and about 2.2 million unique streamers (Woodcock and Johnson). In 2014, Twitch was also bought by Amazon for $970 million (Woodcock and Johnson). In this paper I’m going to be discussing how prominently the use of live streaming services and the process of live streaming games through Twitch have not only changed the gaming industry and culture but have ultimately revolutionized the gaming experience (Woodcock and Johnson)