Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one
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Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one
#2Are these not people who are just deluding themselves that they are doing it out of love, when all they want to do is be famous?
Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one
#3> Despite the sometimes psychologically taxing nature of trying to get noticed on Twitch, some continue to persevere despite the cold indictment of the zero.
Maybe I’m advocating a bit of a dark pattern here, but couldn’t Twitch keep streamers engaged by seeding streams with a few fake AI bots as viewers? This seems like it might be a little of the Empty Restaurant Effect. People hesitate to go into a restaurant if there’s nobody else eating there. So provide a few fake diners.
Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one
#4Normally, when I do play videogames, it's a private sort of thing between myself and my game system.
I just recently ran across some twitch channels via youtube because I was looking for some help with some Dark Souls III content.
It's like a whole different universe with people who live and breath these games every waking moment. I found it very interesting to see that it's a whole way of life with this many people. Now I'm tempted to watch some of these twitch broadcasters even though I'm not interested in the games that they're playing.
Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one
#5Isn't this similar to posting on SoundCloud with no specific intent or expectation? Publishing content is an easy way to make it available on a bunch of devices, so if you're not concerned with outcomes then what's the difference? Need to read the article I guess.
Edit: OK, some people expect to attract a following and are having trouble:
> attracts over two million broadcasters every month ... Discoverability is an issue
No kidding.
Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one
#6Ok, post your streams and I'll watch a few minutes.
Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one
#7In the far future when food, shelter, and other necessities are basically free, attention will be the last valuable commodity. There will always be a scarcity of attention.
Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one
#8> Despite the sometimes psychologically taxing nature of trying to get noticed on Twitch, some continue to persevere despite the cold indictment of the zero. Maybe I’m advocating a bit of a dark pattern here, but couldn’t Twitch keep streamers engaged by seeding streams with a few fake AI bots as viewers? This seems like it might be a little of the Empty Restaurant Effect. People hesitate to go into a restaurant if t…
Eventually people in the community will notice that 'few' === zero, so this becomes essentially an information tax on new Twitch viewers.
Plus, you know, they'd be lying to people.
Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one
#9Per Twitch's stream analytics, on one of my data science programming streams on Twitch the majority of my viewers came from the Explore page, under the relatively-less-popular Programming category.
I wonder if there's a bit of game theory in play where it's impossible to be discovered when playing a megapopular game like Overwatch/Fortnite, and it's more advantageous to play relatively more obscure games. It wouldn't be the first time working the long-tail has been effective.
Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one
#10every year i participate in the extra life streamathon fundraiser. i usually get a few viewers here and there but for the most part it's just me the whole time. the concept of streaming for nobody is a little disheartening, especially if you're narrating to yourself, but when people come in and i interact for a few minutes it's a lot of fun. i'm looking forward to it next year for sure.