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Comment by fuu_dev | Hacker News Reader

There are hundreds of examples for popular streamers that tried to change games but needed to go back to keep their viewer base what makes the statement that its 90% the streamer not sustainable.

This does not make your statement wrong, but there are several other dependencies that do not allow this to be generalized.

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No, what happens there is that some streamers are more linked to a specific game because maybe they are better or funnier, but that's it. If you go to Twitch and scroll down in Fornite you will see hundreds of people with less than 100 viewers which also confirms that the game means almost nothing.

Minecraft is linked to the growth of many Youtubers because its the most open game you can find and thus giving creators the biggest canvas to their imagination. It's like saying that 90% of a piece of art is the used material... It just doesn't make sense.

I think it is a little bit of both. IMO, it seems to be along the lines of how big the channel is. The bigger the channel, the more room and flexibility they have to move around games because the fans are more there for their personality than the game. Lower end channels don't have that freedom. It is almost like their fans are there for them, but only playing that specific game (whether it be for their skill in the game or maybe their knowledge of it).

I'd say the game is the "genre" and the streamer is an author. If you are someone who produces music or literature, and you do it in a popular genre, you will get some of the genre's public through radio streaming, antologies etc.

If you are good enough, people will buy your next album/book in the same genre. If you have a cult following, people will buy your next book/album in whatever genre.

The Game is the layer that very often carries the streamer, if it changes the base connection to the audience changes too. This can easy create a imbalance or conflict in interests. If the viewer can't relate to the specific game they usually leave (change of audience).

So it highly depends on your Audience. If you are a variety streamer, your audience is used to the changing environment. However this does not apply to the vast majority. If changes in audience(game) can cause up to 90+% difference its hard to quantify it as negligible factor.

> If you go to Twitch and scroll down in Fornite you will see hundreds of people with less than 100 viewers which also confirms that the game means almost nothing.

Not at all. There are so many small Fortnite streamers because they want to become big like the popular ones and they know it is extremely hard to grow a stream out of the top 10-20 most watched games.

You can easily prove this: pick any popular but-not-so-much game and you will find way, way less streamers. To the point some have only 5-10 people streaming it, while having many tens of thousands of concurrent players. And yet only a total 100-1000 viewers combined are watching at a given time.

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