Video game livestream spectator: motivations and behaviours

Abstract

In recent years, video game livestreams have seen tremendous growth, resulting gaps of knowledge regarding studies on the motivations and behaviours of livestream spectators. This thesis presents two studies that intend to investigate livestream spectators’ motivations and behaviours to add knowledge regarding livestream spectators. The first study investigates if gamification typology framework can be used to determine and categorize livestream spectators based on their preference in interactive features. Initial results highlight hints of possible trends in preferences of spectators depending on their gamification user type. The second study uses an exploratory approach adopted to gain a better understanding of the behaviours and motivations of esports tournament spectators. The result of this study showed that spectators value the quality of the gameplay during tournament matches. Spectators are more likely to support teams or players that provide suspense by taking risks and trying strategies that are unconventional.