Article:

Watching the Game: Video Games as a Function of Performance and Spectatorship

This article deals with non-playing video game audience cultures and their relationships to the gaming experience. We begin by identifying some primary motivating factors behind game spectatorship, including video games’ relationship to other media such as sport and film. The article then proceeds to discuss video games specifically as enacted narratives and their impact as potential audience-friendly media. We conclude by taking another look at the current industrial/theoretical perspective of the medium and assess the possible implications non-playing game audiences may have upon video games as a developing field.