I put on a two-man cast, and it is hard enough to come up with game choices we are both happy with on a daily basis, let alone finding one that we would both be fine streaming for weeks or months at a time. However, when my schedule permitted it in the past, I held regular off-hour broadcasts on my own.
In 2014, this led to a four-month period where I became one of the larger Pokemon X/Y broadcasters on Twitch. The show was never the size of Justin Flynn’s broadcast in its heyday, but I did average 300-500 concurrent viewers every afternoon with some peaks into the 700-900 viewer range during that time. Ultimately, I stopped playing the game and moved on. While the experience is long in the past, I definitely learned more about Twitch from the time. Condensing things down leaves a lot out, but even then this post is pretty long winded and I understand that the length is not for everyone. Still, if you’re looking to hear about a Twitch experience slightly outside of the normal fare, I hope you enjoy and find it useful.
In December of 2013, I decided I wanted a 3DS, specifically to play Fire Emblem: Awakening. Much of my gaming time is spent on broadcast, so I figured that a capture-card-modded 3DS was in order. It was the only way to broadcast games on the 3DS, and added several hundred dollars onto the cost of the system itself: not a trivial investment. A couple months later, a family member gave me a copy of Pokemon Y. I had just finished a run of XCOM during an afternoon broadcast, and wasn’t sure what to play next. Several moderators in our channel had suggested that I get around to playing Pokemon at some point, and fond childhood memories of a series I hadn’t played in 13 years made me say, “sure, why the hell not.”
I started off with a casual run of the game, playing through the story and having some general fun with it. I saw some reasonable numbers, slightly larger than what I had with XCOM, but nothing very impressive. I was taking my time, savoring the game, and had no general plans or ambition. However, about halfway into my playthrough, my viewership grew. In a sea of people that had played Pokemon over the years, and streamers who had built their cast around competitive play, I was an idiot. I knew nothing. I didn’t remember Pokemon types, names, anything. I had no knowledge of the competitive scene. All I had was a naive enjoyment of the game that was apparently refreshing to watch.
Eventually, my afternoon numbers grew to the average size of our evening broadcast. To add to this, I was streaming at a convenient time of day. My broadcast continued on after several large morning Pokemon streams ended. One of those broadcasters was particularly good-natured and had a habit of raiding smaller Pokemon streamers. Brawli and I actually were aware of him before he became an exclusively Pokemon broadcaster and he was one of the many broadcasters we followed on Twitter, regularly retweeted, and occasionally replied to. There was no real effort there beyond some casual networking and friendly retweeting, but the name of our channel stood out and he took a chance on it.
The result was a huge one-time spike in viewership that brought with it an awareness that people might really be interested in watching me enjoy Pokemon. Of course, you can only continue a story-driven playthrough of a game for so long, so as I finished, I realized that if I was interested in continuing on, I would need to branch into viewer battles and semi-competitive play. I knew nothing. I was a neophyte in a world of experienced players. So, I decided to learn.
I borrowed a few competitively-raised Pokemon from mods who were more than willing to help. I started playing against viewers. I planned a team of viable Pokemon and began the process of breeding, leveling, and equipping them, all on stream. I was terrible. I knew nothing, had to ask my audience frequent questions and look up information/guides mid-stream. There were hours of riding back and forth in game to hatch eggs. Constant misunderstandings and mistakes. The entire thing was a mess.
And viewers loved all of this. People enjoyed imparting knowledge. There are few things people like more than when someone is genuinely interested in what they love and they have a chance to help spread that love. When I did viewer battles, my focus wasn’t on winning, because I started out losing significantly more than I won, but rather on having fun and making sure everyone involved had fun. As I calmly and patiently learned, others had the chance to learn with me.
That process continued on for weeks. Eventually, I stopped being a neophyte and started winning much more than I was losing. But I never stopped making fun the main focus of the broadcast. I was soft-spoken, calm, and constantly emphasized that the whole point of the game was to have a good time. In a sea of cutthroat game play, our channel was an island where people could compete without worrying about being looked down on for their choices and failings. Making mistakes was something everyone did. We made sure to help people learn from their mistakes rather than put them down because of them. There were certainly other shows where the same was true, but that early emphasis as I learned helped ingrain it as a part of the stream’s culture.
Eventually though, I felt ready to move on. I still enjoyed playing the game, but I was interested in trying out other games and was getting tired of Nintendo’s system for online play. I was doing online matches with viewers, constantly fighting with poor connectivity through Nintendo’s mandatory online play service and dealing with the problems that matchmaking through an unnecessarily obtuse system caused. One day, it just didn’t feel worth the trouble so I stopped, and that was it. The afternoon broadcast quickly lost most of those extra viewers. Still, the channel, including the evening broadcast, definitely benefited from that time and exposure. Even today we still have regular viewers, lurkers, and subscribers who found the channel in that time and whom I’m happy to have met.
It is worth noting that when I stopped playing Pokemon entirely, it definitely impacted my audience. There’s the obvious drop in numbers where I would say 70-90% of those inflated single-game numbers evaporated. I had people asking on a daily basis when I would go back. I had people threaten to unfollow and unsubscribe from the channel. In nearly every case, I was able to smile kindly, thank them for their support, and wish them the best of luck with their time on Twitch. I had understood going in that this would occur. If you only play one game, you attract a lot of people that care about the game more than the person playing it. I will say that losing out on some of the people I had come to know as friends hurt, but I don’t begrudge them their choice.
With all that in mind, we can look at that time through a business-like lens, trying to understand what worked out well and why:
Starting Size: I didn’t break into streaming a single gaming with a non-zero audience. It may be possible to do so, but having at least a few people watching and chatting from the start definitely helps. Before I began, that very casual afternoon broadcast had between 25 and 40 concurrent viewers. I know this is more than many people will ever have on Twitch, but I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a factor when it came to initial discoverability. I’ll also note that I saw people enter the Pokemon community with smaller or initially non-existent audiences and see decent success. Growing from 5 average viewers to 200 average viewers wasn’t considered unreasonable if you put on a good show, had some luck, and gained some support from other broadcasters in the community.
Economic Moat: In terms of a business, an economic moat is any factor that allows a business to maintain a competitive advantage over others in the field. It is difficult to overcome and protects the company from being overcome by competitors. For my broadcast, this was the capture-modded 3DS itself. It was a non-trivial purchase that many broadcasters simply couldn’t afford or weren’t aware of. It made entry into the field somewhat prohibitive and provided protection against competition. Early access can provide a similar advantage. In general, if you can find a way to do something that other broadcasters can’t do easily or won’t think to do, it’s to your benefit.
Networking: Every broadcaster should be networking, and the results can be invaluable. There is an investment in time, but it can pay off in ways you never expect. We networked expecting nothing. This wasn’t any large-scale effort or plan, just one of the most basic forms of social media use out there. That instance of support came mostly as a surprise, and the initial introduction helped me make friends in the Pokemon streaming community. It allowed me to learn about similarly-sized broadcasters and smaller ones that would appreciate some support. I made some long term friends that I still know and support on Twitch today. All from taking a few seconds to retweet the work of someone who seemed worth it.
Don’t Be Afraid to Fuck Up And Look Bad: This is probably the most important lesson I learned in my youth, and it has benefited me ever since. It’s alright to make a bit of an idiot of yourself or fail horrendously, especially to strangers and anonymous folks on the internet who you may never see again. If the options are between being quiet and never being noticed, or stepping outside of your comfort zone and possibly screwing up, it generally pays to get noticed. I was genuinely not good at Pokemon. I don’t feel I’m unintelligent, but learning was an experience that I would have much preferred to do in private. However, the opportunity existed then, and learning on stream as I went was one of the best choices I could have made.
Unique Brand: I created an identity for the channel and did my best to stand out with it. It wasn’t anything crazy. I just placed a unique emphasis on fun and learning over competition and winning. I repeated the message, and did my best to live it. It became a part of the culture of the stream and attracted viewers who were interested in that unique experience. It wasn’t difficult. It wasn’t over the top. Compared to most examples of well-branded streams on Twitch, it probably seems simple and tame. But it worked. Standing out and creating a niche audience is possible within even the most saturated markets. You just need to find a way to do it.
Understand Your Product: Every channel on Twitch that hopes to attract even a single viewer has a product they’re offering. It is the reason people spend their time watching and supporting rather than not. Your game choice, branding, and behavior make up huge parts of it. You’re putting that product out there and “selling” it to a potential audience. Know what your product is and what audience you’re trying to push it towards. For my Pokemon broadcasts, the product was a casual, fun-oriented show where failure was expected and learning was important. The audience was anyone looking to share knowledge or learn more about the game and participate in good-natured but semi-competitive battles. Most of the viewers were ages 13-30. Shaping that product and catering to the audience helped define the show and grow my audience. It also set expectations about what people should expect from the channel and what drove them to be there day after day.
Moderation: Moderation is one of the most misused features on Twitch. A moderator is an extension of your will and a representation of your beliefs and policies in chat. It became very apparent early on in my Pokemon streams that the moderation style we used in our evening broadcast wouldn’t work. There was a larger chat base with a number of younger viewers. The afternoon stream had a specific emphasis on having fun and minimizing trolling. So, I ended up developing specific rules for moderating in the afternoon to accommodate. There were stricter rules to make the place a safe spot for younger viewers and to prevent people from insulting the decisions people made in line with the way the show was being ran. And at the same time, moderators needed to be slightly more willing to accommodate some chat spam while knowing the lines that couldn’t be crossed. We brought in new moderators to handle the new rules and many of our evening stream moderators that watched those afternoon broadcasts knew to leave moderation duties up to others.
Exit Plan: I had an exit plan for when I was done playing Pokemon exclusively. I intended to stop, ignore the results, and continue on with the evening broadcast exactly as it was. I was a variety streamer and had continued on with my normal broadcasts in a separate space. Those afternoon broadcasts were an indulgence while I had free time in my schedule, and I went in expecting to stop when it was inconvenient. Honestly, I could have probably found a more productive way of transitioning from the game, but I understood the end result going in. Fundamentally changing your product, the basic thing that drives people to your channel, has large consequences.
I watched many of my fellow Pokemon streamers get tired and give up one day. Audiences evaporated within a week and they didn’t know what to do. I knew a few variety broadcasters who had given up on their variety streams to play Pokemon exclusively. When they tried returning to variety broadcasting a year or more later, they found that their old audience was gone and their new audience only cared about them playing Pokemon. The most successful individuals I saw were those who managed to leverage their larger audience to move into another popular game at the time. Some people also found moderate success in playing Pokemon part of the time while slowly trying to bring other games into their repertoire. But most broadcasters were disappointed to see that even with their best efforts, they lost a significant portion of their single-game viewership when they finally moved on.
For someone who puts a large amount of effort into their broadcast, that loss of viewership and income have a definite impact. The change in channel culture and harassment can potentially make broadcasting a lot less fun. Just the knowledge that some of the people who you thought were your friends weren’t really there for you can end up hurting pretty badly. Know what you’re getting into, and be ready to deal with it.
There’s probably more that can be said and I’m more than happy to answer any questions about something I left out. This was just my experience and I’ll be the first to admit that I benefited from a lot of luck along the way. Still, I hope you may have found some use reading it. Thanks for your patience, and good luck to all of you!