Live-Streaming Chess, Twitch and Nakamura

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Live-Streaming Chess, Twitch and Nakamura

    Live-Streaming Chess, Twitch and Nakamura

    September 4, 2020

    From an article at theconversation.com by Ilya Brookwell:

    As a global pandemic continues to determine a new normal, tens of thousands of viewers have been tuning in to watch people play chess on a livestreaming website called Twitch.tv. An American chess grandmaster, Hikaru Nakamura, along with a number of celebrities of the video game world, is leading a renaissance in the ancient game.

    While viewers eagerly await Nakamura’s streams to begin, they are treated to a slideshow of memes involving Nakamura’s face superimposed into scenes from pop culture. First a reference to a well-known Japanese animation, next a famous upside-down kiss with Spiderman and finally, Nakamura’s characteristic grin is edited onto the Mona Lisa herself.

    From Aug. 21 to Sept. 6, Twitch and Chess.com are hosting a tournament, called Pogchamps, where some of the most popular gaming streamers in the world compete in a chess tournament with US$50,000 on the line.

    The current renaissance in chess is happening at the confluence of livestreaming technology, video game culture and one grandmaster’s exceptional skills as both a chess player and entertainer. What is emerging is an unexpectedly good pairing between chess and a digital generation that is showing how influential gamers can be.

    Twitch.tv is a live-video streaming website that was started in 2011 as a platform for users to watch other people play video games. In recent years, Twitch has grown to become the cultural hub of the gaming community. It now hosts tens of thousands of creators who broadcast live to a global audience of around 17.5 million viewers a day.

    Since 2015, chess viewership has experienced exponential growth on Twitch. Then, a mere 59 people were watching chess streams at any given time. Today, that number averages 4,313. At the time of writing this, viewers have consumed close to 38 million hours of chess in 2020 alone.

    See the whole article at:

    https://theconversation.com/chess-is...pairing-143790

  • #2
    Good to see chess getting the exposure and good that an exciting player like Nakamura is doing it!

    Comment


    • #3
      More of Naka at the Toronto Star though the article by Kellen Browning The New York Times

      https://www.thestar.com/life/2020/09...obsession.html

      Comment


      • #4
        One more from the Toronto Star

        https://www.thestar.com/life/2020/10...on-twitch.html

        Meet the 20-year-old Toronto woman who’s become a star during the pandemic — playing chess on Twitch

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Egidijus Zeromskis View Post
          One more from the Toronto Star

          https://www.thestar.com/life/2020/10...on-twitch.html

          Meet the 20-year-old Toronto woman who’s become a star during the pandemic — playing chess on Twitch
          Nemo?! Zhou

          Comment


          • #6
            We're ready for the big times now! Made the CBC news! Look out world!
            https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/onlin...orts-1.5773163

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Sam Sharpe View Post
              We're ready for the big times now! Made the CBC news! Look out world!
              https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/onlin...orts-1.5773163
              That's a pretty fun article! Thanks Sam

              Comment


              • #8
                I don't follow Twitch but it seems that Alexandra Botez' Twitch stream has been taken down for alleged violations of copyright??

                If I read between the lines of some of her posts on Twitter and elsewhere, it seems Twitch deleted all of her content (not sure if that is something that is reversible if she is able to appeal) and it also seems that Twitch apparently just claims "somewhere in your stream(s) there is copyright material" - clearly some music she used likely triggered something or someone. I would assume she is suitably annoyed (polite word for how she must be feeling).

                Social media is a savage wasteland.
                ...Mike Pence: the Lord of the fly.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Kerry Liles View Post
                  I don't follow Twitch but it seems that Alexandra Botez' Twitch stream has been taken down for alleged violations of copyright??

                  If I read between the lines of some of her posts on Twitter and elsewhere, it seems Twitch deleted all of her content (not sure if that is something that is reversible if she is able to appeal) and it also seems that Twitch apparently just claims "somewhere in your stream(s) there is copyright material" - clearly some music she used likely triggered something or someone. I would assume she is suitably annoyed (polite word for how she must be feeling).

                  Social media is a savage wasteland.
                  It looks to be up: https://www.twitch.tv/botezlive

                  Twitch recently sent out DMCA warnings to a ton of streamers, so a lot of them have just been deleting all of their old broadcasts to be safe. After that, they sent out another notice that they'd delete any clips containing copyrighted music so that streamers wouldn't have to go through and delete them themselves. This is has been coming for a while now; for years streamers just played whatever they wanted and nobody cared, but this year some music companies or people representing have started to send out DMCAs, so we're going to be seeing some big changes on there.

                  The only other DMCA situations that I know about on Twitch have been with a couple of the Democratic primary debates, when multiple streams were taken down for restreaming them.

                  Comment

                  Working...
                  X