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Good News, and Even Better News!

So, after all the trials and tribulations and First-World Problems relating to my new Origin EVO15-S custom gaming laptop, it is waiting for delivery at my local UPS depot at this very moment. I should have it today, just in time for it to have been potentially delayed by weather, had it stuck to schedule for delivery on Wednesday (we’re expecting snow). Anyway, I hope to do an unboxing video later today, and will have that up on my Twitch channel in a day or so. I will then spend every free moment setting the laptop up, installing software and games, and testing it, so it can be ready for use this coming weekend.

Any other good news?

Well, now that you mention it, yes there is! If you were one of the many who were not on my stream early Monday morning, you missed out on a surprise that will be openly unveiled on the stream next weekend!… But you might just see it in the replays before then, should I throw one up here or there. Basically, I made a short “Intro” video that will appear right before I start every stream! The one for “Lord of the Rings Online” (my primary game) is ready, but I plan to do intro videos for “World of Warcraft”, “Rift”, “The Secret World”, and two others, a generic “Gaming” intro and one for “Retro” gaming.

I also plan to replace the simple “Scormus will be with you shortly” image at the very start of every Livestream with a video that will loop until I actually kick off the stream. This will be a generic “Starting Soon” video, that will also show the Chat, so it might encourage people to start interacting before the stream even begins. I got the idea from watching Stine on Twitch, who has a really awesome setup for her stream! It’ll take some work, but over the next few weeks I hope to really change the way my stream looks, especially once the new laptop is 100% functional.

So is anything else exciting going on around here? Well, not that money is all that important, but I’ve already brought home more money in just three weeks of livestreaming on Twitch, than I made over eight years on various YouTube channels! I got a single, $5 tip from a new Follower, my very first actual donation on Twitch, and that already was more than I’d ever pocketed from YouTube. Why? Because that $5 is actual, tangible money, sitting in my PayPal account and theoretically ready to transfer out and get spent. But in all that time on YouTube, I never once made more than $12 on any single channel, and certainly no where near $100/channel (which is the minimum YouTube will pay out at). So if you combined what I’ve “earned” on all of my channels, it is well over the $5 tip I got on Twitch, but since all that “YouTube Money” is locked up and will never get paid out, it might as well not actually exist at all.

In a way, I put in basically eight years of work for nothing in return, while having a great time for three weekends on Twitch, and came away with a nice tip. can’t beat that with a stick, and it is certainly a nice start. If YouTube allowed outside tipping mechanisms for people who aren’t in their “YouTube Partners Program” (or were, until getting thrown out today for not having 1000 subs and at least 4000 watched hours in the last 12 months), then I might have stayed with YT. But they require people to be “in the program” to link to outside sources, such as merch stores, Patreon, and even PayPal for tips, so what’s the point?

Luckily, Twitch doesn’t care if you’re an Affiliate or a Partner (their two tiers for getting earning money direct through Twitch), or just some schlub like me. Everyone has access to means to link to outside sources to earn from, for example, my Tips link that goes to my Streamlabs page, which has a nice form for sending me tips direct to PayPal. And if/when I ever have a Merch store (that may or may not already be unofficially named “Scormey Fails At Merch”), I can link to that, too, just like I can link to this website.

Sorry if I went off on a bit of a tangent, but that $5 tip really was a watershed moment for me. Just a simple “Hey, good job! Keep it up”-sort of tip, which was likely a bit of an afterthought for the giver, meaning no more than buying someone a cup of coffee, put my entire career over at YouTube in perspective. Just saying.

Anyway, yeah, it’s been a pretty good week, all things considered. Looking forward to an even better week to come!

Scormus
I'm the editor, publisher, and primary "talent" here at Scormey.com.
https://scormey.com

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