Speedrun Streaming Ramble

	I talked a good amount about this in my stream on Friday, but I've basically been living an uphill battle when it comes to streaming ever since I started. For most people in my position (twitch partner), they had some sort of big game or time where their stream blew up in popularity, or they stream some game that already has a larger audience on Twitch and they stood out from the crowd with their actual stream presentation. For me I've always streamed games I'm nostalgic for and speedran a lot of them, and I do my best to keep a chill and interactive environment while doing so. This has given me success to some degree, but has also hindered my channel a lot in terms of its overall growth. I've always kept true to what I've always liked to stream on Twitch, which the main reason I streamed years ago was I wanted to show people the games I've always loved, growing up or today. And even though there are some games I loved that have a larger audience on Twitch that would build my stream if I got better at them, I never really did stream any of them because I honestly enjoy giving these games that have a much smaller audience the time they deserve in the spotlight. But because I've done this for the last 3 1/2 years or so, I never got that sort of blowup that other Twitch partners have gotten with their streams before. With all the games that I stream and how often I switch things up because that's just what I'm feeling like streaming at the time, I've hindered my own growth as a streamer a lot so that I can be happier streaming what I want to do, instead of just forcing myself to continue to stream some game I love and nostalgic for for way longer than I intended to stream it and way past when I should have stopped just because it gives me more viewers, followers, and subs on Twitch.

	Growing your stream as a speedrunner on Twitch is HARD let me tell you. If you don't stream the game or game series you're most known for all the time on your channel, it is hard to get people to come back and watch you. A lot of the larger streamers on Twitch don't have this sort of problem because most of the time the game they're known for is either multiplayer, a sandbox, or endless, and as such they can basically get endless enjoyment out of the game as long as they're not tired of it, because there's always some sort of reward within the game keeping them playing and wanting to achieve it. With a lot of online multiplayer games there's usually some rare item to unlock eventually, higher rank to achieve, achievements within each individual match you want to be able to hit, and you can always strive to get better in the game along with everyone else by just continuing to keep playing and it doesn't feel as tedious. With something like WoW or Runescape there are always quests to keep doing and things to keep you occupied, which in turn will keep giving you content to do within the game and keep you busy for a while. Sandbox games like Minecraft or The Sims have an endless amount of content to create things with in their own ways through the game itself, and the only way you'd stop playing is if you're just bored of exploring the content presented to you. With speedrunning you don't have any of that. You're creating that artificial feeling of endlessness with continuing to push your time down lower and lower, and trying to get the most out of the game you're playing because you're playing it over and over to try and lower your time, but in the end there's only so much content in that game you love and you can only take so much and have to try something else. At that point it becomes a struggle to find another game that you think your audience will enjoy and also come back for, but of course not everyone will come back for that new game you like too because it's not the old game you're tired of playing right now, and that adds some stress and makes things harder for the streamer who wants to grow their stream. Do you see where I'm getting at with this? Speedrunning is unique on Twitch because it doesn't suffer from the same problem that a lot of other streamers suffer from with their games, barring they get that success with their games in the first place of course. Speedrunning provides content unique to what you'd normally see on Twitch. Instead of someone taking their time through a game or trying to improve at their online game, you're seeing someone going quickly through a game, being as reckless as possible, trying to win as fast as they can. But not everyone wants to see that compared to the usual online content they're used to seeing and enjoying.

	Trying to maintain an audience while speedrunning becomes tiring, and I've personally fought this battle numerous times with streaming. I've been someone who's view count has been stagnating above or below 50 viewers a stream, rarely above 100 viewers watching, for the last 3 years or so, ever since I started speedrunning Metroid Prime Hunters a lot pretty much. I even struggle with this today too, and it sucks to see this considering most of what I've been doing these days and what I'm most passionate about most atm is streaming and speedrunning. Not seeing much of a return for what you're doing even though you've spent most of your time trying to perfect your craft and thinking of ways to keep doing so is just frustrating and really discouraging. I got lucky with the games I streamed and I've found and created an audience with most of my games on Twitch just by streaming them a good amount, but while a lot of people have stuck around over time, not many have kept sticking even through whatever game I end up streaming comparatively because I got tired of streaming the same game for a certain amount of time and want to spice things up more. Being a Twitch Partner doesn't necessarily mean your stream is successful, and that's not the case for everyone. It just means you did something right at one time for a lot of people and you were rewarded for that. The struggle is continuing to maintain that level of success after that happened, which is something many streamers do struggle with unless their channel did blow up in some way. The only time I've ever seen a large amount of channel growth, view-wise follower-wise, was when I was streaming Superstar Saga Glitchless runs back in June of this year, but I haven't gotten something similar to that since, even when streaming attempts of that game more recently too. Matching that level of success again is hard to do when your content is more niche than other streamers and not everyone can or wants to keep up with that.

	All of that being said, I LOVE anyone who's ever come into my stream and been interested in anything I decided to stream that day or in the past. Despite any sort of streaming struggle I or anyone has had, you are all amazing people and I could never be any more thankful for just being... here. You're who keep people like me afloat, and have helped in the overall success of others so much more than you probably initially realize just by simply clicking on a stream, even if you aren't chatting at all, aren't subbed, followed, or anything that impacts the stream like that. You have helped people live out their dreams of entertaining others through this platform by just being a part of the audience and me and every other streamer on this platform are forever in your debt for giving us a chance at all!! All of my words aren't a jab at the viewers or anything like that. They're more of a jab at the medium itself and how much of a tossup streaming in general is. That all being said, I'd still recommend anyone who wants to get into streaming and speedrunning to do so. They're both very fun hobbies that work well together and I'm very glad I did this in the first place and am able to maintain even a little bit of success in doing so. It's just hard to grow and continue to maintain that same level of success over time because of the nature of what you do and I hope this pastebin at least has made people aware of that.

	Now I'm going to turn this onto all of you and make it a little about me again. If anyone has any legit feedback about my stream, like what games you like watching the most, what you like most about my stream, what you don't like, what you think I can do better, etc. please PM it to me, either on Twitter or on Discord, or hell if you want to you can email it to me @ [email protected]. I feel like in a private setting getting this sort of feedback would be more helpful because in a public forum on the internet, more people love to meme or make jokes to make people laugh or impress others, but I seriously just want more than anything else to get feedback from anyone who's watched my stream before, even if you haven't watched in a long time, so that I can be a better version of myself and improve upon something I love doing, so it's more enjoyable for everyone! But yeah enough rambling for now. Hope everyone has an excellent day, and thanks for reading <3