O espectador de livestreaming de jogos eletrônicos: um estudo sobre as motivações de consumo e de apoio financeiro

Abstract

The electronic games market has been expanding, moving large amounts of monetary values. Accompanying this evolution, there is an increase in live transmissions from people who want to share their act of playing, the so-called streamers, to others who also have a passion for games. This work aims to understand video game livestreaming viewers, seeking to understand the motivations that lead them to watch other people playing, to the point of financially supporting these streamers. For this, the functioning of a livestreaming was explained, in which it needs four components to happen: the streamer, the transmission platform, the game and the audience. Soon after, based on the Theory of Uses and Gratifications, the motivations that lead consumers to watch these live broadcasts were verified. For this, a descriptive quantitative research, of an empirical nature, was carried out through a survey of primary data. A questionnaire was applied among consumers of lives, through the Discord platform and other social networks. Through the valid responses obtained, it was verified that there are two types of motivations that are more constant: motivation for personal affective needs and motivation for releasing tension. In addition, an attempt was made to understand the main ways that consumers use to financially support livestreaming, and it was noted that most of the responses used subscribing to the streamers' channels, with sending Bits/Super Chats in second place. Regarding the motivations that lead them to this type of support, it was found that most of them do this simply because they like the streamer or livestreaming, while others do it to have subscription advantages, such as not seeing ads, participating in private groups, among other benefits.