16 ms·

How to Get Rich Playing Video Games Online

226 points by Dowwie 9y ago

tinbucket 9y ago
Interesting read and insight into a subculture I know very little about. Looks like only a few of them are getting rich, and it isn't without its costs. Working seven days a week as a professional gamer is pretty brutal.
- hood_syntax 9y ago
  This article doesn't even get into the really big earners. 7 figures is not a one person bracket on twitch. > Working seven days a week as a professional gamer is pretty brutal Yep. You can see the burnout on people after a while.
- FLUX-YOU 9y ago
  >Working seven days a week as a professional gamer is pretty brutal. I'm gonna throw some shade towards gameplay streamers. Streamers who do focused content and actually produce shows as you would in a TV/Radio studio have a real job which I've actually done, so this doesn't include them. Playing a game and running a stream, technically, is not hard. Engaging with viewers is not hard. There's a bunch of solutions out of the box that allow you to manage subscription announcements, overlays, and other stuff, so that isn't too hard either. Spending time in a chair isn't hard. 4-5 hours of working out per week and healthy diet choices would help that, but isn't a panacea because research shows sitting for long periods is bad anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some kind of viewer management software akin to CRM software that make it easier to relate to a larger amount of people. After all, people have limits on the amount of social connections they are able to manage themselves. So remembering your viewers may not even be hard. The hard part comes with people being unprepared to essentially become public figures (very much in the Hollywood or political sense) and being unable to deal with harassment, death threats, and insults and the worst part of internet. If you don't have enough viewers to shrug off a controversy, your channel will get small, you'll lose revenue, and likely start stressing out about that as well. Having a fallback career plan is essential. But if you are mentally tough and don't repeat the mistakes of other streamers and public figures (which is likely conveniently available for you to watch), being a streamer is not difficult. Not like other careers. Making money is a different story -- you can do everything right and still not be popular because the mob is fickle. That's just career luck, which isn't specific to streaming. You shouldn't be a public figure if you aren't prepared mentally for it. Twitch can only ban so many people. However, I very much support tapping this revenue stream. I truly don't care if a loser drops $500 on a streamer who's showing cleavage as long as she's of legal age -- more power to that streamer. And it's up to parents to police their kids watching cleavage streamers. That's not really Twitch's job. Just call it for what it is: easily hacking viewership for revenue. The exception being taking care of yourself mentally first.
  - Jemmeh 9y ago
    Of course "streaming isn't hard" in the same way that playing football isn't hard. It's when you do it at a professional level and have to put in mad hours every week to keep up that it becomes brutal. All without guarantee that you'll even get paid if you're just unlucky that week and don't get enough viewers.
    - bllguo 9y ago
      Streaming requires little commitment to try out. You can easily have a normal job and stream at night to ease into it. The skills required are to just be entertaining. You can quit immediately if you want or need to, without dropping a beat. The commitment required is orders of magnitude less than something like playing sports professionally. The actual comparison to football is "esports," where people play games competitively. There, you actually do have to put in large amounts of hours to compete at the highest level, without being guaranteed prize money or competitive wins.
      - nightski 9y ago
        If you don't want any viewers. You vastly underestimate how hard it is to build a stream that attracts a healthy audience.
      - Jemmeh 9y ago
        I said at a professional level. Streaming for Fun:Professional Streamer = Football for Fun:Professional Football Players Not everyone who makes enough money to stream as their primary source of income is competing in tournaments/esports, sometimes they are just entertaining/informative. Regardless of if they are entertainment or skill based, it takes a lot of time and effort to build up enough of a fan base to make it into a primary source of income.
  - gozur88 9y ago
    >Playing a game and running a stream, technically, is not hard. Engaging with viewers is not hard. That's all true, but anything you do for a living gets old after awhile, especially if you're putting in long hours. I like to play video games, but if I had to play to pay the bills it would be a job like any other - minus the breaks, the paid time off, and the benefits.
brndnmtthws 9y ago
The same applies to pretty much any skill: to be successful, work hard and be very good at what you do. That's the entire article in a nutshell.
- brazzy 9y ago
  And be lucky.
- sandworm101 9y ago
  And be attractive. The top youtube/twitch people either look or sound like celebs. They are either cute or have the voice, the pipes, of a radio star.
  - hood_syntax 9y ago
    Imaqtpie?
  - maccard 9y ago
    Lots of people are saying that, but it's clearly not true. I don't think imaqtpie [0] fits that description. Skimming through the top twitch streams right now, plenty of them don't fit that description. [0] https://go.twitch.tv/videos/200675143 https://go.twitch.tv/videos/200675143
    - falcolas 9y ago
      I'd hardly call him unattractive. Classy glasses, a well kept appearance (which can be challenging with a thin mustache)... a slight overbite is about all that might be considered unattractive; but his attitude and voice more than make up for it. Almost speaks more to the accepted definition of "attractive" than the streamer.
    - gozur88 9y ago
      I haven't looked in awhile, but when I used to watch dota streams the top four or five (by viewer count) were always extremely attractive Eastern European and Russian women. They were better than average players, but not good enough to command that kind of attention.
post_break 9y ago
Step 1 be a girl. Step 2 break all of Twitch's community guidelines. Step 3 ??? Step 4 Profit.
- have_faith 9y ago
  Downvotes are expected, your post lacks tact. But it would be worrying if people ignored the reality of girls being exploited and exploiting themselves online in various gaming circles for financial gain. I don't particularly have a problem with it, but it's not a small thing.
  - cavanasm 9y ago
    There's also the problem where girls are heavily targeted for harassment still in the streaming community. I'm under the impression it's slowly improving, but there was a well known twitch user who was a serial SWATer (calling the police and telling them a multiple homicide is occurring / hostages have been taken so that a SWAT team shows up to the streamer's home) on any female twitch streamer who wouldn't chat with him / pretend to be his friend. Law enforcement has been mostly toothless, although in this case, a sympathetic local officer committed hundreds of work hours catching the guy and getting him prosecuted. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/magazine/the-serial-swatter.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/magazine/the-serial-swatt...
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    exploited They're not being exploited, nor are they exploiting themselves. No more than DrDisrespect is exploiting the system by dressing up like this: http://wikinetworth.com/uploads/Dr%20Disrespect.jpg http://wikinetworth.com/uploads/Dr%20Disrespect.jpg Or Captain Disillusion is exploiting the system by dressing like this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f4/Melikdjanian.JPG/1200px-Melikdjanian.JPG https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f4/Me... Everyone has a gimmick for attention, and being hot is just one tactic. And as someone who actively watches Twitch, it doesn't seem to last. You need something more than to be good looking. I was pretty surprised to find that a girl was a legit bounty hunter. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/201032300 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/201032300 It's counter to what you'd think of when you think "bounty hunter." I thought it was badass. I don't think I tuned in because I was exploiting her.
xchaotic 9y ago
This is very much like sports - very few make it to the top, and it's kind of subsidised by the ones coming up or just idly watching. Unlike actual sport, the disciplines here change rapidly, in spite of Blizzard's best efforts, World of Warcraft numbers are rapidly dwindling so a WoW start will pretty much have to start from scratch in another game or quit streaming as a career move. Game developers or even petty missteps can have disastrous consequences for streamers. Game developers can, for example ban streaming altogether, or request takedown with their content selectively. This is a 'career' but with no major prospects and if one was to put equivalnet amount of time in another field, say learning how deep learning works, the rewards will be far greater on average. I also think that 'pro' streamers no longer enjoy the games they play for "18 hours a day" and can't afford casual games with the camera turned off. It's a huge 'big brother' in their lives.
- snoman 9y ago
  > ... if one was to put equivalnet amount of time in another field, say learning how deep learning works... I see what you're getting at, but these are two different things. The vast majority of humanity as a whole is just not capable of sitting down and chewing through a deep learning textbook or anything of the sort. What you're ignoring is just how accessible streaming is as an income method. Up until recently, all you needed was the equipment (< $2000-3000 - sometimes paid for by sponsors, often equipment that people already have in modern times) and to be half-way charismatic in order to get into it. Add in the promise of big money and 'superstars' and now every kid wants to ~be in a band~ be a streamer.
  - xchaotic 9y ago
    " The vast majority of humanity as a whole is just not capable of sitting down and chewing through a deep learning textbook or anything of the sort." they don't currently, and probably we don't need millions of data science major, but somehow grinding through the game for thousands of hours is doable. I'd say let's gamify learning and we will have a whole new supply of world class scientist streaming their research on sci-twitch.tv ;)
olympus 9y ago
What I think is crazy is that this industry exists at the scale it does. It has replaced reality TV for a segment of the world population. There are legions of people that watch these streams, just to watch someone doing something that they could do themselves (but maybe not win as much). This isn't like F1 racing where I'll never be able to afford a racecar, or football where I don't want to exercise. Most of the kids watching these streams own a decent computer and can play. I suppose it's just not for me. I watch video game reviews to see if something is worth buying, but not more than a few minutes of gameplay. Plus the other things that streaming groups/houses do aren't appealing to me. Have I gotten old? Is this why grey haired CEOs often miss great business opportunities? They just don't "get it?"
- flipp3r 9y ago
  > Most of the kids watching these streams own a decent computer and can play. Youre making it sound not only as if only kids watch this, but also like playing any sport at all is so much different - and then compare it to Reality TV instead of live sports. Actual WTF? Some of the streamers (variety streamers) do play for just entertainment value, but most stick to just one game. A lot of it is also being able to live chat with other people watching and interact with the person streaming. > This isn't like F1 racing where I'll never be able to afford a racecar, or football where I don't want to exercise. Why isn't it like that? That's exactly what it is. Do you have any idea how long professional esports players competing in tournaments have to work, to stay at the top level? And do you think they can play at the same level on the average person's hardware? Have a look at Starcraft 2, Counter Strike Source, or Osu!. These are games where top players make 100+ strategic actions per minute, need to have lightning reaction speeds and accuracy, and make bursts of 10 actions per second for full minutes, respectively. How can it be such a shock to non-gamers that people watch other people play a game, rather than play it themselves? Just imagine it - people watching a game! /s It's exactly the same as every professional sport that has ever existed.
  - waterside81 9y ago
    This is where I disagree, and I know I'm in the minority (clearly) by how popular streaming has become. Professional athletes are marvels because they look so much bigger, better and are faster than the average joe. That's their appeal - they're real-life super heroes. LeBron, Jordan, Ronaldo, Ali, Jim Brown - they guys are living, breathing physical specimens who can do what no normal person, no matter how much training, can accomplish. Video gamers, while no doubt skilled and dedicated to their craft, look like regular guys off the street. There's no wonderment. It's why nobody has the world chess champion as a poster on their door (or desktop background, whatever today's equivalent). Poker is popular on TV too, but ask a kid who they want to be when they grow up, Messi or Phil Ivy and I'm pretty sure I know the answer. This stuff is popular and more power to those who succeed, but I think it's unfair to just brush off people's bewilderment at the success of esports by trying to compare some 19 year old "esports athlete" to a proper athlete.
SurrealSoul 9y ago
Pretty click baity, "How entertainers make money by playing video games" is still click bait, but at least gives you an idea of what this is about. I feel like there is a lot to discuss about this topic (donations, reliable income, future plans ect...) from twitch streaming that doesn't get touched on. But it boils down to the audience wants to interact with you, and will pay you to interact with them. I'm curious how reliable this income really is, asking for money to give to a celebrity playing a game vs asking for money to play a game seems like a weird event
glenneroo 9y ago
Slightly off-topic but now even New Yorker is inserting autoplay videos about completely unrelated topics in the middle of long articles (in my case "Anthony Bourdain on Going from Obama to Trump"). Why would they do such a thing? Are they hoping everyone suddenly develops ADHD?
- jrs95 9y ago
  I think they're counting on the fact that everyone already has ;)
- superb_herb 9y ago
  They need the ad dollars like everyone else.
- stochastic_monk 9y ago
  I now browse with 4 extensions to handle issues like this. The autoplaying is everywhere and absurd. (NYTimes even has autoplaying animations you can't turn off. I sent them an email asking to have the option to turn it off as a paying subscriber and they didn't even respond.) It's a mix of reasons, but it's usually ultimately about turning you into a product. I think it's disgusting. To make the internet bearable, I use the following extensions: Ad Block Plus HTTPS Everywhere Privacy Badger And, the newest in the bunch, Ghostery. I do have to twiddle some things on and off now and then, but on the whole it works and my online experience is a lot less jarring.
thisisit 9y ago
> Garcia’s specialty is the multiplayer fantasy game World of Warcraft. While he isn’t its best player, he has a knack for talking entertainingly over his play: he is funny, brash, and filled with stories about his delinquent childhood in Newark. Most, if not all, of the live gameplay videos nowadays mostly tend to be about screaming and raging at the screen with lesser amount of stories. And for some reason people like that a lot. This along with the slew of Reaction videos where people watch other people watching and reacting to stuff makes me wonder - why are people really interested in someone doing some stuff? Are they so alone that they need some validation or is it more to do with increasing voyeurism nowadays?
- graphitezepp 9y ago
  Yes, they are that alone. Kids these days don't always have such hot social lives.
- seanalltogether 9y ago
  The only streamer that I really watch is Brian Kibler, who plays Hearthstone and used to be a pro MTG player. I think the reason I watch him and no one else really is because he's older, doesn't rage, includes his wife in his stream occasionally, and provides insights into his decision making process. He's just good natured and it's the closest thing I've found to those poker tournaments that I used to watch on cable at midnight.
  - pavel_lishin 9y ago
    Different personality types appeal to different people (naturally). I'm a fan of Scott Manley, who never rages of screams, but mostly provides educational and entertaining commentary on what he's doing when he's playing a game. But I also like Funhaus, which is effectively a podcast where a group of people plays a game in the background. (They also have an actual podcast which is literally that.)
  - lilactown 9y ago
    Likewise, I watch almost exclusively Firebat (with a bit of Kibler every once and awhile). He does a really good job of balancing being funny and interesting (as a person), and giving really good insights into his thought process in playing Hearthstone, building decks, and competing.
EA 9y ago
No mention of Dr. Disrespect - a Twitch persona who recently won "Streamer of the Year" at the Esports Industry Awards. Just a passing mention of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, a game which according to some is growing faster than Minecraft did. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) is the most popular streamed game on Twitch right now. The game regularly has over 2,000,000 concurrent players, has sold over 13,000,000 copies, and is still in beta with just one multiplayer map. It has been the most popular game on Steam for a few months. Some digital items obtained from loot crates have sold for over $1,000. There is a whole ecosystem that has developed underneath the Twitch platform where secondary services help gamers overlay responsive graphics over the video stream as well as take donations. Top PUBG streamers can make well over $1,000 per night in donations on top of their cut of the Twitch subscription fee.
- olegkikin 9y ago
  Shroud is the real high-roller. He regularly gets $100, $200, $500 tips. I think the highest single tip he's got was like $5000.
  - tomschlick 9y ago
    He also takes in a lot through Twitch subscriptions. He has 30k+ subscribers from what he last said and each would pay him $2.50-$10 / mo. Of course Twitch would take their cut but thats insane.
    - zitterbewegung 9y ago
      Twitch negotiates cuts at 30k and they scale it back a bunch at that level also.
      - harrisjt 9y ago
        From what I've heard at around 10k subs you are getting around $4 a sub.
- onewaystreet 9y ago
petercooper 9y ago
The bit I'd be interested to read about is the psychology behind the "donors." Why would anyone throw down random $100 or $500 without a quid quo pro to someone receiving many other such donations? I understand streaming, generally, and have paid to subscribe to a channel before but the random throwing around of not insignificant amounts of money gets me scratching my head. (Should make it clear I'm not criticizing the practice. I just find it interesting, considering how understand the psychology behind it could help creators in other spheres, or open source developers, etc.)
- astura 9y ago
  People do a lot of things that baffle me. Spending $100-500 for some entertainment is actually reasonable and not at all baffling.
  - petercooper 9y ago
    Sure, I've spent money on a lot of weird things, giving arbitrary money to people I think who needed it, buying coins in games I've enjoyed, etc.. but donations with no quid pro quo to top Twitch players till do baffle me, given people making the donations know they're well off. It feels like me sending random checks to Larry David because I like watching his show :-D I'd just be keen to see an article digging into that.
    - CocaKoala 9y ago
      When you donate, an alert pops up on the stream and the streamer will, in almost every case, acknowledge the donation and thank you for it. There's more recognition and interaction between the donator and the streamer than you sending a check to Larry David because you want him to have some walking-around money.
    - astura 9y ago
      What in Earth do you mean a "quid pro quo?" Twitch user gives entertainment and in return the donor kicks in some cash of they want to. Just like a busker. If you feel they provide you with $500 in entertainment and you have a spare $500, then it makes sense. That's like asking "why would you go to a casino when you know casinos make lots of money?" If you're watching Larry David's shows the business transaction has already taken place. Larry David doesn't stream his shows for free and give you the opportunity to give him donations in exchange and then thank donors during the episode.
beobab 9y ago
Hmmm... I read this, got distracted, followed links, and bought a game in a Steam sale (Avadon 2 - £2.99). I think I'm doing it wrong.
jonheller 9y ago
Tell that to the tens of thousands of streamers on Twitch who have 10 or less viewers, who absolutely are not getting rich. Like others have mentioned it's a combination of luck to get the initial attention, and skill to maintain that following (either actual video game skill, entertainment skill, or a combination of both).
dsfyu404ed 9y ago
The 18-hour days and other working conditions they of the top earners described in the article tell me that a lot of people will age out of their ability to sustain their level of income. It will be an quick transition like sports or porn where you hit a certain age and the dollar value of the level at which you can perform falls off a cliff because you're limited by your body. I would hope that the pro streamers are planning to use the industry connections they develop for a move into some other part of the video gaming industry around that time.
dvt 9y ago
I played Counter-Strike competitively (and to the extent it was possible "professionally") about 10 years ago and made some money winning tournaments, but nothing compared to what people are making nowadays. We got our hotel paid for for a few tournaments and that was "making it" back then :) It's fantastic to see the sector grow and I'd love to return to esports/gaming sometime in the future. Unfortunately, it's not all rainbows and roses, as I think there are some detrimental forces at play which are trying to rip out the grassroots origins of esports and commercialize it to the n-th degree (see Blizzard's Overwatch League). This was attempted before in '07 (see the Championship Gaming Series) and it failed miserably, so we'll see how it does this time around.
- ben_jones 9y ago
  OWL is a great example because there was a $20m buy in for I believe 8 teams. That's $160m in funding, with significant participation by organizations like the Kraft group. Whether it'll go anywhere is like asking if a specific well funded start-up will go anywhere, but its definitely being pushed hard.
  - dvt 9y ago
    I personally don't think Blizzard has any idea what they're doing in the esports scene. They destroyed SC2 and fumbled HotS, I don't think Overwatch will be any different. I was at Blizzcon last weekend and even though everyone there seemed excited about Overwatch, the numbers just weren't there. Barely breaking 300k viewers for a world championship (when DOTA, LoL, CSGO all break 1M+) -- the state of the game is not looking great at the moment. Not sure who invested like $20M per team but that seems like quite the gamble.
    - ben_jones 9y ago
      Didn't twitch break 300k viewers for OWWC?
      - dvt 9y ago
        Sorry, yes that's what I was thinking. Still terrible compared to CSGO/DOTA/LoL which all break 1M+
forkLding 9y ago
From reading the article it sounds like it could be retitled to almost "How to get rich playing video games or die trying" but another aspect is the global scale of this thing, you can also look to see China's obsession with video-streaming to see that this isn't really a one-time trend but rather an enduring thing that will likely keep evolving into more physical interactions where streamers do more and more celebrity on-site activities rather than purely virtual.
nickjj 9y ago
I think it's just good timing now because we have the tech to do it. The demand was always there. Back in 1999 and the early 2000s you could make over $100,000 if you won a single Quake 3 tournament. Live streaming (with professional commentators) was available back then, but there were no platforms for it so it never caught onto the masses. You had to really be in the know to watch them. But I do remember people being rabid fans and highly engaged back then. Just as much as now, just at a smaller scale. I made a little bit of money playing competitive Quake 3 and helped develop and run the most popular gaming ladder for a certain mod of that game. Good times.
- c3534l 9y ago
  > The demand was always there. I remember when my brother bought an NES, I wasn't good enough to really play any of the games, but I used to love watching him play because he got so much farther into the games for me and it was a way to spend time with him. I guess that impulse hasn't really gone away.
spullara 9y ago
Primarily you are entertaining, secondarily you are good at video games. There is a narrative pattern that you must be a master of to get any kind of interest on Twitch. It is a unique artform in and of itself.
arkis22 9y ago
My favorite streamer for Overwatch, aimbotCalvin has 300,000 subscribers. This puts into perspective how much he makes. Wow.
- ptomato 9y ago
  He has 340000 _followers_, not subscribers. Subscriber counts aren't public but if his follower/subscriber ratio is similar to some of the top streamers he'd probably have around 5-6000 subscribers.
  - arkis22 9y ago
    Aw thanks for pointing that out, my mistake
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- zanny 9y ago
  Another WoW streamer like the guy from the article (this ones named Zach) was streaming to 8k+ concurrent viewers for over a year without taking the offer to become a Twitch partner. He turned it on and got some ~3k subscribers in the first week. He was probably making alright donation income, but suddenly having your monthly income jump ~$12000 a month from just flipping a switch is pretty nuts.
yters 9y ago
Soon there will be Video Game U, where you can get a college diploma by playing video games all day.
mitchtbaum 9y ago
oooOOH!! I like rich playing video games! Where do I get them online?!..

226 points by Dowwie 9y ago

Interesting read and insight into a subculture I know very little about. Looks like only a few of them are getting rich, and it isn't without its costs. Working seven days a week as a professional gamer is pretty brutal.

hood_syntax 9y ago
This article doesn't even get into the really big earners. 7 figures is not a one person bracket on twitch. > Working seven days a week as a professional gamer is pretty brutal Yep. You can see the burnout on people after a while.
FLUX-YOU 9y ago
>Working seven days a week as a professional gamer is pretty brutal. I'm gonna throw some shade towards gameplay streamers. Streamers who do focused content and actually produce shows as you would in a TV/Radio studio have a real job which I've actually done, so this doesn't include them. Playing a game and running a stream, technically, is not hard. Engaging with viewers is not hard. There's a bunch of solutions out of the box that allow you to manage subscription announcements, overlays, and other stuff, so that isn't too hard either. Spending time in a chair isn't hard. 4-5 hours of working out per week and healthy diet choices would help that, but isn't a panacea because research shows sitting for long periods is bad anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some kind of viewer management software akin to CRM software that make it easier to relate to a larger amount of people. After all, people have limits on the amount of social connections they are able to manage themselves. So remembering your viewers may not even be hard. The hard part comes with people being unprepared to essentially become public figures (very much in the Hollywood or political sense) and being unable to deal with harassment, death threats, and insults and the worst part of internet. If you don't have enough viewers to shrug off a controversy, your channel will get small, you'll lose revenue, and likely start stressing out about that as well. Having a fallback career plan is essential. But if you are mentally tough and don't repeat the mistakes of other streamers and public figures (which is likely conveniently available for you to watch), being a streamer is not difficult. Not like other careers. Making money is a different story -- you can do everything right and still not be popular because the mob is fickle. That's just career luck, which isn't specific to streaming. You shouldn't be a public figure if you aren't prepared mentally for it. Twitch can only ban so many people. However, I very much support tapping this revenue stream. I truly don't care if a loser drops $500 on a streamer who's showing cleavage as long as she's of legal age -- more power to that streamer. And it's up to parents to police their kids watching cleavage streamers. That's not really Twitch's job. Just call it for what it is: easily hacking viewership for revenue. The exception being taking care of yourself mentally first.
- Jemmeh 9y ago
  Of course "streaming isn't hard" in the same way that playing football isn't hard. It's when you do it at a professional level and have to put in mad hours every week to keep up that it becomes brutal. All without guarantee that you'll even get paid if you're just unlucky that week and don't get enough viewers.
  - bllguo 9y ago
    Streaming requires little commitment to try out. You can easily have a normal job and stream at night to ease into it. The skills required are to just be entertaining. You can quit immediately if you want or need to, without dropping a beat. The commitment required is orders of magnitude less than something like playing sports professionally. The actual comparison to football is "esports," where people play games competitively. There, you actually do have to put in large amounts of hours to compete at the highest level, without being guaranteed prize money or competitive wins.
    - nightski 9y ago
      If you don't want any viewers. You vastly underestimate how hard it is to build a stream that attracts a healthy audience.
    - Jemmeh 9y ago
      I said at a professional level. Streaming for Fun:Professional Streamer = Football for Fun:Professional Football Players Not everyone who makes enough money to stream as their primary source of income is competing in tournaments/esports, sometimes they are just entertaining/informative. Regardless of if they are entertainment or skill based, it takes a lot of time and effort to build up enough of a fan base to make it into a primary source of income.
- gozur88 9y ago
  >Playing a game and running a stream, technically, is not hard. Engaging with viewers is not hard. That's all true, but anything you do for a living gets old after awhile, especially if you're putting in long hours. I like to play video games, but if I had to play to pay the bills it would be a job like any other - minus the breaks, the paid time off, and the benefits.

brndnmtthws 9y ago

The same applies to pretty much any skill: to be successful, work hard and be very good at what you do. That's the entire article in a nutshell.

brazzy 9y ago
And be lucky.
sandworm101 9y ago
And be attractive. The top youtube/twitch people either look or sound like celebs. They are either cute or have the voice, the pipes, of a radio star.
- hood_syntax 9y ago
  Imaqtpie?
- maccard 9y ago
  Lots of people are saying that, but it's clearly not true. I don't think imaqtpie [0] fits that description. Skimming through the top twitch streams right now, plenty of them don't fit that description. [0] https://go.twitch.tv/videos/200675143 https://go.twitch.tv/videos/200675143
  - falcolas 9y ago
    I'd hardly call him unattractive. Classy glasses, a well kept appearance (which can be challenging with a thin mustache)... a slight overbite is about all that might be considered unattractive; but his attitude and voice more than make up for it. Almost speaks more to the accepted definition of "attractive" than the streamer.
  - gozur88 9y ago
    I haven't looked in awhile, but when I used to watch dota streams the top four or five (by viewer count) were always extremely attractive Eastern European and Russian women. They were better than average players, but not good enough to command that kind of attention.

post_break 9y ago

Step 1 be a girl. Step 2 break all of Twitch's community guidelines. Step 3 ??? Step 4 Profit.

have_faith 9y ago
Downvotes are expected, your post lacks tact. But it would be worrying if people ignored the reality of girls being exploited and exploiting themselves online in various gaming circles for financial gain. I don't particularly have a problem with it, but it's not a small thing.
- cavanasm 9y ago
  There's also the problem where girls are heavily targeted for harassment still in the streaming community. I'm under the impression it's slowly improving, but there was a well known twitch user who was a serial SWATer (calling the police and telling them a multiple homicide is occurring / hostages have been taken so that a SWAT team shows up to the streamer's home) on any female twitch streamer who wouldn't chat with him / pretend to be his friend. Law enforcement has been mostly toothless, although in this case, a sympathetic local officer committed hundreds of work hours catching the guy and getting him prosecuted. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/magazine/the-serial-swatter.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/magazine/the-serial-swatt...
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  exploited They're not being exploited, nor are they exploiting themselves. No more than DrDisrespect is exploiting the system by dressing up like this: http://wikinetworth.com/uploads/Dr%20Disrespect.jpg http://wikinetworth.com/uploads/Dr%20Disrespect.jpg Or Captain Disillusion is exploiting the system by dressing like this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f4/Melikdjanian.JPG/1200px-Melikdjanian.JPG https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f4/Me... Everyone has a gimmick for attention, and being hot is just one tactic. And as someone who actively watches Twitch, it doesn't seem to last. You need something more than to be good looking. I was pretty surprised to find that a girl was a legit bounty hunter. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/201032300 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/201032300 It's counter to what you'd think of when you think "bounty hunter." I thought it was badass. I don't think I tuned in because I was exploiting her.

xchaotic 9y ago

This is very much like sports - very few make it to the top, and it's kind of subsidised by the ones coming up or just idly watching. Unlike actual sport, the disciplines here change rapidly, in spite of Blizzard's best efforts, World of Warcraft numbers are rapidly dwindling so a WoW start will pretty much have to start from scratch in another game or quit streaming as a career move. Game developers or even petty missteps can have disastrous consequences for streamers. Game developers can, for example ban streaming altogether, or request takedown with their content selectively. This is a 'career' but with no major prospects and if one was to put equivalnet amount of time in another field, say learning how deep learning works, the rewards will be far greater on average. I also think that 'pro' streamers no longer enjoy the games they play for "18 hours a day" and can't afford casual games with the camera turned off. It's a huge 'big brother' in their lives.

snoman 9y ago
> ... if one was to put equivalnet amount of time in another field, say learning how deep learning works... I see what you're getting at, but these are two different things. The vast majority of humanity as a whole is just not capable of sitting down and chewing through a deep learning textbook or anything of the sort. What you're ignoring is just how accessible streaming is as an income method. Up until recently, all you needed was the equipment (< $2000-3000 - sometimes paid for by sponsors, often equipment that people already have in modern times) and to be half-way charismatic in order to get into it. Add in the promise of big money and 'superstars' and now every kid wants to ~be in a band~ be a streamer.
- xchaotic 9y ago
  " The vast majority of humanity as a whole is just not capable of sitting down and chewing through a deep learning textbook or anything of the sort." they don't currently, and probably we don't need millions of data science major, but somehow grinding through the game for thousands of hours is doable. I'd say let's gamify learning and we will have a whole new supply of world class scientist streaming their research on sci-twitch.tv ;)

olympus 9y ago

What I think is crazy is that this industry exists at the scale it does. It has replaced reality TV for a segment of the world population. There are legions of people that watch these streams, just to watch someone doing something that they could do themselves (but maybe not win as much). This isn't like F1 racing where I'll never be able to afford a racecar, or football where I don't want to exercise. Most of the kids watching these streams own a decent computer and can play. I suppose it's just not for me. I watch video game reviews to see if something is worth buying, but not more than a few minutes of gameplay. Plus the other things that streaming groups/houses do aren't appealing to me. Have I gotten old? Is this why grey haired CEOs often miss great business opportunities? They just don't "get it?"

flipp3r 9y ago
> Most of the kids watching these streams own a decent computer and can play. Youre making it sound not only as if only kids watch this, but also like playing any sport at all is so much different - and then compare it to Reality TV instead of live sports. Actual WTF? Some of the streamers (variety streamers) do play for just entertainment value, but most stick to just one game. A lot of it is also being able to live chat with other people watching and interact with the person streaming. > This isn't like F1 racing where I'll never be able to afford a racecar, or football where I don't want to exercise. Why isn't it like that? That's exactly what it is. Do you have any idea how long professional esports players competing in tournaments have to work, to stay at the top level? And do you think they can play at the same level on the average person's hardware? Have a look at Starcraft 2, Counter Strike Source, or Osu!. These are games where top players make 100+ strategic actions per minute, need to have lightning reaction speeds and accuracy, and make bursts of 10 actions per second for full minutes, respectively. How can it be such a shock to non-gamers that people watch other people play a game, rather than play it themselves? Just imagine it - people watching a game! /s It's exactly the same as every professional sport that has ever existed.
- waterside81 9y ago
  This is where I disagree, and I know I'm in the minority (clearly) by how popular streaming has become. Professional athletes are marvels because they look so much bigger, better and are faster than the average joe. That's their appeal - they're real-life super heroes. LeBron, Jordan, Ronaldo, Ali, Jim Brown - they guys are living, breathing physical specimens who can do what no normal person, no matter how much training, can accomplish. Video gamers, while no doubt skilled and dedicated to their craft, look like regular guys off the street. There's no wonderment. It's why nobody has the world chess champion as a poster on their door (or desktop background, whatever today's equivalent). Poker is popular on TV too, but ask a kid who they want to be when they grow up, Messi or Phil Ivy and I'm pretty sure I know the answer. This stuff is popular and more power to those who succeed, but I think it's unfair to just brush off people's bewilderment at the success of esports by trying to compare some 19 year old "esports athlete" to a proper athlete.

SurrealSoul 9y ago

Pretty click baity, "How entertainers make money by playing video games" is still click bait, but at least gives you an idea of what this is about. I feel like there is a lot to discuss about this topic (donations, reliable income, future plans ect...) from twitch streaming that doesn't get touched on. But it boils down to the audience wants to interact with you, and will pay you to interact with them. I'm curious how reliable this income really is, asking for money to give to a celebrity playing a game vs asking for money to play a game seems like a weird event

glenneroo 9y ago

Slightly off-topic but now even New Yorker is inserting autoplay videos about completely unrelated topics in the middle of long articles (in my case "Anthony Bourdain on Going from Obama to Trump"). Why would they do such a thing? Are they hoping everyone suddenly develops ADHD?

jrs95 9y ago
I think they're counting on the fact that everyone already has ;)
superb_herb 9y ago
They need the ad dollars like everyone else.
stochastic_monk 9y ago
I now browse with 4 extensions to handle issues like this. The autoplaying is everywhere and absurd. (NYTimes even has autoplaying animations you can't turn off. I sent them an email asking to have the option to turn it off as a paying subscriber and they didn't even respond.) It's a mix of reasons, but it's usually ultimately about turning you into a product. I think it's disgusting. To make the internet bearable, I use the following extensions: Ad Block Plus HTTPS Everywhere Privacy Badger And, the newest in the bunch, Ghostery. I do have to twiddle some things on and off now and then, but on the whole it works and my online experience is a lot less jarring.

thisisit 9y ago

> Garcia’s specialty is the multiplayer fantasy game World of Warcraft. While he isn’t its best player, he has a knack for talking entertainingly over his play: he is funny, brash, and filled with stories about his delinquent childhood in Newark. Most, if not all, of the live gameplay videos nowadays mostly tend to be about screaming and raging at the screen with lesser amount of stories. And for some reason people like that a lot. This along with the slew of Reaction videos where people watch other people watching and reacting to stuff makes me wonder - why are people really interested in someone doing some stuff? Are they so alone that they need some validation or is it more to do with increasing voyeurism nowadays?

graphitezepp 9y ago
Yes, they are that alone. Kids these days don't always have such hot social lives.
seanalltogether 9y ago
The only streamer that I really watch is Brian Kibler, who plays Hearthstone and used to be a pro MTG player. I think the reason I watch him and no one else really is because he's older, doesn't rage, includes his wife in his stream occasionally, and provides insights into his decision making process. He's just good natured and it's the closest thing I've found to those poker tournaments that I used to watch on cable at midnight.
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  Different personality types appeal to different people (naturally). I'm a fan of Scott Manley, who never rages of screams, but mostly provides educational and entertaining commentary on what he's doing when he's playing a game. But I also like Funhaus, which is effectively a podcast where a group of people plays a game in the background. (They also have an actual podcast which is literally that.)
- lilactown 9y ago
  Likewise, I watch almost exclusively Firebat (with a bit of Kibler every once and awhile). He does a really good job of balancing being funny and interesting (as a person), and giving really good insights into his thought process in playing Hearthstone, building decks, and competing.

EA 9y ago

No mention of Dr. Disrespect - a Twitch persona who recently won "Streamer of the Year" at the Esports Industry Awards. Just a passing mention of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, a game which according to some is growing faster than Minecraft did. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) is the most popular streamed game on Twitch right now. The game regularly has over 2,000,000 concurrent players, has sold over 13,000,000 copies, and is still in beta with just one multiplayer map. It has been the most popular game on Steam for a few months. Some digital items obtained from loot crates have sold for over $1,000. There is a whole ecosystem that has developed underneath the Twitch platform where secondary services help gamers overlay responsive graphics over the video stream as well as take donations. Top PUBG streamers can make well over $1,000 per night in donations on top of their cut of the Twitch subscription fee.

olegkikin 9y ago
Shroud is the real high-roller. He regularly gets $100, $200, $500 tips. I think the highest single tip he's got was like $5000.
- tomschlick 9y ago
  He also takes in a lot through Twitch subscriptions. He has 30k+ subscribers from what he last said and each would pay him $2.50-$10 / mo. Of course Twitch would take their cut but thats insane.
  - zitterbewegung 9y ago
    Twitch negotiates cuts at 30k and they scale it back a bunch at that level also.
    - harrisjt 9y ago
      From what I've heard at around 10k subs you are getting around $4 a sub.
onewaystreet 9y ago

petercooper 9y ago

The bit I'd be interested to read about is the psychology behind the "donors." Why would anyone throw down random $100 or $500 without a quid quo pro to someone receiving many other such donations? I understand streaming, generally, and have paid to subscribe to a channel before but the random throwing around of not insignificant amounts of money gets me scratching my head. (Should make it clear I'm not criticizing the practice. I just find it interesting, considering how understand the psychology behind it could help creators in other spheres, or open source developers, etc.)

astura 9y ago
People do a lot of things that baffle me. Spending $100-500 for some entertainment is actually reasonable and not at all baffling.
- petercooper 9y ago
  Sure, I've spent money on a lot of weird things, giving arbitrary money to people I think who needed it, buying coins in games I've enjoyed, etc.. but donations with no quid pro quo to top Twitch players till do baffle me, given people making the donations know they're well off. It feels like me sending random checks to Larry David because I like watching his show :-D I'd just be keen to see an article digging into that.
  - CocaKoala 9y ago
    When you donate, an alert pops up on the stream and the streamer will, in almost every case, acknowledge the donation and thank you for it. There's more recognition and interaction between the donator and the streamer than you sending a check to Larry David because you want him to have some walking-around money.
  - astura 9y ago
    What in Earth do you mean a "quid pro quo?" Twitch user gives entertainment and in return the donor kicks in some cash of they want to. Just like a busker. If you feel they provide you with $500 in entertainment and you have a spare $500, then it makes sense. That's like asking "why would you go to a casino when you know casinos make lots of money?" If you're watching Larry David's shows the business transaction has already taken place. Larry David doesn't stream his shows for free and give you the opportunity to give him donations in exchange and then thank donors during the episode.

beobab 9y ago

Hmmm... I read this, got distracted, followed links, and bought a game in a Steam sale (Avadon 2 - £2.99). I think I'm doing it wrong.

jonheller 9y ago

Tell that to the tens of thousands of streamers on Twitch who have 10 or less viewers, who absolutely are not getting rich. Like others have mentioned it's a combination of luck to get the initial attention, and skill to maintain that following (either actual video game skill, entertainment skill, or a combination of both).

dsfyu404ed 9y ago

The 18-hour days and other working conditions they of the top earners described in the article tell me that a lot of people will age out of their ability to sustain their level of income. It will be an quick transition like sports or porn where you hit a certain age and the dollar value of the level at which you can perform falls off a cliff because you're limited by your body. I would hope that the pro streamers are planning to use the industry connections they develop for a move into some other part of the video gaming industry around that time.

dvt 9y ago

I played Counter-Strike competitively (and to the extent it was possible "professionally") about 10 years ago and made some money winning tournaments, but nothing compared to what people are making nowadays. We got our hotel paid for for a few tournaments and that was "making it" back then :) It's fantastic to see the sector grow and I'd love to return to esports/gaming sometime in the future. Unfortunately, it's not all rainbows and roses, as I think there are some detrimental forces at play which are trying to rip out the grassroots origins of esports and commercialize it to the n-th degree (see Blizzard's Overwatch League). This was attempted before in '07 (see the Championship Gaming Series) and it failed miserably, so we'll see how it does this time around.

ben_jones 9y ago
OWL is a great example because there was a $20m buy in for I believe 8 teams. That's $160m in funding, with significant participation by organizations like the Kraft group. Whether it'll go anywhere is like asking if a specific well funded start-up will go anywhere, but its definitely being pushed hard.
- dvt 9y ago
  I personally don't think Blizzard has any idea what they're doing in the esports scene. They destroyed SC2 and fumbled HotS, I don't think Overwatch will be any different. I was at Blizzcon last weekend and even though everyone there seemed excited about Overwatch, the numbers just weren't there. Barely breaking 300k viewers for a world championship (when DOTA, LoL, CSGO all break 1M+) -- the state of the game is not looking great at the moment. Not sure who invested like $20M per team but that seems like quite the gamble.
  - ben_jones 9y ago
    Didn't twitch break 300k viewers for OWWC?
    - dvt 9y ago
      Sorry, yes that's what I was thinking. Still terrible compared to CSGO/DOTA/LoL which all break 1M+

forkLding 9y ago

From reading the article it sounds like it could be retitled to almost "How to get rich playing video games or die trying" but another aspect is the global scale of this thing, you can also look to see China's obsession with video-streaming to see that this isn't really a one-time trend but rather an enduring thing that will likely keep evolving into more physical interactions where streamers do more and more celebrity on-site activities rather than purely virtual.

nickjj 9y ago

I think it's just good timing now because we have the tech to do it. The demand was always there. Back in 1999 and the early 2000s you could make over $100,000 if you won a single Quake 3 tournament. Live streaming (with professional commentators) was available back then, but there were no platforms for it so it never caught onto the masses. You had to really be in the know to watch them. But I do remember people being rabid fans and highly engaged back then. Just as much as now, just at a smaller scale. I made a little bit of money playing competitive Quake 3 and helped develop and run the most popular gaming ladder for a certain mod of that game. Good times.

c3534l 9y ago
> The demand was always there. I remember when my brother bought an NES, I wasn't good enough to really play any of the games, but I used to love watching him play because he got so much farther into the games for me and it was a way to spend time with him. I guess that impulse hasn't really gone away.

spullara 9y ago

Primarily you are entertaining, secondarily you are good at video games. There is a narrative pattern that you must be a master of to get any kind of interest on Twitch. It is a unique artform in and of itself.

arkis22 9y ago

My favorite streamer for Overwatch, aimbotCalvin has 300,000 subscribers. This puts into perspective how much he makes. Wow.

ptomato 9y ago
He has 340000 _followers_, not subscribers. Subscriber counts aren't public but if his follower/subscriber ratio is similar to some of the top streamers he'd probably have around 5-6000 subscribers.
- arkis22 9y ago
  Aw thanks for pointing that out, my mistake
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
zanny 9y ago
Another WoW streamer like the guy from the article (this ones named Zach) was streaming to 8k+ concurrent viewers for over a year without taking the offer to become a Twitch partner. He turned it on and got some ~3k subscribers in the first week. He was probably making alright donation income, but suddenly having your monthly income jump ~$12000 a month from just flipping a switch is pretty nuts.

yters 9y ago

Soon there will be Video Game U, where you can get a college diploma by playing video games all day.

mitchtbaum 9y ago

oooOOH!! I like rich playing video games! Where do I get them online?!..