Is it just the people who run a particular game? Are dedicated viewers included? What about people who work to "break" games without actually running them (there actually are a few of these).
Been thinking about this a lot. ~70-80% of my time on twitch as a viewer is spent watching Dark Souls speedruns (or just Dark Souls in general), and I wonder if it's fair to call myself part of that community when I don't run any of the games myself, nor plan to.
I think all that watch and/or run games are part of the community. The people that break games are Glitchhunters, of course they can be both!
Yeah I’d say you’re a part of a community when you actively participate in the game whether through doing runs, routing, helping new runners, glitch hunting etc.
And I agree with what FurryWulfz said too - an important part of being a part of a community is interacting with people and being friendly. Just running a game and never interacting with anyone just makes you a runner, not a community member.
Pretty much the only objective benchmark for this nowadays is whether you're in the Discord server for the game/series, which is very likely to exist if more than like one person plays said game.
It also gives an indicator of being "kicked out" of the community if you get banned.
I'd say if any aspect of your involvement with the game is positive for yourself and others, then you're apart of that games community. Idk...its hard to explain what I mean really. Like myself personally, I SUCK at Resident Evil 1...like badly. Decent at 2, but at 1 I'm abysmal lol. However, I'd still consider myself apart of that community bc I support people who stream that game, and I've asked questions in the forums that a person new to the game may ask themselves, and thus they may have found their question answered in a thread that was started by me. See what I'm sayin?
Edit: I also have to add in response to what Wulfz said about being positive and helping out members of the community, Wulfz you yourself have been VERY helpful to me in regards to RE2 and running in general, so thanks for being super cool, and a prime example of practicing what you preach!