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> ... if one was to put equivalnet amount of time in another field, say learning how deep learning works...

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.

" 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." they don't currently, and probably we don't need millions of data science major, but somehow grinding through the game for thousands of hours is doable. I'd say let's gamify learning and we will have a whole new supply of world class scientist streaming their research on sci-twitch.tv ;)

I've recently been watching EEVBlog videos, mostly for the sake of watching someone else route PCB's. Learned lots of good tricks that way too.

The EEVblog is great. Some of the older videos have some DFM, switcher layout, etc that is equally invaluable.

"DFM" stands for "Design For Manufacturing" ?

https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1143825

It's not different then saying: Let's gamify accounting and we'll have tones of people watching streams of someone doing taxes. Doesn't really work that way. Different people have different interests, but science is a niche and will always be on a tail of that bell curve. If you try to make it more appealing to the masses you end up with shitty shows about blowing up things or dangerous animals or ghosts & mysteries.

That's why you build a personal brand while you're riding the coattails of a popular game. See Day9, who plays whatever game he feels like playing on his scheduled "day off" and streams it. He definitely has fun, even if it doesn't make him money (he recently streamed Mario, for example, which Nintendo [probably] claimed the revenue for) he's still building his personal brand and personal audience. His fans will follow him no matter what game he starts playing, because they're following him. But you're right that it's a hit-based system and if you don't become a hit (which requires a lot of effort and a lot of luck) then you're going to starve trying to "play video games for a living."

Yup. It's a new "field" if you will, and a lot of people are getting hurt during the birth phase. That said I've noticed streamers focusing more on being game agnostic, they'll demo new games and take note how much of their fan base follows. If the new game is a success they'll keep at it, if not they'll migrate back.

> he recently streamed Mario, for example, which Nintendo [probably] claimed the revenue for

They can claim ad revenue, but they can't take donations or (I hope) subscriptions.

I don't think anything is different about playing Nintendo games on Twitch.

There's a streamer (iateyourpie) who makes a living from mostly playing Mario games, and usually not even being a speedrun WR-holder, just being an entertaining person who markets himself well.

> World of Warcraft numbers are rapidly dwindling so a WoW start will pretty much have to start from scratch in another game or quit streaming as a career move.

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).

I don't think he's conflating the two at all. He's just pointing out that the vast majority of streamers start out by building a following around a single game, and very few succeed enough to make decent money and jump from game to game like your favourite streamer does.

Yes, it's more akin to being a top youtuber. Being entertaining is the number one factor, being good at the game is a second.

and cleavage is extremely effective

You are wrong about "switching games as a streamer isn't a big deal". Someone who does that is called a variety streamer, and there are very few streamers that have success with it. Most streamers I talk to lose the majority of their audience when they switch games.

There are, it seems to me, to be two essentially disparate audiences.

1] Likes watching game A.

2] Likes watching streamer K

The first group choose the game, and then the streamer who is online and most enjoyable to watch playing it. The second choose the streamer and will watch whatever they're doing.

Arguably the advantage that the variety streamers have is that pro games don't eat into their viewers. I'll watch arteezy play dota whilst cookin or something, but only if there's no proper matches on with teams I like. I suspect that SingSing will always have a few thousand viewers because his followers are passionate about watching him.

That's foolish. The lead up time to become an expert at deep learning: Probably 6 years minimum.

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.