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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

#71

Post by steveklabnik »

SaltyBackendGuy wrote: post #43
metalliqaz wrote: post #14

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'…

As a Twitch consumer (married 'professional' in early 30's). I am a huge video game nerd at heart, so I watch streamers that run games that I am interested in however don't have time to play/master. Often it doesn't involve me sitting down for hours at night (although I am sure there's a huge demographic that does that as well). I usually watch when I am laying in bed before I go to sleep. Same time my wife is usuall…

Another thing about the TV analogy; when TV was only broadcast, many people (well, at least I...) would end up not watching an entire series. You turn on the TV and find out it's episode 3 airing tonight. What do you do? Just watch it and figure out what's going on via context, or try to hunt down someone who has a VCR and already taped episodes 1 and 2?

Twitch in some ways is more like those old days. I follow several streamers fairly closely. And by "fairly closely" I mean "they stream several hours a day and I probably watch 20 minutes of it, amortized over time".

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#72

Post by cuckcuckspruce »

mathnmusic wrote: post #32

It would be great to have more programmers streaming their open-source work on Twitch. There's so much informal knowledge out there which can be learned by just watching experts at work.

I've toyed with having a "Watch me Linux" stream where chat shouts out things they want to know about Linux and I show them / help people with their Linux problems.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#73

Post by hoopism »

SaltyBackendGuy wrote: post #43
metalliqaz wrote: post #14

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'…

As a Twitch consumer (married 'professional' in early 30's). I am a huge video game nerd at heart, so I watch streamers that run games that I am interested in however don't have time to play/master. Often it doesn't involve me sitting down for hours at night (although I am sure there's a huge demographic that does that as well). I usually watch when I am laying in bed before I go to sleep. Same time my wife is usuall…

This. I also enjoy video games and often read up on trends and news... unfortunately I have little to no time to really meaningfully play them. I enjoy watching people who have gotten really masterful play the games I have read about. Not unlike sports.

I also watch things like the Games Done Quick marathons. Those are mostly people who have dedicated themselves to a few games and are mostly interested in completing them in insanely short periods of time. People often spend years dedicating time to shaving off minutes... I would never do that... but I am glad someone does.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#74

Post by degenerate »

SaltyBackendGuy wrote: post #43
metalliqaz wrote: post #14

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'…

As a Twitch consumer (married 'professional' in early 30's). I am a huge video game nerd at heart, so I watch streamers that run games that I am interested in however don't have time to play/master. Often it doesn't involve me sitting down for hours at night (although I am sure there's a huge demographic that does that as well). I usually watch when I am laying in bed before I go to sleep. Same time my wife is usuall…

Same boat. I find a chill streamer that doesn't talk much and plays a game I like. I set the TV to 30 minute timer and watch for ~10 minutes before falling asleep. This is similar to people that fall asleep to shows they like -- see https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurama_Sleepers/

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#75

Post by wott »

metalliqaz wrote: post #14

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'…

Reading the answers to your comment is kind of depressing (and that's a depressive speaking :-)).

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#76

Post by JaggerFoo »

metalliqaz wrote: post #14

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'…

I recently started using Twitch for poker streaming channels, but I also like to watch the video game play, since I don't have to go through any learning/skill curve to play any game myself - I can sit and watch play, and be entertained (team battles) or depressed (Assassin's Creed) with what players are doing with their time.

I'm definitely out of the target demographic for Twitch, but I consider it an additional entertainment channel when I'm bored of content in traditional media such as Youtube TV and Netflix.

Cheers

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#77

Post by steveklabnik »

Siecje wrote: post #38
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.

I'm fairly new to Twitch, and I do this. It didn't hit me until I had decided to take a break and play off-stream, and then something really cool happened, and it made me kinda sad that I didn't have a record of it. I would have had I been streaming...

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#78

Post by apocolyps6 »

metalliqaz wrote: post #60
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I play Heroes of the Storm, so I sometimes open their esports tournament stream and keep it playing on the side. If a match looks interesting I'll pay attention or note the teams that are playing so I can revisit the VOD later. For big StarCraft tournaments I sometimes tune in to major events as well. You can always watch the VODs later, but it's fun to chat with people during the games, or posting your thoughts whil…

Yeah tournaments I get. Like sports, it's a big event. I was referring mostly to the nightly gamers that were featured in the article.

You can engage much more directly with smaller streamers. I used to seek out streamers of a certain strategy game with a dozen or so viewers and offer play suggestions. Usually little enough is going on (chat wise) that you can talk to the person about the game and specific decisions.

It can also be fun to just chat with like-minded strangers while a game is going on in the background.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#79

Post by shittyadmin »

metalliqaz wrote: post #14

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'…

Only the most dedicated fans engage in that sort of thing.

I think most people use it when they need something low-investment to watch for a bit, pull up a popular stream for whatever game you're interested in and you have something that you can easily step in or out of, switch to a different stream if one gets boring, etc.

Same way some people use reality shows and similar such things.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#80

Post by Shivetya »

SaltyBackendGuy wrote: post #43
metalliqaz wrote: post #14

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'…

As a Twitch consumer (married 'professional' in early 30's). I am a huge video game nerd at heart, so I watch streamers that run games that I am interested in however don't have time to play/master. Often it doesn't involve me sitting down for hours at night (although I am sure there's a huge demographic that does that as well). I usually watch when I am laying in bed before I go to sleep. Same time my wife is usuall…

Consumer of the content as well. I play some of the games I watched stream. For me it includes insight into how things work and how to play better. Some streamers have good connections to developers and also provide a platform by which they and their audience can discuss a game, mechanics, and such, live, which is much more enjoyable than just posting to a forum.

Finally the more successful streamers are very enjoyable to watch. They engage with their audiences and treat them with respect. Compared to some of the smaller or no audience streamers who don't communicate or are just rude to their audience when they have one.

It is entertainment, it also is background noise for me when I am working.

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