“From Digital Play to Digital Labour: The Lives and Careers of Professional Video Gamers”

Dr. Mark Johnson, Killam Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Political Science, University of Alberta.

In 2017 approximately one hundred and fifty million people watched the live broadcast of other people playing video games on Twitch.tv, the dominant market-leader in the area. This talk examines the lives and careers of those who make a full-time living playing and broadcasting video games on Twitch, with a focus on four elements.

♦ Who are these people and how did they enter this career path?
♦ What is the everyday labour of live streaming or Esports play like?
♦ How do these individuals make a living?
♦ What is the likely future of these career paths?

Mark has interviewed over one hundred professional gamers; observed hundreds of hours of online ethnographics and ethnographies of almost a dozen major gaming events in the USA, UK, Germany and Poland in the past two years.