The thing is you don't have to sit down and watch a streamer for hours at a time. There's a variety of content that you can just switch over to someone else you follow that's streaming, or just watch the past broadcasts of streams you missed. It's kind of like watching youtube videos, or even traditional couch-surfing.
I spend an hour or so every night just browsing through streams to look for interesting content, swapping between games and IRLs. It's a good shift away from production TV content.
Additionally (and anecdotally my own experience): I don't really have time to play games much anymore, but I do have time to spend 30 minutes here and there watching someone play something.
It's nice that I don't have to invest the time it takes to get up to speed to know what's going on if the commentary's good -- and it's a solid, mindless contrast to TV for me (which has been phenomenally engaging lately. it's impossible to read emails and watch house of cards, which isn't true for game streaming :D)
I watch Twitch because I grew up playing lots of video games and now watching is less of a time commitment then playing the games.
Streamers aren't meant to be consumed by watching them every day for hours on end. I mean, I'm sure there are core fans who do that, probably students and single young professionals like you say, but my use case for Twitch is "hey, I have 10-20 minutes free; not even enough time for a full DotA game, but I can see which pro players happen to be online now and watch them play for a bit". This gives me (somewhat surprisingly) lots of the same satisfaction that playing games used to give me; plus it's a lot less stressful (I was mostly into competitive multiplayer games) and without any practice required to get good at the game.
Meanwhile I wonder how people have time to finish entire seasons of TV shows on netflix, given the modern trend of story-driven shows that assume you've actually seen all the previous episodes instead of pre-internet-era sitcoms that you could jump in and watch any 30-minute episode with little context. Twitch is more of a return to old-school TV in that regard.
As someone that views Twitch every day I can say I never watch the entirety of a stream. You drop in and view when you have time. It is less akin to watching a TV show and more like going to your friends house and hanging out to watch some of the game.
Only the most dedicated fans engage in that sort of thing.
I think most people use it when they need something low-investment to watch for a bit, pull up a popular stream for whatever game you're interested in and you have something that you can easily step in or out of, switch to a different stream if one gets boring, etc.
Same way some people use reality shows and similar such things.
Yeah I rarely watch Twitch but basically do so for two reasons.
The first is to check out games I'm interested in. The streamer is mostly incidental unless they're actually getting in the way of seeing the game. YouTube exists for this too, but I find the spaces in between the highlights that you see in streams to be more interesting than the structured reviews.
The second is to watch them play a game I've already played, usually in the hopes they enjoy it too. It's a form of validation of my own experiences, it's just nice to see someone happy at the same things I guess, and also a way to relive a story I might have mostly forgotten but through a fresh perspective.
As a Twitch consumer (married 'professional' in early 30's). I am a huge video game nerd at heart, so I watch streamers that run games that I am interested in however don't have time to play/master. Often it doesn't involve me sitting down for hours at night (although I am sure there's a huge demographic that does that as well). I usually watch when I am laying in bed before I go to sleep. Same time my wife is usually watching some separate but equally mind numbing content to decompress from a long day.
Just another form of entertainment, like tv, but there's nothing I enjoy watching on tv. To each their own.
I've always watched streamers mostly based on the personality rather than whatever game they happen to be playing. If anything it's more interesting to watch someone I'm familiar with try out a new game.
Looking at stats though it seems like I'm in the minority - switching games kills viewership for most streamers (at least in the short term).
>Twitch is a step in the other direction, where if you faithfully consume content from any Twitch channel, you have to sit down and watch for hours every night when the streamer is online. Who does that? I imagine it's mostly students and single young professionals.
Streaming is great "background noise" for when you're bored and sitting around the house. It fills the same niche that I think sports does for sports people. It's live entertainment with no fixed outcome.
I treat a few recurring streams as podcasts where I just listen to the audio after it's already aired. That's pretty much it, I don't really watch any content and I don't show up to streams while they're live.
Twitch's VOD player is not particularly good, I might even say pretty bad, but you can absolutely watch on-demand.
It's a lot easier to casually open up a stream of a LP in a browser tab, than to stop what you're doing, head to the couch, and commit yourself to an hour of video games. When you're playing a game you have to focus, when watching you can just tune in whenever like when tests are running.
Maybe I can answer some of your question. I'm a daily twitch consumer, and perhaps worse, a lurker at that.
It is basically the same as TV or YouTube for me, neither of which I consume much of. Good streamers are entertainers, and are interesting to watch. It is low effort consumption and relaxing. I learn about high level play for games that I enjoy, even if I watch them more than I play them.
Most of my watching takes place as I lay in bed waiting for my melatonin to kick in and pass out.
I think there are a few components as someone who was like "how do people watch others play video games" to now a casual gamer/twitch watcher:
1. Some days I wanna play, but I'm not actually on top form, going to twitch and decompressing by watching someone else play, live, has this strange humanness to it. In the most absurd of ways, you build a "friendship" with the streamer, even if only as a voyeur. I hate that reality, but I found myself liking the characters and tuning in to specific streams.
2. A lot of great plays/rounds/etc will get "clipped" and make rounds on various social media so I don't have to keep up 24/7.
3. Big "esports" events are the same things as normal sporting events, people will record/watch live and make time for the things that are important to them. It surprised me too, but being on the "other side" now, it's fun.
Most streamers have a fixed schedule so it's not that difficult to catch them online. I'm not sure why you think it's for students and single young professionals or that you need to spend hours of time online, you can watch whenever and for however long you want.
I’ve watched/listened to a few people for 10-20 minutes at a time. I know that’s not much in the grand scheme of things, but I’ve never been even the slightest bit interested in watching streams.
I spend an hour or so every night just browsing through streams to look for interesting content, swapping between games and IRLs. It's a good shift away from production TV content.
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