At some point later today, Polygon will publish a comprehensive article about
Crecente isn't merely putting words to digital ink, though. He's listening back over interviews, struggling over which quotes to incorporate, and audibly wrestling with the core argument of his article. Along the way he pauses to search for a Stevie Ray Vaughan track to listen to on his smartphone, and the chat window on his Twitch stream starts lighting up with suggestions for his piece -- everything from alternate phrasing to article flow. "
At one point, Crecente looks up from his desktop (we now know he uses Scrivener as his writing software of choice) and exclaims "100 people are sitting here watching me write a story!" He goes on to explain how absurd it is that, were these 100 people crammed into his office, it would be impossible to get any work done, but the screen acts as this "magical barrier making it all ok."
As a fellow journalist, it's fascinating to watch the process of an article morphing from inception to a nearly finished work. It's also uncommonly transparent. But it's clear the non-journalists watching the stream are equally spellbound. "This is just kind of neat," one viewer types into the chat box. "A window into something that you don't usually see." Another makes a hilarious joke invoking the alpha/beta craze common in the PC gaming world. "When is Polygon rolling out early access articles?" Yet another viewer chimes in that "Brian Crecente is currently playing Interview Transcribing Simulator."
Twitch of course is widely known as a platform for streaming live gameplay or eSports tournaments, so watching a writer, well, write, initially seems like its wildly out of place. Crecente, though, is giving viewers a unique view into the press side of the gaming industry. He occasionally pauses to explain the laborious art of transcribing interviews (including grammatical tips) and when it's ok to omit certain words from an interview. As an example, he points to certain "interview ticks" that folks like Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime has (he tends to start his sentences with "Look..."). He takes brief interludes to answer questions about how Polygon's chain of command works, such as who edits the stories before they hit the web?
To many of you, it probably sounds completely dull. But like many YouTube and Twitch personalities, certain people can elevate the mundane. Or there's this argument: "Everything is compelling when someone is streaming it live," Crecente says. "You guys are hoping that some monkey is going to come from offscreen and attack me. That's the only reason you're all watching."
As things like social media and Twitch continue to lower the barrier between content producer and content consumer, the angle Crecente's taking makes sense, and it's forward-thinking. Not only is he giving added value to his hardcore followers, but he may be inadvertently kickstarting some new style of "livestreamed journalism." Whether his stream was a calculated move or simply an impulse, it will be interesting to see if this develops into a trend.
UPDATE 1: The entire video archive for Crecente's "Livewriting" session is available here. (It gets decidedly Meta at 1hr 48min in when Crecente takes a break to read this very article).
Update 2: Crecente's piece "How Nintendo Plans To Reignite Wii U Sales" has been published.
