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Fortnite streamers as influencers: A study on gamers’ perceptions - Coggle…

- - - - Type of in-game items
        
        Functional Props, items that can modify gameplay.
        
        Decorative Props, items that serve only aesthetic purposes.
      - Focus on specific experiences these items have impact on
        
        Achievement
        
        Importance: Achievement in combination with social interaction is listed as one of the main motives to play among male non-problematic players (Kneer and Glock 2013).
        
        Definition: Achievement is a notable feeling when players fulfill some conditions in the game, for example completing challenges or unlocking new items.
        
        Enjoyment
        
        Definition: Enjoyment is the feeling of satisfaction or fun during playing.
        
        Identity Building
        
        Definition: Identity building refers to the ways in which gamers construct their online identity in a game.
        
        These experiences all relate to in-game purchases in short-term or long-term way, and can be affected by streamers online.
    - - The notion of influencers as a research topic has been widely explored with early quantitative research by Goldsmith and Clark (2008) showing strong positive effects for purchase intentions due to opinion leaders in comparison to traditional advertising techniques.
      - In this case, the streamers are the influencers. And how do streamers influence/attract gamers in this specific situation? Why do they become influencers? The paper exibits three aspects.
        
        Attractiveness
        
        Attractiveness refers to how relatable the streamer and the content that is shared is to the user. There are also some subparts relating to attractiveness.
        
        Tension release refers to the entertainment value of the stream as a means of relieving stress.
        
        Information seeking refers to users’ desire to improve their gameplay.
        
        Social/personal integration refers to the sense of community one gets from engaging in a streamer’s video and relating it to their own experience with the game.
        
        Sjöblom and Hamari (2017) add an emotional dimension to this model by also identifying that users seek to get emotional satisfaction from streams through entertainment value from high-level visually pleasing gameplay.
        
        Trustworthiness
        
        How likely will a gamer put trust on the streamer. Factors that contribute to trustworthiness:
        
        A study by De Veirman et al. (2017) found that perceived popularity encourages trustworthiness, which touches on the notion of reputation.
        
        Essentially gamers would be more likely to trust a streamer if there are perceived similarities between the gamer and streamer, and this will likely lead to the gamer consuming more of this content as well as sharing it in their network.
        
        Greenheck et al. (2018) state that for messages to be perceived positively special attention should be given to ensure that the message content and influencer values align in order to ensure authenticity and trustworthiness in the audiences.
        
        Expertise
        
        Expertise, how good does this streamer play and understand the game.
        
        Expertise was found to be a positive influence on source credibility in the study conducted by Pornpitakpan (2004a), which highlights that perceived expertise leads to positive attitudes towards the endorser and advertised good or service.
        
        In this sense expertise is linked to credibility but is also a separate dimension by which users evaluate influencers.
- - - - Twelve semi-structured interviews of approximately 45 min were conducted from April 1st -May 31st 2019.
      - The interviews were first conducted and recorded, then transcribed verbatim using Temi, a transcription service tool. The transcriptions of each interview were uploaded into Atlas. ti for the process of coding.
      - For this study thematic content analysis was used to analyze the in-depth semi-structured qualitative interviews.
      - Thematic analysis was chosen for this project because it emphasizes the “context of the material being analyzed and allows for both an inductive and deductive form of analysis” (Vaismoradi et al. 2013, p. 399) meaning that themes can be found based on previous literature as well as be formed from the current study allowing for greater flexibility in the analysis.
        
        A systematic process of thematic content analysis was used to analyze the transcripts of the 12 in-depth semi-structured interviews.
        
        First, during transcription of the interviews preliminary ideas for codes were noted for future use.
        
        Secondly, the initial codes were created, interesting features of data were systematically coded across the data set in an exhaustive manner in order to reach data saturation (Braun and Clarke as cited in Vaismoradi et al. 2013).
        
        Coding was primarily theory-driven, so the third step, searching for themes (selective codes) and sub-themes (axial codes) was more structured than the previous level of open coding.
        
        The data in this stage revealed 3 overarching themes or selective codes with 3–4 sub themes or axial codes per theme. The themes created were exhaustive and contained all open codes created.
    - - Interviewees were sourced using a mix of purposeful, snowball and convenience sampling (Flick 2007).
        
        Purposeful sampling was used because the participants of the research were required to be regular Fortnite gamers, and regular consumers of streamer’s YouTube videos. If one of the requirements were not met, the participant would be unable to provide the necessary understanding of the phenomena.
        
        In order to ensure there was an equal number of female and male participants, female-specific gaming groups were contacted through Facebook with no response. Due to this all participants in this research were male. However the player base of Fortnite is 72% male (Gough 2018), so this makes it interesting to pay more attention to male players in this specific context.
      - The most frequent streamer noted was SypherPK known primarily for his educational strategic videos on Fortnite game mechanics and Tfue was known primarily for being the top Fortnite gamer and professional player. Nickmercs was the third most mentioned streamer due to his comedic emphasis in his Fortnite YouTube videos, as such participants would mainly consume his content for entertainment purposes.
- - - - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1609406917733847
      - In a Phase, the researchers listed 71 documents, 117 interview transcripts and 15 observation field notes. In comparison to the Thematic Analysis conducted in this paper, the difference is obvious.
  - - - Thematic analysis is a flexible approach to qualitative analysis that enables researchers to generate new insights and concepts derived from data. One of many benefits of thematic analysis is that novice researchers who are just learning how to analyze qualitative data will find thematic analysis an accessible approach.
    - - Because thematic analysis is such a flexible approach, it means that there are many different ways to interpret meaning from the data set. It can feel intimidating to interpret what data is or isn’t important to emphasize.
      - Furthermore, since thematic analysis focuses on looking for patterns across interviews, phenomena that occur in only one individual account can be overlooked.
    - - But I don’t think the researcher was showing patterns, the researchers mainly showed insights based on individual opinions and expressions. (Again showing codes from multiple silimiar comments can help others examine the pattern)
      - The conclusions make some sense and are logical, but I think the researcher should support them more by showing the similar opinions across different gamers linking to one conclusion.
    - - Same. The researchers are not showing the part demonstrating the involvements of participants.
      - Of course, it may not be practical to involve the participants during the analysis process considering the tedious process of analyzing the huge amount of data.
  - - - For example, streamers in China have a large number of fans that generate a huge group with great power. An influencer can have a great impact on society by expressing his/her opinions. (Positive or Negative) And in the aspect of the game, an influencer can also change other players in ways other than playing the game, for example, would an influencer influence the player’s opinion on trolling behaviors? I think by conducting more interviews, this kind of information can arise.
        
        One stremer called "White" had gained great popularity in streaming, owning over 1 million watchers everyday.
        
        The days that time were crazy, you can literally see the floating texts filling the screen, they are all live comments by the audiences.
        
        But the Golden Age for White didn't last long, during a game, he showed extrodinary ability to lock and take down enemies, which make people doubt if he was having a cheating program.
        
        After that, a huge wave of battling began, where loads of people try to take down this number one Streamer in China that time, in which way they can gain more popularity.
        
        However, the battle suddenly ended because the streamer was trying to earn his own right by instigate young teenagers, an action that is dangerous in National Radio and Television Administration's opinons, so they banned the streamer at all.
        
        The wave was super huge, during which almost everyone knowing the streamers was talking about the event, some get into arguing situations on social platforms.
  - - - For example, some streamers in china may host special events or game lobbies for players to join randomly, and the process can be super exciting to watch
      - And the people who watch this kind of stream may get attracted to the game and finally get to play it afterwards.