Response to "help the little guy"

This is a response to many similar tweets, but specifically one I saw today that said:

"I'm going to make a promise that if I make it as a streamer one day, I'll always be pushing the little guys. Why don't others do the same?"



tl;dr at the bottom


There are a few issues with what you're saying.

First is, where exactly does a stream "make it"? At partnership? At 200 concurrent viewers? 300? At what point do you draw the line to where someone has "made it" on twitch? The fact is that you never really "make it" on twitch. You never reach a point where you think "you know what? I'm in a good spot, time to just settle." If you do that, you stop innovating and being entertaining and your stream declines. Almost every successful streamer I know makes an effort to push to the next milestone, the next point that will give them a little more financial security. Because you know what? Streaming on twitch for a living is hard. Someone in your position could look at my stream and think "oh he's made it" but the truth is that I can just BARELY support myself on what I'm earning. So I haven't made it yet. I'm not comfortable, and if I were to pursue full-time streaming, I probably never would be. (For example I don't need a house or a car yet, and I'm still on my parents' health insurance. I don't have kids or a wife. I don't have a lot of savings in case of an emergency. As I get older and my stream grows, these things will start to come into play too.)

So, let's say someone does actually "make it" on twitch. They're comfortable, they stream 30ish hours a week and do stuff for the stream 10 hours. They make enough money to live comfortably and get, say, 500 consistent viewers every time they're live. Let's say they're at the end of their regular 5 hour stream and they're looking for a raid target. To someone in this position, raiding someone with 50 viewers, or even 150, IS in fact helping the small guy. Because they're helping a much smaller stream by sending their audience there.

Another point with this hypothetical raid is that you need to keep in mind that the streamer "owes" far more to his viewers than to most other streamers. It's important to find a stream that your viewers will enjoy. If this streamer raids someone with 75 viewers who's producing similar content, that's awesome, because the viewers will get there and have a good time. There will be plenty of chat activity to make it easy to talk and the stream atmosphere will be decently similar to the one they're used to. And on top of this, to someone with 500 viewers, raiding someone with 75 is helping the little guy.

I personally have raided many different streamers of different sizes, doing varying content over my 3 years as a streamer. And pretty much every time I raid someone, I check to see how many of my viewers stick around and for how long. Even if I can't watch, I check back a couple hours later to see. In everyone's case, there's a certain kind of stream their viewers stick around for. And the fact is that in most cases, a 500 viewer raid going to a 75 viewer channel is going to help that streamer a lot more than a 500 viewer raid going to a 5-10 viewer channel. Because that stream hasn't really come into its own yet. The streamer hasn't found their niche yet, and unless they're doing something really unique and exciting, the viewers for the most part won't stick around (since they're used to watching a streamer who already has).



"BUT BBOY! This isn't always the case! Sometimes lots of people stick around!!!"

This is where the "unique" point really comes into play. If I raid someone who's casually playing "the last of us" and that person is in the middle of a playthrough, only the tiny fraction of my audience who understands where in the game he is and is interested in watching will stick around. BUT if I raid someone like rudeism (who plays things like GTA with a controller made out of a blender) or someone like gaa5278 (who's a japanese farmer and streams his farming) that's unique! And even if the streamer doesn't have a lot of viewers, a lot of the people from the raid will think HOLY CRAP THIS IS SO COOL and stick around!

The point I'm trying to make here is that unless the streamer with 5-10 viewers is really bringing something unique to the table, it doesn't make much sense to raid them because there are so many streams to pick from, and someone else will benefit more from that same raid. It's the current year on twitch - you need to bring excitement to the stream outside of just "oh I'm playing video games and I talk to you while I do it." And personally I make a big effort to help streamers smaller than me grow. I pretty much never raid anyone with more viewers than me. But to someone in your position, that appears as me not helping the "little guy" because just like "making it" on twitch, the "little guy" is subjective.






tl;dr: You never feel like you've "made it" on twitch. Helping the little guy is a pretty subjective statement depending on the streamer's stream's size. FIND A WAY TO MAKE YOUR STREAM UNIQUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! @everyone trying to grow

seriously

you can't just play video games on twitch and expect to grow anymore

why haven't people realized this yet