As gaming starts to really develop into more of a mainstream presence, I find myself regarding and assessing the components that make up that community, which leads me to asking a question now and then: just how important is this to gaming. Know that I don't mean this in a derogatory way, but in as clinical a manner as possible; how has streaming and Internet culture influenced the growth of the gaming community? I've never been too far into the whole world of Twitch and streaming, so for me I've always been in the position of an outside observer, but I recognise it's significance. Just as much as YouTube has done wonders for spreading gaming culture further than ever before, Twitch has bought competitive gaming into the limelight in a way that traditional TV could never achieve and that makes it significant in the discussion of gaming in my book.
I think there is a certain 'interactivity' with Twitch that steps just one foot above even YouTube at times when it comes to the building of a community, and that makes it the perfect ground for the spreading of a shared culture. For Twitch, a platform ostensibly primarily focused on gaming, that means the shared love of gaming can enjoy extended proliferation over the globe. The act of being able to sit down, put on a game you love, and broadcast that experience for all the world to see is the sort of heart-to-heart that can really draw eyes. Whatsmore, in the wake of the pandemic and other events that I really don't feel like discussing, Twich has become something of a last bastion for the bored and lonely who lack the creativity and/or drive to sit down and make a YouTube and have the common sense to stay away from Facebook. The amount of folk from all walks of life that have jumped into the land of game streaming over the past few months or so really showcases the breadth and power of such a streaming service for the industry.
But speaking of YouTube, the term 'Streaming' isn't exclusive to a live feed that is broadcast to you, no, it also works for VOD. (Yes, I know YouTubers livestream as well, but the community isn't as tight knit so I'm overlooking that.) In terms of hobbies that they cater to, YouTube actually has a much wider net to cast over the world in comparison to the primarily gaming-focused Twitch, but that doesn't mean they've had a lesser effect on the gaming community. Indeed it seems that since the dawn of time, when man first crawled out of that primordial muck, there were 'Let's plays' ready and waiting for them to spend their hours watching, as well as 'jumpscare compilations.' (God, who remember's those abominations?)
Personally, as someone who has paid much more attention to the goings on over at YouTube, it's a lot easier for me to talk about the way that platform has helped shape the future of marketing. (Which isn't to denigrate Twitch's hand in that, I'm just less familiar with the specifics.) One of the most profound examples of this lies in the whole 'influencer' trend that has spawned out of the YouTube format. Seemingly 'ordinary' people with a wide variety of specific hobbies and preferences, all of which draw very specific crowds, makes for an ideal petri-dish for those that look to target their marketing efforts to their target audiences. (That is more cost effective afterall.) Out of this a practise has grown of teams reaching out to YouTubers who's audience fits the demographic of their games in order to slide directly in front of the right eyes. This is arguably what led to the smash success of 2016's DOOM and Mortal Kombat X; thus proving that the streaming platforms can be symbiotic in relationship to the industry given the right circumstances.
However that is not always the case. Streaming, in terms of Twitch and YouTube, is still a form of Social Media, and social media is notoriously difficult to predict and effect the mood of. As such, social media sites can be the perfect breeding grounds for a successful marketing campaign or the staging ground for a burn campaign that can sink you to the ground. Point-in-case; look at Fallout 76. A game which failed to land with practically anyone significant in the online Fallout community in it's initial reveal. (Which may be in part due Bethesda's wanton misleading advertising that people picked up on quickly.) Now of course, the game was a mess at launch and rightly deserved a lot of it's criticism, things were so poor, in fact, that the team spent a great many months desperately scrambling to fix things together.
In the year and a half since, Fallout 76 has been forged into a decent title that perhaps still isn't exactly deserving of it's namesake, but certainly isn't the dumpster fire it started out as. But as a momentum-based construct, the hearts of Social Media aren't ever really interested in changing their minds about a product, once they have an opinion they have it for life. Now you could argue for days about whether or not this is a good or bad thing, whether this is deserved accountability or blind bandwagoning; but the effect is that when a mistake is made on the global stage, the folks of the various streaming platforms will use that leverage to drive your game into the ground. Just look at Fallout, as I've mentioned, and the way that all of that game's good improvements are ignored over any perceived wrongdoings. When Bethesda announced their 'battle pass' systems, the entire Internet latched onto it to call Bethesda greedy and manipulative for throwing yet more monetisation on a game not deserving of it. Only that wasn't the case, as Bethesda then came out and clarified that the Battlepass system would be free for everyone, and how did the community respond? Silence. No apologies, no backtracking, just silence.
This is the same sort of treatment that Battlefront 2 went through during it's lifetime, despite how actually great that title turned out being; or what Anthem will go through when it relaunches after it's hibernation. Changing hearts and minds is one thing but changing the course of Internet chatter is nigh on impossible. Although that doesn't mean that smaller, less popular, communities can't find a home on Streaming sites every now and then. The entire Internet, including myself, practically vomited when The Culling returned with it's laughably asinine business model, and yet that game still has a rotation of Twitch streamers who play it. (Sure, that rotation is of about 4 people, and none are Online as of the time of me writing this, but that still counts for something, right?) Even this small gesture is enough to stir the pot of community and provide some grounds for games to grow from.
And all of that isn't taking into account the games that owe their success to the sharing of streaming and VODs, like Undertale, Doki Doki Literature Club, Surgeon Simulator, I Am Bread, and all games of that ilk. So at it's most basic level, the streaming landscape is a potential wild card ruled by trends and gut emotion and cowboy lawlessness, but at it's best it can be an amplifying beacon that shares itself with the world. Somewhere within that mixture there lies the face of the modern game community, and perhaps a hint of where that industry might head in the future. Of course, this is just a perfunctory glance into such a world and there are plenty more specific branches of this topic that I intend to touch on. But that's for another blog.
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