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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

#111

Post by andrewl-hn »

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'…

There're games I enjoy but not very good at and streamers that play these games that I find entertaining to watch.

I usually keep Twitch playing while I do some housekeeping churns or cook. If there's a playthrough I particularly enjoy, I play VOD over a course of a few days for about 30 minutes at a time (usually one or two sessions a day). Otherwise I either watch live if one of my channels is online or pick a VOD from one of them.

Basically I treat Twitch channel as a YouTube channel or a podcast with an added bonus that they often broadcast live, too, and I can interact with the channel host.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#112

Post by grogenaut »

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 work for Twitch but I'll put it in old man terms: I have a subscription to MLB.tv. I watch EVERY SINGLE game of my team each year, that's 162*3 = 486 hours a year. That's 27% of a 1800 hour work year. If you go in season, that's 54%. It's on all day every day that I'm at my work desk. I watch Twitch the rest of the year.

Do I watch it intently? No. Do I know the score and what's going on? Generally. Do I feel I followed the season, YES. Though I have noticed that since I DVR (I watched the world series DURING spring training) a lot I don't keep up with the day to day discussions I actually know less about the team than my brother who watches few games but reads bleacher report constantly.

Why do I do it? Well for 8 years I worked in a heavily paired environment, then went to a job with private offices and felt under stimulated. Started watching baseball / twitch just so it felt like others were in the room. Also I have ADD so these things likely help keep me at neutral input levels.

I'm sure you have some garbage ass tv you just toss on as well. Home remodel shows, golf, blatheringly repetitive cable news. These things are mildly connected to your interest and are either there to be in the background or they're there to let you just zone out and decompress.

When working with amazon I often have to have this conversation with people... it usually goes like this:

55 year old business lead of some VP vertical: It's really wierd to me that people watch hours of other people play video games. It's got to be incredibly boring.

Me: I notice you have a "Masters" hat on. Do you watch that?

55: Yes.

Me: You realize that like 99% of people think golf puts them to sleep.

55: Touche, how much revenue can we make?

Me: XXXXYY

55: I'm interested.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#113

Post by jonjojr »

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 mostly watch Twitch during a big title release, just to see if I am interested or not. I also like watching big events like Overwatch League and other competitions. To me it is relaxing to watch people that are very good at the game play because I also learn from them and do that myself in game.

some just don't have the money to buy the game they want so they go into Twitch to watch that very game and get their fix until they can purchase that game.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#114

Post by xfs »

leviathant wrote: post #62
SurrealSoul wrote: post #36

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…

The question is what can we do about it? Are we stuck in the game of attention engineering forever?

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#115

Post by iliasku »

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 do that. the watching is not passive, you can discusss with the streamer and affect his actions or get explanations on a specific question. i use it to get better at go game.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#116

Post by coldtea »

>“It’s kind of exhausting playing to an empty room day in and day out with no results,” one Redditor wrote on a now-deleted thread on r/Twitch.

Maybe you should play for the game, like gamers did since the dawn of ...well, Space Invaders and Pacman, and not for the audience.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#117

Post by busterarm »

com2kid wrote: post #58
apeace wrote: 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 also have to consider that the average length of a "day" for a popular Twitch streamer is 10-12 hours.

And that those streamers have to stream 6-7 days a week to maintain their audience.

Not worth it, honestly.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#119

Post by gottam »

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 have it on my other monitor while I develop. I don't divert full attention to it, I'm just listening then periodically tune in when I'm in thought or need a small mental break.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#120

Post by grawprog »

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'm with you on this. I grew up playing lots of video games. Far too many. I still play the occasional game but not often. I don't mind watching my roommate play sometimes if i'm doing other things. But I could never just sit and watch someone play a game online. It makes no sense to me. You're still spending the same amount of time watching a game as you would be playing it. I dunno personally I would rather do something than watch other people do things. I feel like i've spent more than enough time in my life just watching things. Why would I want to sit and watch someone else do something I could do myself? I think probably the only gameplay videos i've ever watched, other than demos of new games or stuff like that, were some of the old super metroid speed runs way back in the day.
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