The way you chose to phrase this hints at your opinion towards playing a lot of video games.

I personally have subscribed to a tournament host and various (ex-)professional players at times just because I valued the content they produce enough to be okay with giving money to them.

> Does a streamer with more support produce better content than a streamer with less support?

In many cases yes they do, because higher income can make way for dedicated streaming hardware, better gaming hardware, better internet connections and probably other things too.

Streaming is great "background noise" for when you're bored and sitting around the house. It fills the same niche that I think sports does for sports people. It's live entertainment with no fixed outcome.

What I don't get: who the fuck watches this kind of stream, and why? Are the viewer counts actually real or is all of this just a massive scam where everyone is inflating counts with the endgame of defrauding advertisers?

I do not think most twitch streamers are trying to be professionals. I think most streamers are just trying to add more fun into their game time. In game theory everyone's main objective is the same, in this case measured in either revenue or viewers. In the twitch world most streamers are trying to maximize fun instead of viewers or revenue.

(Disclosure: I stream relatively obscure games, and know many other streamers in both megapopular and obscure games.)

> I'm not an expert on the subject, can someone enlighten me?

It probably helps to see live streaming of video games in the context of pro sports.

This was surprising to me as well, until I heard friends, in particular younger ones and children speak about it. Professional videogaming tournaments are big and serious business.

And with that, I can also imagine how watching non-pro/non-top gamers making with funny commentary is in fact a lot more fun than watching amateur sports players do the same :)

This argument is flawed because 1) many streamers do exactly that, and 2) just because a streamer is not interesting when he's not playing a game doesn't mean that all the value is coming from the game. A juggler is not interesting without balls, does that mean it's the balls providing 90% of the value?

Given that:

* many streamers spend a substantial amount of their time just sitting and chatting with viewers, no game being played.

* if it was the game providing the value, you could just show a recorded playthrough without a streamer there to interact with the viewers, but this is not very popular.

* many streamers can play any game at all and draw a large viewership, but there are no games that any person can just start streaming and easily draw a large viewership

It seems fairly clear to me that the streamer contributes much more value to a livestream than the game being played.

That's expected though. It's also true of YouTubers, and Instagram 'influencers'. Because the barrier to entry is low, you're competing with hundreds of thousands of other streamers for the same set of eyeballs. Except for a tiny minority, the vast majority of you will never make a penny from streaming. Do it as a hobby, but don't expect to make a living off of it.

To contrast with that, I know twitch streamers whose channel averages out at around 300 viewers a time, and who make a very comfortable living. Having a properly run channel that encourages donations, cash and bits, is a huge part of it.

I've seen streamers who pull an easy $200 a day in donations. Add in 500 or so subs, and it isn't too hard to break 6k a month. Not enough to live in the Bay Area, but a really nice salary in most of the country.

Ultimately those dollars come at the expense of others, there is limited attention and money, it really isn't something that would just exist elsewhere.

For example people also spend a lot of money on virtual slot machine games, so much so they were usually one out of every 11 apps in Apple's top grossing, back when they reported this list. It couldn't possibly be healthy for the app ecosystem, it sucks the air out of the room for other developers making creative or useful stuff. Sure it makes money, but a lot of things make money, it's stupid to reduce the effect of virtual slot machine games down to, "Well its users wouldn't spend the dollars elsewhere, and the more money to Apple the better, so it helps everyone."

The success of virtual slot machines has hurt video game developers, because financiers expect you to reproduce their mechanics, even though their expectation that it's all about mechanics is wrong. Hence many games with pointless slot machine mechanics.

Nobody needs OnlyFans. OnlyFans harms earnest creators, it ghettoizes earnest female creators especially because your agent, your manager, your friends, your family, your viewers - they will now expect that the surest way to make money is selling your body, and not by having any real talent or skills. OnlyFans and its porn stars have completely co-opted well-meaning people with this talk about sex work, COVID, it sucks to live in Bulgaria and whatever. Bella Thorne is of course a huge hack, it is preposterous she is repeatedly being given a platform by the media where the net result will be, more people will stop trying hard and gamble on being nude online.

They're not the only platform. TikTok is full of talentless hacks too, who simply win a random Internet lottery and are completely and utterly distorting earnest creativity and opportunities for hard working people. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube also reward SEO / ripping off other people's stuff much more than creating something original. This "well it makes money" bullshit has to end.

I know of more than half a dozen who are just Super Mario Maker streamers.

I know, my pure happenstance, of two cooking streamers who have built communities.

I think low double digits is a low ball estimate. There are more successful retro gaming streamers than that, I have no idea what the contemporary game twitch scene is like.

No one ever talks about 300 viewer streamers, they make for lousy news stories. Drama with super successful streamers, and articles like this one that talk about failure at the bottom.

Someone working 9-5, 40 hours a week, pulling in 40-50k a year isn't a news story.

You seem to be missing what they do: they are entertainers. They aren't "playing video games" all day; that's just the medium. People come to see the entertainer. The most successful streamers create a unique character that people want to see, often regardless of the specific game being played.

Some people also integrate legitimate review and and critique into some of their shows (not to be confused with the current plague of "reviews" that are actually paid native advertising).

> Sure, watching a stream is entertaining

See, you do understand. Being an entertainer is work. Just like the standup comic, the better streamers/youtubers know they are putting on a show. It may be unscripted, but that may make the job harder requiring a quicker wit.

> The only thing I can think of is more support might allow a streamer to devote more of their time to streaming.

That's the point. If you like someone's work and want more, paying them so they can spend more time creating is a good idea.

(as others have said, some are also a kind of club/community manager where they also maintain other things such as a community game server or website/forum)

Because, for the most part, those are the only people affected by these problems. If you don't stream with the intent to maximize your viewer counts and profits at all costs - stream when you feel like it, play what you want, don't chase trends, don't encourage parasocial relationships - you're basically immune to most of these issues.

that won't happen because the entire value proposition is in the personal connection to the streamer. (the modern derogatory term is 'parasocial relationship').

just like nobody watches chess computers or starcraft bots play nobody is going to watch bots play games. in fact to stay on the topic of the thread, people are making millions on onlyfans because they realized chatting with their viewers is much more valuable than generic pornography.

Who has time to write comments on an anonymous forums? Who has time to watch TV? Listen to music? Who has time to watch a couple of men kick a ball around? People make time if it is something that interests them.

> you have to sit down and watch for hours every night

You don't have to. You could just check in for a few minutes while you are eating or programming or cleaning or anything really. Also, many streams are available for viewing "offline". You don't have to be there for the stream. You could watch it later.

> Who does that?

Tens of millions of people?

> I imagine it's mostly students and single young professionals.

Probably. It's usually the younger generation that adopts tech and then slowly the older generation follows.

Not sure why you are so shocked? What's the difference between twitch and TV or watching the world cup? At least with twitch there is interaction via chat.

For some, Twitch is to playing games as talk shows are to conversation with friends. It gives people a fraction of the mental reward of social interaction without any of the effort or risk of actual social interaction.

It's like a junk food snack for the social center of your brain. I definitely see the appeal and find myself getting sucked into that way of satisfying my need for human contact sometimes, but it ultimately always leaves me unsatisfied in the long run.

For others, I think Twitch is just watching a TV show that happens to be a game. They just want to passively experience the narrative of the game without the effort of playing. Or perhaps they want the meta-narrative of watching the player interact with the game.

My impression is that most people are just having it on in the background while they do other stuff. If this sort of thing was around back when I was in college I can definitely imagine myself streaming something on Twitch while I studied.

The overall vibe seems to be analogous to having someone keeping you company while you work. Not that different from talk radio shows, only more interactive.

They are monetizing their time spent/interaction with viewers which is a very different thing and something people do monetize (see: speaker's fees, counseling fees, adviser fees)

That's the idea behind monetizing streams/streamers accepting donations. It's a way the viewers can support the person to stream for X hours a day and have it be something they can routinely do because they are being paid for their time. It just so happens that time is being spent playing a game that is the result of someone else's work.

I think it is stupid to deny free publicity - but maybe there's a reason why I'm not in marketing/advertising.

Not sure if necessary, but possible bias: I don't monetize through ads and prefer to accept donations, but I have streamed on occasion and have received donations for doing so.

Absolutely, provably false.

It takes a lot of skill to constantly produce content at the rate that millionaire twitch streamers do. Most of them own youtube channels as well, which requires additional time to process, edit, and mix videos, depending on what they're doing with it.

It also takes a high level of creativity in order to come up with new ideas for streams, keep the audience engaged while playing the same game for hundreds of hours on end. This means doing giveaways, interacting with the audience without offending them, planning contests, negotiating advertising deals with game-makers for promo-streams, etc. etc.

It's an incredibly demanding gig, that, at the very least, requires a pretty insane schedule, or being really passionate about the job. Most people would burn-out at their rate, and a lot actually do.

Maybe some streamers get help in production and orchestrating their stream, but for most it's more than a full-time job commitment.

Those average Joes you mentioned? They get 1-2 viewers, who are usually their closest friends. This the skill ceiling for "barely any special skill" people. If they stream a game that just came out, they may break 10 viewers once in a while. That's about it.

I'm trying to take your word that you don't mean to disparage, but I don't see another interpretation for what you've said. You suggested that I'm not aware of basic Twitch functionality (when I clearly am), then claimed that I must not have knowledge of the subject because the streamers I work with "by definition" don't have super fans (even though they clearly do), then claimed I said super fans don't even exist (though I never so much as remotely hinted it), then repeated the claim that I don't work with anyone who has super fans (even after explicitly telling you they do).

All of those things (and some that I left out) are disparaging, and the entire premise of your commentary has been that your perspective as a viewer can be applied to the entirety of the content creation industry as an absolute and indisputable fact, but that my perspective as a viewer, streamer and consultant strictly applies to a unique subset of streamers whom I've personally worked with -- because apparently I exclusively find the extremely rare streamers and whales who aren't part of "the vast majority" involved in an "exploitative" industrial complex, even though that would be a statistical impossibility. So, when you sa"nothing I've talked to is about my personal experience vs your professional experience," that's patently untrue. It's the basis for everything you've said.

> Simply having a 100 gift sub button in the UI, well hidden and never mentioned otherwise, is still extremely hard to justify as anything but exploitative.

At the end of the day, you're attempting to perpetuate the completely false notion that "the vast majority" of large donors are "dysfunctional" and being "exploited." You witness people donate large amounts and for some reason automatically assume exploitation, but you have no actual evidence or justification for that assumption other than it seeming like a lot of money to you, personally. Unless you're a professional psychologist who analyzed these people, you don't get to declare that "the vast majority" of any population are mentally unwell or being exploited -- especially when your only knowledge of the situation is that you saw strangers push buttons on a website. That's not situational knowledge of anything.

In reality, there are magnitudes more large donors who contribute to be supportive and out of appreciation for the streamers time and talents. Some fans will spend 100+ hours per month watching a particular streamer, so if they can afford to donate $1,000, that works out to paying $10/hr for entertainment, which is less than many hobbies. Yet, I don't see you making claims that people who spend lots of money on other forms of entertainment are exploited -- just this particular industry, and for reasons you haven't actually articulated.

And that's all still ignoring the fact that your perceived observations do not apply to the content creation industry as a whole, or even the majority of it. When I tell you that what you're describing can't be applied to the nearly 1,000 whales I've personally communicated with over the past few years, it makes no sense for you to double down on a blanket generalization that "the vast majority" of streamers are exploitative and large donors are being exploited, because even basic math doesn't back your argument.

> On the contrary these things are extremely visible and advertised.

You listed the basic concept of subscriptions and rewards as evidence for nefarious activity and exploitation. That's rather silly, and I'm not going to engage with it.

> Also the conversation was never about all "donors", from the beginning it was about "the vast majority of Super Fans are not buying courses or supporting the development of content". Disagree or not with the statement it never made claims every single

Please stop making pedantic nitpicks. I've literally quoted "the vast majority" a dozen times in these comments, and you're choosing to pick a single instance where I generally referred to them as donors for the sake of brevity within a long sentence, which itself is inside a paragraph specifically about super fans and even started with the words "super fans." You know exactly what I was referencing, and that you continue to turn these false nitpicks into full arguments is both exhausting and starting to resemble gaslighting.