How to Get Rich Playing Video Games Online

I see what you're getting at, but these are two different things. The vast majority of humanity as a whole is just not capable of sitting down and chewing through a deep learning textbook or anything of the sort.

What you're ignoring is just how accessible streaming is as an income method. Up until recently, all you needed was the equipment (< $2000-3000 - sometimes paid for by sponsors, often equipment that people already have in modern times) and to be half-way charismatic in order to get into it.

Add in the promise of big money and 'superstars' and now every kid wants to ~be in a band~ be a streamer.

No one hires people to do deep learning with 0 years experience.

Very few people with the skills you assume by default (basically anyone with programming skills) would be convinced to leave their cooshy jobs, but plenty of people with no skills or prospects would.

It seems you are conflating Twitch streaming with e-sports, they are two very different things. Becoming a successful Twitch streamer doesn't necessarily require extraordinary skills in terms of playing a given game; switching to a new game wouldn't be that big of a deal and some streamers switch regularly on a weekly or daily basis (e.g. my favourite streamer, who is a full-time Twitch streamer and has 175k followers, plays more or less regularly at least 5-6 different games).

I agree with you on the "big brother" part, but then again this is a characteristic of any career path that can potentially lead to notoriety (acting, pro sports, etc).

Last time I looked nothing from current crates were going for that much it was just the special items from the pre-order crates that were going for that much, which is a pretty important difference I think.

There's no need to specifically mention your favorite streamer, or your favorite game. Just because PUBG is popular right now doesn't mean this is a phenomenon centered around PUBG. There have been many streamers making A LOT of money for years now. League of Legends, Counterstrike, and DotA 2, for example, have always had large fan bases with "Top streamers" making similarly ridiculous amount of money in tips.

Dr Disrespect is amazing. He is an online performer and a gamer.

Most surprising are the people who talk about how watching Dr D has helped them through depression or cancer. He talked about this movingly but briefly in his speech this week.

This is a whole new form of entertainment. It will be fascinating to see where it unfolds. I think Amazon will get a very good return for their investment.

That's been happening for years. Hats in Team Fortress 2 sold for ~1500 (Burning Kabuto was around there IIRC), and a knife in CSGO went for 24k (apparently, http://read.navi-gaming.com/en/team_news/Rarest_and_expensiv...).

And as far as mentions go, there’s no word on pewdiepie either, he’s one of the pioneer of the genre along with videogamdunkey...

The whole article reeks of “I know nothing about it so must be new” mentality.

I never got the attraction to Twitch/game streaming. Before I came across Dr D/PUBG, I used Twitch to see if a game was interesting & simple enough to grasp, to assist in the purchase decision.

The Dr D/PUBG combo (and a few other lesser-known faves, e.g. BananaMan, P4wnyhof/Larsen) have made it fun to watch, actual entertainment, that I tune into. Daily...

I don't think it's anywhere near as popular without the Twitch streams

Spending $100-500 for some entertainment is actually reasonable and not at all baffling.

Or, less flippantly, for some people this is literally their only entertainment.. They watch every day, all the time..

At some point, dollar-per-hour evens out when compared to going to the movies or paying for other forms of entertainment.

It actually seems better for the performers than stripping in a club - they don't have to risk contact with patrons, more control of working conditions and I assume they get to keep a lot more of their income.

Beyond that, wasn't there kind of a scandal a few years back where people would donate huge amounts to twitch streamers to make a big splash, and then cancel their donations so it didn't cost anything?

My theory is that its anthropological, people want to belong to the group. The isolation of being behind a computer ironically amplifies the phenomenon, people become more desparate to connect and the only outlet they have is to donate.

Finally there is the rabid success of the female streamers, many of whom wear low cut shirts and exhibit flirty behavior. While there are many talented female gamers who deserve their place in the twitch spotlight, there can be no denying that a portion of the demographic caters specifically to specific male inclinations...

- Reaction from the streamer. Donations get their attention and will show (or read aloud) a message from the donor. It could be a joke, or just kind words of support.

- Interaction. Streamers will often set rewards for donations above $X. This could be something like "choose the next hero I play in Overwatch", or, as many Tabletop streamers do, "Player of your choice automatically rolls a Natural 20". These can also often turn into glutton for punishment rewards, like doing shots or eating hot peppers. Sometimes donations can trigger sound effects, e.g. a loud roar during a tense moment in a horror game.

- Competition. Someone else mentioned the "telethon" mentality of wanting to be the highest donor, and that very much applies. Streamers will often include on their channel the rankings of their top supporters.

- Milestones. Streamers will often set goals of how much they want to raise over the course of a day or month. This could be something like "help me afford a new CPU" or just "Keep the show going". If they hit it, they promise things like game giveaways, 24 hour streams, dyeing their hair a crazy color, etc.

I also won't subscribe to any channels (except with the free Twitch Prime sub) because I don't watch any one channel consistently enough to justify it. But if I am watching one channel a lot some month why not donate $5?

Youre making it sound not only as if only kids watch this, but also like playing any sport at all is so much different - and then compare it to Reality TV instead of live sports. Actual WTF? Some of the streamers (variety streamers) do play for just entertainment value, but most stick to just one game. A lot of it is also being able to live chat with other people watching and interact with the person streaming.

> This isn't like F1 racing where I'll never be able to afford a racecar, or football where I don't want to exercise.

Why isn't it like that? That's exactly what it is. Do you have any idea how long professional esports players competing in tournaments have to work, to stay at the top level? And do you think they can play at the same level on the average person's hardware? Have a look at Starcraft 2, Counter Strike Source, or Osu!. These are games where top players make 100+ strategic actions per minute, need to have lightning reaction speeds and accuracy, and make bursts of 10 actions per second for full minutes, respectively.

How can it be such a shock to non-gamers that people watch other people play a game, rather than play it themselves? Just imagine it - people watching a game! /s It's exactly the same as every professional sport that has ever existed.

Also, people doing this aren't all kids. Dota and Starcraft are > 10-year-old games, and many people watching them are in their 30s.

[1] Dota 2 https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/2nfzrx/how_to_overco...

[2] Starcraft 2 http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Dealing_with_anxiety

>“That’s like saying to a chef, ‘Why are you watching the Food Network? Shouldn’t you be in the kitchen, cooking?’

> Or to an athlete, ‘Why are you watching ESPN? Shouldn’t you be out shooting hoops?’

> No. People enjoy watching others who are good at what they do.”

I don't understand it much myself (and I watch streams semi-regularly) but it's not like this doesn't have precedent. People watch professional basketball when they could just go outside and start a pickup game. Sometimes you just want to experience the game/sport/etc without having to actually play it.

Plus with Twitch streams you can watch how skilled players play and what strategies they use. Personally, I watch a lot of streams for that reason. Plus, often times high-level play is almost a different game from casual level;watching streams (or recordings of streams) is one of the few ways casual players can see that.

You can afford a football, but recognize that (for some) it's more fun to watch highly skilled professionals play; yet, you seem unable to understand how others might feel the same way about gaming.

I'm going to say that's probably "getting old" -- the inability to see how something is like something you already know, because it's new and strange to you.

The thing about a lot of these streamers is that they are both entertaining and talented gamers. In the Dota 2 community, watching the top players stream is actually a good way to keep up-to-date on the latest strategies and techniques, which is important is a game that's as complex as Dota. A lot of the community also converges in streams, which can be a good way to stay in touch with the latest gossip, memes, etc.

Many sports fans do actually participate in their sport. Instead of football, consider basketball, which just about anyone with access to a gymnasium or outdoor court can play. Plenty of people play basketball casually and still watch the professionals. Whether it's one of those "multi-game" streamers who plays everything, or a specialist in one game like Overwatch or CS:GO or Starcraft or Dota, if they're a good player it's often more fun to watch them than to get your own butt kicked online.

Now imagine that the announcer is also one of the players, who is gleefully trash-talking the other team, sharing gossip, and telling entertaining stories, and you are also in a chat room where you can interact with everyone else watching the game, and the player will actually read your chats and respond to your questions. That's the appeal of streaming. It's fun.

I think Dota is a great game and I could play it, but I'm not that good, especially when I'm not playing regularly. So I have the choice of playing it and watch myself air-ball abilities or watch the equivalent of Steph Curry score from the half-line and beyond.

Think about it, its a competitive game where you're matched with players of equal skill, so you'll win exactly half your games. The ones you lose can be very frustrating, sometimes taking the pleasure away from playing the game. But if its someone else who's winning/losing, I don't mind.

This is an interesting comment. I watch couple of streamers regularly, but not in real-time. I just watch their content on YouTube.

Why?

Some of them actually put good effort into creating interesting in-game situations and running entertaining commentary. It's less of a reality show and more of a comedy/talk show. Maybe.

Some of them are very good at the game, and watching the stream is an opportunity to learn something new. If the game is competitive, it sort of makes sense.

But overall, I agree that streaming and YouTube are becoming the new TV. Maybe the motivations I outline above are somewhat pathological in the sense that they don't justify the time spent on such simplistic entertainment.

A lot of videos are about competitive online games, and come to think of it the direct experience in those games isn't always great. For example, when you're watching a game on YouTube it's effectively per-selected. This way you can "skip" the games that are boring or have something broken or have annoying/rude players. You can cancel/pause at any time without loosing rank or annoying other people. In some ways it's a sad state of affairs. Games should be entertaining in their own right.

Not to mention I wouldn't play if I was out of it in any way (sick, drunk, tired etc)

That being said, I don't "get it" insofar as it's not something I particularly want to do or partake of. But, plenty of my peers do and I can see that there is an appeal to them the way that watching professional sports is appealing to me. To each their own, right? If you rewind back enough, you'd laugh at the thought of 'professional' sports, as the concept of professionalism of games that children play was far-fetched.

I remember in the mid-to-late 90's when the internet was getting big I thought that would be the end of those low-effort TV shows because soon everybody could access niche content that would interest them more. Love the german baseball league? You can read, watch and discuss about it. Enjoy the Edo period of japanese history? Thousands of web pages are waiting for you. Anywhere. Any time. Who would even bother watching The Bachelor instead of pursuing their interests?

Of course in retrospect I was naive. Sometimes we just want to be entertained. Sometimes we want to watch The Bachelor. And apparently for some people "The Bachelor" is a twenty-something yelling in a microphone overlayed on top of some videogame footage.

These are called "parasocial interactions" and this is not a new thing at all. It may even be healthy and linked to empathy. There is ongoing research on this subject.

I remember when my brother bought an NES, I wasn't good enough to really play any of the games, but I used to love watching him play because he got so much farther into the games for me and it was a way to spend time with him. I guess that impulse hasn't really gone away.

> Working seven days a week as a professional gamer is pretty brutal

Yep. You can see the burnout on people after a while.

I'm gonna throw some shade towards gameplay streamers. Streamers who do focused content and actually produce shows as you would in a TV/Radio studio have a real job which I've actually done, so this doesn't include them.

Playing a game and running a stream, technically, is not hard. Engaging with viewers is not hard. There's a bunch of solutions out of the box that allow you to manage subscription announcements, overlays, and other stuff, so that isn't too hard either. Spending time in a chair isn't hard. 4-5 hours of working out per week and healthy diet choices would help that, but isn't a panacea because research shows sitting for long periods is bad anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some kind of viewer management software akin to CRM software that make it easier to relate to a larger amount of people. After all, people have limits on the amount of social connections they are able to manage themselves. So remembering your viewers may not even be hard.

The hard part comes with people being unprepared to essentially become public figures (very much in the Hollywood or political sense) and being unable to deal with harassment, death threats, and insults and the worst part of internet. If you don't have enough viewers to shrug off a controversy, your channel will get small, you'll lose revenue, and likely start stressing out about that as well. Having a fallback career plan is essential.

But if you are mentally tough and don't repeat the mistakes of other streamers and public figures (which is likely conveniently available for you to watch), being a streamer is not difficult. Not like other careers. Making money is a different story -- you can do everything right and still not be popular because the mob is fickle. That's just career luck, which isn't specific to streaming. You shouldn't be a public figure if you aren't prepared mentally for it. Twitch can only ban so many people.

However, I very much support tapping this revenue stream. I truly don't care if a loser drops $500 on a streamer who's showing cleavage as long as she's of legal age -- more power to that streamer. And it's up to parents to police their kids watching cleavage streamers. That's not really Twitch's job.

Just call it for what it is: easily hacking viewership for revenue. The exception being taking care of yourself mentally first.

It's a mix of reasons, but it's usually ultimately about turning you into a product. I think it's disgusting.

To make the internet bearable, I use the following extensions: Ad Block Plus HTTPS Everywhere Privacy Badger And, the newest in the bunch, Ghostery.

I do have to twiddle some things on and off now and then, but on the whole it works and my online experience is a lot less jarring.

He was probably making alright donation income, but suddenly having your monthly income jump ~$12000 a month from just flipping a switch is pretty nuts.