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This study aims to examine vicarious consumption (VC) via the video-game streaming platform Twitch. The authors posit that watching someone play can offer the same enjoyment (measured through emotional experience, mood and joy) as playing.

A mixed-methods approach was used. A qualitative phase involving semistructured qualitative interviews, naturalistic inquiry and netnography generated testable hypotheses, which were tested using a two-condition, between-subjects field experiment.

This research advances the understanding of vicarious and experiential consumption by finding evidence that VC can produce the same levels of emotional experience, mood, attitude toward the product, joy, brand community loyalty and positive word of mouth. It also demonstrates the moderating effect of familiarity on mood change.

This research demonstrates evidence that VC can offer outcomes similar to active consumption (AC). The authors advance research on VC in a new context (video-game livestreaming vs esports and other contexts) and from a new perspective (viewing motivations vs consumer-oriented outcomes). This research thus presents opportunities to explore these and other affective, behavior and cognitive outcomes in other contexts.

To reach Twitch users, marketers must understand how and why media consumers watch. This research provides insight into the community necessary to create effective advertising.

Building upon Sjöblom and Hamari, focusing on motivations for VC of esports and other related works, the authors expand the context to video-game livestreaming as a whole and examine affective, behavioral and cognitive outcomes compared with AC. Though VC has been researched and conceptualized theoretically, empirical testing is rare. This research offers empirical evidence that VC can offer the same levels of enjoyment as AC.

This paper aims to investigate the phenomenon of co-competition, within service-dominant logic, whereby multiple parties with mutually exclusive goals compete for the rights to co-create with a firm.

Within the context of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, the paper uses a naturalistic inquiry approach guided by the core objectives of qualitative research provided by Belk et al. (2012). These objectives include understanding the construct of study, the antecedents and consequences of what is being studied and, finally, the process used by the consumer during the phenomena. Additionally, the results are presented within an idiographic framework.

This study finds that co-competition arises when heterogeneous segments of consumers attempt different co-creation strategies with the firm, an overlooked dark side of co-creation and co-production of value. Additionally, the study finds evidence that co-competition may have led to co-destruction of value for both consumer parties and the firm.

The outcomes of this process could have significant financial and reputational impacts for the firm resultant from alienating both types of consumers competing for the rights to co-create. The conceptual framework established here provides a guide through which further investigation of co-creative forces can occur.

This paper aims to investigate the phenomenon of active escapism – a unique form of experiential consumption that engages fantasy and role-play as a means of coping. In contrast with passive forms of escapism, whereby consumers act as observers (e.g. watching a movie), active escapism provides consumers with the opportunity to directly interact with mediated realities, whether constructed in a virtual space (e.g. a video game) or the real world.

Within the context of video game consumption, a conceptual framework for active escapism comprised antecedents, processes and consequences is established through literature review, depth interviews and naturalistic inquiry.

The findings suggest that active escapism functions as a coping mechanism when consumers are confronted with external stressors that threaten either their sense of identity or control. While other forms of emotion-focused coping relieve stress through psychological avoidance (i.e. refocusing of attention away from stressors), active escapism provides the benefits of affirmation and empowerment through projective fantasy (i.e. role-play) and presence (i.e. immersion into a mediated reality).

The conceptual framework established by this analysis gives insight into the structure of active escapism as a theoretical construct, providing a foundation for future research. Managerial implications for consumer escapism (e.g. branded in-game content) are discussed.