Following the Right Target and Variety Streaming

This is somewhat for all of my followers, but mostly for those who have followed me because I happened to play a game they enjoy watching - that is, game-based viewers.  The subject has been on my mind lately, so I'll say a few words today regarding game-based viewership, how it affects being a variety streamer, and following the right target.

It's difficult to be a variety streamer.  If I play Mario 3, Mega Man 2, or other popular games, everyone and their grandma comes to watch.  If I stream pretty much anything else, 0 viewers (or at the least, it feels that way with the decreased viewer count) for hours.  I do appreciate the follows when I play stuff everybody recognizes and relates to.  Every follower still counts, and can still become a regular viewer in the long run.  But it needs to be understood that those games are not all I play, and although I do still tell people "if you don't like what I'm streaming, go watch someone else," I'd appreciate some company once in a while when I'm playing something obscure.  If it's something I'm planning to sink time into, I even bother with making a game-specific layout for it to make sure your experience is the best I can deliver with my present setup, and if something about it isn't right, I fix it.  I know my laptop isn't the most optimal piece of streaming equipment on the planet, but I do my best to deliver what I'm able.

What it comes down to is what I keep reminding people of once in a while: When you doink that follow button, when you decide to follow me, you are following *ME*.  You are not following Mario 3, you are not following Mega Man 2, you are not following Trauma Center.  Following games *is* a thing on Twitch, and following me isn't how you do it.  If you want to follow a game, go to Twitch's directory - you can find it at https://www.twitch.tv/directory - and follow the game all you want.  Please do.  That's how you show a vested interest in a game.  Any games you follow show up on https://www.twitch.tv/directory/following/games so you can check them out when you're bored.  I do it myself, and I use it.  Late at night when there isn't much going on with those I'm following, I will check my followed games (and/or SRL, which can work on a similar system, which I also use, although SRL is speedrun-based, and I do enjoy watching casual gaming as well, so the Directory sees about the same amount of use) to see if *anyone* is playing the games I like to watch.  (This is how I find new people to follow half the time.)

So seriously, if you love Mario 3,  go to https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Super%20Mario%20Bros.%203 and click the Follow button *there* to follow Mario 3.  If you love New Blood, go to https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Trauma%20Center%3A%20New%20Blood and click the follow button *there* to follow New Blood.  Nothing personal, but if you don't give two Raccoon Mario tail-wags about *me*, unfollow me.  Follow ME when you become attached to ME.  Because even as much as I love the game, I'm not going to play Mario 3 or New Blood every single time I'm on-air.  I'm just not.  The point I'm trying to make here is that if you followed me because of a game I played, I'm just going to be a disappointment to you half the time you get a notification saying I'm live, and I don't think either of us wants that.  I have other games I play, heck, I have other games I *speedrun*.  I run Mega Man 2 sometimes, I even started running Muramasa lately, and at some point, Teleroboxer and Tirkiss: Princess Shade are potentially slated to make comebacks.  And can you believe I do *casual* gaming from time to time?  I don't always run timers on my stream, sometimes we just chillax with casual playthroughs or even chat-interactive gaming such as Choice Chamber and Chat Plays Oregon Trail (which, by the way, will be played more often if people actually stick around).

The main reason behind this is that even though it's nice to have high viewership for popular games, I can change games, and then all of a sudden, literally nearly EVERYONE leaves.  It's very discouraging, because it makes it clear that you don't even want to give a *chance* to the other games I play.  I understand that some amount of people are going to come and go on a per-game basis - after all, some people *do* find and watch you through game following, so some fluctuation in viewership is to be expected even if people behave as you figure they ought to.  The issue I have is that this number seems abnormally high for me.  It's very disheartening to change my game designation only to witness 90% of my chat leaving because they don't care.  Half the time I change from Mario 3 to just about anything else and watch this happen, it makes me want to stop streaming for the day.

The main things to take away from the above paragraphs are:
> Follow the right target.  If you like the game, follow the GAME, not me.  (Follow me when you like ME.)
> If you do follow ME, it'd be nice to show it once in a while by occasionally showing up when I play something that wasn't what I was playing when you followed.

Another important angle to consider, however, is that variety streaming isn't easy when it comes to viewership - I would be remiss not to acknowledge this, given I'm a variety streamer.  If you stream nothing but one super-popular game, if you can manage that sort of focus, yeah, you're going to get a bazillion followers so fast your head will spin, because that game is popular, and you literally don't do anything else on your stream.  But if you stream a bunch of different stuff, especially from multiple different time periods in gaming, it's much tougher to build your viewerbase, because now you're trying to appeal to what amounts to a different audience each time you switch games.  When you are a variety streamer, you become popular a different way - it isn't so much what you play, but rather, word of mouth that you're an awesome person to watch, *regardless* of what you're actually doing on your stream.  It is much more difficult to build a loyal following that way, simply because you play a lot of different games; your viewers have to be able to trust that no matter what you play, you're still the same cool person who can make watching any game a pleasure, simply because of your demeanor and attitude.  I acknowledge that this can be made to work if you keep at it long enough, and that there are variety streamers who *do* make this work on a very high level.  There are variety streamers who are partnered and have a bazillion subs.  I don't need to name names, you probably know a bunch of them.  But even so, I'm not being insulting - quite the contrary, I am saying they had to work that much HARDER to get to where they are than those who only play one game all the time.  This is why I respect them, and why I follow several of them.

Certainly, events, hosts, and the occasional raid can help put eyes on a stream, which may potentially result in follows, but again, that depends on someone else knowing about your stream, enjoying it, and ultimately deciding they love you enough to send viewership your way - and even then, although they may be asked to spam a raid message in some cases, the viewers are not obligated to follow you - at the end of the day, it's still the streamer's responsibility to put time and effort into streaming, and whether someone actually *follows* you is dependent on how you act, and, let's face it, some people will ignore the above advice and choose to follow you because of what you're playing, although that may in turn also lead to a long-term loyal follower as well.  Also, receiving hosts and raids depends on your actually streaming in the first place, which is also depends upon you putting in the time - if you aren't streaming when someone else gets done, you can't be on their list of considerations for who to send their viewers to.  (This is also why I encourage low-viewership-count streamers to stream the game they want to play even if big names are streaming it when they want to get started - sure, you don't necessarily get the *initial* viewercount that you'd get if nobody else was streaming it when you started, but think about it - when they get *done* for the day, where are they going to *send* their viewers?  If you're streaming, it could be *your* channel - and obviously, that can't happen if you aren't streaming at the time. :p  I tell myself this on occasion as well, to encourage myself to stream under the same circumstances.)

I myself strive every day to be me (as opposed to acting, probably poorly), and continue with an upbeat attitude regardless of what I play - it just gets difficult when "he's not playing Mario 3" equates to "better leave" and everyone disappears.  I don't change when my game does, I'm still the same person.  And I work hard to deliver an enjoyable and appreciable experience.  I make layouts, 96% of the time I remember to make sure they look correct before I start.  I do my best to follow typical ideals and guidelines.  Things such as respect your lurkers, don't stretch a game beyond its intended aspect ratio, don't block any appreciable part of your game feed, the game feed should be bigger than anything else on the layout - y'know, the typical things that we all want to see when we waltz into someone's channel, the things about a channel that make people think "this guy seems to have some idea what he's doing, and wants to keep doing it."  And yet a lot of this work ends up going unappreciated for various lengths of time due to game-based viewership, even when I announce "I'm going to play this game as a regular thing now," make a new layout for it, and do as I've said I will do.  I could choose to care as little as some do, just slap the game feed and the splits on there and play, but that's bland and boring, and I'm hardly all business.  I want watching my stream to be an enjoyable experience, so I put thought, time, and effort into layouts that deliver an experience to my viewers that is as close to what I want to deliver as I can manage.

Let's be reasonable, alright?  At the end of the day, all I ask is that if you follow me, that you evidence it once in a while by giving my other content a shot.  This isn't a demand, I'm trying to encourage you.  I understand that not everyones' tastes are the same.  Heck, I'll seriously understand if you leave 10 minutes into the actual gameplay of something like Tetris, Teleroboxer, or Tirkiss: Princess Shade - as long as you gave it the ol' college try; that's all I ask.  If you stick around, you may find that you enjoy the experience anyway, just because I'm the person playing the game - that's supposedly why you followed *me*, rather than the game I'm playing, and I will appreciate it more than words can say.