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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

#301

Post by jrockway »

BigJono wrote: post #298
jrockway wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the game. I have watched Dota 2 games and have absolutely no idea what anyone is doing or why. I tried playing HOTS and even the tutorial couldn't explain to me what a MOBA is. I think a lot of Twitch is not competitive games like Dota or Overwatch and are really casual games that anyone can understand. I never played Portal 2 cooperative but can easily understand what's going on if someone is streaming it…

This is why I've always thought Rocket League would take off in a big way, it's as trivial to understand as most physical sports. So far I've been proven wrong, but who knows, maybe it'll turn around.

I tried Rocket League... I didn't find it that much fun and the learning curve was a bit too steep. I certainly knew what to do in the game, but I could never get out of my elementary-school soccer habits where I just chased the ball around like an idiot, never in a position to make a play. If I was in a good position, I didn't know what the controls did. As a result, not much fun.

Overwatch I got sucked into immediately. I knew the basic idea; kill the red team... and the rest of the details I picked up as I played. The matchmaking did a very good job of keeping the games winnable but not boring. The variety of heroes has something for everyone; from those that have been playing FPSes since they were 5 (Soldier, McCree, Widowmaker), those that picked up Overwatch as their first competitive FPS at 30 (Winston, Reinhardt, Moira, Mercy...), or those that want something completely different (Doomfist, Sombra, Symmetra). I have made many friends in that game, even met my (ex-) girlfriend via "stay as team" after a good match.

The biggest problem Overwatch has is that they made it appealing to the hard-core gamers as well, so you have to wade through all the people in the community that complain about "no aim, no brain" because they happened to play Aim Hero 13 hours a day and believe that's the only skill in a first-person perspective game that involves killing people. And the balance of the game is such that right now, they're kind of right... people with average aim in other games can absolutely destroy with Hanzo given the large hitbox of his one-shot-kill arrows. You don't need positioning, you don't need teamwork; just get those arrows in the immediate vicinity of the enemy's heads and you win, no matter what your team is doing. They'll probably tone him down a bit in the near future, though.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#302

Post by WilliamEdward »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #204

So many kids these days want to be Twitch streamers. I think it's the gamer version of wanting to grow up to be a NFL/NBA/MLB/etc. player.

They have e-sports you know. The gamer version of wanting to grow up to be a pro athlete would literally be becoming a pro e-sports athlete in dota or something.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#303

Post by KirinDave »

flashman wrote: post #273
KirinDave wrote: post #232

Having spent literally hundreds of hours producing video game content for youtube and twitch, I can say this: It's an incredibly sad, discouraging experience even if you get traction (and I got some traction). It's also utterly hollow: your entire existence is as a wrapper around the content folks actually want to see. The most successful streamers develop their own brand, but these people are the 0.5%, the Felixs an…

> your entire existence is as a wrapper around the content folks actually want to see Yeah, what sets popular streamers apart is that their 'wrapper' is distinctive and entertaining in its own right. Everyone is showing much the same product; what can you put around it that's different? Kind of like selling fizzy drinks, I guess.

People like to pretend that they're unique and provide something special. But in reality, I don't really think most do.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#304

Post by 83457 »

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #237
mlinsey wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ful…

This BAFFLED ME for years as well. But I think I've finally figured it out. A lot of people are watching these streams AS THEY GAME. I can devote 75% of my attention to one monitor as a play "League of Legends", and listen to some helpful coaching from a Twitch Stream with 25% of my attention in the other monitor. At times when my game is loading, or my character is dead and I'm waiting to respawn I can even devote 1…

I have twitch in background about anytime BUT when I'm playing a game

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#305

Post by BigJono »

jrockway wrote: post #301
BigJono wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I've always thought Rocket League would take off in a big way, it's as trivial to understand as most physical sports. So far I've been proven wrong, but who knows, maybe it'll turn around.

I tried Rocket League... I didn't find it that much fun and the learning curve was a bit too steep. I certainly knew what to do in the game, but I could never get out of my elementary-school soccer habits where I just chased the ball around like an idiot, never in a position to make a play. If I was in a good position, I didn't know what the controls did. As a result, not much fun. Overwatch I got sucked into immedia…

Rocket League has a pretty serious inflection point on the learning curve where the game suddenly becomes much more fun. Basically once you can control the ball enough where your optimal strategy isn't "punt the ball as far as you can", the game gets much more interesting.

I clocked about 200 hours over 3 years before hitting that point, and since then I've done another 200 over 6 months.

Regardless, I think it's one of the few e-sports that's fun to watch regardless of how skilled you are yourself.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#306

Post by Noumenon72 »

0xffff2 wrote: post #268
mkirklions wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like the twitter Financial Independence blogging community. People with 0 new advice, rehashing the same old credit card rewards and budgeting advice. Its so terrible that there are people claiming 'frugal ways to eat' and claim 50$/week per person for food is frugal. A single google search would tell you that under 30$/week is a good goal. This drives me crazy because we are eating for 20$/week and actua…

This is tangential, but what's a good starting point for "frugal ways to eat"? I'm not even remotely interested in getting down to $30/week, but my current budget is "not to exceed" $30/ day , and I probably average around $20/day, and I generally cook at least one meal per day at home. Even in a week where I only at food cooked at home I can't imagine getting under $70/week. I'm curious what I would have to give up…

Most food has 200-600 calories per pound, so you need 4-6 pounds of food per day. (This lines up with Google search.) Call it 35 pounds per week. Therefore, you need to spend an average of $1.50/lb to hit $50/week. Bananas and canned tomatoes or beans are well under $1. Pasta and bread are $1. You definitely don't have to give up all TV dinners or meat, you can eat pretty normal.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#308

Post by b3b0p »

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/

For me it's dubbed anime, it probably takes me 1-2 weeks to make it through an entire episode.

While I work I need some noise, something, nearly anything. The complete lack of silence bothers me. I usually listen to OCRemix at work (via rainwave.cc) or 90's/00's music from when I was younger (nostalgia).

At home I will put on something like Friends (Netflix), Giant Bomb videos (giantbomb.com), or classic game play throughs (NES, SNES, Genesis) on YouTube (or Giant Bomb). For example, LaserTime did Aladdin SNES vs Aladdin Genesis side by side video and they played through NES Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Simpson's games on NES/SNES. Giant Bomb has a series called Vinnyvania where Vinny (one of the Giant Bomb employees) plays through all the Castlevania games and another where they play through all the fighting games and rank them. I'm not into the new games.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#309

Post by kungtotte »

hug wrote: post #251
steveklabnik wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like regular sports, you need to understand the basic rules, but that doesn't mean you need to know all of them. Most people don't know the full rulebook of sports that they watch. And commentators can make it even more accessible; their expertise is there to help provide context and guidance.

As someone who watches a lot of Dota (at an esports bar with strangers who may or may not know dota) and plays very little, you’re half right. In football You don’t need to know, exactly, which way the plays are going to go and why, but you do need to know the rough constraints of the game and what is physically possible to perform. Some of the things that happen in dota are utterly impossible to follow unless you ha…

Yeah, I think this is the major difference. Being from Europe I don't really know anything about American football or baseball beyond the basics, but watching a game it's pretty transparent whenever someone does something good. I don't need to know batting averages, the difficulty of plays, or why a play was exceptional to know when a player or team scored points.

Games like MOBAs are opaque by comparison. I can see roughly what's going on but I couldn't tell you if a team is winning or losing to save my life. In football if the guy holding the ball is out in front of the defending team and running to the end zone I can guess he's going to score a TD, but a team can look like they're getting whooped in DotA but really they're tricking the opponents and someone is making a sneaky play in a different corner of the map or someone has an ability or gear that means the situation is the reverse of what it appears, etc.

All of that is really only apparent to someone very familiar with the game.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#310

Post by 0xffff2 »

Noumenon72 wrote: post #306
0xffff2 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is tangential, but what's a good starting point for "frugal ways to eat"? I'm not even remotely interested in getting down to $30/week, but my current budget is "not to exceed" $30/ day , and I probably average around $20/day, and I generally cook at least one meal per day at home. Even in a week where I only at food cooked at home I can't imagine getting under $70/week. I'm curious what I would have to give up…

Most food has 200-600 calories per pound, so you need 4-6 pounds of food per day. (This lines up with Google search.) Call it 35 pounds per week. Therefore, you need to spend an average of $1.50/lb to hit $50/week. Bananas and canned tomatoes or beans are well under $1. Pasta and bread are $1. You definitely don't have to give up all TV dinners or meat, you can eat pretty normal.

That does give me some food for thought. To take an example I cook regularly, the absolute cheapest tomatoes are a bit under $1.50/lb, but San Marzano tomatoes are more like $3/lb, and worth every penny. Then, if you're making a basic pasta marinara, add garlic, thyme, oregano, maybe some pepper flakes, olive oil... No one thing is expensive, but it adds up. Then, if you really want to kick it up a notch in the cost department, add some fresh thyme and basil. Now you're at something like $4-5/lb for something that is nutritionally very similar to the $1.50/lb version, but damn is it ever going to taste better.

I guess to some extent I'm asking to have my cake and eat it too. It just seems like you have to give up most meat and a lot of flavor to hit $50/week or lower.

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