Years ago, we watched our sons play through a video game. It was a game that was a good choice for having an audience – The Last of Us – because it is visually beautiful and tells a compelling story. It’s such a good story, it got made into a TV series.

When I first posted about this experience, I noted how watching other people play games developed into a pastime with the rise of the Millennial generation. It started with late-wave Gen Xers in the early console gaming era, when video gaming entered the living room, where people were already used to gathering around the TV. With a limited number of game controllers, some people in the living room became spectators.

In the modern “convergence” era, with the Internet now ensconced in our living spaces, and travelling with us wherever we go, there are a myriad of ways to join in with others online and enjoy the gaming hobby. For example, there are countless groups on Facebook where people post pictures of their games in progress, or seek advice on what games to play. Gaming has graduated from the basements of Stranger Things nerds and into the mainstream, and become part of the social media experience.

You can easily watch other people play games online, even live. On YouTube, there’s a popular channel where minor celebrities play board games and tabletop roleplaying games. For video games, there’s a platform called Twitch, where someone playing a game can share their screen for an audience, who can chime in with advice or commentary on a connected group text chat. It’s basically like what we were doing as a family in our living room (watching the boys play a video game), except online and with a potentially much larger audience. We can easily bring up a web browser on our living room TV, so it really is the culmination of TV/Internet convergence for us.

I have an ulterior motive for bringing up Twitch – two of our boys have started live streaming on the platform. If you have any interest in watching (or maybe are already a Twitch user), please check them out. If you are on Twitch, you can give them a “Follow” to boost them.

Our eldest son goes by Purpulous, and is currently live streaming a space exploration mystery adventure called Outer Wilds. He’s also known to do Dead by Daylight, a survival horror game. He is currently working on a schedule of streaming every Thursday and Sunday in the evening.

Our nephew goes by krotronic, and doesn’t have a declared schedule I know of; he tends to stream on Tuesday or Wednesday in the evening. He has been playing some very funny Burger King themed video games so far – who knows what else he’ll do.

They are both a lot of fun to listen to while they play, really good and narrating their experience and keeping you engaged – the particular skill set of the live stream video gamer.

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