The other day, my mom sent me a text
out of nowhere to ask if I played League of Legends. She went on to
explain that a woman she worked with played and commentated the game
to make a solid $500 a week on average.
I did the lazy math while looking at my
screen. That's more than $25000 a year, which is extremely
significant when combined with the wage from a full time job. My mom
finished her train of thought to say that I could do it too. So what
goes into something like this? Can anyone start streaming their video
game experiences to make money? Well, the answer is a little
complicated.
The most well known game streamers make
their wage on the most popular streaming website: Twitch. A quick
look at the front page at any time will show a serious number of
views for popular games (with League of Legends being the king).
Checking all of the streamers for the biggest games usually shows the
top few streamers making up most of the viewcount for their game.
Then there's several still in the 3-4 digit range followed by an
incredible number of people broadcasting to less than 10 viewers. If
I were to start streaming today, I could say with confidence that I
would belong in that last category.
Several things go into being a top
streamer, and they all belong with the theme of people wanting to see
you play the game. Many of the top streamers are just extremely good
at the game that they play. Top League of Legends professionals are
in the top percentile, even though all they tend to play is the same
solo experience everyone else can. Smaller streaming subsets, like
speedrunning, also show a high appreciation for skill. The allure of
watching someone play a video game better than you can is a
mysterious one, but it certainly does exist. The second best option
is a high level of charisma. Some top streamers have never touched
the professional level of their game. Their service isn't gameplay,
but themselves. Someone who interacts with their viewer or is just
fun to listen to. The woman my mom told me about probably falls into
this category, since I haven't heard of any top players from the
middle of nowhere.
Now, the money itself is the
interesting part. A stream with enough consistent broadcasts and
viewers can partner up with the website, allowing advertisements to
be played on their video, generating revenue. In addition, viewers
can subscribe to the streamer for $5 a month, and around half that
tends to go straight into the streamer's pockets. The benefits of
subscribing include exclusive chat faces and the possibility to be
invited to play on stream, which is generally not worth the money.
Most subscribers tend to pay up just to support their favorite
streams. A far more direct way of doing so exists, which is direct
donation. Huge amounts of cash can flow from this, and these are
where the games really begin.
A few months ago, one of the biggest
streams I followed was tired of reading the comments attached to
their donations out loud, and installed a text-to-speech program to
do it for them. Several viewers donated the minimum required to get
this program to activate just to tell jokes or push the censorship
filter as far as they can. Eventually, the entire broadcast was taken
over by the robotic voice saying things that the streamer himself
would never have read out loud. But despite the fact that the
gameplay and commentary of the stream was being completely shafted,
he hesitated on turning it off. The amount of money being thrown out
was absolutely incredible. In the end he had to tone things down,
since the website did not approve of some things being communicated.
This sentiment was probably shared by the streamer's multiple
corporate sponsors.
This is just one example of going to
the limit out of many. With just a simple look at Twitch, its clear
that streaming can absolutely be a main source of income. But in the
end, joining the several top dogs would take some quality nobody else
has, or a long amount of time cultivating a dedicated base of
viewers, subscribers, and donators. And unfortunately for me, that
time would be better spent elsewhere.
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