Video games are no longer just a pastime: they've become an object of study in their own right. And Fanny Barnabé is one of its leading figures at UNamur. Trained as a literary scholar, she turned to Game Studies to better understand the complex fictional universes that have always fascinated her. "It was because of video games that I studied literature," she confides with a smile. Today, she's interested in a fast-growing phenomenon: the broadcasting of live video game games on platforms like Twitch.

Twitch

Twitch, between humor and toxic speeches

On Twitch, millions of viewers watch streamers play their favorite games every day. This practice, known as "secondary gaming" (a concept developed by ULiège researcher Julie Delbouille), involves playing vicariously by watching someone else hold the controller. "Some people no longer play themselves, they watch others play. It's become a fully-fledged way of consuming video games", explains Fanny Barnabé, "Twitch is a space where humor reigns, often in the form of irony or second degree. But it's also a place where toxicity can develop very quickly". Hence the theme of his current research: when does an ironic comment become violent? At what point can we determine whether or not a comment is acceptable in the video game context?

A fast-changing industry

Fanny Barnabé's work doesn't stop at Twitch. She has also studied in-game storytelling, tutorials, or even players' creative practices, such as fan fiction or "machinimas" (films made within games themselves).

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Video games are an incredibly rich and interdisciplinary field of study

Fanny Barnabé Lecturer in the Social, Political and Communication Sciences Department of the Sciences Po Faculty of Economics, Management and Communication (EMCP)

And this terrain is changing fast. Very fast. "Video games have gone from a niche hobby to a mass phenomenon. Today, over 90% of young people play," she points out. This popularity is accompanied by an economic transformation: in the context of platform capitalism, the practice of gaming tends to become profitable, monetized, professionalized. "We've gone from the game you buy once, to the "game as a service" model, and to streaming, where professional streamers somehow convert their gaming experience into advertising revenue."

A mirror of our changing society

For Fanny Barnabé, it's hard to predict how the world of video games will evolve in the future. "It's becoming very difficult to talk about video games as a single object, so diverse are the practices," she explains. Between mobile games like Candy Crush, e-sport competitions or collaborative online adventures, the uses are multiple and reflect the complexity of our digital society.

Candy Crush

This diversity is part of a broader context: that of platform capitalism. "Gaming, which was originally a leisure practice, is now integrated into profit-making logics," observes the researcher. Streaming, in particular, illustrates this transformation: gaming is becoming a productive, income-generating activity, sometimes even a profession in its own right.

Fanny Barnabé - portrait

At 36, Fanny Barnabé recently joined the ranks of UNamur academics. She is a lecturer in the "Social, Political and Communication Sciences" Department of the SciencesPo Economics Management Communication Faculty (EMCP). There, she teaches students in the three-year bachelor's program in interactive and participatory media and digital transition. Next academic year, she will be teaching the Media Narration and Storytelling course.

Fanny is also passionate about Japan. In 2017-2018, she completed a one-year postdoctoral stay in Kyoto, at the Ritsumeikan Center for Game Studies, under the direction of Professor Hiroshi Yoshida, with the help of a Marie-Curie COFUND fellowship from the Université de Liège (co-funded by the European Union). This stay was devoted to the study of video game paratexts.

During the academic mission organized by the Wallonie-Bruxelles International, on the sidelines of the Osaka World Expo, she was able to return to Tokyo and Kyoto to re-establish links with various colleagues specializing in game studies and set up research partnerships between Japanese institutions and UNamur.

Tokyo

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