
Twitch streamers who spend years broadcasting to no one - ss2003
https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/16/17569520/twitch-streamers-zero-viewers-motivation-community
======
metalliqaz
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's mostly students and single
young professionals.

~~~
SaltyBackendGuy
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 usually watching some separate but equally mind
numbing content to decompress from a long day.

Just another form of entertainment, like tv, but there's nothing I enjoy
watching on tv. To each their own.

~~~
degenerate
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/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurama_Sleepers/)

~~~
Reedx
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?

~~~
degenerate
White noise is better than nothing, but my brain won't stop generating content
(thoughts) with white noise. When the TV is generating the content, my brain
focuses on that, and it's mindless enough to fall asleep to. I think it has
something to do with being a mentally active person forced into a passive
role, like shifting the brain into low gear.

~~~
thejake0
Check out the Sleep With Me Podcast[1]. Same concept: Dull, meandering talking
to lull you to sleep.

[1][https://www.sleepwithmepodcast.com/](https://www.sleepwithmepodcast.com/)

------
KirinDave
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
and the _sips and the ZachScotts. They're the exception, and even they have
specific genres and subjects that if they venture into they risk losing a
massive chunk of their audience.

Once I realized this, I had to stop trying to do it professionally. I'd rather
go back to doing software product work. At least I feel like a real person
with real impact in this field, as opposed to one of a billion interchangeable
wrappers around other people's mostly interchangeable content.

But you can of course go see my youtube channel and watch my old minecraft
content if you want. Some of the stuff around the middle of my cycle (i.e.,
D&S play Minecraft, Minecraft the Hard Way, Sunless Minecraft) was pretty
solid for the genre.

~~~
flashman
> 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.

~~~
s-shellfish
Sort of. I've been making art for a long time, went to school for it.

People want to see themselves in whatever you produce for them. It's that
simple. They want something they identify with.

Artists and content developers can have more fun playing with it because they
have different meaning spaces - they see connections across content that is
still self identity, it's just across a different set of things. It can be
competitive and draining though, so one must use their energy wisely.

Crowds can be fickle in general, so it can as well be exhausting staying
plugged into them, producing just for them, without any way of receiving
meaningful feedback.

It's not that people are narcissists at heart, it's just that they don't want
to pay attention to things to things that don't make sense to them on any
level. That's pretty normal.

~~~
B1FF_PSUVM
> People want to see themselves in whatever you produce for them. It's that
> simple.

Funny thing is comrade Tocqueville hit on that upon looking at the USA for a
couple of months almost two centuries ago.

Something along the lines of "democratic peoples want to hear stories about
themselves" (instead of the classics), rather early on the pages of his
Democracy in America, writing about theater and culture.

~~~
s-shellfish
Now that I think about it though, it really depends. If there's no stable
reflection of self identity, that's what people seek out. But if there is a
stable way to identify with the self, people seek out novelty, something
different.

I think the internet introduces both tunnel vision of self identity and
complete chaos where self identity breaks down. This seems like it would be an
obvious consequence of anonymity, but some things are easily forgotten.

It makes sense with the Democratic process. Identities constantly swapping and
merging, playing both sides while being neither fundamentally. It makes sense
that communism would have a valid criticism. Stable, forced sense of identity
suppresses dissent before it manifests. Until revolution, war happens, that
is. Scary stuff!

~~~
B1FF_PSUVM
Back in the old days of broadcast TV trying to hit peak audience, the
voluntary sameness of the various broadcasters was scary ...

------
SurrealSoul
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 huge user base
where Bloomin' despised marketing and wanted to grow "organically".

Growing organically isn't possible. You need to do something, you need to bot
and break rules on twitch, you need to ask for publicity, you need to make
friends with other streamers. Playing a game and being funny doesn't cut it
anymore

~~~
leviathant
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 can possibly be consumed. But I
realize that if I want something that I'm doing to gain any traction at all, I
have to get other people talking about it, and that there are pretty well
established ways of making that happen.

When the internet was a smaller space occupied primarily by nerdy types, you
could make something interesting and by the nature of the medium, a lot of
people found it. You thought you really hit it big if you made Slashdot, but
getting featured on television took it to a whole different level. (For
example: The Dancing Baby) You didn't need to have a face or a personality -
your content actually could speak for itself. But even back then, taking those
extra steps usually didn't hurt, either.

Now, the internet is full of professionals of all stripes, and that means
you're fighting for attention against people or entities who have a budget for
marketing and PR. I can take the most beautiful photos in the world and put
them on Instagram, but if I'm not actively marketing that account, no one will
ever see them. Meanwhile, some dope with a fresh set of credit cards rents a
Lamborghini for a photo shoot, buys batches of followers, and that will grow a
following, and maybe he'll get a free night at a posh hotel out of it.

Maybe Bloomin' just does it for the love of it. Maybe Markipler has been able
to quit their job and make YouTube their profession. I bet both of them wish
they had aspects of the other's experiences. As much exposure as I got to
being a small-beans niche internet 'celebrity' (like, on the level of local
weatherman), I wouldn't wish fame on my worst enemy.

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

~~~
abhiminator
>Are we stuck in the game of attention engineering forever?

More or less. As the content generated exceeds limits of human attention, it
is our ability to pay attention that is scarce and much sought after. And I
don't see that changing anytime soon.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy)

------
jcfrei
Very interesting article. I have nothing substantial to add I just want to
point out how "cyberpunky" the lives of some people have become. Twenty years
ago this would have fit right into the storyline of a dystopian cyberpunk
novel about poor streamers who spend all day in front of a computer screen
trying to become the most popular "gamer in the online gaming community".

~~~
bumholio
It's a story as old as the world: trying to get noticed while doing
essentially the same thing as the successful kids, but lacking that essential
element of luck or genetics, that last second on the chronometer, that "in"
preexisting social circle.

It's the life of all those trying to enter into high risk, highly coveted
careers that afford celebrity: authorship, sports, politics, music or film.
The field might be changing but the game remains the same: humans mostly value
what other humans happen to value, the other 99.99% comparable but unknown
products are simply discarded.

~~~
WilliamEdward
The problem is trying to do the exact same thing as someone else. There has
never been a business or method of making money in the history of capitalism
that has survived by being an exact copy of another business or method. Even
businesses with the same model as a bigger one, eg: small vs large car repair
businesses, are able to function by having a different pricing point,
location, etc. No one seems to understand that this applies to your job too.
You're never going to be as successful as someone else by doing the exact same
thing as them, because they got there first. Find your niche.

------
nickjj
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 it because they enjoy
it.

The same can be said for the people who create successful SAAS apps. It's a
mix of enjoying what they do, combined with making something that no one else
has yet. It's not to get rich quick.

~~~
Shivetya
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.

~~~
nickjj
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).

------
apeace
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 for an upgraded
internet connection.

These are people who in some cases have hundreds of thousands of followers on
Youtube and each Twitch stream attracts over two thousand viewers. It's not a
good way to make a living.

I've asked several of them if they make a full-time living (via Twitch chat),
and they've acknowledged the question, but didn't seem to want to really
answer it.

A couple of them even make a joke out of it every time their sibling starts
torrenting and it slows down their network connection.

If I ever have a kid, I'll support their dream of becoming one of these
people. And I'll also tell them they're not living in my house past the age of
18. Figure out a way to make money while doing what you love.

~~~
com2kid
> 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, and it isn't too hard to break 6k a month. Not enough to live in the Bay
Area, but a really nice salary in most of the country.

~~~
busterarm
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.

~~~
com2kid
> You also have to consider that the average length of a "day" for a popular
> Twitch streamer is 10-12 hours.

carlsagan42 streams once a week for ~4 hours, and pulls in a couple thousand
viewers at min, at 6pm on a Saturday.

His secret? He is super entertaining, hands down one of the funniest people
and most entertaining people to watch on twitch. His YT videos of his streams
then get a few hundred thousand more views on top of that. But yes he is an
anomaly, in that he is really damn good at both game play and also
entertaining.

Most streamers don't have that killer combo, so they have to work a lot
harder.

Plenty of streamers are 9am-5pm, 8am-4pm, or 11am-7pm. Heck I know successful
who are 8pm-midnight.

I'd argue that it really depends on the stream and the community. Streamers
that build a super strong community can get away with shorter streamers and
smaller viewer bases. They won't be pulling in millions, but they can get a
steady income stream from it.

My overall point is that streaming is a valid career for people who have the
right skills. The barrier to getting started is low, but the barrier to doing
to an open mic stand-up is also low. The difference is there aren't a bunch of
news articles about people flocking to open-mic nights, although I suspect on
any given night there are a thousand or so people doing open mic in the US
alone! But there is also a cultural realization that most people shouldn't
quit their job, drop out of school, and start practicing their comedy routine
8 hours a day.

~~~
busterarm
You can't really compare extreme outliers against the norm. Very few Twitch
streamers can have that kind of community you're talking about. I would wager
low double digits.

~~~
com2kid
> I would wager low double digits.

I know of more than half a dozen who are just Super Mario Maker streamers.

I know, my pure happenstance, of two cooking streamers who have built
communities.

I think low double digits is a low ball estimate. There are more successful
retro gaming streamers than that, I have no idea what the contemporary game
twitch scene is like.

No one ever talks about 300 viewer streamers, they make for lousy news
stories. Drama with super successful streamers, and articles like this one
that talk about failure at the bottom.

Someone working 9-5, 40 hours a week, pulling in 40-50k a year isn't a news
story.

~~~
busterarm
Few (if any) of those streamers are making a living wage off of just their few
hours/week streaming.

It may be part of their income but not all of their income.

If you run the numbers on what's needed to make ~$1500/wk off of 4 hours/week
of streaming, it doesn't paint the picture that you are.

------
calgoo
I was working from home for about 1.5 years. My daily contact was a morning
phone call with the others on the team. Having a twitch stream open for 8+
hours in the background works really well for me as its more like having a
radio on then a TV. Its not that you are sitting there watching every thing
that the streamer is doing. You are more listening and glancing at it once in
a while.

A second aspect that i really enjoy in relation to twitch streams is the chat
community and the interaction you can have live with the streamer. Its
basically a IRC chat channel that the streamer is the owner of. So even when
the stream is offline, you can hang around chatting with friends that you make
online. It really remind me of my old mIRC days. Its all about finding a
community that you enjoy, not all stream chats are the same. Some can be quite
toxic but most streamers have Mods that ban people quickly for hate speech
etc.

There are also people that are coding on twitch these days, and i really enjoy
having one of those streams open while coding myself. Whenever i get stuck on
something, or am thinking about an issue / design I like watching what the
streamer is coding for a few min. It tends to help me work out the problems
quicker and the designs are normally better thought out.

------
minimaxir
Per Twitch's stream analytics, on one of my data science programming streams
on Twitch the majority of my viewers came from the Explore page, under the
relatively-less-popular Programming category.

I wonder if there's a bit of game theory in play where it's impossible to be
discovered when playing a megapopular game like Overwatch/Fortnite, and it's
more advantageous to play relatively more obscure games. It wouldn't be the
first time working the long-tail has been effective.

~~~
prefferot
Reading this made me curious. I'll probably check out the programming category
tonight if I have time. How is the quality of those programming streams? What
goes on in them? Do the streamers answer questions about techniques, etc? Is
it just shoptalk/circlejerking?

I'm usually a self-starter on learning things, but I can lose interest quickly
if I don't get some sort of feedback or have someone to ask questions. MOOCs,
forums, etc are a waste of time for me in most cases; too slow and impersonal.
And now that I think about it Twitch/streaming would probably be a better
suited learning medium for me.

~~~
rezashirazian
The quality is poor. It's mostly gamer streamers trying out something
different. They're usually going through a udacity course or hacking a crud
web application.

There is lot of blindly looking at the screen, reading tutorials or getting
frustrated with compilation errors.

They do not like to be helped.

~~~
keithnz
I think this is an unfair characterization, there are some REALLY good
programmers, some new programmers, and people at all stages of their
programming journey.

A lot are doing game programming, I'm less interested in this, but some are
very interesting. For instance...

[https://www.twitch.tv/jessicamak](https://www.twitch.tv/jessicamak)

Really interesting what she does, and an insane attention to detail.

A HNer I watch when he codes... he does an interesting mix of stuff and has
30+ years of experience

[https://www.twitch.tv/nybblesio](https://www.twitch.tv/nybblesio)

there's people coding games with robotic bananas

[https://www.twitch.tv/uselessduckcompany/videos/all](https://www.twitch.tv/uselessduckcompany/videos/all)

.NET devs

[https://www.twitch.tv/csharpfritz](https://www.twitch.tv/csharpfritz)

who also has coding streams with Microsoft Devs

and numerous others doing embedded development, web development, backend dev,
security, crypto, Rust, Lisp, C++, F#, Vimers, IDEers, VSCoders, Emacers....
all sorts.

who

~~~
rezashirazian
My comment was based on random visits to /programming and checking out what
people were doing.

I didn't know of the streamers you mentioned, but I'd be sure to check them
out.

Looking forward to being wrong on this.

------
crusso
Normally, when I do play videogames, it's a private sort of thing between
myself and my game system.

I just recently ran across some twitch channels via youtube because I was
looking for some help with some Dark Souls III content.

It's like a whole different universe with people who live and breath these
games every waking moment. I found it very interesting to see that it's a
whole way of life with this many people. Now I'm tempted to watch some of
these twitch broadcasters even though I'm not interested in the games that
they're playing.

~~~
local_yokel
Come watch some DS3 speedruns and travel even further down the rabbit hole of
people who know everything about the game to an absolutely obsessive degree
and are insanely good at playing it. It's not for everyone mind you, but I
find it hugely entertaining if you take the time to appreciate it.

------
com2kid
I am a regular of a low viewer count stream, choaslegionkaeru, who is pretty
good and talkative. He rarely gets past 10 streamers, and his style isn't for
everyone and I don't think he'll ever be a massive success, but I enjoy
watching and interacting with him.

I've tuned into other low viewer streams, and a lot of them are just bad. The
gameplay is bad, and the streamer isn't entertaining. A successful streamer
needs one or the other, either be one of the top in the world for the game you
are playing, or be super entertaining to listen to. For the later, the game
itself is more of a set piece around a comedy bit.

~~~
mkirklions
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 actually put
hundreds of hours into studying this.

In the end, my website gets hundreds of viewers a day, their blogs arent
ranked on alexa.

~~~
0xffff2
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 to get to $50, much
less $30.

~~~
Noumenon72
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.

~~~
0xffff2
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.

~~~
danharaj
You can grow basil and thyme! We have some and we live in an apartment with
east-west windows and it's still plenty of herb.

------
wheelie_boy
In the far future when food, shelter, and other necessities are basically
free, attention will be the last valuable commodity. There will always be a
scarcity of attention.

~~~
Tade0
Makes one imagine a very different Star Trek universe.

~~~
nostrademons
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Callister](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Callister)

------
ghuntley
Twitch isn't just about playing games. There's a growing community of people
like myself who use the platform to teach people how to write software. In my
case as an opensource maintainer I use it as a way to break down opensource
and introduce people to what the role entails.

Follow me at
[https://twitch.tv/geoffreyhuntley](https://twitch.tv/geoffreyhuntley) and
[https://youtube.com/c/geoffreyhuntley](https://youtube.com/c/geoffreyhuntley)
and [https://twitter.com/geoffreyhuntley](https://twitter.com/geoffreyhuntley)

~~~
Ologn
Yes. There is a contest that exists called "Ludum Dare" where a theme is
announced, and within 2-3 days people have to design a video game fitting that
theme.

One person who took up the challenge was Minecraft creator Markus "Notch"
Persson (
[https://www.twitch.tv/videos/38122415](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/38122415)
). You see him coding for 11 hours or so, and at some points (like in the
beginning) he talks about what his gameplan for coding the project are.
Throughout you see a screen share of him coding, or drawing a tile map, or the
like. It's an interesting thing if you want to see how a very successful game
programmer that had to put a finished game together within 2-3 days would go
about it.

------
ryandrake
> Despite the sometimes psychologically taxing nature of trying to get noticed
> on Twitch, some continue to persevere despite the cold indictment of the
> zero.

Maybe I’m advocating a bit of a dark pattern here, but couldn’t Twitch keep
streamers engaged by seeding streams with a few fake AI bots as viewers? This
seems like it might be a little of the Empty Restaurant Effect. People
hesitate to go into a restaurant if there’s nobody else eating there. So
provide a few fake diners.

~~~
eropple
Most people who are serious about doing the Twitch thing, even if it's just a
serious hobby, pretty shamelessly spoof viewers. Even if you don't want to be
dishonest about it, it is in some ways unavoidable. Have the stream open while
you're on to make sure that everything's working? That's one viewer. We do
group streams and people cycle in and out, so we keep a laptop with the stream
open outside the recording room; that's another. People open it on a phone to
check chat, that's another.

~~~
ShabbosGoy
There’s a big difference between that and viewbotting, though.

~~~
eropple
Depends on how many phones and computers you've got around.

Plenty of people also pay to outsource it, too.

------
rossdavidh
So, I'm just going to say this, even though probably everyone already knows
it: there are way, way more people looking to make a living off of producing
content (Youtube, Twitch, etc.) for the internet, than there are people
thinking, "If only there were more content on the Internet, I would pay some
money or put up with some ads for that." There's nothing wrong with putting it
out there if you want to, but expecting any kind of financial reward or other
validation from the size of your audience seems like injecting yourself into a
pretty vicious zero-sum game.

~~~
Retric
I suspect their are far more viewers than people making content. The issue is
1 or even 10 viewers is no where near enough to support a content creator.

~~~
rubicon33
I find it fascinating that the distribution of resources is almost always NON-
LINEAR.

Take capital wealth. Money. That is a heavily non-linear distribution.

Twitch is no different. If you use viewers as a proxy for wealth, it's
fascinating that even that proxy behaves in a non-linear way.

I happen to have heard some interesting behavioral theories about why
resources distribute in that manner. I'm always curious about what other
people think.

~~~
rossdavidh
I agree that the "natural" result will always be something along the lines of
a Pareto distribution. That's bad news for my libertarian instincts, because I
think it means that, in the absence of any mechanism to (partially) flatten
this distribution back out, we inevitably see power accumulate more and more
in the hands of fewer and fewer.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution)

------
izzydata
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 no longer engage with the audience in any
personable way and it becomes more of a job it is no longer appealing to me.
It is even as far as off-putting to where I'd avoid it and those kinds of
communities.

I occasionally stream to 0-3 people for the fun of it and to talk to people as
if we were in a room together as that is more what gaming is to me. It seems
that I'm in the very small minority these days though.

~~~
munificent
_> 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.

~~~
izzydata
Playing a game is already an effortless activity that is hard to believe
people are even unwilling to do that. I can maybe understand if you couldn't
afford it or didn't want to afford it, but there are countless recordings of
any video game on youtube without commentary.

------
madrox
I wonder how much of the desire for kids to stream has to do with the
potential scale. The bar to entry is low, but if you take off, then you're
making six figures a month. Once upon a time, mobile apps had that kind of
reputation. Before that, it was blogs. Before that, websites.

There always seems to be a gold rush whenever a market becomes democratized.
The gold rush seems to end once organic acquisition is no longer viable. I'm
curious if that follows some static cost-per-user marketing dollar amount
across all of these trends.

------
mathnmusic
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.

~~~
cuckcuckspruce
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.

~~~
vultour
I'd like to do some infrastructure streams where I play around with things
like my Kubernetes cluster, unfortunately it seems like a pretty bad idea to
livestream configuration of something that is connected to the internet.

~~~
cuckcuckspruce
I was going to set up a VirtualBox virtual network disconnected from the
Internet to do this - perhaps only allowing HTTPS to a Debian/Ubuntu mirror if
I need to install packages. You could do something similar for your Kubernetes
cluster.

I was also considering a cheap, pay-by-the hour VPS that I could just destroy
after the stream.

------
kesor
I streamed myself programming several times. Just having to narrate what I am
doing kept me in focus. As a programmer, it is fairly hard to get "in the
zone" and stay there, especially when there are rare interruptions. Streaming
helped me keep chugging along creating more and more code and TDD without
falling to the seduction of visiting social news sites.

What I am saying, is that I was streaming for myself mostly. Got lots of value
from it. It didn't really matter if there were viewers or not.

~~~
Kuiper
I actually found myself doing somewhat similar when playing digital card games
like Magic: The Gathering online and Shadowverse: I would "think out loud" and
talk through the lines I was considering them ("Hmm, if I attack like this,
then he probably double blocks me, so I don't want to do that...") and also
audibly reacting to things that were happening in the game ("...oh, I totally
didn't expect that. I got greedy, and my opponent was in a position to punish
me. I should have been playing more conservatively.") Whenever I do this, it
really forces me to stop playing on "auto-pilot" and actually think about the
lines I'm taking, and also better internalize the lessons I'm learning through
experience.

The difference is that I don't actually stream myself as I'm doing this: I
talk the same way a streamer would talk, but the walls of my home office are
the only audience. I actually kind of "learned" this approach from watching
Magic: The Gathering Youtubers and streamers, who do the "thinking out loud"
approach as a way of teaching strategy, but one of the lessons I picked up is
that in the process of thinking out loud, these players sometimes seem to talk
themselves out of making inadvisable plays, so I decided to try it for myself,
minus the audience, and found that it often caused me to play better and learn
better. (Of course, this "skill" doesn't really translate over quite as well
to tournament Magic when you're sitting across a table from your opponent, but
playing better in online practice often translates into playing better in a
tournament setting.)

Third-hand story: friend of friend has a nephew who spends a lot of time
playing Minecraft (grade school age), and as he explores the world, he
narrates everything he does in a calm British accent. It's kind of surreal
that this genre of Youtube videos (Mincraft Let's Plays by Englishmen speaking
with a David Attenborough-like cadence) has taught a generation of kids that
_this_ is how people play Minecraft. It reminds me a bit of kids I've seen in
youth sports leagues who sometimes make a big show of stomping off in a huff
or yelling a soft expletive like "Darn!" when something doesn't go their way,
not because they're actually frustrated or invested in the outcome of the
game, but because they're mimicking the kind of behavior they've seen from
professional athletes on TV. (That's not to say that there aren't kids who get
genuinely frustrated during these games, but the more time I spend observing
kids in "organized recreation," the more I come to realize just how much of
their behavior is performative.)

------
matheusmoreira
The important thing is enjoying the game and having fun. The number of people
watching the stream shouldn't have a negative impact on that.

Lots of streamers seem to approach video games like they're some kind of full
time job. They play games, stream the footage then expect thousands of dollars
to start coming in every month. Of course the vast majority of them are going
to end up frustrated. These people seem to be doing it solely for the money. I
get the impression they wouldn't be playing anything if the potential to
monetize their "fun time" didn't exist. I've seen _successful_ youtubers force
themselves to play games they don't like because of their fanbase, all while
complaining about how the game sucks and sometimes even rage quitting. It's
cringeworthy.

Why not play the games for the fun of it? It's easier to stream if one starts
with that mindset. It costs nothing to stream gaming sessions, so they lose
nothing if if nothing comes of it. Even if there's no audience, there are
advantages: the stream can be recorded and archived, giving the streamer video
footage of great moments they can look back on. People are gonna play games
anyway, they might as well stream it.

~~~
robryan
It depends what the stream is for them. If someone is streaming a game they
would be playing anyway in their spare time they probably don’t care too much.
If someone sees it as their ticket out of a job/career they hate I can see
where the frustration would come from.

------
nybblesio
I stream my daily programming routine on Twitch. The key, for me, is exactly
this: it's _my_ routine. I don't tailor my routine for Twitch, beyond
interacting with my audience.

With that said, since starting at the beginning of 2018, I've done better than
I expected. I have 1300+ followers on Twitch with decent monthly growth. My
daily average viewership numbers are hovering around 40. The first month was
an imposition while I fought with the mechanics of running a stream and
programming. Now I don't even notice. I talk to myself regardless, so I
figured I might as well entertain some folks while I do it. :)

I will never make any real money streaming. I knew that going in. But I am
meeting a lot of nice people and the old man in me wants to help the
youngsters. If I can save one person a few hassles on their journey, it's
worth it.

Finally, I find YouTube a much harder nut to crack. My channel has seen slow
and consistent growth, but slow is the operative word here. Very, very slow.
Long form content does not seem to do well. For YouTube, videos <= 15min
appears to be the sweet spot.

~~~
gitgud
What kind of programming do you stream? Is it tutorials or work related?

I would always be worried that someone would catch a glimpse of a private key
or API secret, how do you deal with that?

~~~
nybblesio
I like to work on low-level projects. I've streamed x86 and ARM64 assembly
language, C and C++, and Rust projects.

At the moment, I'm working on a compiler for a programming language I call
Basecode.

With one exception -- that I had to terminate for other reasons -- I stream
only open source projects that I have complete ownership over. I don't
typically have to worry about exposing keys or passwords.

------
rch
Isn't this similar to posting on SoundCloud with no specific intent or
expectation? Publishing content is an easy way to make it available on a bunch
of devices, so if you're not concerned with outcomes then what's the
difference? Need to read the article I guess.

Edit: OK, some people expect to attract a following and are having trouble:

> attracts over two million broadcasters every month ... Discoverability is an
> issue

No kidding.

------
socrates1998
Most people are not interesting enough to watch play a video game.

Which means, most people should NOT be doing this. Or at least doing it with
the expectation that people will watch them.

You have to be something that sets you apart. Super good, super funny, or
entertaining. Just playing a game and making dick jokes isn't interesting or
funny.

~~~
widgitybear
I think you're underestimating the power of good dick... jokes.

------
pjc50
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.

~~~
Siecje
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.

~~~
steveklabnik
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...

------
satsuma
every year i participate in the extra life streamathon fundraiser. i usually
get a few viewers here and there but for the most part it's just me the whole
time. the concept of streaming for nobody is a little disheartening,
especially if you're narrating to yourself, but when people come in and i
interact for a few minutes it's a lot of fun. i'm looking forward to it next
year for sure.

~~~
eropple
I run a decent-sized Extra Life event (not just me, but friends and usually
on-location--one of my sidelines is live video production). It helps to do it
with other people. Grab friends, find a couch. If you're having fun live,
you'll retain the people who do bounce by.

Our first year we raised $3500, our second $6500. We didn't really try that
hard--just a little, and I mean a little, marketing (and some Boston-local
guests, but those were fairly small bumps in viewership). Last time around we
had a minimum of five viewers who were not us/our program feed/etc. even at
like 4AM because we kept turning the crank with Twitter, Facebook, etc.

------
erikpukinskis
People who are amazing do grow organically, with just a little PR work. People
who are fun to watch turn random introductions into an audience.

You get constant growth for free with <pick your promotion channel here>....
As long as your content is converting watchers to subscribers a low constant
growth is plenty to seed the network.

Streamers are not “doing simple things to build their audience” because they
don’t really want an audience: they want validation. Whatever trickle of
exposure they get is enough to signal to them that they’re not converting
people because they’re not winning anyone over. You don’t need a lot of data
points for that to become very clear.

The only way to break out of that is experimentation. And a lot of streamers
aren’t really.

------
georgeecollins
Isn't it strange to think that on one hand we worry that people are spying on
us, on the other hand we are kind of desperate for an audience?

------
bdz
Myself I stream to archive my gameplay. It's just good to look back some
moments and some interactions later so if I record it then why not broadcast
it too? I guess I fall in the same situation because I only have 1-2 viewers.

~~~
JeremyBanks
If you're streaming as archiving (which I also do), YouTube is simpler since
it automatically keeps all of your VODs without you needing to explicitly save
each one.

------
quantumwoke
This article misunderstands or at least downplays the motivations of most of
the smaller streamers on Twitch. On HN a good analogy would be the startup
scene, where plenty of startups are made out of passion and a desire to solve
a need in the community. Streamers are like these small startups, a lot of
them set out to make money but many are content with just the experience,
similar to a side project. I often browse small 1-4 viewer streams just to see
what's happening and you can sometimes find interesting and unique people who
are just there for the fun of it.

------
Sohcahtoa82
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.

~~~
WilliamEdward
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.

------
olliej
How many of these streamers are just “I enjoy this game” and stream for the
hell of it?

Surely a bunch of the people with zero/few followers just don’t care?

~~~
adrr
Its a learning experience for them as well. They'll get better at public
performance much like practising a speech alone at your house.

------
moretai
Are these not people who are just deluding themselves that they are doing it
out of love, when all they want to do is be famous?

~~~
LoSboccacc
Depends. I’d say for example that the primitive technology channel does it out
of love. So there are people like that, even if the wast majority does it
because let’s be honest a career in video gaming sounds great. But the thing
is those are also the least likely to attract viewers.

Top spots nowadays are claimed by sponsored players anyway and making it as an
amateur is nightmarish difficult. Fame grows exponentially because once a
talent emerges companies are quick to sign it up and after that they provide
most of the promotion for their talent to grow.

~~~
moretai
But there is a way for the primitive technology channel to be monetized. For
him to gain recognition, as opposed to him just building his wooden houses in
isolation. Without anyone knowing. It is not as if he's unaware of people
making millions off of youtube(or being famous, whatever), or the internet. We
can't separate youtube no matter how "primitive" the action being filmed is.
He may be doing it out of pure love, but if it was true love, why does he feel
the need to film it? To help others? Why do any of us need to know how to do
this, and how does a video help? He most likely got good at building a log
house from building hundreds of shitty log houses from before.

------
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)

------
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.

------
bsaul
Kind of remind me of
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merv_Griffin_Show_(Seinfel...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merv_Griffin_Show_\(Seinfeld\))

------
hartator
I don't see the issue with that. We won't complain when our kids try to make a
movie no one will really see, how is this creative process different?

------
thepumpkin1979
I can relate to this, two weeks ago I started streaming from my Xbox and I've
been enjoying 1-2 viewers at the time, sometimes 4 when I post the link to
Facebook. To me 1-2 viewers is a lot, of course I play a game no one is
playing: Battlefield Hardline.

The twitch channel for Battlefield Hardline has 3 streamers tops on weekends
and I happen to be one of them. I bet I'd be getting zero viewers if I was
playing Fortnite.

------
mgr86
I'll share my personal use of twitch streams. I really enjoy AOE2. The game
might be nearing its second decade, but its very enjoyable for me to watch
personally. I will use youtube-dl to grab past broadcasts and play the games
back at 1.5x to 2x speed. I can easily skip through parts I find
uninteresting. I'll generally watch one or two games per day, but my time
commitment is under 30mins.

~~~
therealdrag0
Are they playing against other humans? I got AOE2 HD a couple months ago and
it's been my go-to game this summer. But I haven't thought of looking on
twitch or for multiplayer online.

~~~
mgr86
Yes, there is quite the competitive scene. And many streamers on twitch.
However, most of the competitive games are played on Voobly. There are guides
out there about playing AOE2HD on Voobly.

There is a 60k tournament underway. Tiny compared to other games, but
respectable considering the age of this game.

The game's audience is mainly international. Large player bases in china,
Vietnam, EU, and south america. The community can mainly be found at
aoezone.net. There is a smaller community also on reddit.com/r/aoe2

------
preparedzebra
Sometimes they make a big break though, and they would've been gaming anyways.
Seems like risk adjusted reward is extremely favorable.

------
kawfey
To anyone wondering why people spend time watching people play video games:
billions of people spend time watching people play sports.

~~~
peterwwillis
I don't get those people either.

------
Havoc
Undergoing a similar type vibe with a recently set up website. Barely has
content on it so not expecting much, but the low hit-count isn't exactly
encouraging & motivating towards putting more content in place.

Must be far worse for streamers - that's a hell of a lot more personal.

------
d4rkd0s
There should be a much better way to find/locate the "bottom" bucket
streamers, and get them up in front of people's faces.

Sorting by "viewers" is just wrong, lets the rich grow richer...

------
glitcher
> "According to people who have gone through it, lacking an audience is one of
> the most demoralizing things you can experience online."

Um, what about bullying, doxxing, hacking, identify theft, etc?

~~~
Nannooskeeska
I'd assume that the people who are getting zero viewers aren't generally the
same people getting bullied, doxxed, hacked, identity-thefted, and so on.

------
FrozenVoid
It would sound absurd to broadcast to zero audience, but they're not simply
broadcasting they're cultivating presence on the platform and honing their
skills towards that end.

------
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.

------
memelord69
there are hundreds of these dudes. I have one followed that I see streaming
all the time with 1 viewer which is probably himself. He’s on social aid or
something in Danemark.

------
vfc1
Why not blog tips and tricks about the game, or create Youtube How To videos
to build an audience in the first place?

The best way to create an audience out of nothing is still by far a blog.

------
IronWolve
Amazed nobody referenced Pareto's principle (80/20) rule.

20% of the streamers get 80% of the viewers.

------
pnathan
Reminds me of IRC channels, except located around a nexus of a specific micro-
celebrity.

------
rydogg
rocket league is more entertaining to watch than any other sport

------
nso95
Game development streams on Twitch are absolutely addictive.

------
coding123
Ok, post your streams and I'll watch a few minutes.

------
draw_down
The streams I have watched so far are more like extemporaneous comedy shows,
with the game as either background noise, or providing something for the hosts
to riff on.

I’m sure that for many the game is the actual point, but for me if the hosts
aren’t entertaining personalities in themselves I wouldn’t be interested in
watching just for the game.

------
jlebrech
is there a way to see which games people want to watch and compare that to
your library and get a suggestion?

------
crcl
Nipl

