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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

#101

Post by Shivetya »

nickjj wrote: post #100

You could replace this title with "Programmers who spend years creating a SAAS app that no one uses" and it would be the same article. All of these streamers who are bothered by not having an audience seem to have started for the wrong reasons. If all they care about are subscribers and viewers, then you're going to get really burnt out when that doesn't happen. Most of the popular streamers who I've come across do i…

It would be even simpler to replace it with "Bloggers who have no audience". There are countless blogs out there and more everyday and few if any ever gain traction.

However we must see it also from the small business perspective. How many start a business versus how many succeed? I remember when coffee shops, cupcake shops, and more, were the fad, and they vanish with regularity.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#102

Post by munificent »

izzydata wrote: post #55

The way people use Twitch makes little sense to me. It might have to do with some age gap, but it doesn't seem like 10-15 years should really make this big of a disconnect. When I think of gaming it is strictly about playing for fun and engaging with friends in a kind of hanging out in a living room together way. Maybe that is how all twitch channels start off, but once you hit some threshold where the streamer can n…

> it is strictly about playing for fun and engaging with friends in a kind of hanging out in a living room together way.

For some, Twitch is to playing games as talk shows are to conversation with friends. It gives people a fraction of the mental reward of social interaction without any of the effort or risk of actual social interaction.

It's like a junk food snack for the social center of your brain. I definitely see the appeal and find myself getting sucked into that way of satisfying my need for human contact sometimes, but it ultimately always leaves me unsatisfied in the long run.

For others, I think Twitch is just watching a TV show that happens to be a game. They just want to passively experience the narrative of the game without the effort of playing. Or perhaps they want the meta-narrative of watching the player interact with the game.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#104

Post by Reedx »

degenerate wrote: post #74
SaltyBackendGuy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

Something I'm curious about is where that comes from. Why do people like falling asleep to the TV? Why is it preferred over white noise?

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#105

Post by mlinsey »

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 watch Twitch because I grew up playing lots of video games and now watching is less of a time commitment then playing the games.

Streamers aren't meant to be consumed by watching them every day for hours on end. I mean, I'm sure there are core fans who do that, probably students and single young professionals like you say, but my use case for Twitch is "hey, I have 10-20 minutes free; not even enough time for a full DotA game, but I can see which pro players happen to be online now and watch them play for a bit". This gives me (somewhat surprisingly) lots of the same satisfaction that playing games used to give me; plus it's a lot less stressful (I was mostly into competitive multiplayer games) and without any practice required to get good at the game.

Meanwhile I wonder how people have time to finish entire seasons of TV shows on netflix, given the modern trend of story-driven shows that assume you've actually seen all the previous episodes instead of pre-internet-era sitcoms that you could jump in and watch any 30-minute episode with little context. Twitch is more of a return to old-school TV in that regard.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#106

Post by nickjj »

Shivetya wrote: post #101
nickjj wrote: post #100

You could replace this title with "Programmers who spend years creating a SAAS app that no one uses" and it would be the same article. All of these streamers who are bothered by not having an audience seem to have started for the wrong reasons. If all they care about are subscribers and viewers, then you're going to get really burnt out when that doesn't happen. Most of the popular streamers who I've come across do i…

It would be even simpler to replace it with "Bloggers who have no audience". There are countless blogs out there and more everyday and few if any ever gain traction. However we must see it also from the small business perspective. How many start a business versus how many succeed? I remember when coffee shops, cupcake shops, and more, were the fad, and they vanish with regularity.

Yes for sure, right after I posted that reply I thought about blogging too. It definitely is the same story.

It took me almost a year of regular blogging before I got some type of readership on my site, and even today, 3 years later, I wouldn't consider it popular. My intent was never to get make money on the site. It was to create documentation for myself (and anyone else who wants to follow along).

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#107

Post by make3 »

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'…

it's fucking addictive. they probably don't have the time to do it, but do it anyways

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#108

Post by cjbprime »

Waterluvian wrote: post #65
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'…

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.

Starcraft tournaments replaced traditional sports for me too! So good.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#109

Post by Kiro »

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 always have a Twitch stream running on my second monitor. The live chat is what makes it different from on-demand.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#110

Post by augbog »

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…

Yeah same. I've found there are a handful of games that are fun to watch rather than play. League of Legends and MOBA games for instance are super freaking boring for me to play because I suck at killing creeps (too tedious for me) but watching pros play is pretty satisfying because the higher level games are faster paced.

Also agree with the TV thing -- lots of things I don't enjoy watching or maybe if its an episode, I don't have an entire hour to watch so rather not start one if I'm not gonna finish it.

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