The Affective Audience in Professional E-sport: An exploration of spectators, and their impact on video game playing

This master’s thesis investigates the members of the audience in professional e-sport. Key findings show that players, spectators and nonhuman actors are nested together in assemblages. It states that human-nonhuman actors in ‘co-creation constitute the gameplay. The dynamic assemblages illustrate a productive network of circulating intensities that runs through a socio-technical system. In this network, bodies are changed and translated into new forms of expression. On that basis, fans and spectators become essential producers and consumers of the gameplay. My ethnographic studies draw from a multifaceted approach that includes: visual ethnography, participant observations and interviews of 35 dedicated spectators and fans, situated at two professional e-sports competitions, the most prominent digital festival in the world, Dreamhack in Sweden, and the Intel Extreme Masters - The World Championships in Germany.
I conclude that people in the audience are sharing their experiences with one another and the players, as they actively embody themselves in the game playing event. Throughout this work, I exemplify that spectators often share their emotional lives with each other and the players. Their different ways of sharing their emotions and feelings result from the affective and emotional relations they establish with one another. Finally, I show that technologies and technological environments impact the spectators and their capacities to affect and participate in the game playing event.