Small Streamers: Building Communities, Battling the Elements, and Engaging Audiences in the Gaming World
As a young child, I had the good fortune of receiving a Game Cube console as a present from a family member. I can vividly recall spending countless hours playing various games on it, including a demo version of a game that I was too inexperienced to fully grasp the concept of. Spending hours running around the same room not knowing how to proceed in the game. However, the game that left the most indelible mark on my memory was Pokémon XD Gale of Darkness. As a new fan of the Pokémon franchise, I was absolutely enthralled by this game and spent hours upon hours playing it.
As I grew older and became more adept at using a computer, I began to develop my research skills and utilize the internet to its full potential. It was during this time that I had an epiphany: I could finally conquer my beloved childhood Game Cube game by seeking out step-by-step instructions online. And so, I set out on a quest to google "how to beat Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness on Nintendo Game Cube" and, lo and behold, I stumbled upon a list of instructions that led me through the game from start to finish. While some might argue that this type of assistance takes away from the thrill of the game, for me, it was a revelatory moment. I had spent years attempting to beat this game and never quite managed to do so, but with the help of the internet, I was finally able to succeed. All because another person who had loved the game as much (and possibly had a little more brain development) decided to share their knowledge online.
As the years passed and streaming became a popular activity online, I was in college and had largely moved on from video games. However, a certain game called Fortnite swept the nation and all of my friends were either playing it or watching others stream it. Initially, I found it amusing that everyone was so captivated by this game and I continued to focus on my studies. However, I eventually came into possession of an Xbox One on Black Friday and saw that Fortnite was a free game in the store, so I decided to give it a try. Before I knew it, I was hooked and began scouring the internet for all the information I could find about the game. That's when I discovered a whole community of content creators who not only shared their love of gaming, but also their personal stories and experiences. It was through these individuals that I realized the potential for streaming not only as a way to share my love of gaming, but also as a platform for sharing my own journey and experiences. And so, I decided that I wanted to become a streamer myself and I dove straight into the small streamer community.
One of the toughest challenges that I faced that every small streamer will know of: community growth. I think a lot of people with no previous knowledge of the streaming world expect you to instantly have viewers once you start playing. This is very unlikely unless you have already been apart of a community before hand. This means actively watching specific streamers, and communicating with them and their chat. Building these chatting communities can be a challenge unless you branch yourself out. Promoting your stream on social media pages is one way to bring attention to your content. By going to Twitter and searching up hashtags such as #SmallStreamerCommunity or #SupportSmallStreamers can help you discover other individuals facing the same situation as you. By sharing this common ground, it’s easy to make friends with those who enjoy the same games as you and want to produce content. Typically, this is how a community begins to form.
Once a streamer does find a community and their chat starts to gain motion, the next challenge for a small streamer is keeping them engaged. Streamers can play games that include multiple people or even their entire chat. Some games that are really good at incorporating engagement are Words on Stream, Stream Raiders, Stream Avatars, Marbles, and Pokémon Community game. Games like these typically keep the chat’s attention because it requires them to be involved and chatting to continue the game. There are even bots (or computer moderators) that have extensions built within them that can engage their community. One that I loved to use was !raffle in my chat and anyone who is active can participate to earn in chat currency. Another addition that Twitch has incorporated into their site are Channel Points, where the more a viewer watches or interacts with a stream they can earn more points. With these points, viewers can redeem actions that are preset by the streamers such as taking a drink of water, doing a flip, dropping an in game weapon, and so on and so forth.
As I have delved deeper into the small streamer community and learned more about the challenges and rewards of this career path, I have become more and more interested in exploring the experiences and insights of individual streamers. That is why I have decided to embark on a project to interview members of this community and share their stories with my readers. I believe that by hearing directly from these streamers, we can gain a greater understanding of what drives them to succeed and what the future holds for the small streamer community. If you know anyone who is interested in sharing their story or collaborating on this project, please send them a link to this website so we can work together to bring these voices to the forefront. I am excited to see what insights and perspectives we can uncover through this journey and I hope that my readers will join me on this adventure.
