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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

#61

What I don't understand about Twitch is how anyone has time to consume this content. When it comes to sitting on your butt and watching something, the traditional TV show is moving to an on-demand model. Twitch is a step in the other direction, where if you faithfully consume content from any Twitch channel, you have to sit down and watch for hours every night when the streamer is online. Who does that? I imagine it'…

The average person consumes 8 hours of media a day - 5 out of 8 is television but of course, that could start to move towards streams.

http://erikaugust.com/thoughts/eight-hours-a-day/

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#62

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 hu…

Yeah. Speaking as someone who ran a rather large fansite about NIN in the 2000s (the entity now basically exists as a Twitter account), you really cannot just "grow organically" on today's internet. I like to tell people I have a marketing allergy. Self-promotion feels gross. The "if you build it, they will come" mantra from Field of Dreams is not applicable to a world where so much more content is being created than can possibly be consumed. But I realize that if I want something that I'm doing to gain any traction at all, I have to get other people talking about it, and that there are pretty well established ways of making that happen.

When the internet was a smaller space occupied primarily by nerdy types, you could make something interesting and by the nature of the medium, a lot of people found it. You thought you really hit it big if you made Slashdot, but getting featured on television took it to a whole different level. (For example: The Dancing Baby) You didn't need to have a face or a personality - your content actually could speak for itself. But even back then, taking those extra steps usually didn't hurt, either.

Now, the internet is full of professionals of all stripes, and that means you're fighting for attention against people or entities who have a budget for marketing and PR. I can take the most beautiful photos in the world and put them on Instagram, but if I'm not actively marketing that account, no one will ever see them. Meanwhile, some dope with a fresh set of credit cards rents a Lamborghini for a photo shoot, buys batches of followers, and that will grow a following, and maybe he'll get a free night at a posh hotel out of it.

Maybe Bloomin' just does it for the love of it. Maybe Markipler has been able to quit their job and make YouTube their profession. I bet both of them wish they had aspects of the other's experiences. As much exposure as I got to being a small-beans niche internet 'celebrity' (like, on the level of local weatherman), I wouldn't wish fame on my worst enemy.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#63
This article misunderstands or at least downplays the motivations of most of the smaller streamers on Twitch. On HN a good analogy would be the startup scene, where plenty of startups are made out of passion and a desire to solve a need in the community. Streamers are like these small startups, a lot of them set out to make money but many are content with just the experience, similar to a side project. I often browse small 1-4 viewer streams just to see what's happening and you can sometimes find interesting and unique people who are just there for the fun of it.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#64
post #58
post #51

I too have met kids who say they want to be a Youtuber or Twitch streamer when they grow up. It makes me sad. I love watching Twitch, and watch 5-7 gamers regularly (almost every night). From what I can tell, most of them: - Are in their mid-20's to early 30's. - Live with their parents. - Make just enough from Youtube/Twitch/Patreon/merch to fund their gaming rigs, buy new games, buy their own food, and maybe pay fo…

> and each Twitch stream attracts over two thousand viewers. It's not a good way to make a living. To contrast with that, I know twitch streamers whose channel averages out at around 300 viewers a time, and who make a very comfortable living. Having a properly run channel that encourages donations, cash and bits, is a huge part of it. I've seen streamers who pull an easy $200 a day in donations. Add in 500 or so subs…

Trying to win the lottery is not a good life goal.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#65

What I don't understand about Twitch is how anyone has time to consume this content. When it comes to sitting on your butt and watching something, the traditional TV show is moving to an on-demand model. Twitch is a step in the other direction, where if you faithfully consume content from any Twitch channel, you have to sit down and watch for hours every night when the streamer is online. Who does that? I imagine it'…

Twitch replaces TV and competes with YouTube and Netflix time for me. I watch it in a lossy manner, where it's usually on while I work from home. The only time I'm watching Twitch in a lossless manner is when a Starcraft tournament is on, and in that case it feels exactly like watching back to back hockey games: about 5-6 hours of competition on a weekend.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#66

What I don't understand about Twitch is how anyone has time to consume this content. When it comes to sitting on your butt and watching something, the traditional TV show is moving to an on-demand model. Twitch is a step in the other direction, where if you faithfully consume content from any Twitch channel, you have to sit down and watch for hours every night when the streamer is online. Who does that? I imagine it'…

Sometimes I see people playing an old indie game I love and watch it for like 20~30 min. I don't want to invest in playing it again; I've already played it several times before..so with twitch I can watch someone play for a few min to burn some time.

I worked with one guy who'd keep StarCraft competitions playing in the background on his third monitor while he coded all day.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#67
post #22

> 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…

Most people who are serious about doing the Twitch thing, even if it's just a serious hobby, pretty shamelessly spoof viewers. Even if you don't want to be dishonest about it, it is in some ways unavoidable. Have the stream open while you're on to make sure that everything's working? That's one viewer. We do group streams and people cycle in and out, so we keep a laptop with the stream open outside the recording room…

The first case there is even officially sponsored by Twitch. Their live dashboard page, by default, embeds a muted output of your stream (among chat and other controls).

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#68
post #58
post #51

I too have met kids who say they want to be a Youtuber or Twitch streamer when they grow up. It makes me sad. I love watching Twitch, and watch 5-7 gamers regularly (almost every night). From what I can tell, most of them: - Are in their mid-20's to early 30's. - Live with their parents. - Make just enough from Youtube/Twitch/Patreon/merch to fund their gaming rigs, buy new games, buy their own food, and maybe pay fo…

> and each Twitch stream attracts over two thousand viewers. It's not a good way to make a living. To contrast with that, I know twitch streamers whose channel averages out at around 300 viewers a time, and who make a very comfortable living. Having a properly run channel that encourages donations, cash and bits, is a huge part of it. I've seen streamers who pull an easy $200 a day in donations. Add in 500 or so subs…

You can live like a king on $72,000 a year in the midwest, and the bonus is that the northern part gets so cold in the winter that there's not much else to do but work and stream!

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#69

What I don't understand about Twitch is how anyone has time to consume this content. When it comes to sitting on your butt and watching something, the traditional TV show is moving to an on-demand model. Twitch is a step in the other direction, where if you faithfully consume content from any Twitch channel, you have to sit down and watch for hours every night when the streamer is online. Who does that? I imagine it'…

The fruits of the paradox of choice. Many despised (not me) the limited choice of TV curating content. Now every god damn group on earth can have it's tiny little channel in the background.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#70

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…

Yep. I get almost no one finding me when I play hearthstone, but I always have ~10 viewers when I stream speedrun attempts of popular snes games. It really is a matter of finding your niche when you start out.
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