Many people are literally taking a back seat as they lean back and pay to watch other people play games. This the phenomenon that is peculiarly taking hold of the gaming industry especially online.
Twitch is one of the most prominent names in the video game streaming business since its launch in 2011. This catapulted the video streaming industry from just a hobby, gamers do to advertise themselves to a full-time job with a high pay-off. According to Twitch's website, a number of 10 million unique visitors come to the site, most of which are paying subscribers just to watch other people play their favorite games.
Emmett Shear, Twitch CEO, said through NPR.org, that the phenomenon is unsurprising, especially as it is fully natural for people to watch gamers play well. However, not all online game streamers are very good player. Most are just players that have a good personality, which inherently attract people.
More so as Endgaget reported, that Twitch will make their site more social as ever, especially with the release of its new desktop app. However, with the rise of this kind of living, come with its fair share of problems. There are a lot of stories about harassment, bullying and offensive behavior being perpetrated by both streamers and spectators.
Sexist and racist attitude are also one of the major concerns on this kind of media as most participants hide behind the veil of anonymity. Moderators have been placed to regulate this behavior but because most moderators are simple volunteers, companies like Twitch used bots to automatically block unwanted and offending messages.
At the moment, the video game market is a multi-billion-dollar industry, which continues to grow by the year. Along this meteoric rise is the increase in game streamers, which is also, at the moment, a multi-billion-dollar in itself. People like Pewdiepie, DanTDM, Angryjoe and such are now the next generation of entertainers that will fill the gap between game releases and the plateau that comes between it.
