Audience-driven games are evolving entertainment
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Games are being watched as much as they’re being played in the modern industry. Between the rise of the streaming industry and audience-participation titles, passive viewers are playing an increasingly larger role in the creation of games. In a panel at the GamesBeat and Facebook Gaming Summit, we heard from several experts on the role audiences play in interactive media.
The panel included Jacob Navok, the CEO of Genvid Technologies; Oliver Messenger, director of product management at Meta; and Matthew Ball, managing partner of EpyllionCo. Genvid published Pac-Man Community on Facebook Gaming last December.
Developers and platforms like Facebook Gaming are finding new interest in audience-driven titles. While it’s not exactly a new concept, it’s become more popular in the last few years. Navok said, “Over the course of the decade, we’ve seen gaming video radically increase in terms of usage numbers. In many cases, there are more people watching one of our games than there are people who are playing that. We want to allow for them to also be able to participate… How do we create an experience that is both entertaining from a lean-back perspective — I simply want to watch — but also the more you choose to engage with it, the more you enjoy that content.”
Messenger said that interactivity helps make games more inclusive. It accommodates those who want to engage with a title without necessarily playing it. “I think that blurring of playing and watching is incredibly powerful, for developers and also for communities
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