From Spectators to Co-Players: Growing the Language of Live-Streaming

For a majority of live-streamers, live-streaming falls into what Julian Kücklich describes as "playbour," a model of commodification whereby the products of play and leisure are capitalized upon by various industries. Live-streamers' engagement with video games and other forms of media is a unique form of playbour that produces secondary meta-games and forms of play that both live-streamers and the platforms they stream on leverage to generate social and financial capital. These forms of play can range wildly from emergent games during Games Done Quick's charity streams that encourage audiences to achieve donation goals, to harassment campaigns built to reward participants with clout in a community. This article sketches out some preliminary ideas towards understanding these games and the kinds of pleasure they provide through the concept of "co-play."