“Nerds of a Feather”: Homophilic Drivers of Worldwide Video Game Viewership on Twitch

ABSTRACT

Twitch is a global online live streaming platform which is redefining how user-generated video content is produced and consumed. Streamers in countries all over the world have flocked to Twitch to broadcast themselves playing video games or engaging in other activities. Twitch has the potential to generate significant revenues for successful streamers. However, despite worldwide explosive growth in Twitch streamers, the number of streamers who actually gather a large enough viewer base to be called popular is rather small. This study examines these successful streamers and attempts to explain global Twitch viewership based on homophily and the tendencies of viewers to gravitate to streamers who seem most like themselves. A model of Twitch viewership is developed and tested based on four aspects of homophily. Ultimately, a Poisson panel regression analysis of data gathered on 207 of the most popular Twitch streamers from 27 countries shows that streamers who actively promote homophily in its various forms through their streaming practices have accrued a greater number of viewers than those who do not. The research’s implications for streamers, the Twitch platform itself, and researchers are also discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• homophily
• panel data
• Poisson regression
• social media
• streaming
• Twitch

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [MC], upon reasonable request.

Notes

1. From https://www.statista.com/chart/16211/monthly-video-game-industry-sales/ Accessed on 1/19/2023.

2. https://www.opensignal.com/reports/2019/01/usa/mobile-network-experience Accessed on January 21st, 2021

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes on contributors

Ravi Thambusamy

Ravi Thambusamy is an Assistant Professor of Information Technology and Cybersecurity at Missouri State University. His research interests include online social networking, health informatics, information security, and business analytics. He has previously published research in these areas in Information Systems (IS) journals including Information Systems Frontiers, Behaviour & Information Technology, Journal of Computer Information Systems, Computers in Human Behavior, to name a few. He received the Association of Business Information Systems (ABIS) McGraw-Hill Education Distinguished paper award in 2016. He currently teaches intro to Java Programming, intro to.NET development with C#, advanced C#, and mobile app development for Android OS at the undergraduate level, and web application security at the graduate level.

E. Mitchell Church

E. Mitchell Church is an Associate Professor of Information Systems in the E. Craig Wall Sr. College of Business Administration at Coastal Carolina University. His research interests include online consumer behavior and the economic value of social media information. His research has been published in academic journals including Electronic Commerce Research, Computers in Human Behavior, the Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, Information Systems Management, Journal of Computer Information Systems, and others. Dr. Church has also authored and presented work for national and international conferences including the Americas Conference for Information Systems (AMCIS), the International Conference for Information Systems (ICIS) and the Conference on Information Systems and Technology (CIST). His current teaching interests include the Management of Information Systems and Information Systems Project Management.