An Esports Youth Study is conducted by *SCAPEesports annually to better understand the trends and mindsets of the youth in the esports scene. The insights garnered by the study help the team better curate programmes to meet the various needs of the esports community. This year, the focus was placed on the local video game live streaming scene. Video game live streaming is a subset of the gaming industry where people record themselves playing games to a live audience online. With the recent entrance of Twitch—the biggest live streaming platform for gamers—into Singapore as well as the rise in numbers of streamers during the Circuit Breaker period, *SCAPEesports took off to learn the motivations and challenges of youth who had identified streaming as an interest.

Together with Twitch and Singapore Streamers Community, *SCAPEesports gathered 21 participants of diverse backgrounds to gain insights on the streaming landscape. Participants were split into four groups with a facilitator to better understand two aspects; Motivations and Challenges.

Motivations

“What’s so enjoyable about streaming? Isn’t it just showing people what you’re playing? What’s so fun about watching people stream?” These are some questions that people who first find out about streaming might ask. In fact, many do not get why people love streaming or how it could become an integral part of someone’s life. The discussion with the participants shed light on some surprising facts.

Social interaction is the top reason why youth enjoy streaming. More often than not, gaming can be a rather lonely hobby and streaming provides them with an opportunity to interact with people from all over the world in real-time. They would start to build connections, a community and relationships. The platform fulfills their desire to be accepted into a community that shares the same interest and passion as them, and provides a network of support for their goals and dreams.

Aside from social interaction, another reason why youth pick up streaming is the added source of income. With the click of a button, youth are able to record themselves and share their content online with friends and strangers. Twitch, YouTube as well as other social networking platforms have opened doors to career paths for prospective online influencers and have proven itself to be a lucrative industry for several household names.

The coveted title of ‘Twitch Partnership’ is on the minds of most of these streamers. A ‘Partnership’ status grants youth with more accessible income and visibility on the Twitch platform. The high level of commitment necessary to become a Partner also means that most are full-time streamers. This reality is the main reason why youth hope to turn this hobby into a full time career.

With the rise of the gaming industry and society views of gaming becoming more positive, the main reason why some of these youth pick up streaming is to shed light on the prospective career path and raise awareness of the esports community. As companies start to hire more video game live streamers for publicity and to attract a wider audience, these youth hope for the society to familiarise with the streaming industry and better understand the passion that they hold for this craft.

Challenges

When a streamer tells their friends about their challenges in streaming, they’d often be met with a reply along the lines of: “Streaming is easy, you just have to record yourself playing games”. While the statement is true, this downplays the level of engagement one would have to maintain during their streams for it to be successful.

Streaming is a mix of several skills which involves content curation, creating a brand for oneself as well as the ability to entertain your viewers throughout. As such, it is important for live video game streamers to understand how they can market themselves better and effectively use social media tools to capture their target audience.

Furthermore, one’s eloquence and camera presence are important skills for them to communicate naturally in front of the camera and be able to retain new viewers.

With the Annual Esports Youth studies, the team was able to find out more about the motivations and challenges faced by youth in the streaming industry. The youth brought up that they wished to see more programmes that can equip them with necessary skills through in-depth tutorials to aid them in their streaming journey.

As community is a huge aspect in the streaming journey, youth also wish for more networking sessions and opportunities to connect to other streamers. Through such sessions, they hope to grow their social capital and learn from one another.

For more information, please log on to scape.sg/scapeesports

If you would like to learn more or have further questions, do drop us a note at esports@scape.sg.

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