[Release Date: January 31, 2023] Making money playing games on Twitch or YouTube sounds like a dream come true! But money never comes without strings attached. Streamers face pressures to build up their audience, ask for financial support, land and keep sponsors. It’s hard work and many burn out. Meanwhile, there’s questions about the ways Twitch and YouTube benefit from their labor. What are the ethics of making money playing games on Twitch or YouTube?
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
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Shlomo Sher: welcome everybody. We’re here back again with uh, Dr. Mark, our Johnson, a lecture and digital cultures in the Department of Media and Communications at the University of Sydney uh his research focuses on game live streaming and uh twitch Tv uh, which is the stuff we’re talking about uh today. Uh also esports uh gamification gamification, which is our previous episode with him. If you haven’t heard that it’s really great, go back and check it out. Um! He’s published in journals, including Information Communication society,
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Shlomo Sher: new Median Society, medi, Culture and Society. Lots of society stuff, uh, and games and culture uh outside academia is also known as the Independent game designer best known for the rogue like all to by ratio uh regum.
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Shlomo Sher: All right. Uh Mark Johnson. Welcome back to the show. Yeah, hi! Guys. Thank you so much for having me back again. It’s great to be back
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Shlomo Sher: also about money, but very different than the last time. Right last time we talked gambling. Now we’re talking uh, really, let’s say we’re focusing on twitch. And uh, you know, lots of people dream of making money and becoming famous. Influence on twitch right. Um, I remember my nephew, my nephew was one of them.
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Shlomo Sher: Right? Um, you play video games that you love, and you say what you think about him, and you chat with fans, and you make money at the same time. I mean, it just sounds like a dream come true, right? But it’s obviously is much, much more complicated than that. And uh, today we’re going to focus on some of the ethical issues that come up for people who decide to take this route. Now, can you start by putting us a picture of what actually needs to happen for a twitch? A Youtube streamer to make real money
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Shlomo Sher: right? And I’m: assuming it’s a lot more complicated than I think.
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Mark Johnson: Yeah, Yeah. So um,
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Mark Johnson: I guess in both cases, in part, it comes down to just how many people watch your channel like. I think that’s That’s the first thing to kind of pin down that, although there’s no formal size beneath which you can’t make a living, or above which you are guaranteed to make a living. Um! It’s hard to make a living from these things, unless you have a certain sort of sorts of critical mass, or a certain kind of volume, or people who are watching you. Um! Although this does differ across the Youtube and twitch like
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Mark Johnson: um. And this is because of the different ways in in which a person can make money on those as on Youtube In general, one is making money through uh adverts through running ads at this start of one’s. Um
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Mark Johnson: Ah, videos, and also through having sponsors, as i’m. Sure, we’ve all seen like lots of Youtube videos these days from gaming content Creators, we’ll have a a short kind of sponsorship section by Nord. Vpn. Is quite is one hundred and one.
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Mark Johnson: It’s quite a common one these days, or it’ll be from um a game company, or it’ll be from Red Bull or some energy. Drink these sorts of things. Um. And also sometimes, of course, in both cases you’ll find people who are who are specifically sponsored to play a given game. So a new games come out, and the company who made that game, they will reach out to a bunch of well known streamers, either who are well known in general, or who are well known for playing that particular style of game, or that genre, and so on,
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Mark Johnson: and they’ll pay them some ambiguous, unknown amount of money in general for broadcasting their game; whereas on twitch,
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Mark Johnson: unlike Youtube, where most income comes from sponsorships or from adverts on twitch, it’s more from viewers directly donating to the Channel uh either through subscriptions, which is where you agreed to pay a given amount of money every month to that streamer in general, five us dollars uh some of which goes to twitch, and on which goes to the streamer um, or through do all through donations where you donate a given amount of money um as a one off, in which case most of that goes to
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Mark Johnson: um, and a small amount goes to which so in both cases um. If you don’t have enough people either to be giving you that kind of money on twitch, or to be watching a broadcast which has been sponsored, or which has advert, and it’s on Youtube. Then it’s going to be hard to make much money from this um
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Mark Johnson: it does differ, though based on stream which is based on person to person, on Youtube, and twitch as a what country and city you’re based in will shape. How much money do you need to make a living from this, of course, right? If you look at the middle of London or Sydney or Hong Kong, or somewhere, then clearly you need a lot of money to be making a full time living on this. If you live in a far, this wealth, a country, and maybe you live in a rule rather than rather than an urban space. Then then you need far, far less money, of course.
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Mark Johnson: So those are the kind of basic dynamics of making money here, but it doesn’t always come down to volume of uh viewers. Um! If you’re on twitch, for instance, you can find people who maybe only have five hundred average viewers, but they make a full-time living because their their view is a super engaged, and that stream has gone to a lot of kind of effort to get those views.
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Mark Johnson: Excuse me to financially support them, whereas you might also find a steamer with five thousand viewers on average, who who doesn’t make a living on twitch. So, although it would be hard to make a living from one viewer or five viewers, I don’t think that there’s kind of
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Mark Johnson: a hard cut off of where you can, and kind of make money from a lot of it comes down to. What’s that stream or all all that Youtube are trying to do? To To what extent are they trying to monetize the the broadcast and kind of how do their viewers feel about either giving money to that, Fema, or what does she must do on Youtube to make money. So we got essentially, uh we got. You need to think about the number of of uh viewers you’re going to get. You need to think about the level of engagement that you can get them in.
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Shlomo Sher: Uh. There’s the possibility of advertising on Youtube and Sponsorship. Right? So it’s these. These four things are kind of your your main concerns.
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Mark Johnson: Yeah, both both on twitch and on Youtube. Um. The normal thing is for a stream of slash, Youtube, to kind of report to potential sponsors. I get an average of X people in hours. Abc. My, my peak is why, and sometimes Z people will will click on links. I give them that that type of stuff. Yeah,
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A Ashcraft: sorry. And And did you want to ask something or no? No, no, I was just sort of clarifying that that the the secondary to are also basically,
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A Ashcraft: you know, the advertising and sponsorships also comes from that building up that viewer base. Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Yeah. So the viewer basically, like the primary thing, right? And then the other things can fall fall from that, whether it’s donations or advertising, or sponsorships, or all that you need to build up that viewer base.
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Shlomo Sher: So it it seems to me that really the the key thing here is your relationship, uh, really, with your your um, your viewer base. But uh,
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Shlomo Sher: let me start with this in in most jobs. The relationship between your labor and other people is pretty straightforward, Right? I mean you have a boss. Your bus assigns you work, make sure you deliver to the company, or for the company which then uses it as a part of providing product or services, right? And and if you own a traditional business. You have relationships with employees and customers supplies. Maybe your local community. Uh what relationships as a streamer to be need to be thinking about.
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Mark Johnson: Yeah. So there’s been a lot of kind of um discussion around this, and quite a lot of the use of the phase power, social relationships
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Mark Johnson: which, in the context of Twitch and Youtube tends to be used uh to denote this idea that the that’s that’s the viewer kind of perceives they should be stream, or or Youtuber to to be a friend rather than to be a kind of distance Celebrity, in some sense. So these are relationships. So the thinking goes where?
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Mark Johnson: Um, yeah, Where Where people have this sense that they kind of hanging out with a friend playing games rather than this being something where it’s a bit more distance where this is someone who who they don’t know that well, and youtubers and twitch streamers who want to, who want to try to make money, or want to try to do this full time, and so on in general. Do try quite hard to cultivate that
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Mark Johnson: sense that we are all kind of
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Mark Johnson: just a bunch of friends hanging out playing games, and this can create some awkward encounters. Um! Like back in twenty back in two thousand and fifteen, two thousand and seventeen when when I started doing twitch research um at twitch con, which is the uh yearly kind of big twitch um convention, conference events Type thing.
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Mark Johnson: It was quite striking how you would see loads of viewers coming up to streamers, and the viewers would behave as if they were chatting to an old friend, and they’d say, Hey, Bob, it’s great to see you. Um! How things. How is your cat doing? Um? I hope your your um parents doing well with the cancer, treatment, or what or whatever it might be, because that stream had shared those those things on switch. But to the streamer. They’d never met this person before in the entire life, and they had only ever encountered this person through their online username
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Mark Johnson: course and Eve. And then, even if that person had said, Oh, yeah, my! My online name is Joe Blogs eighty five.
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Mark Johnson: Even then there’s no guarantee. The consumer would recognize that name, even if that’s someone who gives the money, and who’s and who’s engaged in that channel, and so on. Um! And so viewers get this guy. Oh, so especially if I got thousands of users uh of viewers, Right? That’s gonna land me, you know. Full time job hopefully in a, you know. Uh make me go to Twittercon
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Mark Johnson: Exactly. Exactly. Exactly, and um kind of different stream is definitely vary in the extent to which they sort of to be crude about it. They they bother to remember that their fans names in essence. Um, you get some streamers and some youtubers, who definitely,
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Mark Johnson: but in a real effort to remember the say, one hundred or two hundred most active people in their channels, and they’ll kind, and they’ll they’ll respond in kind of particular ways. When those when those people show up in the broadcasts. Um! And often that might extend to, for instance, following that that person on Twitter, or even playing games with those viewers. Um. But other people
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Mark Johnson: don’t really go with that model, and when someone gives the money, or when someone rejoins the channel, they’ll say, Hi, thanks for the subscription Welcome back. But there’s no real sense that even if someone has renewed their subscription for the eighty-second time, There’s no sense that the stream and necessarily remember their name from the past eighty-one times. It’s come up on Channel,
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Shlomo Sher: my mark. Uh
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A Ashcraft: sorry, Andy, Did you Did I cut you? Off? Did you want to say No, no, no, I was uh, I was gonna say. This all sounds very, very familiar to me as the husband to a stand up comic.
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A Ashcraft: Oh, that’s interesting. So it’s very, very, very similar to what to to Jackie’s relationship with her fans.
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A Ashcraft: You know there are people who donate, and there are people who come to shows. Um my uh my question. I wonder? Because there’s a certain there’s another similarity between people who are streaming things in real time right
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A Ashcraft: and like, and and you know, and and the similarity there is you’re going to shows and seeing comedy in real time versus watching videos
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A Ashcraft: of a game in play or a video of of stand upup comedy, you know. I wonder if that if that that synchronicity is important here
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Mark Johnson: that’s really fascinating. Yeah, I mean um. I’ve in in fact, just had a paper published on How to which dreamers use humor and jokes and wit as part of how they engage people in their channel. In fact. Yeah, um. I think there’s a very strong
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Mark Johnson: overlap there, and that’s a lot of the most successful streamers, far less the youtubers, as they tend to be pre recorded, of course, but the most successful streamers are very good at
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Mark Johnson: at and gay at trying to engage a crowd at being with you being funny, being able to make jokes um often. These jokes kind of riff off what’s going on in that game, Of course. Um, One thing I talked about in this paper is how um a lot um Lots of switch game streamers. They kind of struggle to allow serious content in games to be serious, to be serious, and instead use it to riff off to make jokes to make humor um, and that’s quite, and that’s quite
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Mark Johnson: quite a quite a kind of well, well-seen thing, I think.
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Mark Johnson: But also um Some of my early research on twitch showed that a lot of show show that lots of streamers will try to prepare jokes off stream before they go live, and then trying to work those into their broadcasts. Um! And that again has a has this kind of obvious parallel, I think, where,
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Mark Johnson: although they are live, and although a lot of the appeal of watching a game team onto which is in that liveness. That’s that. You, as the viewer, are experiencing what’s going on in this game for the first time ever just like the stream. Is Um, this this the stream? It is doing far more off stream to prep to think of jokes, to think of how the zoom will go to think of. Okay, I’ll do two hours of this. Then take a break the new three hours of this, then take a break, and then maybe I’ll do X and Y and inside, and then maybe encourage people to go into my discount
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Mark Johnson: or to follow me on Twitter, and then i’ll close the broadcast. That type of thing.
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Shlomo Sher: Um,
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Shlomo Sher: let me ask you this. Um,
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Shlomo Sher: Because let’s get into some of the ethics here, I mean, there’s we have a lot. I’ve like a million questions on this. But um! Here’s what here’s part of what i’m hearing and Andy I I don’t know if this is an analogous to uh Jackie’s stand up relationship with her uh with her fans. But it sounds to me like here’s the plan. Let me get a bunch of people to think that we’re friends, and we’re just hanging out,
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Shlomo Sher: and i’ll ask it for money,
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Shlomo Sher: and they’ll feel like, Hey, we’re friends, and i’m just helping a friend out uh, but in reality it’s really a one way relationship. And i’m just tricking them into thinking we’re friends. And in fact, i’m planning out how to do that? Uh! Is this just a con? Is Am I just scamming them?
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Mark Johnson: I think there’s I think there’s the full spectrum on this. And what I mean by that is,
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Mark Johnson: I’ve definitely observed streamers who, as far as one can tell, genuinely do care about their fans, and genuinely do try to forward friendships and and genuinely do appreciate the fact that having a thousand people who each occasionally give you a bit of cash, means that when brought
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Mark Johnson: together, you can do this as your your job, and so on. Um, That’s definitely the case. And some of these streamers do kind of go above and beyond in some sense like some will host in person meet up, for instance, where they’ll be going to City X. And when they are in city X, they’ll say, Hey, anyone who lives here or in the kind of local We, uh, John, who watches my my channel, let’s all growth and get dinner and meet each other in person. So on. And and
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Mark Johnson: the fact that very few steamers do that I think highlights that the few who do do that are doing it, I think for fairly genuine reasons, I think. But then, at the kind of x-stream other end. Um, yeah, I mean there’s definitely a sense that
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Mark Johnson: for some streamers this is a fairly sort of cynical performance, I think, would be the phrase to use, and and that they are exploiting, I think, is too harsh and too strong, but there, but they are definitely kind of
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Mark Johnson: mit ctl, and taking full advantage of how a site like twitch simultaneously makes someone appear to be a kind of exciting online celebrity, but also a close friend who hang out with them playing games with one
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Mark Johnson: um. And I think that Twitch and Youtube less so, but which runs that full spectrum of what of what people are doing, but but but particularly on twitch as well. I think we need to like. Keep in mind how lots of people will, both streamers and viewers will will share quite private things about their lives as well. And
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Mark Johnson: again, that complicates. Is this a genuine attempt to to reach out and to form bonds, or this more kind of
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Mark Johnson: instrumental goal, as people will, a stream as might, for instance, share that a family members. They’re very, very ill, for instance, and then you’ll see view, and then you will see viewers who maybe have also had a family family member with that same thing. Who’ll say, Yeah, I had that, or or I’m going through that now, and they’ll talk you through, and they’ll share it. Um,
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Mark Johnson: or you’ll have, for instance, um streamers who will talk about um
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Mark Johnson: their experiences with going to college, or their experiences with previous jobs, or their pets or their friendships. These sorts of things and viewers will respond with those, and
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Mark Johnson: generally, when viewers respond after the streamer has prompted them that sense to to get a fairly positive response from Streamer. But another thing, you see, is is when a viewer will say, Donate a bunch of cash, and they’ll say thank you so much for your channels. Um! My father just died. He was my closest friend, your channels being a huge help keeping me going and helping me laugh in this hard time, and so on, and the stream of responses to that tend to be quite complex, I think, as
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Mark Johnson: they tend to express sort of
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Mark Johnson: appreciation on some level that people are getting so much good from that channel, but also a lot of streamers have spoken out about this, and said: I find it uncomfortable when someone says that to me, because they are kind of placing emotional responsibility on me for their emotional well being in a very hard time, and I didn’t know their fathers just died, or whatever it might be. I don’t know that i’m doing this, and they are kind of placing this tacit expectation on me that i’m now complicit in some sense in their mental health.
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A Ashcraft: Wow! Interesting! And that seems like a that seems like honestly, it seems rather churlish to to take somebody who is thanking you for basically doing what you’re what you’re doing already, and saying, You know this is meaningful to me in this way
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Mark Johnson: and then going. Oh, I really wish you hadn’t told me that a lot of you has responded that way. When a lot of streamers. I think this this particularly happened a few months back. I think there were a lot of people on lots of streamers on Twitter, saying, I find it really uncomfortable when people say this stuff a lot of you have said, Hang on, i’m giving you money. I’m enjoying your content. I’m saying you helped me and been a positive role in my life. Why are you responding in this way to what i’m saying?
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Shlomo Sher: It’s really weird. I mean, you know to to me I mean, I agree. I you know I think it’s very rare for anybody to exploit. I mean it’s possible to exploit your fans right in in any way right, but I think it’s extremely rare to do that. But anybody that has a voice that speaks to others has a responsibility for that voice,
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Shlomo Sher: right? And if um, you know you’re scared of that responsibility, even if the responsibility says you’re doing great. You’re you’re not really to me. You’re not really getting the fact that
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A Ashcraft: what you say always matters. Uh, you know the people as far as maybe that is, maybe you’ve hit the nail on the head. There, maybe maybe the concern is now I now I Now i’m not going to be allowed to say whatever I want to say, because I might, I might be doing the opposite with somebody.
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A Ashcraft: I might be making their day worse.
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Shlomo Sher: Yeah, I I guess, Mark, the question is, maybe the question to you is, What do you think about that? I mean, Do you think that? Um, Essentially, if you are streaming and you do have a substantial following,
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Mark Johnson: can you say whatever fuck you want? Or do you have some responsibilities in what you’re saying? Yeah, great question. I mean. Um. I think it’s interesting in this context
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Mark Johnson: erez agmoni. Excuse me to look at how some twitch tunnels are moderated, as the specific streamer has a lot of control over what gets said in that channel, and some are much stricter on how channels are modulated, like some will, for instance, one hundred and fifty
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Mark Johnson: in some channels you aren’t allowed to say words like murder or words like suicide, even if it’s said in a purely joking game. Focused context, like, Oh, the stream has just killed themselves, meaning. They died by their own hand within the game. Of course. Right um stuff stuff of that sort might might be banned, or in some channels I’ve i’ve. I’ve seen words like mad or insane or crazy abandon these source things.
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Mark Johnson: Um! And then at the other extreme you have these So these so-called pre-speech channels and given contemporary American politics right now. I’m sure we can all guess what those channels uh entail, and so the moderation of channels does vary a lot in terms of what streamers feel comfortable with their viewers, saying,
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Mark Johnson: but in terms of what streamers say again, you’ll get some streamers who are either willing to push the boundaries of what’s okay on twitch, or at least who do so as part of that brand. In some sense there’s definitely
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Mark Johnson: who at least gets some of their appeal from pushing what they meant to be able to to to do or not do on twitch.
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Mark Johnson: But then there’s other. Those other people, Jen. Generally people who uh, who have more kind of social justice, bent, or or people who who might be from more marginalized demographics, who are more cautious in what they say, and who are, and who are more kind of self-aware and self reflexive in what they are saying, and what effect that that might be having on viewers. So again, I think twitch streamers, and this is the case on you on Youtube. As well
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Mark Johnson: run this full spectrum in terms of what do the broadcast to say? What What are their viewers allowed to say or expected to say? Um, But I think you’re You’re right that for some streamers. They’re definitely happy to take all the advantages of this work, but but happy to kind of disown the disadvantages. In some sense they they they don’t mind, of course, the fact that that’s their viewers are giving them lots of money, but then, when they view is, say, well, we expect x, y, or Z. In exchange. The assuming goes well. Not so.
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Mark Johnson: I’m not sure about that. I’m not sure. I’m not happy about that, and that, I think is a bit problematic for the people who behave in that way. Um!
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Mark Johnson: But again, in the interest of of, of of of trying to see both sides streaming is still a fairly new job. People are still working out what what the dynamics and and what the ethics and what the expectations and the responsibilities of this work are internally a lot of people doing this job are quite young. My bonus might not necessarily have had other jobs prior to streaming, so
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Mark Johnson: I think we should critique. But I think we also need to acknowledge that that’s a lot that a lot of people doing this i’m not not necessarily in a position to really kind of critically, morally, maybe completely, reflect on these complexities, and come to a kind of complex outcome of how they should be acting as well.
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A Ashcraft: All right, can I? Can I ask about so?
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A Ashcraft: Um. In one hand this could be applied to any sort of celebrity. Hood.
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A Ashcraft: This is not something that that is, that is just the gaming community. Clearly this is this is because we now have these social media tools to have this sort of connection with our fans that we that we didn’t have before assuming that we have fans.
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A Ashcraft: Hello, fans uh, you know. So we, you know we can. We can have this connection before you know we would be. We might be a celebrity because we’re uh, we’re on television, and we have, you know, we periodically go and and have. You know, Media,
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A Ashcraft: you know. Go on Ti television, local television somewhere, for whatever reason or whatever we wouldn’t have, You know we’d be a little bit more distant from the average everyday fan.
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A Ashcraft: You know I I I often talk to my students about, you know. Even
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A Ashcraft: even books have a picture of the author on the book cover on a book jacket.
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A Ashcraft: Hmm. And that’s because we want to know who this person is who’s speaking to us,
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A Ashcraft: right. We sort of feel like we have this, this, this connection with this person like like we’re, we’re reading them. They’re speaking to us directly,
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Shlomo Sher: right? But Obviously, you know, with the kind of technological changes we have today and the back and forth you get in in twitch, you know, and twitch. Obviously, you know. Obviously, all social media influencers get,
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Shlomo Sher: you know, they get feedback from from people, but twitch is live right, and it’s mostly used for gaming, and it’s interesting when when Mark says talk, of course they don’t talk, only the streamer gets to talk right. Other people get to type right right, and and that that the
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Mark Johnson: it’s not as asymmetrical as most uh celebrity fan relationships, but it’s still very asymmetrical as far as that goes. Yeah, I think you’ve kind of Yeah, um. I think you’ve touched on that. My thoughts on this I mean. Um. I think you are completely right, and the that kind of this extends existing celebrity influence, and so on. Um die um dynamics. But
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Mark Johnson: I think, as you say, the the fact that this is a live thing, and that you are talking back and forth. I think that is very different from how we engage with most celebrities of all, or or people who are perceived as being celebrities,
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Mark Johnson: even if it might, even if it might, might not be a full dialogue. It’s certainly much closer to the mon than the mon. The log one gets when you follow Kenya West on Twitter, and you just read what he’s doing something because he there is some degree of back and forth, and that that kind of dynamic of this person is simultaneously a kind of lofty, unreachable online celebrity, but also someone I can chat with.
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Mark Johnson: Um. I think the fact that those two roles coexist in people on twitch, and to less extent on you on Youtube. Um, I think that’s a really. That’s a really crucial aspect of the Celebrity dynamic. That’s
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Mark Johnson: kind of going on here that it feels like one is getting a far close engagement, and I think it’s also distinct, and that you are. You are giving money directly to the person, rather than say, by buying a product which has that Brandon. And then some portion of that goes to that person. But that person doesn’t know you bought that branded Nike shoes, or whatever or whatever it all, whatever it might be, whereas this person does know your username just gave them ten bucks on twitch and they say, Hey, Joe Blogs eighty-five Thank you so much
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Mark Johnson: for the
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Mark Johnson: it’s not completely equal, but it’s much closer, and it’s not so far as to say it’s a true dialogue, but it’s definitely kind of somewhere in the spectrum between monologue and dialogue much closer to dialogue than we get, I think, with any other celebrity contact side side. This is why I think the responsibilities you have are greater
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Shlomo Sher: right, because you’re you know you’re creating a relationship that is, on the face of it, a lot more intimate and a lot more uh, you know, um relation on the sense that uh you expect the potential back, back, back and forth with it. Um,
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Shlomo Sher: you, You know I I wanted to move on, but I I wanted to ask really quick
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Shlomo Sher: uh, when you talk about people moderating their channels, I mean, i’m assuming number one twitch has uh certain, and I should have found out. But i’m assuming Twitch has certain rules uh about You know various types of things. How does someone moderate their own channel? Uh, does that mean you You hire, or you have a friend that essentially moderates it,
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Shlomo Sher: or you’re doing it as your I mean. You’re not doing it as you’re playing and talking at the same time. I’m, assuming it’s not
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Mark Johnson: twitch, has kind of many levels of how this stuff happens. So the first level is yeah, twitch hass on, on, on what you can and can’t say, can I can’t do both the stream and his viewer uh those rules, as many have pointed out uh unevenly enforced in most cases, and in many ways tend to um hit marginalized groups far more than others. Um! But then also, the individual streamer can can kind of type up rules for that channel, saying you can and can’t say x and Y
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Mark Johnson: in turn. There’s also an automatic mod duration thing on twitch, where, if you type
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Mark Johnson: nasty key words to which you will notice that, and catch it and wipe those out. Um, but also the streamer can set particular things which can and can’t be said in the Channel, both in terms of code as well as in terms of like writing, rules for for the Channel, and then in turn um a streamer will in general try to find some moderators, which are people kind of which are committed viewers who will be in their channel, and have modulation powers to time out people, or to ban people, or to delete messages, and so on from that channel.
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Um!
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Mark Johnson: A few really successful streamers will pay their mods, but in general it’s unpaid labor. Um and the moderators tend to be like, I say, kind of really the really d the voted engaged long term fans of that channel. Um! And one kind of intriguing ethical dynamic here is that becoming a moderator in the twitch channel is seen as a reward for being really engaged in someone’s channel.
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Shlomo Sher: I think that’s an interesting dynamic. We should look at it. I mean, you know not all rewards are monetary, right? I mean, you’re getting recorded in status. Right? Exactly. Absolutely. Yeah. And you, you’ve earned the status of being the special super fan that gets to moderate that discussion, and you have. And it’s interesting because I mean with you. You are getting power of some kind, right?
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Shlomo Sher: Uh, and it. It’s interesting also, that, uh, the whole idea of all these options for moderation. Uh, I think I I want to kind of emphasize uh empower the uh
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Shlomo Sher: the stream, or to exercise whatever kind of responsibility they feel to everybody. Right? I mean, if you’re trying to create a community where you know we’re all friends, and we’re hanging out. And obviously this may be from so I can make money, but it also is, you know, maybe just because it’s I really enjoyed. And I hope you guys do, too, If trolls come and miss your time up, and you even gave me money right? I mean,
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Shlomo Sher: there’s I. I, it’s easy to feel responsible, I think, in those case, to protect your uh, your, your your supporters,
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Mark Johnson: I agree one just as a final note on This one uh kind of funny trend in the last year or so is that when people have been banned from someone’s channel, streamers have now made it what some streamers have now made it part of their content to go through the people who’ve been banned, and to read out their requests to be unband, and that itself has become a source of kind of content and um kind of comic material to read why people were banned and what they’re saying as to why they
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Mark Johnson: to be unmanned. I’m not sure to make of that yet. I think it’s kind of interesting and quite ethically complex. But i’m not sure what to make of that right now.
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Shlomo Sher: Oh, Andy, do you want to hit? Because, yeah, that’s a Let’s talk about that. So you know To me it’s kind of interesting, you know, because so many. You remember when we talked about when platforms banned video games
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Shlomo Sher: right, and how a platform will ban a video game, and not really tell you why it’s banned right. And there are potential reasons for that, and they don’t want to get into that. But it’s so frustrating to be banned for something and not be given any justification for this. And it’s kind of, you know. On the one hand,
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Shlomo Sher: you could be mocking those people right in a way that might be really unfair. Not only did they get banned with that explanation, and now you’re you know. Now you just mocking them publicly. On the other hand, maybe your
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Mark Johnson: being transparent and thinking through and asking uh the you know, asking the fans themselves what what they get. I’ve seen the the full range of this yeah from folks just just just kind of making fun of people who’ve been banned in that channel to people saying,
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Mark Johnson: Yeah, let’s kind of seriously look at what this person did, And what do you, my viewers think should should should should be done with this person? So on. Yeah, there’s there’s there’s a full range on these things. Yeah,
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Shlomo Sher: All right, Let’s move now to sponsorships right uh sponsorships. I mean, it seems to me they could be just incredibly profitable for players right, I mean for streamers right uh right, but they can also turn you into a shield.
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Shlomo Sher: Uh, sorry, not a seal, a chill right right, and a shell essentially somebody will. You know. All they’re doing is saying what they’re paid to be. Say uh, to to be saying right so. Uh what sort of ethical issues do you think come up when uh a streamer is considering who their sponsor would be, and how to present their product to service.
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Mark Johnson: I think here we have to start a few years back, when the idea of acknowledging a sponsor first came into being because there was a period on tuition, Youtube, where streamers were not considered to be ethically required to down sponsors, so someone could could be paying you X money to play game. Why, and you play game. Why? And people were were not considered to be obliged to say, Hey, companies, that is paying me X dollars to play game. Why,
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Mark Johnson: um! And then quite quickly over kind of maybe a three or six month pay
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Mark Johnson: uh This went through a a real seat a real kind of sea change towards now you absolutely must, no matter what. If you don’t touch your Youtube acknowledged, you’ve been sponsored to play this game. You don’t have to say how much you don’t have to say what the requirements of that deal might be. But you have to say this.
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Mark Johnson: Oh, Okay, So first of all, is this Uh: Was this a change in norms? Or was this in change in platform policy? Yeah, I very much see this as being a change in norms. Um, With that, said I, Haven’t studied this exact change fully, and maybe if I did the the with the aspects of both. But my perception as someone as someone researching game streaming. When this change happened. My perception back then, was this was far more a changing norms than a change in platform rules
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Shlomo Sher: was my sense back then. Yeah. So so let’s let’s take a minute just to say, Why do you think, uh, what is it that people saw that was wrong with essentially a sponsor uh promoting products that your your fans didn’t know where you were being paid for.
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Mark Johnson: To be honest without going back and researching this exact moment. I’m not completely sure what caused the shift. I think I think I can quickly, though, point to like a few potential things. I think one was
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Mark Johnson: when more and more people were kind of were making money from this practice, and also when more and more people were sort of having what they do be
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Mark Johnson: interrogated might be too strong, but more more people were paying attention to what the streamers do, what the Youtube game is. Do I think some of them probably felt this sense of okay. I do need to be a bit more transparent bit more on the kind of level here. I think that was probably one thing. Um, I think. Also again thinking back to what I perceive at that time research and game stream game streams in general, I think I also perceived a sense that
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Mark Johnson: um the that was a kind of authenticity crisis at this point where viewers were were feeling. I’m no longer sure that I know whether this stream is playing this game because they want to, whatever that means in the context of making money, and so on. But um, i’m not sure whether this person is playing this because they want to in a quotes, or because they are being paid to. So I think that was the fact as well. Um!
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Shlomo Sher: So sorry, and I hope you don’t uh if if I stop you, will you be able to go back. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, cause it’s It’s really interesting. Notice this this last point uh on the first point, it’s uh,
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Shlomo Sher: you know, we talked about potentially exploiting, or, let’s say, manipulating right. If you’re a shill right, you know, if I trust you that this is your honest opinion, and you’re essentially deceiving me because you’re just saying what you’re saying, because it’s not your honest opinion. But instead, you’re getting money. Now we are talking about. I’m being manipulated.
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Mark Johnson: Yeah, Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think that’s crucial because kind of
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Mark Johnson: a lot of what people are doing when they watch games, Youtube and game switch, and so on, is that they are trying to judge. Is this a game I I like? Is this again I should buy. Is this again. I want to play, and so on, and
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Mark Johnson: a streamers responses. One, I think, are inevitably going to be modulated by. Are they being paid for this? Because if someone sponsors them big money to play game. X, and then they say, Well, game X is a pile of shit. I can’t stand it. It’s awful. It’s garbage. Then sponsor. Why, a month later Will will look at the we’ll. Look at the that fume of game X. And see. Oh, this other cisco
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Mark Johnson: to come! Honey paid this fema big money to play this game, and the stream is said it was garbage. I don’t think i’ll pay this fema, so it’s like,
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Shlomo Sher: so we have a conflict of interest. Right? So, on the one hand, right you you have essentially the product that you’re sponsoring. On the other hand, you have. Uh, well, the persona you’re presenting to people as someone who you know they can trust right uh and and it’s credible.
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A Ashcraft: Yeah, I think trust is really key to this right? I mean, this is this is key to that relationship. You’re talking you you you called it the Paris parasocial relationship, right? That when I like the people that I I have there. There are creators that i’m fans of, and I trust them
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A Ashcraft: to a degree to give them like. You know, writers, that I trust, because I trust them to give me a great story when they’ve written actors; that I trust because I trust them to give me a great performance. Um, you know, if my, if my relationship went deeper where I felt like I had like
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A Ashcraft: like one to one contact with them, which is what a lot of these things sort of start to feel like right when i’m when i’m following their their twitch, or i’m following them on on other social media, and especially if they respond to something that I’ve said. Now I have. Now I am in this sort of one to one
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Shlomo Sher: right, even though it’s still a a public performance. Well, at the same thing. The second point that Mark said is, if the more this happens the more, and this is why, I think might have been a really important thing for this to become a norm, because the more shells you have,
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Shlomo Sher: the more you you’re likely to take the whole, the whole industry down right? No one will trust Streamers period right. None of this can work. No one will trust anybody else. You’re ruining it for everybody.
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Mark Johnson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And kind of one intriguing thing. Now, I think a few years after this norm of you must say, if a game is sponsored came in, is that we see a range of different
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Mark Johnson: kind of strategic responses from streamers to how to deal with this, because often sponsored streams tend to get very low view. Low view accounts compared to non sponsor streams. And uh, Youtube gaming videos which explicitly announced that this game was sponsored by the people who made this game again also tend to get far low reviews like um, for instance, um
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Mark Johnson: one streamer who I follow um generally broadcast one game, but they sometimes do a sponsor the game within that same genre um. And on Youtube the sponsored uh videos get maybe a third of the views, or maybe as little as a quarter of the views as their main game does. So to respond to this. Yeah, we’ve seen kind of
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Mark Johnson: quite a range of tactics. One I’ve seen is just to do the sponsored videos or streams, except that they get few of viewers. Um! And what you’re doing there is, rather than getting money from view, as you’re getting money from the sponsor, and just accept that. That’s just what it’ll be. But others, for instance,
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Mark Johnson: I’ve seen. I’ve seen some who do this thing where on every video they put a notice, just saying,
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Mark Johnson: Please watch this on the understanding. This game might have been sponsored, which is a kind of intriguing response, might not say like any game I play might be sponsored or not, and you watch on that basis.
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Shlomo Sher: Um, And that’s an interesting response. I think. Um. And then others I’ve seen Will I’m: Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. What What do you think of that response. I’m just i’m just kind of curious. I mean, you know it. The The first response is straightforward, right, and tell us tells us
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Shlomo Sher: the second allows intentionally puts ambiguity ambiguity in there. Yeah, Is that a problem or not? As far as your you guys are concerned,
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Mark Johnson: I think that’s a really complex one. Um. I think it’s good on one level that they are kind of tastically acknowledging that they are presumably actively pursuing sponsors, and the many of their streams will be sponsored, and so on. Um, On the other hand, though I think
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Mark Johnson: in a weird way, by by saying, any stream might have been sponsored, you’re you’re re-mudding the waters of truthfulness again, I think essentially um. But I think also for the stream. I think this kind of
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Mark Johnson: essentially allows them in some sense to maybe be more truthful. Where, if from if from the viewer’s point of view, they don’t know whether something sponsors or not, in a certain weird sense, I think, that frees up the streamer to be complementary, or to be insulting to any game, because from the viewer’s point of view it breaks the association between what is the games origin, and what does the stream of think? And I wouldn’t be surprised if
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Mark Johnson: games, companies, who sponsor and I have no data on this. But this is just um my anecdotal thoughts. I wouldn’t be surprised if companies thinking of sponsoring a stream or a Youtube gamer. I wouldn’t be surprised if they look quite well on that approach,
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Mark Johnson: and that they actually don’t want to to explicitly say this stream was sponsored, but to just note that some of the streams are sponsored, and then that broadcast goes into it right. But if if let’s say you know um, you know rock stars pay me to pay to play gta
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Shlomo Sher: um, and I trash gta um i’m! Assuming the same problems that existed before are still going to be there.
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Mark Johnson: I do think so. But, um! I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s slightly lower in that context than in others. May maybe only by a tiny little bit. But
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Mark Johnson: erez Agmoni. There’s not really much research yet sadly on like, How do sponsors engage with streamers? There’s quite a bit about how students engage with sponsors, and so and some, and some of my work has touched on this but one hundred and one.
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Mark Johnson: What’s going on kind of behind closed doors at, as you say, Rock Star, I think, is less clear, and
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Mark Johnson: as I’ve I’ve heard some streamers. When kind of questioned on the like, Can you be truthful when you play a sponsored game question. No, you can’t. I mean It’s a lot of the obvious that you can. Well, a lot. Well, a lot of streamers will say I will always be truthful. I will always be frank, regardless of whether I’m being paid to do a game or or not,
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Mark Johnson: whether we, and whether and whether that is true, or whether they at least perceive that to be true, I think, is a more complex um question. And I I’ve seen some streams say, like there’s no such thing as bad press. They’ll they’ll bring up that concept and say
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Mark Johnson: they think it doesn’t matter that much. If they don’t like a game that much on stream that’s being sponsored, because maybe a viewer does like that game, which is an interesting justification. But i’m not sure, convinces me, given that stream as a Youtube game as our taste makers, in some sense, and our shaping. What do their viewers think about these these these games? Yeah,
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Shlomo Sher: right. I I I remember, Andy, we were having conversation with John Platin
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Shlomo Sher: and remember, and and he said, if I was gonna do marketing for a game Now I would literally take all my money and use it to sponsor to have a, you know, influencers uh sponsor them to play my game,
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A Ashcraft: and we see that we see this in board games, too. There’s there’s a bunch of channels of uh people who review board games, and some of them are some of them charge money for them for to review your board game.
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Mark Johnson: That’s interesting. I didn’t know that those exist that’s interesting and quite different dynamic, because it’s kind of this explicit review. Right interesting, And the idea is that they, you know they can review it, you know, poorly or or well, you know they might, they might give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down;
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A Ashcraft: but if you paid for it, are they more likely to give it a thumbs up
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Mark Johnson: streamers, aren’t giving explicit reviews. They are like, Well, if they’re saying that they hate a game
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Mark Johnson: exactly exactly that kind of the review is, or I think we imagine a review to be a kind of very particular genre of writing, or a very particular genre of speaking, writing, whatever it might be.
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Mark Johnson: But I think I think, on both Youtube and on Twitch. People still exist in this kind of ambiguous zone, where they don’t have the formal trappings of what we traditionally associate with a review, even though what they are doing serves a similar role. It’s it’s also interesting right? So if i’m reviewing your board game right, i’m i’m going to take the the reviewer had, and i’m going to think of
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Shlomo Sher: You know What’s my conclusion? What’s the point? If you’re streaming again, and you’re, you might think. Oh, this is this is so cool. This is cool,
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Mark Johnson: this part, that not that cool right in in some way. Maybe you’re like play testing it in some sense. Yeah, yeah, you know not to see if it works, but see if it if it’s fun, if it works for you. Yeah, it’s It’s more of a kind of stream of consciousness feedback than a
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Mark Johnson: review. You’d read on Pc. Game or something where someone has played game, sat down Marshall. Their thoughts try to structure these. Try to get these across to the reader. Um, yeah, it’s more. This stream of consciousness, this kind of um ongoing
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Mark Johnson: iterative comments on what they think of this game. And some of this, of course, also, which further, I think, blurs the the
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Mark Johnson: also reviewing role here. Is that not all of this is even spoken. It’s in the body language of the person broadcasting. How often do they laugh! How often do they swear? How do they pass comments? How often do they take a pause and talk to their viewers like these? More kind of subtle things? I think, also contribute to conveying to the viewer. Is the stream engaged in this game? Do they think this games a good time or not?
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Shlomo Sher: Right, right? But it’s so that that that way. It is very much a review.
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Shlomo Sher: Well, but still it’s really, you know, I I think of all the youtubers I’ve seen that essentially are like, you know. Push the product
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Shlomo Sher: right, and then it’s really easy like this thing is great. Here’s Here’s how it works, You know they’re paying me for it, but I love it, and I’ve used it before they paid me right. They say stuff like that, right? Yeah. But in this case the the stream of consciousness
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Shlomo Sher: is really to me it’s interesting. It’s it’s substantially different, you know. Here’s something. I certainly it’s certainly meant to feel more authentic Right? Right, but it’s It’s also a lot more
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Shlomo Sher: right. But the performance can. Still, you’re right. I mean, look, the performance, I think, would still be affected. So it’s more positive than negative
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Shlomo Sher: right, but at least it’s not as
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Shlomo Sher: as not as conclusively. This is great. You buy the product,
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Shlomo Sher: but uh but yeah, as you know,
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A Ashcraft: i’m not convinced. I’m. I’m trying to imagine a world where I would listen to a radio, a news, a news program on a radio.
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A Ashcraft: That was, You know
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A Ashcraft: that that didn’t say Oh, by the way, this is a sponsor for our station. Right? You know they I mean that’s in in journalism. This is required
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Shlomo Sher: right if if i’m playing gta six, and you paid me to play gta six
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Shlomo Sher: are the stakes feel high and you know. Yes, yes, of course they are. We’re selling millions of dollars worth of
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A Ashcraft: worth of game time.
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A Ashcraft: Yes, and that’s a high stakes. I mean this money is coming from marketing departments. These licenses are being paid for by marketing departments. If this is not a marketing, if this is not a marketing bonus, they won’t, do it. If this is not a a a benefit to marketing the game. It’s not going to happen
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A Ashcraft: right, but that doesn’t mean that all marketing is manipulative or anything like that, or did. This is necessarily manipulative, but I but I don’t know but I you know there’s an expectation if I if i’m a marketer and I’m and i’m and i’m paying for a sponsorship.
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Shlomo Sher: You’re expecting a return. I’m expecting a return.
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Shlomo Sher: Um, i’m. I’m. I’m more in agreement with you than disagreement to be to be honest, right?
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Shlomo Sher: Uh, okay, Mark: First of all, Andy, Can we check on time how we we? We’re about um uh forty, five, fifty. Okay, uh mark beside the issues we talked about. Is there anything else about sponsorship uh that, you think might be ethically question questionable. The pursuit of sponsors?
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Mark Johnson: Yeah, I mean. Um, I think we’ve kind of covered the questions about the disclosure questions about how it changes with the content of that stream, about how viewers perceive what’s going on, so on. It’s not exactly sponsorship, but a kind of intriguing case study of this, which is kind of some gently related, which I think is just worth expressing, because it’s
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Mark Johnson: ethically complex. And it’s
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Mark Johnson: interesting, I think, is that the we’ve recently seen an emergence of an idea that um streamers might might, in fact, harm some games when they when they stream them, they might harm the chance for that game to be bought to make money. Um, and this and this and this discourse tends to come up with games which are generally fairly short, fairly linear and the and single-player and story heavy
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Mark Johnson: erez agmoni. So this might mean, for instance, lots of um Indie games where there’s a single plot, a single where a lot of the excitement and interest in that game is in maybe making sense of that story, or or or playing through it, or gaining one hundred and one
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Mark Johnson: um emotional association with its characters. Things this sort and um, we’ve seen um a few. Now I think companies making these source of games. Who said, Please don’t stream my entire game, because My, My whole game is
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Mark Johnson: playing the game through once. That’s what my game is. It’s not a multiplayer game. It’s not a game where you do. Many runs of this game. It’s not a game with to see true content. Perhaps it’s It’s a single one off focused story-driven experience, and if you stream the entire game.
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Mark Johnson: Everyone gets the entire game
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Mark Johnson: for free with, with our paying for which is not like. If you’re streaming League legends, as every as every matches, new and fresh, and so on. And so you you can watch a thousand Games League, and then go and play league, and your game of league will be unlike every game you’ve watched. So that’s a quite a kind of intriguing ethical one, I think. Uh, and that’s something which we’ve only seen. I feel within the last. Well, Covid has warped my sense of time, but I think I think within the last
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Shlomo Sher: yeah year and a half is when I first started to see this idea come up.
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Shlomo Sher: You know you’re ruining it for the players, I mean, especially if i’m going back to the idea of you know it’s hard to do these things seriously,
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Shlomo Sher: And the power of stories is, you, you know. Yeah, Usually you gotta take it seriously to get the power of the story. Maybe you’ll have a fun story, but I think you know, most of the really effective, powerful stories are not just fun,
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Mark Johnson: and it’s hard to be able to get the impact. It’s not just that you’re copying. Let’s say you know the product in some way. Right? You’re You’re ruining it for people.
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Mark Johnson: The streaming of niche games, the streaming of in the games. How these devs respond! As as far as I know, I know of only two papers on this one that I wrote a few years back about like how to which was affecting game advertising game, we, the uh viewing, and so on, and a more recent piece by uh Fail and Parker and Matthew Perks, which
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Mark Johnson: which um talked about kind of how Indie Devs are responding to twitch, and Youtube and kind of thinking about these sorts of things, but we definitely could do with more, I think, exploring. Yeah, how doing the devs respond to this? And if you watch. If
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Mark Johnson: If ten thousand people watch a full play through of a story-driven game, how many go and buy it at the end of it? And is, Is the stream truly advertising that game, or supporting that game by giving it by by give thing a publicity and visibility? Or is it harming it? Because now everyone’s seen what the game is. Yeah,
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A Ashcraft: so are these are these rules that journalism is already sorted out.
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A Ashcraft: I mean,
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A Ashcraft: like, for example, on Youtube, if you make a there, and there’s a there’s a big genre of reaction videos, you know. I I point the camera at me. I’m reacting to a video that i’m watching. It’s a brand new video from my favorite star
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A Ashcraft: uh my favorite celebrity singer and and you get to hear this the music. Maybe There’s even a little inset of the video that i’m watching, and you get to watch me watch it.
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A Ashcraft: There’s rules on Youtube about about how much of that you can do. Yeah. Oh, yeah, you have to periodically stop the music and actually just talk about it. At which point you’re becoming, you know. Now your your
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A Ashcraft: you’re you’re providing analysis and response, I see. Otherwise, you’re taking viewers from watching the video itself.
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Shlomo Sher: I I was thinking I I was thinking you were going to go to
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A Ashcraft: other plot routing thing like the movie, right? If you’re right. And the journalists have solved sorted that out, too, right When when when movie reviewers or television reviewers review they make it. They they can talk about whether they like it, what even what things they like about it. And they’ll be very, very careful about about spoilering things
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Shlomo Sher: right. Otherwise they’re taking right. They’re giving people reason not to go see the movie
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Shlomo Sher: um mark. Uh, I want to move on. Oh, my God! I’m looking at the questions that I have, and I have so many more uh, but i’m going to try this um
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Shlomo Sher: some, for you know um for many streamers uh the dream is to become a celebrity stream or an influencer right? I mean, uh what ethical issues come up for streamers, Let’s say, when they get there they they became a celebrity. But you know people’s attention to super fleeting
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Shlomo Sher: right? Um. They’re trying to stay a celebrity. Does anything interesting happen there?
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Mark Johnson: Yeah, I mean um.
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Mark Johnson: I think it’s definitely worth starting that by no earning, of course, that you
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Mark Johnson: a lot of twitch people and Youtube games. People, of course, don’t aspire to this top. Level loads loads loads do into in, including many, many, many thousands who don’t make it in air, quotes, but many people don’t, of course, but for those who do, and once they make it um,
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Mark Johnson: I think a lot of the issues once you’ve in airports made it, are essentially the ones which we’ve already talked through, Which which are, How do I respond to my fans and my viewers. How do I
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Mark Johnson: behave ethically towards them?
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Mark Johnson: I think also, of course, as you get bigger, more ethical issues come in, because if you’re streaming to one person at one time. No one is going to sponsor you. If you have ten thousand, then sponsors come in and so on. So some of those sorts of issues do in that do kind of inevitably only come with the size and the reach and the impact, and so on, of your channel. Whether it’s on Youtube or um on twitch
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Mark Johnson: erez agmoni. But I think one thing that I point to here is the labour question as a lot of my early this work on Twitch looked at the kind of labor of being a twitch, Fema especially being an in a quote successful Twitch Dreamer, one
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Mark Johnson: um! As this is a very demanding job. Um! It’s very demanding in terms of how many hours of a day you stream in most cases. Um, and that’s very emotionally and mentally draining work because you are on air for for maybe eight hours a day, six days a week, and that’s a huge thing
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Mark Johnson: in terms of kind of self- manage. Yeah, yeah. And when it comes to like managing yourself, and how you present and what you say, and making sure not to say something you shouldn’t say,
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Mark Johnson: um keep with whatever stream of persona as my colleague, Nathan Jackson, has done. Some research on would say, Um, this is hugely demanding. And then there’s so much off off-stream or off-camera work in capping for streams responding to emails dealing with your discount channel, posting things on twitter on instagram on Youtube. Blah blah blah there so much work. Um! It’s an incredibly demanding space labor, wise, and I think that stands that
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Mark Johnson: that I think stands out as the key ethical issue, and lots of successful money making streamers have the ported burnouts. Um depression, anxiety. These sorts things as a result of at least in part, their success on twitch
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A Ashcraft: is, Do they spend that much time and effort? Because that’s what
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Mark Johnson: um That’s what other people are doing, and they have to remain competitive, or what it what has caused them to spend that much time. Yeah, I think there’s three things. Firstly, it’s a perception that they need to in order to maintain that position, to maintain income, I think. Secondly, there’s also a sense There’s there’s definitely a keeping up with the Jones as aspect of.
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Mark Johnson: If other people are putting in these hours, then I feel kind of obliged to do this as as well, and I think there’s a third aspect, which is that which is twitch, and you and Youtube as well, are often framed for people who who either want to make money as these, as these kind of exemplary neoliberal, entrepreneurial spaces. Where there’s there’s this cultural sense of the hard I work the better i’ll do
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Mark Johnson: and don’t get me wrong. There is some some truth in that with with with, without a doubt. Um, but that’s more because of how these platforms and how these cultures are structured than any kind of inherent truth. But
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Mark Johnson: if you want to try to make a living on twitch, yeah, if you stream eight hours a day every day of the week. Your you are more likely to make it than if you stream for half an hour once a month, of course. But um! That that takes on a discursive role as well as a pragmatic role, I think, is the thing. Yeah.
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Shlomo Sher: Um, I I want to talk about how about the uh when we talk about labor right? Um uh the platforms themselves uh how to twitch, and you two benefit from the labor of grammar? And And is there anything that we need to think about when it comes to that relationship. Uh, Is it a a
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Mark Johnson: well? Just in the last month on twitch there’s been a lot of backlash, about which, uh reducing the amount of the split of money that top uh streamers will get on switch, as it used to be. The The case that most uh streamers would get a fifty, fifty or so right and then top streamers could negotiate for a slightly better rate. But that’s now. That’s now that’s now been changed, and that got, and that got quite a lot of backlash with people saying, Hang on!
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Mark Johnson: Which is owned by Amazon, and that’s owned by someone who’s rich enough to pay for himself to go into space. I think they can afford to give a little bit more money to their streamers.
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Mark Johnson: Um, and so um I think both, I I think, in the case of Youtube, and in the case of Twitch, but uh, particularly in the case of twitch. Both are essentially monopoly platforms for what they do. If you want to watch pre-recorded, gaming videos, you go to Youtube full stop,
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Mark Johnson: and that’s not the case, for instance, in China it’s not the case, for instance, in a couple of other countries, but in most countries, if you watch gaming videos, you go to Youtube. If you want to watch gaming live teams, you go to twitch There’s no real competitors in most countries for those two platforms, and that, of course, gives gives those platforms a huge amount of power to basically make life slightly worse, slowly but surely over time for for people who work on those platforms, because there’s no alternative
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Shlomo Sher: to go else to go elsewhere. Um! Is can you not uh stream live over uh over Youtube? Does you live on Youtube. Yes, yes. But the number of people who do gaming stream on Youtube is less than one percent to what’s on twitch, and probably less than one percent of one I would wage you. Um. So in in other words, you know, it’s obviously this is not a technology issue. I mean, you could stream live on Facebook, right? Uh, but um
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Shlomo Sher: uh, is this uh monopolies that are stuck around because they were just the you know, the first and the biggest
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Mark Johnson: in large part. Yeah, um, I mean, everyone’s already there. So for instance, yeah, yeah, Mixer came up. I came up a few years years back and tried to challenge. Twitch
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Mark Johnson: um mix, I think, took the wrong approach to trying to challenge twitch, and for the last three years I’ve been trying to write a paper on this, and this might come out one day um like mix to try to challenge twitch by by basically poaching some of the ultra-famous ultra high income ultra superstar people from twitch. But but the issue with that strategic approach was that
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Mark Johnson: it didn’t appreciate that a lot of what keeps people on twitch is the ecosystem of twitch that people have long term subscriptions to twitch streamers that they are. They are. They are used to having all their twitch emojis which they paid for. They are used to being able to move from channel to channel to channel while staying on Twitch
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Mark Johnson: Mixer. Just po just post a few superstars, but it didn’t poach the system of twitch which keeps people in circulation and long-term code commitment to twitch, and some mix of then died um i’m sure twitch could be challenged. But let me generate another ecosystem.
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Shlomo Sher: Right so. But it’s interesting when I, when I think of social media and how you know we all have our friends on social media, and they’re all you know. I mean, you know. Uh, ten years ago it seemed like, you know, Facebook was a monolith, and you know now it’s one of many right. I mean. It seems like
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Shlomo Sher: you know, that when most of these it’s uh, you know, there is the possibility of the public deciding. We want something a little bit different, right? I mean, with with all these things. But um, I think the bigger issue here is, uh,
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Mark Johnson: is this leading to exploitation? Right is uh, because these are virtual monopolies. Are they exploiting without a shadow of a doubt? Um. The particular dynamics of exploitation vary on Youtube and twitch um, and in many ways actually um,
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Mark Johnson: although neither one is, is anything close to being perfect, I think right now. I’ve been trying to say the twitch is slightly more exploitative than Youtube in terms of its gaming content Creators,
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Mark Johnson: I think, in large part, because we
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Mark Johnson: what you’re doing on twitch. To get to that upper level, I think, is slightly more demanding than what you have to do on Youtube to get to that upper level in terms of that liveness in terms of that volume of content. Um, and also because
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Mark Johnson: on Youtube a lot of the monetization methods are slightly more.
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Mark Johnson: I don’t know kind of
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Mark Johnson: more subtle, more or less demanding, perhaps, in that on Youtube, clicking a button, saying, Run some adverts, takes less efforts than on twitch, engaging a fan base. Enough that they actually want to give you money, because this fundamental divide is on twitch. Your income mostly comes from your viewers on Youtube. The money comes from the platform, and then the platform gets the money to give you from the viewers. So it’s a two step thing on Youtube
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Mark Johnson: people. Watch the advert on Youtube and the Youtube gives you money because people watch the adverse on twitch. It’s people give you money,
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Mark Johnson: and that is a fundamental difference, I think, but which is shifting towards doing more adverts right now. Um! And we’ll have to see how that complicates matters, I think, going forward, and our Youtube is also is also pushing more and more people into this sort of subscribe to my channel on Youtube
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A Ashcraft: idea, too. So they’re they’re pushing towards the same level ground.
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Shlomo Sher: Are the people that that? Uh do sponsor? Um. Are they aware of how much uh of what they’re uh paying is going to um the platforms versus the uh. You know the streamers. I would think that they are, and I suspect the Indie game people who sponsor care a lot more about that from the blockbuster game companies who sponsor. No, no, no, I I I mean the uh, the Fans, not not the
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Mark Johnson: erez agmoni, I think now more than ever. There is a decent degree of awareness among fans and viewers, both on twitch gaming and on Youtube gaming. I think There, there’s a greater awareness now than there’s ever been of the labor dynamics of what these platforms are doing. One hundred and fifty,
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Mark Johnson: and just more more broadly like the fact that that these are both multi-billion dollar platforms.
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Mark Johnson: Just demonstrates by itself that people are being exploited because they don’t get the full value from their money, because the platforms are weeping astonishing levels of um of of income from the labour which which people are doing on them. Now I want to push back a little bit against that Right? I mean, you know It’s It’s It’s like pushing back against, You know, uh the critique of capitalism, you know. I mean putting it on. I’m right
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Shlomo Sher: uh, you know. I mean I I I think when we use the word exploitation, there’s um. So you know. The
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Shlomo Sher: The classic kind of idea of exploitation is that I am profiting from your suffering
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Shlomo Sher: right. That’s kind of uh,
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Shlomo Sher: you know, or or I am causing you to suffer so. One kind of exploitation could be like You’re suffering, and i’m kind of uh, you know. Uh, I get to exploit that to to to to um benefit myself, or maybe in the way that I or maybe I even help you.
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Shlomo Sher: Uh, but I uh, in the way I help you. Uh, I am still being benefited, and I get to help you because you are suffering right. Um, For example, if you’re if you’re working eight or ten hour days for six days, a week, for a chance to make a living.
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Mark Johnson: I think my definitely of of exploitation here would go much wider than necessarily causing suffering. I mean, just like all profits of the man and of the man
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Mark Johnson: class in not in in normal jobs, are just stolen wages from workers in the same context. Here i’d say, all profits, that these, that these all profits, that these platform owners are making are coming from the labor people working on the platforms. Um!
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Mark Johnson: So I would take a more. I would take a broader approach here that if you, if you have people who are doing all this work and just about eking out a wage. But the fact that there’s ten thousand also people doing that means the platform is making billions. I think that is extremely exploitative.
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Shlomo Sher: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I definitely don’t see it that way, You know. I I I see you know uh a company that had, you know, this incredibly cool idea, and created something new, and gave uh gave people opportunities
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Shlomo Sher: uh and uh gets to take some sort of cut for that, and I think there’s a question about how much of the cut is fair, but the fact that they get to make tons of money from this I you know I don’t think there’s
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Shlomo Sher: you know anything you know anything wrong with that. Whether it’s fifty percent, Maybe that’s if if that’s a a fair amount, I think, is is
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Shlomo Sher: hard to kind of. I I don’t know if you need to measure it against the labor that people do right. I mean people are making a choice to kind of use this uh platform versus uh, you know, doing other things that they could make.
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A Ashcraft: That would. That would be a lot less fun to do. You’re saying It’s there’s sort of a There’s a a coolness tax
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Shlomo Sher: like I get to do a cool thing. Therefore I guess, should get taxed more by the
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Shlomo Sher: I don’t know, so I I don’t want to take a position on that, because I think. But but that’s That’s not what I mean. I mean simply the fact that they make a lot more money than uh the people on their platform make, I don’t think is itself a problem regardless of the labor involved, plus also. Again, uh, I think the streamers benefit not just in terms of money, but in terms of a lot of other potential things.
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Shlomo Sher: Uh, you know, especially the kind of a you know celebrity, status or fame status, or you know, appealing. Now, mind you, that could also not be a benefit at all. And chasing fame is a stupid thing to do, generally speaking, and these are not the best values for anyone to have, as far as i’m concerned, and I am concerned that you’re gamifying fame through something like twitch um. So you know i’m not all. I’m on. I’m not all the way on board with this, but you know I also think that um
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Shlomo Sher: you know
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Shlomo Sher: it’s interesting that you could be rewarded in A in a bunch of different ways, and not all of them need to be financial, and maybe part of the cool tax might be that you do get these other benefits at the same time, I don’t know. It seems to me that if uh, maybe fifty, fifty is fair,
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A Ashcraft: but at some point you got to say it’s not fair right if it was seventy-three and twenty right at at the point that the uh that that these that these
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A Ashcraft: twitch celebrities start burning out.
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A Ashcraft: That’s when it becomes unfair, but it’s,
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Shlomo Sher: but they’re burning out. They’re not burning out because of the financial scheme that because Twitter takes fifty they’re burning up because they want more and more and more a higher celebrity.
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Mark Johnson: I don’t think I would agree with you on that one. I think, like the platform culture, the platform infrastructure, What people expected to do, the extent to which the platform is taking money, the
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Mark Johnson: the very strong lure of gaming celebrity, and doing, gaming as a job, which is, I mean, which is being forced and kind of discursively structured and presented by platforms like twitch, as something which should be a kind of
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Mark Johnson: as spatial goal, Right? All those things matter, and I and I think in turn, and I did a piece on this a few years back. Um like in in turn. All this needs to be situated within a wider context of contracting job opportunities for young people in general. But, Um! It’s increasingly hard to find long term work. It’s increasingly hard to find work that doesn’t pay you a pittance or or doesn’t in, or does not expect you to be on the back of a bike for twelve hours a day,
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Mark Johnson: sending people pizzas um like
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Mark Johnson: I don’t think we I I don’t think we can say that
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Mark Johnson: I don’t think we can, because if someone wants to pursue twitch, and they do so, and they suffer so for some, some some negative effects. I think it’s long to say that’s entirely on that person, because they are working in a set of conditions, a set of issues, a global climate, which
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Mark Johnson: encourages them significantly towards that, because of the absence of secure long term, well-paying work, and because they perceive quite rightly that if they do in a quotes. Make it in this job. Yes, there’s a lot of labor and stress, and so on. The man’s. But you are still making your living, playing video games on the Internet and in many ways that’s pretty amazing. Um. So I don’t think we can put all responsibility on these people when they are within a system like I think it goes back to um. What?
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Mark Johnson: What? What? Marx once said that? Um! And we we made a one out twenty minutes in the foribing of marks. So that’s quite good. I think that people make their own choices, but in situations not of their own choosing,
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Mark Johnson: and that, I think is the fundamental thing here that Yes, of course, people are choosing to go on switch, and they and maybe choosing to put in the time and labor to try and make this into a job, but they didn’t choose to be put into global economic and labor conditions where this seems appealing or where the issues with their work on twitch seem less than the issues they might have in other jobs.
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Shlomo Sher: I I look, I mean, I definitely think that again, when I was talking about the gamification of of everything right? Uh: I definitely think that there are some things here socially that are that are a really big deal right. But you know I also think that for for many streamers the choice is not a really poor job market.
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Shlomo Sher: Uh, and you know, being pushed into this as a possibility. It seems it’s it’s simply looks awesome, you know. I mean you’re They’re lowered by things that that they want. But I I think the situation is really complicated when it comes to assigning blame like that, and that, you know,
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Shlomo Sher: I look. I think free will is really complicated and personal responsibility in the world where so much of where you are as a product of luck. Uh, and the society that you happen to be in, and the economic system that you happen to be in.
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Shlomo Sher: I I think those are really complicated questions. That’s That’s why we leave Mark still an hour and twenty in all right. Uh guys, this is probably a good time to to cause, you know I had some more question. But I think this is this is probably a good time to uh to call it Um, so uh mark um!
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Shlomo Sher: This has been fascinating all the way through. Uh, what do you want to leave our listeners with right? So uh let’s see if you could do it uh under a minute. So uh
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Shlomo Sher: but, by the way, mark the the reason under a minute uh has to do with uh what my wife told me about new constraints on Youtube, where you can get a little video. So there you go, right. The platform decides this where you could get a video under a minute
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Shlomo Sher: as long as it’s. Literally, it can’t be sixty seconds. It has to be under a minute. You can put on Youtube shorts, and all of a sudden it can get a lot more exposure. So you know it determines the way we do things in one minutes. Okay,
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Mark Johnson: erez agmoni Twitch and Youtube have become massive new sites for people to make livings on, but also to kind of shape and mediate what gaming is, and what gaming cultures, and what matters in gaming, and all these sorts of things, and one hundred and one,
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Mark Johnson: and there’s, I think, a lot of good which these sites do. And there’s a lot which people get from these in terms of culture in terms of social Latin games in terms of seeing games they by not be able to see, and all these sorts of things. But I don’t think we can overlook that in terms of labor, in terms of sponsorships. Um in terms of what people doing in their lives Um! In terms of the platforms in terms of the Um economic and the on
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Mark Johnson: entrepreneurial as aspects here, I think there’s a lot of a lot of key mole questions around. What what stream is doing on these sites. How viewers are interacting on these sites, how the platforms treat people on their sites! I think this is a complex and very contested domain. I think that was about a minute. There you go,
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Shlomo Sher: all right, Mark Johnson. Well said, all right, guys uh good podcast uh play nice. Everybody.
