Twitch is the leading live streaming platform in most of the world and an integral part of contemporary digital gaming culture. Millions of people broadcast their game play (as well as other activities) to over a hundred million people who regularly visit the site. In this accessible book, Mark R. Johnson offers both a synthesis of existing Twitch research and a new way to understand Twitch as a public forum for gaming. Drawing on ideas of the ancient Greek agora or public forum, Johnson demonstrates how Twitch has become the key location for game players looking to understand what is contemporary, relevant, and important in modern gaming culture. He argues that Twitch has constructed a particular kind of public forum for gaming, an understanding which emerges from analysing the platform through its technological infrastructure, its streamers and viewers, its broadcast content, and its tightly knit communities. While this forum helps shape gaming culture, it also exhibits many of gaming's existing problems with harassment and cultural exclusivity. Despite being the essential public space for contemporary gaming, Johnson shows that Twitch is far more complex than it first appears, and is currently expanding in ways that challenge this – until now – core focus. This book is essential reading for students and scholars of game studies, media studies, and anyone with an interest in the rapidly changing nature of online communication.
