大象传媒

Gaming has always been a sociable experience. Whether through split-screen couch co-op, online parties or as a discussion point, it has given gamers around the world a reason to play, debate and share online experiences together. With the constant rise of streaming platforms such as Twitch, another branch of the gaming social experience has sprouted, allowing for those casual discussions and online teams to expand into their own communities.

Forming a community of their own are actors and award-winning streamers, Bryan Dechart and Amelia Rose Blaire, who recently surpassed three years of streaming on Twitch. The married couple, known for their roles in games such as Detroit: Become Human and Quantum Break, along with a host of roles across film and television, launched themselves into the streaming life in the hope to experience video games with others.

Claire Lim spoke to them in the second episode of her AFK series.

Amelia – “We launched our stream right when Detroit [Become Human] came out. And I was blown away at how much positivity and love and good vibes were coming to us like directly from the chat, and it just hooked me. I didn’t think that I could get that positive rush from a group of people live online and I wanted to just keep going.”

Much like reaction videos across YouTube, live streaming games allowed for gamers to see the reaction of others in real time, with the added inclusion of interacting with the streamer through the text chat.

Bryan – "When you do a TV show, you film it and then months later it airs in people’s privacy of their living room… The kinetic sharing thing is truncated.”

Amelia – “There’s a camaraderie when you’re streaming on Twitch or like joining somebody else’s channel. You’re there, but you’re also there with a whole bunch of other people and you’re all having this experience together and you can talk about it live in real time.”

Through their streaming channel, Dechart Games, Amelia and Bryan, enjoy active weekly streams where they play through titles such as Until Dawn, The Witcher 3 and Mass Effect. Despite their film and television roots, the couple admit the benefits to storytelling through video games.

Bryan – “In the last three years we’ve played 101 video games. In the last three years I have not watched 101 movies, and in the last three years I have not watched 101 television shows. So, for me it’s, yeah, I’m way more invested in video games…”

Amelia – “The thing that’s really special about bending narratives, or video games, is that you, as the player, have so much agency over the story and the characters in a way that you just don’t when you’re watching a movie.”

Bryan – “I also think a big thing that’s really important in film and television right now is inclusion and telling stories from a more diverse point of view and getting more agency for the viewer to feel themselves represented on screen. And like, what’s more representative of somebody than literally letting them do it… If you have the controller in your hand, you are literally in the project.”

Over the last three years, Bryan and Amelia have grown with their channel, allowing them to inject more of themselves into their streams, however, they say that most of that is down to their community.

Amelia – “[The community] have given me a tremendous… helped me build my confidence a lot, because you know, as an actor you are playing other people, you are putting on different masks, and you don’t usually go in and be yourself. So for me having the support, especially when I mess up or like I misspeak or I say something wrong, or like I think I’m making a fool of myself. “

“The fact that they are so supportive blew my mind and also really helped me believe in myself, and embrace my weird and my quirkiness and the things I didn’t necessarily like about myself, in a way that I had not before.”

With communities such as those Bryan and Amelia have built, gaming continues to carve positive and encouraging environments in a particularly disconnected time.