Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 365 posts

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#321

Post by bscphil »

metalliqaz wrote: post #174
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…

I think this is a good explanation, however don't you find that you have to be a player of the game in order to enjoy watching it? Not being a MOBA player, I can never understand what is going on when watching games like DotA.

In addition to what others have said (you need to understand the game, not be an actual player of it), many channels cultivate a community of the same regular viewers. While gaming is technically the thing that brings them all together, the streamers' humor, community in-jokes, and a sense of shared interest are what make different channels unique. As a non-gamer, that's why I watch a few of them regularly.

Watching streams is "about" gaming in the same sense that tailgating is "about" football.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#322

Post by mettamage »

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…

Deleted my comment and resposting it here, since it belongs to this topic.

Is the analogy made to failed startups already? Let me steal a couple of things mentioned in the article and just replace the topic of Twitch streamers with startups. I am now a self-proclaimed startup guru for the remainder of this comment by using this article as my source :D Reasons for starting a startup other than being financially successful or successful through social impact are: (1) it is a form of self-improvement, (2) you will connect with people and (3) you can express your political views. Note on expressing your political views: create an amazing product that helps your political views like starting a hospice clinic that is pro or against euthanasia.

Don't try to get fake likes for your marketing campaign, or fake emails for that matter. Related, buying into reciprocal deals is dangerous (e.g. you like someone and they'll like you).

Oh, and if you're able to be comfortable being lonely, not taking rejection personal and keep a work rhythm that you can stick with then you may have a chance of success. However, it all comes down to quite a bit of luck still, didn't I mention you need to be comfortable being lonely?

I wish there were more articles like this. Despite the fact it's not a post-mortem it shows how tough these things (Twitch streaming or startups) can be.

Where does the analogy break according to you? I am having a bit too much confirmation bias in my thinking.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#323

Post by hellweaver666 »

mlinsey wrote: post #105
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 ful…

My hobby is making stuff, electronics, wood working stuff like that. Like gaming it's time consuming and I often don't have the time or energy. So I just watch other people doing it on YouTube a lot more than I do it myself. It's very rare for me to watch a live stream actually live though, more often than not I throw it in my "watch later" after the broadcast.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#324

Post by corobo »

cf498 wrote: post #320
corobo wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My on again off again wander into the world of streaming/letsplaying/podcasting improved my ability to speak infinitely. Before I started I was the guy that spoke in mumbles or from behind a hand in front of my mouth

LegendOfTotalWar said something similar about how the tone of his voice changed by just talking a lot more while recording campaign after campaign.

Yeah I think it’s a combo of straight up talking a lot but also really listening to how you talk when editing together a video

I found myself really disliking how I spoke when editing the videos because it was a real pain to make my voice heard using all sorts of compression and volume normalisation

It was a decent insight into how others may be hearing me (or not, as the case was)

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#325

Post by Mashimo »

H1Supreme wrote: post #158
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…

Yes, but creating a SAAS app from the ground up still gives gives a valuable skill set. Even if no one uses your app.

Yes, but creating YouTube videos from the ground up still gives you a valuable skill set. Even if no ones see your videos.

I learned to use After Effects. You can write your own expressions with JavaScript straight in the video editor.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#327

Post by xchaotic »

like everything else in 2018, live-streaming is overhyped and competes with everything else - work, sleep, netflix, social etc. I also don't think the focus on gaming / live streaming is enough of a differntiator - youtube does livestreams just fine, Facebook is catching up and I think youtube/alphabet have better economies of scale (with their own cloud infra, additional ad revenue etc) and more tightly integrated ecosystem (preinstalled youtube on Android etc.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#328

Post by kennyadam »

BigJono wrote: post #305
jrockway wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't know if "it gets really fun after 200 hours" is really going to work on anyone but the most poop-socking maniacs.

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#329

Post by lbill »

Like many (many many many) people, I stream. I don't get a ton of viewers, but I very rarely get 0. Here are the "magic" tricks I use: - First trick: I didn't start alone. I belong to a small group of friends that were already involved in amateur video productions on YouTube, and had some other friends hanging out and enjoying our videos. We started a twitch channel as a group a established a schedule: 90% of the time, when a member of our group launches a stream, the other members watch and interact on the chat. And so do some of or friends (not 90% of the time though, but it's all right). - Second trick: we associated ourselves with another streaming structure. We quit a while ago because we both evolved toward different directions, but in our time there we met other streamers, because very good friends with some of them and became part of their community... and they became part of our's as well! We do occasionally organize some common twitch events with them. Not because it might bring us some viewers, but because we like playing with them. - Third trick: since we are a group, it is very easy for us to keep an active presence on tweeter and facebook. When something really funny happens on our live-stream, there is usually someone available to do a clip and publish it. - Last trick: we all have jobs, we all have lives. We don't rely on twitch to get revenue nor to get social interaction. In other words: if we fail on twitch, we'll be quite all right.

When we stream we talk, play and have a ton of fun... and sometimes a random viewer discovers us! And when we're lucky, he/she decides to become a regular. While that's nice, it doesn't really matter: we're doing it out of passion, not for the numbers. If success finally comes, good. If boredom comes before, we'll just stop and move on.

(note: I won't post our channel name here, it isn't the point of this post. Besides, we are french, and it turns out that most people in this strange world don't speak french)

Re: Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one

#330

Post by wingerlang »

mlinsey wrote: post #105
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 ful…

> 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.

Is this really true?

I know I watched random episodes (Malcolm/Seinfeld/Friends/etc..) and enjoyed it. But re-watching them in the proper order is magnitudes better and clearly the way it was supposed to be watched.

I wonder if the same is true for modern TV shows, e.g. the big bang theory - it can be watched and enjoyed by picking a random TV show. Even longer form, say Firefly/Dark Angel/Twin Peaks require you to watch it in order - yet they could be enjoyed on their own as well (you had basically no choice anyway..).

Post reply on HN