Do you enjoy watching Twitch/Youtube Streamers? Have you ever streamed before?

[marvelvscapcom2]

Hello everyone .


As we all know, twitch is a huge staple in the let's play communities and many avid games from around the world get together to stream speed runs, completionist games, competitive MMORPGs and FPS and even tournaments for either a living or for fun. .

Some love to watch their favorite streamers and others love to stream for their audiences and have fun .


Twitch is one of the most captivating, controversial and diviscive hubs of all gaming.    Some may say it's a waste of time watching other people play games when you can play them yourself and that it's just a way for booby streamers to get tips  but to some it's a way to unite with your core audience in many epic ways.  .    PewDiePie kinda flipped the whole getting paid for video gaming on it's ear and now so many have made epic paths of let's play commentary channels that can be not only entertaining but huge platforms for people to make money.


Where do you stand with twitch and let's plays in general?   Do you frequent twitch streams or stream yourself?


I personally have never gotten fully invested in Twitch. I tried streaming a Mega Man 2 playtrhough onces but building an audience on the platform is tough at first and I didn't have the care to keep going.  But I did love watching streamers.  I usually watch YouTube's streams more.   I once donated 5 dollars to a streamer because I loved their content and want them to grow.   I like how they shout you out sometimes and it gets an entire community involved.  It's way more interactive and feedback based than I though.  Their are people fighting in the comments, donations flying, messages pouring, the streamer responding to your questions or reading your joke to the masses .   It's truly a fun and imersive experience when you are bored and jsut want to chill out.

[tripredacus]

Haven't streamed before, thought of it many times. I don't watch Youtube streams. I have been on JTV/Twitch since 2009 or something.

[wvdoom]

I watch Twitch streams all the freakin time. I love to watch people play when I'm not currently gaming

I've streamed here and there myself a few times, but not anything serious.. no cam no mic
usually to show games to friends that live elsewhere

[98dgreen]

I usually don't watch streamers because without editing there is often a lot of dead space.

[justin8301]

I recently started a youtube channel to record my progress for my version of the 52 game challenge. I've been recording my games plays and then a video to talk a little bit about what i thought afterwards.

[rayne315]

so I started a youtube channel a while back and I was really bad at it. (If you want to see its "Rayne315" on youtube but fair warning i cuss a lot and i do not cut anything out other than pauses in gameplay) but I had numerous issues that happened to my videos all caused by a computer that just barely met the specs for recording. If my computer over heated then my recording would fuck up and it consistently happened every 3-4 videos. so if I didn't stop recording every hour and a half-2 hours I would end up with terrible, unwatchable glitching. admittedly though I was getting better at consistently talking and editing out distractions/pause breaks. unfortunately I accidentally broke my computer screen so I have to hook it up to a tv/monitor to see what its displaying and all the stress on the laptops components made it so i could not get a single good recording after that. in other words my channel is dead until i can get a different better computer.

I was never able to stream content on youtube because my ISP limits my Upload to .8Mbps and that simply is not enough bandwith to stream anything 720p or above. but i have streamed on twitch directly through my PS4. unfortunately i never found any way to see comments and i was not consistently streaming so i never had more than 10 concurrent viewers.

[hawk767]

I watch a lot of youtube content, more often then not I'll put on a lets play of a game I'm playing while I'm playing it seeing their takes or how they might be doing things differently, usually that's more for games with replayability, and especially if I can learn more about the game from them off hand. I very rarely watch twitch just because I don't have much interest in being involved with the chat aspect and the constant callouts for donations and subscriptions get grating sooner rather than later.

I did youtube for a few months years back now, right around the time the 10 minute video limit was raised. I had well over 100 videos of Diablo 2 LOD, Age of Empires 2, and I feel like there were a few others. I never managed to finish any of the games and due to being young and still living at home, dealing with school, and parents and their crusade against my gaming time, I fell off and haven't been able to try again since due to my now shitty internet. Its something I've always liked the idea of doing, and doing youtube that short period that I did, really helped boost my confidence with speaking and my ability to speak fluently, going into my senior year of high school this was great for a lot of the presentation projects that came with that.

I watch anything from traditional lets plays, to review content, to the much longer form discussion videos, retrospectives, or more academic approaches to game and gaming culture reviews. Pretty much anything gaming that isn't a squeaky high octane and high energy 15 year old, or adult emulating a 15 year old, I will at least check it out.

[desocietas]

I was never able to stream content on youtube because my ISP limits my Upload to .8Mbps and that simply is not enough bandwith to stream anything 720p or above. but i have streamed on twitch directly through my PS4. unfortunately i never found any way to see comments and i was not consistently streaming so i never had more than 10 concurrent viewers.

10 concurrent viewers is pretty good! There should be a way for you to have the PS4 overlay on so that you can see the comments without having Twitch up on your phone/tablet/computer (which is the alternative option).

But yes, you need decent PC specs to stream, especially if you want to stream a PC game. Streaming with a console is a little better on the PC though you'll need to do tweaking and capture card stuff.

I've been streaming off and on for about 4 years and have enjoyed it! It's a good way for me to record my progress, especially since I tend to go for long stretches without playing a game and easily lose track of what I was doing. It's nice to be able to go back to my recording and see what I was doing.

Takes a little getting used to with talking out your thoughts, but it's been a nice way for me to meet new people and chat with them about similar interests/games.

I think I started watching Twitch about... 5 years ago? Had never heard of it or JTV before then but it's a pretty big part of my life now (met my BF through it).

Youtube doesn't really appeal to me outside of cute animal videos and clips from movies or TV. I'll watch an occasional playthrough if I want to see a story playthrough, but that's rare.

@hawk767 I can totally understand the issues you have with Twitch. Thankfully, not all channels do callouts for donations/subs. Most of the ones I watch are thankful for subs but never ask for them, and others I know purposefully choose not to monetize at all.

[Flashback2012]

No to both. 

[eyesoffiction]

From time to time, I like watching speedruns and fighting games.

I've streamed quite a few times but I couldn't get the hang of talking and was always stressed out.

[hawk767]

@hawk767 I can totally understand the issues you have with Twitch. Thankfully, not all channels do callouts for donations/subs. Most of the ones I watch are thankful for subs but never ask for them, and others I know purposefully choose not to monetize at all.

Its not so much the getting money/subs its the methods different streamers use to acknowledge them. Still totally get it, I'd be psyched too if I was getting donations/people subscribing to my content in real time its what drives that whole thing, its always been more of the loud popup sounds, especially on bigger channels it gets so repetitive and breaks the flow of content a lot of the time.

The handful of people I'll watch on twitch at this point tend to be people I followed on youtube who have moved the majority of their content onto Twitch, Epic Name Bro and A German Spy are the 2 that come to mind atm. Another big aspect of it is the difference in quality settings between streamers, some I can view fine but others I can't due to my trash internet, youtube is a more constant and accessible source in that case.

[kamikazekeeg]

Plenty of both.  Thought about streaming at one point, was even working out visuals to use and did once, but in the long run, I just didn't want to spend the money on the hardware needed as I wanted a reasonable mic, I'd need a capture device like an elgato, and I wasn't sure about how well my PC would do in the long run dealing with streaming.

Kinda funny, but the only thing I streamed, was Action Henk, one of those physic based track racer games like Trials, as I just grabbed it randomly.  Had one guy pop into the stream and wonder why I was streaming it, because I think Batman: Arkham Knight was out and everyone was streaming that, but here I was, the only person playing Action Henk on Twitch lol

[turf]

I'm a fan.  I don't watch too much streaming, but what I do watch, I enjoy.

It's a skill to make a stream enjoyable.  You have to have entertaining and engaging commentary while you play the game.  I tried my hand at videos a few years ago.  It's fun to do.  I even found a little niche that a (extremely small) handful of people would follow.  I had big plans to start again just because I had fun doing it.  I just don't have time. 

[stealthrush]

No to both. 

Same. Zero interest.

[desocietas]

I'm a fan.  I don't watch too much streaming, but what I do watch, I enjoy.

It's a skill to make a stream enjoyable.  You have to have entertaining and engaging commentary while you play the game.  I tried my hand at videos a few years ago.  It's fun to do.  I even found a little niche that a (extremely small) handful of people would follow.  I had big plans to start again just because I had fun doing it.  I just don't have time.

I can totally see you doing great as a streamer, Turf! I enjoyed watching your videos back in the day, and I think you'd be great with interacting with people. But yeah, it definitely takes time and can be surprisingly stressful sometimes.

Plenty of both.  Thought about streaming at one point, was even working out visuals to use and did once, but in the long run, I just didn't want to spend the money on the hardware needed as I wanted a reasonable mic, I'd need a capture device like an elgato, and I wasn't sure about how well my PC would do in the long run dealing with streaming.

Kinda funny, but the only thing I streamed, was Action Henk, one of those physic based track racer games like Trials, as I just grabbed it randomly.  Had one guy pop into the stream and wonder why I was streaming it, because I think Batman: Arkham Knight was out and everyone was streaming that, but here I was, the only person playing Action Henk on Twitch lol

lol, so funny when people ask questions like that. Why aren't you playing this huge game that everyone else is playing? Plenty of reasons, and some folks purposefully don't stream during those big launches because you're just 1 of thousands of others doing the exact same thing.

But yeah, cost of entry can be a lot. I usually tell folks that if they're interested in streaming, the easiest way is if they have a decent computer, internet speeds, and a decent headset mic (I used a Logitech H800 for a while that I got on sale), they're pretty much set to go. A lot of folks worry about assets for an intro, background, overlays and all that stuff, but honestly, most people just show up to see you and/or your gameplay. No need to invest in a capture card initially if you don't know if you'll even like streaming.