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Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

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Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#31

Post by minimaxir »

nlowell wrote: post #26
minimaxir wrote: post #9

Per 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…

At least for streamers who are already somewhat established, the metagame is actually to move to whichever game is most popular with viewers.

That's also true. I wonder what the establishment inflection point is?

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#33

Post by local_yokel »

crusso wrote: post #4

Normally, 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.…

Come watch some DS3 speedruns and travel even further down the rabbit hole of people who know everything about the game to an absolutely obsessive degree and are insanely good at playing it. It's not for everyone mind you, but I find it hugely entertaining if you take the time to appreciate it.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#35

Post by satsuma »

minimaxir wrote: post #9

Per 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…

an interesting side effect of something like that is the hop-ons during the games done quick streams -- often times you'll see streamers switch games to whatever's being played on stream in the hopes someone will... misclick, or get bored and check out the other streams in the game or something. you also see it when a large streamer is playing a relatively unknown game (sodapoppin used to have a semi-weekly stream where he played games subscribers recommended, usually bargain bin or free to play shovelware)

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#36

Post by SurrealSoul »

I personally know Markipler (youtube, 23M+) as well as follow some other people here and there.

There is a youtuber; BloominBanana I subbed around the same time I subbed to Markipler 2010ish, they both do (did?) the same horror gameplay except Bloomin' has about 12 subs on youtube.

Mark as I knew him was the king of 'going out there' he was never afraid of marketing, publicity stunts and was honestly humble to his huge user base where Bloomin' despised marketing and wanted to grow "organically".

Growing organically isn't possible. You need to do something, you need to bot and break rules on twitch, you need to ask for publicity, you need to make friends with other streamers. Playing a game and being funny doesn't cut it anymore

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#37

Post by lev99 »

minimaxir wrote: post #9

Per 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…

> 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.

I do not think most twitch streamers are trying to be professionals. I think most streamers are just trying to add more fun into their game time. In game theory everyone's main objective is the same, in this case measured in either revenue or viewers. In the twitch world most streamers are trying to maximize fun instead of viewers or revenue.

(Disclosure: I stream relatively obscure games, and know many other streamers in both megapopular and obscure games.)

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#38

Post by Siecje »

pjc50 wrote: post #12

I can't help but wonder why people in this position don't give up earlier. It sounds like you need quite a bit of the right sort of self-promotion to get off the ground floor. Only once you've got enough of an audience will word-of-mouth start working for you.

You are playing video games anyways, why not hit "Start Streaming" and if something really cool happens you can highlight it and download it.

This only works if you have a good Internet connection.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#39

Post by icebraining »

pjc50 wrote: post #12

I can't help but wonder why people in this position don't give up earlier. It sounds like you need quite a bit of the right sort of self-promotion to get off the ground floor. Only once you've got enough of an audience will word-of-mouth start working for you.

Seems similar to the stereotypical aspiring Hollywood actor/actress. I wonder if Lynch will ever do a film about an aspiring streamer.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#40

Post by Negative1 »

ryandrake wrote: post #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 t…

It's disappointing that you have to take it there but you're probably not alone and Amazon/Twitch have probably considered something like this and decided against.

This is incredibly disingenuous, throwing the entire services credibility into question. If streamers realized they were being manipulated, you can bet the backlash would be huge. It also creates a slippery slope; "data shows that if there is an uptick in users at their 3rd hour of streaming they're more likely to continue streaming for another 3 hours and pick up roughly 10% more viewers". These are people -- tricking them into helping to increase your websites monetization is just unethical and wrong.

Now, if you could provide this kind information to streamers and offer guidance, well, then it is their choice and done in good faith (no manipulation required). Companies (and the people behind them) don't have to default to the 'let's be evil' approach to be successful.

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