Watch me play: Live streaming, computer games, and the future of spectatorship
T.L. Taylor, Center for Computer Games Research, IT University of Copenhagen
Tuesday, June 5, 12:30 pm
Griswold Hall, Room 110
Computer gaming has long been a social activity, complete with forms of spectatorship. With the growth of live-streaming the boundaries of audience are shifting. Professional e-sports players and amateurs alike are broadcasting their play online and in turn growing communities. But interesting issues lurk around notions of audience (and revenue), IP and licensing, and the governance and management of these spaces. This talk will present some preliminary inquiries into this emerging intersection of "social media," gaming, and broadcasting.
About TL
T.L. Taylor is Associate Professor in the Center for Computer Games Research and a founding member of the Center for Network Culture at the IT University of Copenhagen. She has been working in the field of internet and multi-user studies for over fifteen years and has published on topics such as play and experience in online worlds, values in design, intellectual property, co-creative practices, avatars and digital embodiment, gender and gaming, and e-sports.
Her new book about professional computer gaming, Raising the Stakes:E-Sports and the Professionalization of Computer Gaming (MIT Press, 2012) has just been published. She is also the author of Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture (MIT Press, 2006) which used her multi-year ethnography of EverQuest to explore issues related to massively multiplayer spaces. Her co-authored handbook on ethnography and virtual worlds (Princeton University Press) will be out summer 2012.