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Being a successful live streamer must be a sweet gig

Deleted member 2172

Account closed at user request
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
4,577
Dest said:
Entertaining people for 6-8 hours every day is exhausting.
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I dunno, I feel like when you "make it big" on the platform (like 8k+ viewers), you eventually reach a point where it doesn't matter if you're entertaining cause people will watch you anyway. Lirik literally spent like 5 hours the other day just chilling, browsing Steam and talking to his chat. Its rare for him to be live and not playing a game, yet his viewers did not falter at all that day. Now that must be a sweet gig.
 
eXistor

eXistor

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,360
Sounds like one of the worst "jobs" to be honest. Your hobby is no fun anymore, there's probably a lot of pressure in delivering continuous content, your fan-base is probably awful. No thanks.
 
Kemiko

Kemiko

Member
Oct 5, 2018
631
It's one of those things that sounds great at first glance, but the more I think about it the more I realise it could really suck. You can never publicly have a day where you are less productive, you always have to be ON. You get harassed all the time, need to be very active on social media. Really long hours, having to work weekends. A lot of peoples mental health clearly takes its toll as well.

It's not a job where you just play games. You're an entertainer, editor, manager, etc.

It must be exhausting.
 
pyxl_8

pyxl_8

Member
Oct 27, 2017
931
I don't think I'd be good at it and I'd find it stressful, but Limmy on Twitch is the single, most pure example of someone living their absolute dream I can think of. The man is a born entertainer, and left a relatively successful TV career behind to stream because he simply loves doing it so much and he only really plays the games he wants to. Even the production aspects just feel like a passion or hobby of his.
He's just getting paid to enjoy himself at this point, and I couldn't be happier for him.
 
sumo

sumo

Member
Oct 30, 2017
636
I think people trying to make a career out of streaming have some of the same problems as people trying to be professional sports players, they have to have a back up plan because one day it'll end, be it through injury, age or just not being popular enough, and if you aren't big enough while doing it and don't have some other career options you'll be starting from zero 10 or more years behind everyone else your age.

I like the idea of making some money while playing games but in reality my gaming isn't at consistent enough times or for long enough each time so there's no chance anyone would watch it. Maybe back when I was 18 and playing Counter Strike for 12 hours a day while chatting shit on teamspeak.

Besides, I can't imagine the stress of having your whole self worth tied to an absolute viewer number, having an off day let alone getting sick meaning that number goes down and you earn less as a result.
 
Admiral Woofington

Admiral Woofington

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
14,892
Bluelote said:
it's far better than many or even most jobs, but I often see people getting burned, specially the ones that are a little smaller and kind of depend on keeping the sub count to a certain point to survive, and many of those are tied to a single game or they lose viewers, seems kind of a pain tbh...
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Yeah the main streamer I follow unfortunately has this issue. He has made his community exclusively on vr chat and even though he's an entertaining enough guy, his confidence and unfortunately a sizable amount of his viewership is tied to that game as that's where he streams 98% of the time. He's not so small he's screwed and has like mid 2k viewers per stream which is enough to keep him afloat comfortably enough.
 

Deleted member 2172

Account closed at user request
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
4,577
pyxl_8 said:
I don't think I'd be good at it and I'd find it stressful, but Limmy on Twitch is the single, most pure example of someone living their absolute dream I can think of. The man is a born entertainer, and left a relatively successful TV career behind to stream because he simply loves doing it so much and he only really plays the games he wants to. Even the production aspects just feel like a passion or hobby of his.
He's just getting paid to enjoy himself at this point, and I couldn't be happier for him.
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Yeah, agreed. For some people this is a very natural thing for them to do and it definitely comes across as "being paid to be me" at that point which is pretty cool to see when its a genuinely good person like Limmy.

Because on the surface this comes across as such a lucrative career path, a lot of people who don't have the natural talent to entertain folks will still be attracted to this and get a hell of a wake up call when they realize what it truly takes to be successful on the platform(outside of luck, ofcourse)
 
elyetis

elyetis

Member
Oct 26, 2017
4,567
I would wager being a successful -pretty much anything- is a pretty sweet gig.

Getting there is probably very hard for the most part, and that must be very true for live streamer, but once the real success is there it very much seems like an enviable situation.
 
Sei

Sei

Member
Oct 28, 2017
5,758
LA
You have to put in a lot of hours and stream every day. Have to keep high energy and entertain all stream, very little down time. Can easily get banned on an accident and lose all income. Have to put up with random harassments online. Must be like 99% of streamers that don't make a livable income, most of the money is at the top percent.
 

Deleted member 5596

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,747
MrRob

MrRob

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
6,671
Call me old fashioned but I'd much rather my hobby stay my hobby and never turn into my job. Plus I would absolutely hate having my life be an open book readily available on the internet for trolls and weirdos to obsess over.
 

callamp

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,489
I think it would be a really empty experience. Even if you are the world's best streamer you are still creating bottom-tier content that has no cultural value and a shelf life measured in seconds.

And then all that time editing that bottom-tier content. It sounds soul crushing.
 

Deleted member 55807

Banned
Apr 9, 2019
631
My dad used to say, when seeing musical theatre on TV, "don't these people have to work?". Not realising - like many people - that working in entertainment is absolutely exhausting. I recon the same thing goes for streamers.
 
Funkybee

Funkybee

Member
Feb 20, 2019
2,248
Yes it is stressful, but if you succeed at it, you could make bank in a couple years of consistency which would be more than what you could've made in 10 years in that boring job.
 
Mukrab

Mukrab

Member
Apr 19, 2020
7,689
Dest said:
Entertaining people for 6-8 hours every day is exhausting.
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Yeah compared to working your ass off in 99% of the other jobs for more hours and less money sure has to be a struggle. Im not saying its easy and everyone can do it but EXHAUSTING? Compared to the alternatives? Cmon now
 
RetroMG

RetroMG

Community Resettler
Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
6,763
I briefly thought I'd give it a try before I had kids. I thought, "How hard could it be to play a game and be funny at the same time?"

Turns out it's really really hard and I'm not good at it.
 
JustTeaThankYou

JustTeaThankYou

Member
Aug 31, 2019
2,660
It's like saying "it would be so great to be a rockstar I'd just ride around on a bus, strum a guitar once a night and then drink expensive booze and do drugs!". It ignores the hard work behind the scenes to actually do this, but much more importantly forgets that it's a celebrity game: for every Ninja-- hell, ignore Ninja even, for every person who has their ~1000 profitable concurrents-- there are hundreds of thousands of people who have never had more than 1 viewer: themselves. Streamers talk about how it's "hard work" that got them there. This is bullshit: hard work is a prerequisite sure, but it's hard work + insane amounts of luck. Thinking "if I work hard I'll be successful" in a celebrity space is by it's nature wrong.
 

Deleted member 45130

Banned
Jun 17, 2018
3,244
I dunno. Having to be on camera and playing only popular games for 8 hours a day sounds a bit shit. Playing video games is a hobby, I would likely start to get sick and tired of them after a while.
 
fanboy

fanboy

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,452
Slovakia
I feel stressed and i feel a lot of pressure when trying to hit deadline for game reviews.. i was playing some launch games for a few days and I already wanted to make a break... i play daily for a few hours so playing games for a long time isnt anything new to me... but even then, it wasnt easy.. i imagine playing and entertaining people for 8 hours a days must be really hard...

of course, I would rather play games as a job than actually working (maybe combining them would be best), but saying its an easy or non demanding job is ignorant to the fact how much people sacrifice for this and how much pressure they put on themselves.
 
Jobbs

Jobbs

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,639
Dest said:
Entertaining people for 6-8 hours every day is exhausting.
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Doing anything requires work and commitment and there are definitely pressures and anxieties associated with view counts and what not... but compared to most day jobs streaming is definitely easy -- if you have whatever it takes to attract enough viewers to make a living off of it, anyway, which is a steep hill to climb given how competitive streaming is
 
Molecule

Molecule

Member
Nov 2, 2017
1,691
I could never do it. I like to play games for myself and my own enjoyment. If I had to entertain people at the same time I wouldn't be able to do it. Wouldn't enjoy gaming the same either. It does sound exhausting. But if you like it then yeah, sounds great.
 
br0ken_shad0w

br0ken_shad0w

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,100
Washington
It does sour me a bit on the streamers I follow when they go from doing it because it's a thing they want to do to treating it more like a job and have to keep up a particular style and persona. Example I prefer John Wolfe's older stuff than his newer ones where he's basically pigeon-holed to keep playing bad horror games because that's what gets him the most views.
 
Schreckstoff

Schreckstoff

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,620
The non top streamers essentially can't take vacations multiple streamers got successful through a 365 challenge. Meaning they spent a whole year playing every single day.

Can you imagine not taking a single day off for a whole year.
 
Inki

Inki

Member
Oct 30, 2017
1,332
I tried streaming, got affiliate pretty quickly but damn, for an introvert like me, it was exhausting being "on" and talking the whole time. I did enjoy it a little bit but after 4 months of consistent (only 3 hours a day though) I'd only gotten up to like 200 followers.

I knew it would continue to grow but to what level of followers? I had a FT job and a wonderful spouse that I only saw for about 1-2 hours a night. I figured they were more important. And I honestly didn't think I'd make it big enough to quit my job and do it full time anyhow.
 
EarlGreyHot

EarlGreyHot

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,401
Playing games as a job sounds like hell.

Never turn your hobby into a career has always been my mantra.
 

Deleted member 50658

Banned
Dec 8, 2018
1,911
If you can remain yourself and enjoy creating the content you provide sure. Having to play "popular" or a single game for eternity that you no longer have any interest in because your fan base is expecting it and you are instead probably better off with a regular job with some variety and keeping your hobby your hobby.
 
KomandaHeck

KomandaHeck

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,358
Always thought it seemed kind of nightmarish, honestly. The only way I could ever see it being enjoyable to any degree is if you streamed with a partner, friend or group.
 
mephixto

mephixto

Member
Oct 25, 2017
306
nando said:
Play games, chill with cool people and weirdos alike, make a ton of money.


sounds cool
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Go try it. The ones making money and doing it for a living is problably less than the 1% percent of streamers. And if you very very lucky and made it, go live with the stress, anxiety, etc of losing hundreds or thousands of subcribers just because you stopped streaming for a day.
 
Kalentan

Kalentan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
44,985
Chaos2Frozen said:
What are your thoughts on cyberpunk?
What are your thoughts on Assassin Creed?
What are your thoughts on demon's souls?
Are you enjoying this game?
Is this fun?
Have you talked about the leaks yet?
Have you talked about the new trailer?
What is this game? (Doesn't read the title of the stream)
I don't think he likes this game.


be prepare to deal with this shit lmao
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Or backseating all the time.
 

Deleted member 17207

user requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
7,208
I dunno. I can't really play video games for SUPER long stretches, and certainly not every day. I also have other hobbies, other interests, and this is difficult to say without throwing shade at streamers or making it sound like I'm just jealous - and I do realize that what they're doing is legitimate and good on them - but I'd honestly just feel like a bum if I played video games for 6-8 hours a day as my job, even if I was making money doing it.

I also think the culture surrounding streamers is weird, so there's that..
 
pargonta

pargonta

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,887
North Carolina
if I can ignore chat and not be an entertainer and just play games, sure.

for that type of outgoing person though where it matches who they are, I agree
 
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