Emerging of Online Entertainment Platform: A Study of Factors Influencing Donation to Streamers on Twitch Platform

Abstract

          The study of Factors Influencing Audiences’ Decision Making in Donation to Game Streamers: A Study of Twitch platform has three main objectives 1) To find factors, including user engagement, media richness, social interaction or personality that influence the viewers’ community building and enjoyment. 2) To investigate factors, including community building and enjoyment that affect the audience’s loyalty and 3) To study the factor which enhances the watchers’ decision making in donation to game streamers. For this research uses a quantitative method to collect the data by using 4 parts of questionnaires. The sampling group is the Thai audience who knows Twitch. In terms of statistical analysis, the multiple regression is used for hypothesis tests. The result found out that user engagement, social interaction and personality affect community building and enjoyment. These two factors also influence loyalty. However, loyalty is not the factor that enhances the viewer’s decision making in donation to Twitch streamer. Moreover, the author also summarizes the demographic characteristics and user behavior of Twitch audiences. Most of the viewers are female who are between 21-25 years old and they are students who have been studying in the university or school. The level of income is less than 10,000 THB. However, all of the respondents have Twitch experience, but only 159 persons who donated to streamers. In one week, the users visit 2-4 times, only one time per day. They usually spend 1-2 hours on Twitch by using the smartphone and know Twitch from social media.