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Game Livestreaming Explodes, But Women Are Less Likely To Be Paid Than Men (venturebeat.com)
A new study by game research firm SuperData Research and payment company PayPal found that eSports and game videos are driving explosive growth in livestreams. But PayPal also found a gender imbalance in pay. Women are less likely to be paid for their streams than men. VentureBeat reports: PayPal said that 34 percent of livestream viewers in the U.S. have spent more than $50 on livestream content in the past few months. But despite the growth in spending, almost half of women content creators (43 percent globally, 47 percent in the U.S.) don't get paid for what they create. The U.S. had the largest gender pay gap of the countries surveyed: Almost half as many men (24 percent) do not get paid for content they create. Globally, active paying gamers polled shop across 14 different gaming platforms and nearly 30 different storefronts over the last three months, an incredible variety.
In the U.S., respondents surveyed purchased from 26 different gaming storefronts -- the third most in the world, behind Russia (27), and Australia and Canada (28 each). While Steam is highly popular among millennials globally (31 percent buy from Steam), GameStop was resoundingly popular, with 45 percent of U.S. millennial respondents reporting shopping there for gaming content. In most countries, in-game spending is within a few dollars of average spend on full games. Surprisingly, in-game spending is skewing higher among older U.S. players: those aged 35-and-over have spent $50 on average, compared to $40 for those aged 18 to 34. Meanwhile, younger gamers are spending more in full-game downloads: $63, versus $48 for gamers 35-and-over.
In the U.S., respondents surveyed purchased from 26 different gaming storefronts -- the third most in the world, behind Russia (27), and Australia and Canada (28 each). While Steam is highly popular among millennials globally (31 percent buy from Steam), GameStop was resoundingly popular, with 45 percent of U.S. millennial respondents reporting shopping there for gaming content. In most countries, in-game spending is within a few dollars of average spend on full games. Surprisingly, in-game spending is skewing higher among older U.S. players: those aged 35-and-over have spent $50 on average, compared to $40 for those aged 18 to 34. Meanwhile, younger gamers are spending more in full-game downloads: $63, versus $48 for gamers 35-and-over.
Is it that people prefer to buy content made by men over women? Do they know ahead of time who created the content or is it that somehow the content created by men is chosen more often without the buyer being aware of the creators sex? Is it that maybe women chose to give more free content away? The numbers in the article can be interpreted in many different ways depending on what other assumptions you make.
A female streamer has 100x easier time growing a viewer base then any male streamer has and its pretty much a fact. So chances are they will likely get more in donations of subs then male will get.
Who wants to watch a stream of Farmville, the Sims, or Bejewelled? (I kid, I kid!)
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Maybe they just need better training.
You mean game developers? Those are entirely different people.
Ezekiel 23:20
Newsflash: Men are less likely to be paid for webcam stripshows. See anyone complaining about that?
It seems to contradict my personal observation. I know a few streamers and women seem to have a much easier time, provided that they are reasonably attractive. So, where is the catch?
Maybe my observation are just annectodal? Maybe women are proportionally more likely than men to stream, men are more likely to stream only if they can make money out of it? Or maybe the study is flawed in some way.
In particular, what is a "video game content creator"? Is anyone with a twitch account and a single video considered a streamer, does it count only people who can monetize, which typically requires a certain amount of views? It can make a huge difference since many streamers don't get paid simply because viewers simply don't have the option to pay them. Also, there are many ways of getting paid: subscriptions, donations, sponsorship, patreon, merch... which ones are taken into account?
This could only have been written by somebody who barely even knows what streaming is. Almost everyone tries it at some point. The proportion of those who establish regular output is miniscule. Of those, the proportion that gets paid off either gender is half of a nothing. You know who does get paid, very consistently? Titty streamers. Everyone knows this. Twitch doesn't bother them because they're one of the biggest income streams. This shit is fake. It's propaganda, plain and simple.
This is usually a very important criteria when it comes to assessing a gender pay gap. So did they compare what kind of games the streamers played, what kind of commentaries they made while playing?
Not all games have the same popularity among viewers. Sometimes it also counts who streamed what first. The commentary offered during streaming also seems to be an important part of this. From personal experience I know that some people have a knack for delivering entertaining commentary. I'm inclined to give them some money in exchange for their services. On the other side of the spectrum you have people who are downright annoying. If I had to give them money I'd do it to make them shut up and just play the game. But why pay them if you can close the stream instead? There's so much competition to choose from out there. At times it can't even be blamed on the individual streamer because some voices are more pleasant to listen to than others. But that's how the world of entertainment works.
All important factors that have to be considered when disproving your null hypothesis here. So if there's a large overlap in content between male and female gamers, meaning that they play the same games and offer similar commentary, all while females get considerable less donations, then we'd have a gender pay gap here and may need to look into the causes for this. Maybe they did look for this, but I'm just incapable of finding it. I'd appreciate it if someone pointed me into the right direction here. Because without this due diligence has not been done correctly and makes it look like they jumped to conclusions.
Aye. I read the article and thought, "how is there enough data here to draw any kind of conclusion at all?" They don't seem to have controlled for anything whatsoever. Although, it's hard to tell since I can't seem to find a link to the actual research.
While I don't see any immediate reason to conclude the data was collected with the intent to show that gamers are sexist, I would not at all be surprised if "everyone" ignores how weak the science appears to be here, and we end up with a ton of articles citing this article to "prove" just that.
It's probably due to women on the whole being aggressive about monetizing their streams.
Most Twitch streams are free to watch, everything is just donations and monetization of things like special emotes (graphics that briefly appear on stream) or having your message read out by text-to-speech bots. So the streamer has to set all that stuff up and promote it to some extent, e.g. by reacting to it and interacting with people who donate.
Also, streamers can make money from special events like all-nighters or by simply streaming 6 days a week (I watch some Mario streamers who do that, 60 hours/week). Subscriptions are for a period of time, rather than a certain number of hours worth of streaming, so long hours worked provides better value to the subscriber at the expense of work/life balance.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
We JUST had this posted less than 24 hours ago?
https://news.slashdot.org/stor...
You're still posting politics / identity politics warfare here?
When will you people get that the *vast majority* of what few remaining members you have on this site aren't interested in this. It's not relevant to this website or fitting to what people STILL COME HERE FOR.
I'm not trying to oppress women, join an MRA group or any other such ridiculous thing, I just want to come here for absolute tech news and articles of interest, ideally which are logical, scientific and consistent, not stuff which is a matter of varying opinions on if they are true, or politically based.
I'll take the bait though, I'll take it.
Are you guys genuinely claiming that you think women streamers make less than men or are paid less?
There could be dozens of reasons, let me list some.
Women may be less likely to try streaming due to whining / abuse / harassment from some kiddies.
Despite the pushy lying articles about video games, women are by far NOT 50% or over 50% of the market.
Seeing as most people watching streamers are men, they may prefer to watch men, depending on type of humour, type of game played, perhaps itâ(TM)s just the dedication, men can be quite obsessive about things.
Then weâ(TM)ve got my main point, the âboob factorâ(TM) thereâ(TM)s without a doubt a large consistency of very dull, very simple streamers who wear revealing clothing, play games, poorly, squeal now and then, âaccidentallyâ(TM) bend over in revealing clothing and they really are offering a lower quality product than many dedicated male streamers. HOWEVER they clean up, for obvious reasons (Sex sells)
This is also bad for other women streamers who just want to play legitimately without using their bodies to get viewers, they get hassled by kids who think all women streamers are boobs out.
To imply that this is as simple as just a plain sexism thing of man vs woman thing, is insane, the differences vary far more than just the bloody gender of the streamer.
This political stuff needs to stop being posted here, itâ(TM)s ramped up IMMENSELY in the last 18 months and Iâ(TM)m seeing more and more pissed off Slashdot posters due to it.
Granted, so does the original article, which also goes on to discuss esports as a monetization opportunity. So, the article itself is about three things, and in both the article and the summary, the gender-bias topic of the headline is actually the shortest part!
I'm left to assume that the pay-gap component was slapped onto a rather dry piece about retail and esports in order to draw eyes.
Also that the summary is a mess that needs re-editing.
Reasonable statement. Which actually requires a proof that a problem exists in the first place. As far as I have seen there is no proof of sex based discrimination.
All the facts I have seen show that women are worse at gaming then men and get more views then men of comparable skill.
Like the old polish guy said "How many men you need to skip to get to the first woman in chess?".
In other news, man don't buy products specifically tailored to females. Like beauty products and what not. Clearly case of matriarchy.
We need to fix it NOW. We need to stop matriarchy!!! How many man beutician do you know? Dominated by females. Females have higher salaries. We need to STOP IT NOW.
We need to immediately sack 51% of all females from beauty practice and hire man there!!! Not only that, we need to increase male salary above average, as on average right now beauty practitioners male get lower salary. STOP MATRIARCHY!
Yeah, we can also use 'pick and choose' tactics, bitch.
Also, where can I meet your wife?
Isn't livestream an example of free selection rather than some evil cadre of boys trying to keep women in their place?
I couldn't care less about live-streaming of anything at all, but I've noticed definite differences between how men and women view, play and relate to video games. It's not surprising to me that women are less popular to watch amongst my peer group, I can't stand listening to most of them. First of all because most women live-streamers are half my age, creating at the very least a generation divide, second because how they interact with games does not at all resemble how I want to interact with them. If I watch a livestream, which is very rare, I'm looking for someone who is taking apart the mechanics and min-maxing. That is not very common amongst most female livestreamers that I've seen, who either because of age or gender are usually more interested in the cosmetics. They're out there, but it seems like about 1/20 of the male population based on a sample size of about 200.
The article also left out statistics about game purchases by gender, focusing instead on age. Female streamers would likely be more popular and relatable to female gamers. I still do not see anything even remotely like a representative gender representation in gaming. Certainly not in my peer group, but I've noticed even with my kids the girls just aren't playing as much. It's *better* than when I was a kid, but it's still vastly skewed towards boys.
So no, I don't see any real problem here, except that female representation in video games continues to be low, but in an environment where the females can exert their own free will. No one is forcing them to play or not play, no one is selecting them unfairly. They're simply choosing not to. That's not a problem, except to marketing who would like their bucks. And marketing is clearly failing to earn them.
But there isn't a problem. There is no right being violated, nor violence perpetrated in this situation. If women underperform men in some area, so fucking what?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
more women rake in lots of dosh on instagram and such than men do.
Also don't mention it because they might try to make instagram appeal to men, and there's no universe where that goes well.
I am all for promoting workplace equality when it comes to situations where applicant may be treated unfairly. But when it comes to free selection, we're talking about marketing. I don't think there's anything wrong with segmentation, one size never fits all equally well. If anything video games in particular have already become too homogenized and generic. They've really fallen hard since the 90s, thanks to too-large budgets and attempts to appeal to too generic of an audience.
I can't believe anyone gets paid for this shit. This is narcissists splatting their lame lives on the Internet for all to see. It's a way of boosting your ego through likes or thumbs up or +1s or whatever. Maybe women get more value out of the ego boost.
I can take this as the monetization algorithm may be programmed with an accidental sexist bias.
There is no algo, at least on Twitch which is by far the largest platform. Streams are monetized by tips (viewer give money directly or via a virtual currency they buy from twitch), subscriptions the user buys to get access to features such as streamer-specific emotes (that the streamer creates and uploads themselves), or ads which are user-targeted. In addition streamers can use patreon or gamewisp for outside subs (if they are not a partner or affiliate with access to Twitch subs), referral links in their descriptions, etc.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
They have more money to spend. That's not 'skewing', its just a fact. It doesn't surprise me at all that millennials prefer video games to real activities.
No. We're not talking about playing videogames. We're talking about WATCHING OTHERS play video games. Because that's sooo hard work.
Virtual Virtual Skeetball anyone?
bickerdyke
I would had assumed the situation was the other way around because so many girls stream showing off their bodies and I'd expect a bunch of guys to pay for that and their dancing and such.
And i would still have no problem with that because it's a free market and if a girl can well that and a man is willing to pay for it then go ahead.
Now since this seem to indicate that's not the case but doesn't tell shit about why except mentioning gender which by itself is unlikely the case I'll just assume it's a difference in quality. And I have no problem with others paying for what they like and not for what they don't like either.
There is no problem here regardless of outcome and there's nothing to be fixed. A fix could be to grab a bunch of money and give them out equally to all but that would be unfair and pay for trash content as well which is bad. That would need a fix and solution in ending socialism.
Girl streams are in many cases JUST because it's a girl (see Humble Bundle streams for instance. At least that's the impression I get. Same with the Overwatch charity stream event) or its girls showing of their body one way or the other like Lilith.
The later isn't really a game stream. A drunk girl occasionally dancing and showing boobs. It's a girl stream.
Maybe there's more money to be had in actual game streams than stripper streams weird as that may be.
I figure many of the guys streaming games do it to stream the actual game rather than themselves. That may originally be the intention for the girls too but it's easier to get more attention if you look pretty and show off. Maybe that was also the case for PewDiePie. I'm sure a good gamer of both could get views for simply being good at the game.
Anyway more men play video games and play more of it and more are good at it and so on. Competition is harder and of course some will be very good and likely to be the best in what they do.
Lilith don't even play at much of the time.
She drink vodka and occasionally dances.
She may play but she's also a girl full of vodka so imagine how interesting that game play is ...
...accidental sexist bias.
Translation: X doesn't want to do Y so the thing that works for measuring productivity for literally EVERY ONE ELSE ON THE PLANET must be biased.
People searching click on the first results they find with the correct game name?
Study why some content creators are getting watched.
Is it new people finding the results? Returning viewers?
Is it their skill? The type game they play? Their ability to talk well of a game and having a real understanding of related game history?
An ability to encode their game play in a better way that streams to a more professionals standard?
People just return to the first person they found in the past and like the game play and stay with that person?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Odd... Some articles claim exactly the opposite. Caught bullshitting again? Perhaps you could give real, concrete examples for your side.
The summary make it seem like this is a chance of the average streamer rather than the extremes / the complete money hoarding for each sex.
But if it was the later it would hardly be surprising since more men play more video games more often and at a higher level with more of them reaching the top and likely more of them doing streams with more viewed hours and more connectivity and all that somehow most likely lead to more money.
But that would explain why men get more money than women from game streams together as a group.
It wouldn't explain why women as streaming individuals get less. I would assume they got more because sex sell. But maybe they simply stream less. Or are less competitive and hence not interesting enough even though they are girls. Or maybe just maybe it could also be that people actually not watch them because they assume girl streams are in a way they don't like (cam girl rather than gamer) and hence don't watch them which by leftist definition likely could be "unfair" but really so could getting more views because you look hot too so whatever.
Regardless it's not a problem. Let me market decide.
Show their tits in an inset livestream.
That would be a quick way to get banned from most LiveStreaming sites who have Community Rules in place designed to maintain standards of professionalism, and prohibit content that would be considered Unsafe for younger viewers (Ages 13 to 18) or get their sites classified into X-rated categories by web filtering companies.
so long hours worked provides better value to the subscriber at the expense of work/life balance.
Not really... there are a certain number of hours a week that provide value.
Subscription is free, so you can't really attribute a "Value" to the subscription or say that More Stream hours = More Value; that doesn't make sense.
Beyond a certain number hours per week -- I don't even WANT to watch.
Some people are more enjoyable to watch for 3 hours, than others would be to watch for 8 hours.
Long streams, especially get monotonous, and people are likely to lose interest and watch a fraction of the stream.
The best value (IMO) for subscribers comes from frequent short streams which have variety in that they focus on interesting things and not a long grind or repetitive stuff, such as repeatedly trying and failing to complete the same super-duper-ultra-insanely-hard feat, but a lower total number of hours....
In other words: lower viewing hours, BUT make those viewing hours count and show off the player's very best. Don't try to make me watch you practice, learn, and correct errors for 8 hours; I want to see mainly camera-ready performances.
Call it what it is - an earnings gap. If you control all relevant factors (experience, education, time at job, hours worked, etc) the "gap" is +/- 5% depending on the field. All the basis that everyone uses for the pay gap is avaerage pay for the gender as a whole.
I can take this as the monetization algorithm may be programmed with an accidental sexist bias.
That's equivalent to saying "humans have accidental sexist bias", because the typical methods of monetization are (1) Viewer Donations/"Gratuities" -- Voluntary payments made by viewers - sometimes for a token benefit such as an Acknowledgement by the gamer "e.g. Thank you so much, jellomizer for the $5" or Access to exclusive materials such as a Badge or Adornment visible when chatting or Custom Emoticon that can be used in chat only by Supporters or in the Process of making the donation such as through "Cheering", (2) Advertising, (3) Sponsorships, with (1) being the most prevalent by far.
So you would be saying that --- despite viewers being both Male and Female, the viewers are sexist and choose to prefer to watch Male livestreams, and if they watch Female livestreams, then overall they donate less?
Why would anyone pay for that when pornhub is a click away?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
I don't see how this is really news. For the most part streamers rely on Twitch subscribers and Patreon donations. People support who they want to. You can't really force people to support creators they don't like so any disparity in income levels is simply market driven.
And though I watch streamers of both genders, I actually watch more female streamers (and my Patreon support is about 70%/30% split between females and males, respectively). Still, who people choose to support is their own decision.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
You are a pig. No two ways about it. A sick and disgusting pig, with pig slop for brains.
Implied in your first statement is this thought: "Men only think with their sexual organs and are completely incapable of acting in a way that is not related to sexual attraction to women."
This blatantly false idea underlies a number of incorrect narratives. Quit spreading it. It's not true.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
The people I know that watch streams are doing it to learn something about the game they currently are not capable of doing. They are accelerating their learning, gaining skills, practicing observational learning, and then going to play their own games and implement and practice those things they watched.
If this is the case in larger sets than the small sample size of the ones I know about then the issue may be the skill of female gamers.
If this is the case I am sure we can get someone to start a government funded project to make female gamers better so they can make more money.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Subscription is free
Um, what? Following is free, subscriptions costs money. If we're talking about Twitch anyway.
Using sexist, trolling terms like "fragile masculinity" deserve to be modded down. You are lucky the free-speech you want to restrict is still valued here, or you would have been banned long ago.
No I'm human.
I never said only. So I'd say no to that. However I take it for granted that cute looking streamers of equal level as ugly ones get more viewers. And that's not because of the game play. And I'm likely correct. Which make me nothing except correct.
You seem to have a very strong opinion and claim a lot for something you haven't proven whatsoever.
Feel free to show me the evidence these young girls aren't getting more viewers and interaction because of sexual interaction. Though that would seem like a complete waste to even try.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2...
Go watch for the PUBG content.
It was modded down because it is wrong. Feminists have been bitching loudly over tha last year that mens razors are cheaper than womens. Not the other way around.
Ive only watched a couple of women streamers. One was foul mouthed for no reason which makes me stop watching, also just sat in a beanbag chair and sucked at the game.
The others were extremely foul mouthed, which nothing makes me turn a streamer off faster than someone that does nothing but swear while playing a game. Occational when you make a mistake is fine everyone does it. But a constant stream of vulgarity for no reason. Nope got no time for that.
It's probably due to women on the whole being aggressive about monetizing their streams.
No, it's due to the fact that women are now cheaper than ever for every man; if all they have to offer over streaming is their looks then they are competing with "free", because there's enough free videos, streams and images of naked and attractive women on the internet.
If they want to get the same donations (not viewership, but donations) as males then they are going to have to provide the same level of commentary and display of skill as males.
(And no, commentary is not "Look At The Sexism In This Game", which is what the pioneering female streaming-gamers provided... like Anita whatshername)
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
What is unsafe about somebody showing the upper half of their body unclothed?
Live stream game watching is just a further extension of something Blizzard pioneered in WoW when they started selling 'level boosts.' They sell for a fee, or bundle with the game purchase, an instant character boost to level 90 or 100.
Yes, it's actually true. You can pay Blizzard extra money to not have to play WoW with your in game character.
It's a little stretch further to charge people extra to not only not have to play the game to 'level up' but in fact to pay to not need to play at all, and just watch other people play.
I was on a bus the other day and there were more men than wonem on it.
This is clearly racism. It must be stopped!
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" -- HST
Depends on the razor. Eyebrow razors are cheaper in pink around here.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
If I understand correctly, money comes from viewers, but how viewers know if the streamer is male or female? If they cannot, it means they discriminate just on the stream content, which suggests male and female play differently. This is an interesting point.
Agree, this is one of those times when there's no big evil mega corp putting someone down. It's just the differences between the genders and how they act/react to things.
In other news, the adult cam business is some far greater percent female and women earn far, far more than men on those sites. Guess we should start whining about that too?
Maybe enforce equality everywhere. You must spend equally (or perhaps blindly?) across all genders, orientations, and gender expressions while on a cam site. You won't be permitted to select which cam to watch but one will be randomly chosen for you in order to ensure everyone is represented equally. Your own webcam will track and monitor to ensure you fap to completion for each session.
Ok, moving on now...this article may have hit a nerve.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
What is unsafe about somebody showing the upper half of their body unclothed?
For starters.... The many Schools and Libraries that receive federal ERATE funds to help pay for technology and communications infrastructure and services are required to employ technological protection measures to filter/block access from their computers and networks to obscene content, pornography, nudity, etc.
And yes.... the community standards within the US are that videos/pictures exposing frontal nudity and/or also the upper half of the female body unclothed or exposed in a suggestive manner is content unsafe for people under the age of majority.
Yea, that's what I said.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.