Current Events > Is streaming a good way to make money?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I am curious to know, is streaming a good way to make money? Like an example doing live stream while playing games.

Are you very attractive? Are you really really good at the game?

Yeah, you could make millions

Assuming youre a guy then If youre really good then yes on top of having a great personality.

Which you need due to how overly saturated the market is now.

A lot of successful streamers are ugly and bad at games. You just have to be overly enthusiastic and have no soul.

Absolutely do not go into Streaming if your only goal is to use it for moneymaking, tbh.

Most of the streamers who are big now, are big because they spent 5+ years building themselves up from ground zero and starting with a very small following, just doing what they want and treating it like a passion project instead.

It's no different than any form of independent content creation.

Do it for fun, get a feel for what you're doing, and when you have the financial stability and the audience, then consider if it's something you should be doing full time.

One streamer I know spends on average 8-10 hours a day streaming and then another 4-5 hours on behind the scenes work. While that's obviously not necessarily the case for all streamers, I feel like that's about what one can expect from a streamer who is treating it like a business.

VeggetaX posted...

Are you very attractive? Are you really really good at the game?

Caseoh is neither and he makes more than most other streamers out there.

Point being: Being able to take jabs from chat and turning them around into funny moments is a big thing IMO. Too many people have massive egos these days. Anyone who can twist it like he does and feed into it are more likely to have success as well.

It's possible to make a lot of money streaming if you manage to become popular enough, but the vast majority of people who try it don't make much from it. The people who do make good money I'm pretty sure it's mostly from sponsorships, patreon, and selling merch.

Don't get into streaming if your goal is to make money. Even if you're blessed by the algorithm, it'll take months before you can even start earning revenue. Just do it as a hobby. If you enjoy it, keep at it and you'll eventually gain a following. Whether that following is big or small is mostly up to chance.

And you do NOT need to be attractive. You don't even need to show your face. Plenty of great streamers don't do face cam (Vinny Vinesauce, for example). There's also the VTuber route if you just don't like how you look but want to have some sort of visual representation of yourself.

The most important thing is to be entertaining. That can mean being funny, informative, charismatic, etc, or just plain good at the games you're playing. Some speedrunners barely talk at all and still get plenty of viewers.

This is what we need. More professional "video game players" or people like beatemups or spawnwave reading yesterday's video game news to us.

As a side gig, yes. But it isn't much. Like, it's not even sustainable as a secondary.

Literally every fairly successful one I follow does it as a hobby, and the ones who do it as a main source of income did it for about a decade before they were able to make it their career.

you need to be an entertainer. not just that, but also someone who people want to listen to and find interesting

I don't plan to be a full time streamer, I don't plan on quitting my job to stream.
As for my schedule for when to stream, I have to think about it.

So maybe I will use stream as a side thing to make money, not the main source of income.

So I need to be entertaining to get viewers.

I really want to stress this. If your ultimate goal is to make money, even as a side hustle rather than your primary source of income, you're going to fail. You're potentially looking at years without any substantial earnings.

You are going to start with an audience of 0. If you're lucky and play your cards right, you'll hit a consistent single-digit viewership within a couple months. Anything beyond that is luck of the draw no matter how good you are as a streamer.

supermichael11 posted...

So maybe I will use stream as a side thing to make money, not the main source of income.

That's the thing, you're almost guaranteed to not make any money.

There were stats released a few years ago (so they're probably even worse now) saying that to be in the top 1% of streamers, you need an average of 18 viewers. An average of 6 viewers puts you in the top 3%. Millions of people stay at 0-5 viewers.

As others have said, you need to be lucky. And it's not about looks or being able to play games well, Asmongold is the currently one of the top streamers, maybe number 1 right now but at least top 3.

Are you interesting, good at a game, and/or hot? If yes, then maybe (but still probably not). If no, then no.

pokedude900 posted...

I really want to stress this. If your ultimate goal is to make money, even as a side hustle rather than your primary source of income, you're going to fail. You're potentially looking at years without any substantial earnings.

You are going to start with an audience of 0. If you're lucky and play your cards right, you'll hit a consistent single-digit viewership within a couple months. Anything beyond that is luck of the draw no matter how good you are as a streamer.

I know a YouTuber that only gets in the single digits viewer, how much money does the YouTuber make?

supermichael11 posted...

I know a YouTuber that only gets in the single digits viewer, how much money does the YouTuber make?

0

To even be eligible for monetization on Youtube, you need 500 subscribers and 3000 watch hours across all of your content within a 365 day period. And that's just to unlock channel memberships and superchats. If you want ad revenue, it bumps up to 1000 subs and 4000 watch hours.

No

I've tried my hand at it, but I haven't had any success. I don't think I have the right personality for it. I'm kinda quiet and reserved, and it feels awkward when someone watches. Plus my family interupts fairly often.

I'm only doing it because it's kinda fun, and it's easier to stream then download that for YouTube rather than buying a new computer and setting that up to record directly.

I did recently buy a camera thinking it would help, but I tend to get 1 view each stream which I'm fairly certain is just a bit or something. Every once in a while I get someone trying to sell me their art services.

KogaSteelfang posted...

Every once in a while I get someone trying to sell me their art services.

God I fucking hate those people. It's always the same shtick. They come in, ask some general questions and say some vaguely nice things, ask if they can ask a question, then start shilling their shit. Then I ban them. I just don't understand how they all have the exact same playbook.

You need two things to be successful.

1. Be really reaaly good at games, or at least really good at a popular genre.
2. Be charismatic af.

If you end up getting lucky and gain a reasonable amount of popularity, sure. Most streamers don't even get to that point though, sadly.

pokedude900 posted...

God I fucking hate those people. It's always the same shtick. They come in, ask some general questions and say some vaguely nice things, ask if they can ask a question, then start shilling their shit. Then I ban them. I just don't understand how they all have the exact same playbook.

Yep, I fell for the first one. Talked for like 30 minutes thinking they were actually interested. Then once I realized what was going on I was still friendly but refused their services.

It's like clockwork though, I start streaming, and exactly 10 minutes later 1 viewer pops in. They either say nothing the entire time, or try to sell me their art.

Kinda puts me in a weird position. I don't want to talk with the first viewer, because it'll undoubtedly be one of them. But I also don't want to just ignore anyone trying to actually chat.

All my favorite chuubas are small time, but I feel they would've been big if they had hit the market earlier.

KogaSteelfang posted...

Yep, I fell for the first one. Talked for like 30 minutes thinking they were actually interested. Then once I realized what was going on I was still friendly but refused their services.

It's like clockwork though, I start streaming, and exactly 10 minutes later 1 viewer pops in. They either say nothing the entire time, or try to sell me their art.

Kinda puts me in a weird position. I don't want to talk with the first viewer, because it'll undoubtedly be one of them. But I also don't want to just ignore anyone trying to actually chat.

30 minutes? They usually play their hand after 5-10 for me.

Anyway, just make one of your chat rules "no soliciting". That may deter some percentage of these people. And just ban anyone who breaks that rule on sight. But until you're certain, act normal. Even if it is one of those people, having something to talk about is still ultimately a good thing. If a real viewer comes in and sees you chatting, they'll be more inclined to stick around themselves.

Which brings up one of the hardest parts about about starting out. Talking to no one. You have to pretend someone's watching even if you know no one is. Because if someone does pop in and sees you're not talking, they're going to leave immediately. It's my greatest flaw as a streamer and probably why my Twitch channel can't get off the ground. Only reason I have a decent following on Youtube is because of my pre-recorded content. Almost no one shows up to my streams.

pokedude900 posted...

30 minutes? They usually play their hand after 5-10 for me.

Just that first one. I think I lucked up. They invited me to a streamer discord as well, but once I realized that they were just gathering potential clients I didn't visit it.

Most people will not make it rich streaming. I wouldn't do it for the money, tbh.

Use a voice changer and female V-tuber model. Easy money

shinymon posted...

Use a voice changer and female V-tuber model. Easy money

Dude. That's a good way to NOT grow an audience. People would spot that shit immediately. If anything, he'd be better off getting a female model and NOT using a voice changer (see PorcelainMaid).

Basically no. Unless you have industry contacts or have ways to cheat your way to the top of the algorithm, no, you'll get 3 views a week and that's it.

Streaming as a career is only for elites and not normies.

The vast majority of successful streamers either benefited from being in the right place at the right time, or already having financial security and being able to pursue it full-time. If you plan on just streaming yourself playing games you have to put a lot of effort into presenting yourself as professional (being naturally entertaining, having decent editing/graphic design skills, knowing how to market yourself) and even then in order to maintain a following and incentivize them to give you donations and Superchats you're gonna have to do cringe shit like pretend to care about your "community" and be on Discord and shit

There are most likely millions of people who've tried this and no one knows who they are. You need a strong gimmick and a lot of luck.

You'd be better off starting one of those lazy "top 10" youtube channels with outrageous clickbait thumbnails. People eat those up and you need no talent.