Interesting read and insight into a subculture I know very little about.
Looks like only a few of them are getting rich, and it isn't without its costs. Working seven days a week as a professional gamer is pretty brutal.
Looks like only a few of them are getting rich, and it isn't without its costs. Working seven days a week as a professional gamer is pretty brutal.
> 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.
The actual comparison to football is "esports," where people play games competitively. There, you actually do have to put in large amounts of hours to compete at the highest level, without being guaranteed prize money or competitive wins.
Streaming for Fun:Professional Streamer = Football for Fun:Professional Football Players
Not everyone who makes enough money to stream as their primary source of income is competing in tournaments/esports, sometimes they are just entertaining/informative. Regardless of if they are entertainment or skill based, it takes a lot of time and effort to build up enough of a fan base to make it into a primary source of income.
That's all true, but anything you do for a living gets old after awhile, especially if you're putting in long hours. I like to play video games, but if I had to play to pay the bills it would be a job like any other - minus the breaks, the paid time off, and the benefits.