I always saw streaming as a neat idea, and probably not in the same way for the average person to look at it. Streaming games occurred to me to try out simply because I missed being in college. This certainly isn't going to be a post about 'how great college is and why everyone should go,' since the experience is likely going to be totally different for everybody. The most important thing for me about college is that I had a group around me that was willing to support me and that I wanted to be around, for the first time in my life. That, and I was always around like-minded people. I spent more than my fair share of time bringing people together to play video games. Even if I wasn't adding new people to the fold and helping them to feel comfortable and part of the group, it was great for me just to sit around and talk with people, and maybe have a game going on in the background-- not even necessarily one I was actually playing. I've spent entire days just sitting in on my roommates and suitemates playing games and just chatting with them. That was my goal, were I ever to stream; to simulate that same experience.
I started out streaming on livestream, before twitch was really popular (It might not have even branched out from Justin.tv at that point actually). Livestream is not really a popular hangout for gamers, so I was sort of out of my element there. I don't vlog THAT often so I never really developed a following. I also couldn't for the life of me figure out the Procaster program properly, so I'm sure that didn't help. However, that was the start of the simulation for me. I did get a couple friends to come by and just chat with me while a game was happening in the background. I sort of gave up on it though after a while.
Then along comes my buddy Tethrinblaze, and here he is telling me that I should diversify my talents, by joining twitch, and how I can make alla dis money and how wonderful it will be. I try to explain to him that working full-time or even half-time on Twitch will only slow YouTube down, but he's still on my case, so I finally try it out. He gives me suggestions and tips on how to improve, but I don't really have the will to devote as much time to it as I should. I'm grateful for his help, but at this point in time, Twitch isn't really what I want to spend the majority of my time doing. While I do adore that idea of just having my friends around while a game happens in the background, I don't think I am capable of keeping up with Twitch and expanding my channel the way I would with a YouTube channel, and I'm going to tell you why by explaining what I've learned about the happenings on Twitch.
Some of the tenets of YouTube carry over, the simpler ones; things like the idea that to build an audience you have to inspire confidence in them. Developing a schedule is one way to achieve this goal. If they know that you'll be around, they're more likely to stay around. It's much harder to inspire this kind of confidence if you don't have a set schedule. It doesn't necessarily have to be scheduled, but you need to keep providing content. I don't stream regularly, if at all, and my streams are often rather random.
Speaking of being random, that's something that differs from Twitch and YouTube. When you upload videos of gameplay, they can be totally random, they can even be the most boring walking through a field with absolutely no enemies, and people won't be mad about it. People are much more likely to search for a gameplay video on YouTube than on Twitch if they want to know more about a game. When you stream and someone's watching that same example, they will turn it off. The theory behind streaming is sharing and thus including the audience. You must include the audience in your streaming, otherwise what's the point of streaming in the first place? No one just wants to sit behind you and stare, that'd be creepy. Thus, I've learned that if you're going to stream, you must have a purpose. More often than not, I do not have a purpose in my gameplay, I just want to play and share that fun with others. Thus, YouTube is the better choice for me.
Engaging the audience is certainly a much easier task to accomplish on Twitch, and that's actually a really great thing. On YouTube you have to tell people to do things and then wait. Not only that, but telling people to do things often has much less of an effect on them if they don't have to do it than asking them to, in the spur of the moment would. I think everyone would agree with me on this one, that you've seen at least a couple videos where the people in them on YouTube constantly tell you how you need to subscribe to them or like them or comment more than three times in the video and that just turns you off to it.
Next up is the quality of content. I'm running an EasyCap for screen capture on consoles that I got for <$5. I'm not even kidding, I think WITH shipping it still came to <$5. of course the quality that I get from it isn't going to be stellar. However, I have to tell you that when capturing video through OBS, or streaming in general, it looks a lot better than it does when it's rendered through the software that comes with the device, ULead. Still, I'm certainly not going to be recording in HD. With a lot of what I usually record, since I have so many older games, that's fine, but... In the case of what's now last gen and this new current gen, non-HD video, especially in regards to streaming, is just not going to cut it. You're much more likely to watch a stream where you can see everything going on than one that's got bad quality. On YouTube, it isn't as much of a problem, because the video isn't happening now. You don't need it to be as immediate.
I'm going to tell you that upgrading my capture device in the future is a goal of mine, but I think that it doesn't matter as much if I'm recording more stuff on the PS2, PSX, DC, GC and Wii. In the future, I'd like to keep using the EasyCap as my primary capture device for games that are not in HD, just because I already know how to use it and how to get the best out of it. I also need to get a new camera or perhaps a webcam that's capable of grabbing video from a TV at a decent quality, so I can grab games from the Genesis that I otherwise cannot film through the EasyCap.
The last thing that I've noticed that differs on Twitch and YouTube is the type of content you're offering. If you check out my backloggery, you'll know just how many games I've got, and the majority of them are what you'd call 'old school.' I have a ton of games that there is almost 0 footage of on YouTube and thus I can capitalize on it. If people are looking for that content, they'll only be able to get it from me. You would think that this would mean it's a good idea to stream it too-- but you'd actually be mistaken. For the most part, people want to see streams of games that are newer, that have a following. The average user is much more likely to look up a stream of a current game, as opposed to an older game (Unless they happen to be looking for a speed run or something of that nature-- remember, your stream generally has to have a purpose). But on YouTube, people are looking for all kinds of games, current or not. Even the "recommended games" on the left panel of Twitch are
I was really surprised, yet in a pleasant sort of manner to see MUGEN as a recommended game on there a while back. The devs have said they want to try and change that, and while I would love for that to be the case, I just don't think that that is going to happen, at least not any time soon.
In my opinion, if you are going to be successful on Twitch, you have to make it your goal to follow the majority of these rules, and that being the case, I just don't see it turning out as anything more than a supplement to my YouTube channel and whatever else I may do in the future. I hope at the very least, this was somewhat informative to those of you that may be thinking of taking up streaming in the near(?) future. I've been wanting to find a place to articulate these thoughts, and I think here on this blog was the perfect place to do so.
*EDIT* I have also just discovered that if you are playing a game that does not exist on the Twitch database (Some doujin fighter, like MONSTER, for example, or a REALLY indie title like Super Polyko), then even if you set your status as "playing" you do not show up as a channel that is actively streaming, NOR do your followers get a 'such and such is streaming right now' message. This definitely goes with my idea that you should do your best to go with the flow when it comes to choosing a game to stream.
