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The Electronic Entertainment Expo’s primary purpose is to inform consumers, retailers, and those in the gaming industry about what the new upcoming videogames and consoles will be in the next year or so. Developers travel to Los Angeles to tell everyone about their next big project or unveil the release date to a new game with a fancy trailer.
But one of the more overlooked things that E3 does comes on the endemic platform that broadcasts every moment of the event. As Twitch 
has grown into the flagship platform dedicated largely to gaming, its coverage of the event has not only expanded, but it has also helped it proliferate some of the key principles that make it unique.
One of the marquee elements of Twitch culture is the sense of community that its personality streamers create for fans that are looking for an interactive viewing experience. The chat function on the platform, as well as various donation enhancements, lets viewers speak directly to the streamer in a way that often makes it feel like watching Twitch is more immersive.
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So when you combine the intimacy and sense of community created by a streamer interacting with their community on-stream and the ability of Twitch personalities to co-stream E3 conferences and shows, you end up with a plethora of one-of-a-kind ways to experience the gaming industries biggest yearly conference.
Instead of watching conferences and game presentations in a highly watched channel with an oversaturated chat room full of people spamming, viewers were instead able to watch E3 alongside their favorite streamers in that streamer’s channel that had its own chatting rules and personal feel to it.
Assuming the streamer was interested in watching a portion of E3 on stream, Twitch allows for broadcasters to air live E3 coverage and commentate during the conferences. So instead of a viewer feeling like they are watching an E3 conference alone, they could see and/or hear their favorite streamer reacting to new game things like trailers or a game announcement in real time.
Credit: MoonMoon/Twitch
One example of the ways that a streamer can specialize a co-stream came during the PC Gaming Show at E3, a show where numerous developers showed off trailers for upcoming games. The show included hosts that helped to transition from one game trailer to another, often times using jokes and puns to keep the audience’s attention.
Variety streamer “MoonMoon” co-streamed during the PC gaming show, and when many of the jokes told by E3 hosts came across as particularly corny or cheesy, he would play audio of a laugh track or a comedic rimshot.
Because the show’s comedy didn’t necessarily line up with his sense of humor, or his audiences for that matter, he instead was able to create a viewing experience that played to the community he’s cultivated over years of streaming by poking fun at the show’s hosts and using his own sarcastic humor during trailers.
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From the opening conferences on June 8-9 through June 14 when E3 ended, coverage on the main Twitch channel accrued 4.5M hours watched, but the Special Events section on Twitch that included co-streams and peripheral coverage options boasted 18.6M hours watched.
Many of the most-watched personality streams like “Alexelcapo” and Xavier “MisterMV” Dang presented alternative-language broadcasts, but numerous others, like Saqib “Lirik” Zahid and Sebastian “Forsen” Fors, racked up strong viewership for English co-streams making E3 about more than just the games being released in the next 52 weeks.
As Twitch continues to expand co-streaming of events and esports contests allow players to stream their perspectives, the fragmentation of viewership on Twitch will extrapolate, but at the same time, viewers will have an increased opportunity to find the specialized viewing experience that they’re looking for.
While this will make it more difficult to precisely record the exact viewership that an event or esport gets on Twitch, it will make viewing more versatile and give fans more opportunity for authentic interactions from broadcasters.
