Stream Key Podcast: Is Being A Variety Twitch Streamer Worth It?

Is Being A Variety Twitch Streamer Worth It Link

After streaming for about 2 months, GreenChord and SuperV1D were ABSOLUTELY CORRECT, in order to become Partner, you DO HAVE to sacrifice a lot, including sleep, no breaks/vacation! 

The question becomes: is it worth becoming Partner? For me, it's a no so far...

This synopsis was an eye-opener.

At any rate, here's the synopsis:

1. SuperV1D guest, Twitch Affiliate, TruGaming Sponsor
2. He streams pretty much everything when the game comes out
3. He started streaming Minecraft as its the only game that his computer can play, then got new computer and streamed variety
4. When he was 10 yrs old, Youtube started out, and he wanted to make videos, so he combined two things he liked the most which are superman and video games, and combined. He added the 1 for V1D
5. Motivation--he likes hearing people saying that their day is better and not feeling as depressed because of him, that's what keeps him going
6.  Variety streamer--not tied down to 1 game or 1 genre
7. Pros of Variety Streaming:
1. Get to try out everything, find out what you and your audience like 
2. You don't get tired of playing the same game over and over again
3. May prevent burnout
4. Your personality is key, b/c you're not known for just playing one game that might get stale
5. Flexibility in case the game you play dies down  
6. Showing people different games and broadening your viewers' horizon and can reach out to new viewers as well
8. Cons of Variety Streaming:
1. You're not going to grow as fast as an established LoL streamer
2. for instance, some of his viewers come to him for the game, and may leave when he switches games
3. It takes a lot of practice to develop your personality to be a variety streamer than if you focus on one game
4. You're not going to pick up as many viewers when you play a new game
9. Great analogy of Variety vs. Single Game
1. You planted a seed in a lot, and it's already hard enough to focus on that and grow that
2. But variety, you have to plant a bunch of seeds all over the place, so even harder to work on all those plots
3. So you can't focus on that one game that you can be known for, so you have to be known for your personality
10. Creating your identity as a variety streamer:
1. Finding out what works and what doesn't 
2. A lot of trial and error
3. He reports to start whatever he wants, and then keep changing games and then narrow down the games that works based on viewership stats
4. Sometimes hard to tell why your viewers changed, was it due to the game itself, was it the stream, and/or something that's out of your control that increased or decreased views
5. But often, there are some games that draw in more views: so that will tune the personality of your stream
6. SuperV1D loves Persona 5, but found out over time that hs viewers will NOT come to watch him play Persona, so he has to play another game
11.  Controversy:
1. "Just stream for fun, that's all that matters":
2. He disagrees--indeed, he finds streaming inherently fun, but you want to push more viewers. I totally agree with that.
3. Because it's soul crushing to see your viewers plummet no matter how you try to ignore the numbers
4. This is even when you absolutely don't care about making Twitch a career or getting Partner, it's just hard on the ego to see lower audience numbers
5. Analogy is you work at McDonald's but you don't do that for career, but rather, you want to use it as a stepping stone for something bigger
12. You got to play the games that grow your audience
1. So he played Roblox even though he doesn't like it, but it got him viewers. Agree: it's more fun to have more viewers who can interact with your chat. But he made Roblox fun for him.
2. If you want to grow your channel, you have to sacrifice a little and play the games your audience wants
3. "you're only here for the viewers" that's SO true b/c by streaming on Twitch, you're doing it for viewers, otherwise, just game and NOT stream (exactly!). You're inherently streaming for the viewers, that's why you're streaming, even if it's your friends, you're streaming for them.
13. His views can plummet from 30s to singles
14. While it IS soul crushing when views drop, you expect it to happen as a variety streamer, but even more soul crushing for the single game streamer, b/c what if you get a large drop suddenly for what you've always been doing.
15. Guest feels that as a Variety streamer, you have to kind of promise to play the game again b/c your viewers who came in to see you expects to see you play it again
16. He caters more to the viewers than planning out a specific game schedule. He makes his schedule for his viewers, which makes good sense! 
17. He states schedules should be flexible, otherwise someone may only see him on Monday b/c he plays that game
18. He does a general multiplayer game on one day, and then Follower Friday where he only streams the game that they want to see, and all the days in b/w, he plays what he wants
19. He reports that his base watches him for his personality, regardless of the game he's playing, so if you play your most favorite games, then you will have more fun and you'll put on your best face.
20. A game dies in popularity or you get sick of the game, but how do you keep those viewers when you must move onto a new game?
1. He reports that there'll always be a game that will replace it. 
2. SuperV1D reports you can play a game of a similar genre, and find out what chat would like as a backup game
3. SuperV1D replaced Minecraft with Terraria, and then weaning his viewers off those games slower, and then they end up liking him and will stick around and see his other games
21. Variety vs. Single gaming
22. SuperV1D notes he was single gaming b/c of his hardware capabilities, or if that's the only game you like and just stream that
23. Established streamer and you're a single gamer, it's hard to jump to variety, so best to:
1. Start your stream off with your single game, from the very beginning, announce as soon as possible that you will play a game later down the road
2. So when it's time to come to change the game, the chat knows b/c you keep telling them over and over that you're going to do a different game, and it won't be a shock
3. Someone only streamed Destiny had thousands of viewers, then changed game, and his stream died
24. Two he watches mainly:
1. Lirik and Sodapoppin
2. He's trying to mirror what they're doing
3. Sodapoppin is totally random per SuperV1D b/c he can stream whatever game he wants given his popularity
4. Lirik has a niche: survivor games and then will play a random game near the end of his stream
5. SuperV1D reports that he doesn't have a niche like Lirik
25. Finding your identity is very important which is a whole another subject
26. Why did SuperV1D decided to do variety?
1. He plays a lot of games, knows a lot of unknown games.
2. his reasoning is that he's playing games anyway, he might as well stream, that's why he decided on variety
27. SuperV1D's one advice:
1. Don't give up! 
2. so many times when he wants to quit, but then he perseveres, and viewers increased!
3. if you really want to do this, just don't give up. 
4. because once you give up, you fail
5. SuperV1D reports that you can be successful even with 2 viewers, which is true
6. stay committed, you will be discouraged when your numbers stagnate/drop, but he feels that the hard work will pay off

Q/A:

• How SuperV1D handles IRL issues
• Look into mobile IRL streaming when there are days that you can't stream
• If you usually do 4 hrs, at least stream for 1 hr
• PUBG supersaturated with viewers, but he loves PUBG so much should he stream a game that he doesn't love as much
• what if you want to play a game you love so much, but not popular.? He reports to schedule the game and it can be flexible. (my input, or play the game off-stream)
• He has a feeling that Code Vein will be big, and to consider streaming that if you love the genre
• He reports you have to roll with the wave, and once it crashes, make sure you still play it and slowly transition to a new game
• GreenChord mentions book 20 Immutable Laws of Marketing: very good idea to go with a trend! See if your viewers want to see you stream it, and if so, play the trending game
• Twitter how to use it for your channel--GreenChord put out a whole article on it
• you have to post a LOT for Twitter, 4 times a day and you have to comment a lot
• This shows that streaming is HARD WORK! (this is why sadly, I agree, you may have to sacrifice too many things to be Partner, so it may not be worth it for me)
• What games should you stream when you start streaming
• He sees more stream success from bigger, more established games
• Follow what your chat likes
• Play games that get you views
• If you're getting viewers from bigger games, then play those bigger games
• You may be smaller in PUBG directory, but you may have more viewers, but if you play a smaller game, you may be listed higher, but not as many viewers 
• SuperV1D posts twitter that automatically sends to instagram
• "How can you tell if you should do variety streaming"
• SuperV1D struggles with this every day
• the way he gets out of that mindset, play the 1 game for 1 week straight, if you can't, then you're a variety streamer, b/c it'll be hard to play 1 game for years if you want to be a single game streamer
• Stream as much as you can
• He reports to not take breaks in streaming AT ALL (sadly this IS TRUE YET AGAIN to gain Partner, which is why Partnership may not be worth it for me in the end)
• SuperV1D recommends to sacrifice the sleep to get larger blocks or hours to stream (NOOO! but in reality this is TRUE FOR PARTNERSHIP for most people who are working full-time and/or have a family)
• Recommends having some sort of schedule of what games you'll be streaming, but he says it's not the be all, end all