Been a wee bit concerned about my Twitch channel of late. I have some great folk who view my streams quite often, but most of my views come when I get Raided. Nothing wrong with that, except most of those viewers don’t stay long, and very few actually Follow. Nobody Subscribes.
Now, that’s all fine, when you get right down to it. I stream for my own fun, and have no illusions that it will someday become a career or anything. My ‘Day Job’ is still firmly intact. I made Affiliate, and that’s as far as I’ll ever go on Twitch, which is fine with me.
The problem is that – try as I might – I just don’t seem to be as entertaining as I would like. I’m constantly engaging with my viewers, telling jokes, discussing whatever folks bring up in Chat, but most of the time Chat is dead, and I’m just talking to myself.
The lack of feedback, coupled with my small viewer numbers most of the time, leads me to think that maybe, just maybe, I’m “Doing Twitch Wrong”. The Usual Suspects who show up tell me everything is fine, but it’s hard to agree, when my stats are literally plummeting.
Yes, I know… Don’t pay attention to the Viewer numbers, right? Isn’t that what all of the Big Streamers say? Yeah, they have that luxury, since they have thousands of viewers and millions of Followers. I’m just trying to stay above 300 Followers, and am averaging 11 viewers.
Of course, it would be much less than 11 viewer average for the last month, if I hadn’t gotten a massive (for me) 135 person Raid a few weeks back. Otherwise, I’d be closer to 6 viewer average this month. 🙁
And yes, again, I know – Don’t pay attention to the stats! But after well over a year, it’s kind of hard not to see things slowly fading away from me. And this has me questioning my skills as an entertainer, because Gawd knows that no one comes to watch my 1337 gamer skillz!
Not to mention there is a game I used to play religiously, and still play quite often, that feels like I’m spinning my wheels with it. The company that runs said game no longer supports my channel, when they used to just last year… No, I don’t know why I got dropped, either.
Regardless, I am “Persona Non Grata”, it appears, and that frankly sucks. But I kept featuring their game, and do so every weekend, but I have to wonder why I do this. Sure, its a fun game, and I have a lot invested in it, but I do have other options.
I know of several other game that would bring in similar numbers on my stream as this other one does, some which would bring in more, and yet, I have tried to remain loyal to this one game – for the most part – for the vast majority of my streaming career.
Actually, it goes well back before I was streaming. I have supported this game for many years, through multiple media formats (blogging, podcasting, YouTube, and most recently through Twitch), and for the last 11 months I have basically been ignored by that company.
Which, to be honest, is fine. I had some technical issues with the game last June (IIRC), and that may have caused them to no longer feature my channel, I guess? Because that’s when it started, anyway, so I assume I said something in frustration on a stream which upset them.
Frankly, I don’t know what it was, but something occurred that got me ‘cut off’, as it were. Again, this is fine, it’s their game, and they can promote whichever streamers they like who play their game. Gawd knows I’m not the most Likable person all of the time.
That all said, I can just as easily play something else on my stream, and leave my playing that game to my ‘free time’, so to speak. I’m not going to stop playing, because I have 12 years invested in it, but I don’t have to promote it on my channel, either.
So I’m thinking it might be time for a change. I’m planning to play some “Rebel Galaxy” this morning, and I’d like to play some “Secret World Legends” this weekend, as well. Maybe I’ll toss in some “Neverwinter”, or “Rift”, or “Torchlight II” as well?
Hell, I could go with any number of games: “Elder Scrolls Online”, “Star Trek Online”, break out more Retro games, and so on. The point being, I have options, and perhaps it is time I started using them? My channel couldn’t do much worse than it is now.
Anyway, I’m not trying to single out a specific game, or blame the people that run it for my woes. I’m just a bit frustrated with everything right now, and when I get that way, I usually change things up, which is what I’m doing here.
So I’ll be playing some “Rebel Galaxy” this morning, some SWL later in the weekend, and beyond that, I have no idea what I’ll play. But probably not GW2, because I am sick to death of that!
