Remember the first time you play a video game? The exciting feeling of facing a new unknown adventure. As the video game industry matures, new industries are born.
The first is e-sport. Pro players battle with each other to become a champion, just like a real sport. As e-sport became more popular, pro players became the new star in the internet and gaming community.
Many players and fans idolized pro players and wanted to keep watching them. From this point in time, streaming has become more popular and accessible to many people.
As the streaming industry grew, casual streamers started to replace pro-player streamers. Twitch became a place where fans watch their favorite streamer play and talk casually instead of intense e-sport competition that started the industry.
This leads to a dream that everyone can succeed as a video game streamer, and they can become the next star, even if they can’t play the game as well as a pro player. But is this a dream that is possible to be achieved?
- Is Twitch Streaming Worth it?
- Why becoming a Successful Twitch Streamer is hard to achieve?
- Should you really become a Twitch Streamer?
- Is it worth the effort to start Twitch Streaming in 2022?
Is Twitch Streaming Worth it?
Analyzing the data from Twitch, the market on Twitch is already beyond saturated. Big streamers take the most viewers on Twitch while the rest compete with the few viewers left. It’s not worth starting streaming on Twitch if you just want to be famous and rich from streaming.
You will need passion, unwavering dedication, and a large amount of time and money spent to get a chance to succeed in streaming on Twitch. It won’t be an easy journey. Most people will give up in the first month
Why becoming a Successful Twitch Streamer is hard to achieve?
Becoming a popular Twitch streamer and attaining Partner status is many Twitch Affiliate streamers dream.
They wanted to be the next Partner that joins the successful crowd. But anyone that already in the industry knew how hard is it. The difficulty may be a bit vague if you’re just a viewer or beginner streamers.
Most streamers will only get two-digit viewers for the first year. Hard work, communication skills, and luck will be needed to scale it up.
Important note for aspiring streamers here, if you fear the possibility of having no viewers, please, for the love of God, don’t start streaming. You will need persistent belief to persist the early stage no viewer’s phase
Fierce Competition on Twitch
To become a winner, first, you must understand the competition behind it. Your competitor will be the early or veteran streamers that already became the big streamers and the middle level of streamers.
According to Twitch Tacker, there is an average number of 3 million viewers every day. This is the average number of viewers at any given time during a day, so the total number will be higher.
How much is the average number of channels that live in Twitch during a day? A number of an average of 100.000 live channels at any given time during a day! If you started streaming, you are competing to get viewers with other 100.000 channels at the same time
If we divide the number equally, from 3 million viewers and 100.00 live channels, each channel can get 30 viewers! But that’s not possible. One of the most popular Twitch streamers, XQCOW already takes 5% of existing viewers as long he streams.
According to my calculation based on Twitch Tracker data, the Top 100 streamer takes a percentage of at least 40-45% of the number of viewers. That is only the top 100 streamers. More than 20.000 Twitch Partners and 150.000 Affiliates will grab the market of viewers left.
Small streamers that just started are usually only left with a two-digit viewer every time they stream. Unless you have good gaming skill or your personality are loved by your fans, like for example popular Twitch streamer, Sykkuno who had been streaming in YouTube for 7 years and finally get success on Twitch, chance are, it will be hard for you to progress the number of your follower
Twitch new guidelines that don’t benefit streamer
Streamers have been using copyrighted music as background music. When Amazon, its parent company, was sued by the major music industry, Twitch immediately deleted videos using copyrighted music.
This is not a bad thing. Creating a piece of music is a hard job and we should respect the copyright of the creator.
But the problem is there is no previous announcement that let their community prepare to face the copyright problem.
On October 20th, Twitch suddenly sends a message to Twitch streamers, informing them that their team has already removed the video that uses copyrighted music.
Any other videos that haven’t been deleted need to be edited to remove the copyrighted content.
There is no prior warning. Streamers need time to edit their videos and Twitch only provide them three days to delete the video that get DMCA complaint. If they don’t edit their video to remove the copyrighted content, DMCA complaint will strike their channel and they can get a temporary ban from it.
Many streamers even resorted to deleting all their videos to prevent them from getting DMCAed
Twitch also has a problem on banning their streamers. Many streamers are banned for no reason on their platform. A popular example is Ryan Higa, a famous YouTuber and Twitch streamer who was banned for 11 minutes during his Among Us stream with OTV (and friend) members.
Twitch doesn’t even provide a reason for that. If popular streamers are banned for no reason, what about small streamers?
You need to stream constantly
People open Twitch on their browsers to watch their favorite streamers. Twitch provides saved streamed video that people can freely watch, just like what YouTube has, a library of saved videos.
But unlike YouTube, most people won’t watch them. Unless it’s going viral or your followers miss the live stream and wanted to watch your saved streamed content. But here’s the problem, watching on YouTube will be much better.
Twitch only forbid their Partner to live stream on another platform. You still can upload your stream on YouTube. Facebook Gaming also has the same policy. This led to many Twitch and Facebook Gaming streamers uploading their edited content on YouTube
Disguised Toast is a popular Facebook Gaming streamer that has 40k viewers each time he streams have up to 2 million YouTube view every time he uploads his content on YouTube. And the shocking thing is, he uploads his video every day.
The amount of view in one short video on YouTube surpasses the total view of most Twitch Partners during their stream. And people will keep watching his content even after it’s uploaded.
Why is this important you may ask? If you’re Youtuber, you can just record a video then forget it after uploading. You only need to wait for the YouTube algorithm to favor your video. Maybe if you’re a bit professional, you also optimize your video to improve the position in Google Search.
But what about if you’re a Twitch streamer? You need to keep streaming to retain your followers. You can’t just record a video just once every month, this tactic will only work on YouTube, not on Twitch.
Some Twitch streamers even choose to start streaming at night to get lesser competition.
Googling your past stream is also hard to do, unlike YouTube which belongs to Google. Millions of videos are streamed on Twitch every day. If you don’t stream, you are falling behind from peers. Twitch is a competitive industry, especially if you intend to stream as a job, not just a hobby.
No matter how good your skill is, you will always need to stream to earn your money. Streaming will always take most of your time. Many streamers stream 6-8 hours a day. It takes massive mental fortitude to play a video game for that long.
It’s good if you loved that game, but do you really believe that you will keep enjoying playing the same game 40 hours a week? That is the amount of playtime of most modern single-player games and that’s only a week. Streaming is a stressful job, even for the most professional gamers out there.
Twitch Partner is out to reach
Despite the requirement to reach Twitch Partner is only 25 hours of stream, 12 different days of stream in 30 days, and an average of 75 viewers (excluding raid), your Twitch Partner application needs to be manually reviewed. Most of the time, you will get rejected, even if you already fulfill all of your achievements in your dashboard
Will they explain why you are getting rejected? Sadly, the answer is no. They won’t tell you anything except to improve your streaming quality.
Many Twitch affiliates can’t get partnership status despite some Twitch Partners having a lower views and followers count. It’s basically a lottery and you need to re-apply every three months
The bad stigma surrounding video game Streamers
Video games already exist 30 years ago, but the stigma around gamers still exist. Many people still do not consider video game streamers a job, especially generations older than Millennials. Some Older Millennials (30+) even agree streaming and e-sport pro player is not a “real” job
This is of course untrue. What makes sports players a better “real” job if what they do is only kicking and throwing a ball? Both sport and e-sport belong to entertainment and people that participate in them should be considered as having a real job
Telling the streamer that they need a real job instead of playing video games will make them mad. It’s unacceptable how society still treats gamers as immature adults. Maybe it’s true for some people that have an addiction to video games, but most gamers only treat video games as a hobby.
Streamers will face struggles from inside and outside. The feeling of the unreachable goal of Twitch Partner and the pressure from society to give up their gig can lead to depression
Depression among Twitch Streamer
Depression among live streamers is common. Even successful streamers that already earn massive amounts of money and popularity from streaming still face depression.
Pressure from inside and outside from live streaming will destroy even the most optimistic heart. Many twitch streamers in the Reddit community reveal that they have depression
You need to ask this question and answer it honestly
Is Twitch Streaming really your true passion?
Is video game streaming really your passion? Do you really love streaming so much that you will sacrifice your money and time to stream? If you fail to achieve success in streaming, will you give up even after countless hours and sweat poured in on Twitch?
Passionate Twitch streamers will never give up. They stream not for popularity or money. They stream because they truly love it
Passion is a vague subject that is often be misunderstood. Sometimes we mistake passion with talent and hobby. Passion is your way of life, something that you won’t throw away even if you’re at the bottom of your life.
Passionate artists will keep creating new artwork, even if they are starving and poor.
Keep in mind that there is nothing wrong with having no passion for streaming. Everyone is different, and you shouldn’t follow other people’s paths, especially successful streamers
It’s okay to give up streaming and treat it as a hobby
If lives reach you and you need to give up streaming, will you give up your dream? It’s okay to give up something, everyone has their own path of life. Nobody path is correct and perfect. Just don’t live in regret.
If you are not passionate about streaming, it’s okay to treat streaming as a hobby. Giving up streaming on Twitch is a brave choice to do. When you need to give up, just give up. Decide what to do in your real life, don’t assume that you need to become a successful streamer to become a happy person
Should you really become a Twitch Streamer?
If you like to interact with people while playing a game or doing your hobby, you will love to become a streamer. Twitch also the best platform you should choose as a streamer. Gaining followers, interacting with your fan, building a friendship with other streamer and maybe earning money is what you can get by becoming a Twitch streamer
Before you started streaming, you need to understand yourself what is the reason you started streaming.
To make a friend you can chat and play with? Or you are idolizing a popular streamer and you wanted to become just like him? To earn money?
Any reason is okay, as long you understand it will be a hard journey and maybe you will fail. Failure is the mother of success, right? So just keep trying
Can I become a successful Twitch Streamer?
If a streamer is happily streaming a game with only 10 viewers but they always keep watching his stream, he is a successful streamer. You don’t need to be the best streamer to be considered as successful. It’s okay to aim low or high. But you need to be ready for how hard it takes to become a popular streamer. Keep grinding but keep your expectation low
Streaming is a tough career. You need to be physically and mentally prepared for what lay ahead. Gaining your follower will take you years, not weeks or even months.
What it’s like to be a hobbyist streamer
Having streaming as a hobby, instead of your career is a decision you may choose as you walk in your streaming journey. Maybe you’re busy with your real life or you don’t like to transform your hobby into a job. It’s a good decision, there is nothing wrong with treating streaming as a hobby.
According to research about hobby and quality of life, having a hobby can improve your quality of life from both physical and psychological health
Since you stream only as a hobby, there will be no pressure if you have less viewer. You will have no fear of losing your job or mortgage when Twitch suddenly change their policy
Is it worth the effort to start Twitch Streaming in 2022?
Yes, if you truly decide to become a Twitch streamer, you should. The Twitch community keep growing as video games started to seep into our daily life. In 2022, gaming and streaming will become more popular with the mainstream audience. If you truly love playing games and streaming then it will be worth it
Remember how small video game community back then and only “nerds” play a video game. Now many people, even the Boomers know about Pokemon, Fornite, LoL, and even e-sport even though video game keeps being blamed on news media.
The video games industry will keep growing and the live streaming industry will follow its growth. 2022 maybe not be the best time to join the crowd, but there is no such thing as the best time to start streaming. If you keep delaying your decision, you are stunting your path to success.
Just Do It! But remember, keep your expectation low and keep your heart optimisticly during your journey. I hope your dream come true