The crop of games rotates over time. In the past, Quake, Counterstrike, Halo, Smash Brothers, and CoD have also been top games; the fighting game community (which has often rather viciously declared itself separate from “esports” as a whole) still has big events like EVO and the like for Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Marvel vs. Capcom, and Smash Bros Melee.
Many progamers also receive a salary from their team, and most also stream for additional supplemental income. Top-end Starcraft pros in Korea made $200K/year + winnings (another $100k or so if they were the best of the best) while being sponsored by the likes of Samsung, Korea’s major telecoms, and even a division of Korea Air.
Picking up a top spot in either the LOL or DOTA world champs is likely to make you an overnight millionaire these days; the LOL tourney circuit (LCS) mandates a wage be paid to all players in the pro side of the tourney.
It’s not a fabulous living for many folks, but for some, it’s a total way of life. Many streamers finance their entire life (rather nice middle class ones at that) via Twitch, Youtube, and donations, and if you’re getting a 5- or 6-figure annual salary and tourney winnings on top of that, well. . . I can see why a kid who’s really damn good at LOL or whatever would make a play for it, ya know?
It just lists price money though, not income from salaries or streaming. Chinese Dota2 pros make more from streaming on DouyuTV or HuomaoTV than from tournaments. In the western scene there are people like Waga who are not good enough to compete professionally but attract a huge amount of viewers because of their personality and earn more than most actual pros.
The best analogy I’ve heard is that it’s like watching your older brother play Nintendo. You get to enjoy watching high level play, plus there’s a social aspect in the chat.
This applies to smaller channels. All I’ve ever watched is Dark Souls speedrunners. If you’re looking at channels playing Call of Duty or LoL with 4000+ mouthbreathers, then of course it seems hopeless.
I love watching people play games and Twitch still mystifies me. My thing is that I really enjoy the “Let’s Play” format where someone does an organized, usually edited presentation of a game - especially informative ones that get deep into the nuances/design/history/related real world concepts behind a game, or riffing off a bad game’s crappitude. And I will often seek out LPs for games where either I am bad and I want to see a skilled player tackle it (like Bayonetta), because they can pull off crazy shit, or where I am either bad at it or don’t enjoy the gameplay but for whatever reason want to enjoy the story. Most recently I’m following a Deus Ex LP where a) the LPer is showing off as much as possible in a single playthrough in a game that’s absolutely full of hidden shit and b) discussing the themes and concepts and conspiracies that inform the game’s story, because that’s really cool; and a Longest Journey LP because I don’t remember the story and don’t want to deal with those puzzles again (in prep for diving into the first chapter of Dreamfall Chapters).
But that stuff is all recorded and up for viewing whenever, and as I say, edited and produced to a specific goal. I don’t know why I would want to watch someone doing this stuff live, on their schedule, with no editing, no production values, and ads in the middle.
Live content is compelling. Being there for a new world record speedrun is pretty cool, although I admit the time value investment proposition is quite low relative to edited content. It works best for multiplayer or “roguelike” types of games where every session is different. I probably wouldn’t watch a live playthrough of a static story-driven game like Deus Ex, for example.
You’re also missing the social aspect of chat. In your example, you could watch someone play Bayonetta, ask questions about some problems you’re having, then get answers from the streamer or the channel. Or just chat about the game you all mutually enjoy.
Barely heard of Twitch until I was pointed there by some Youtube Hearthstone videos. I found it entertaining to watch live streams from some world-class Hearthstone players, as well as tournaments like the Blizzcon qualifiers. Plus it helped me up my game a bit.
I’ve yet to make a twitch account though, the chat is too awful to bother contributing.
It depends. I have a small community of between 20-40 concurrent viewers every time I cast. I know them all. There are some pretty witty guys who comment. We laugh a lot. I really think people value this sense of community, but yeah, you have to keep the viewership small.
I always see links to streams about X hours/days too late, but I can never see a way of looking at previous streams. Does twitch store them in anyway?
Saying that, I can’t imagine ever actually watching a stream live or recorded unless I’m eating or something. A lot like with sports, I much prefer playing than watching.
By default, past broadcasts are catalogued for a few days. If the broadcaster decides to, they can cut these into “highlights” (which can be many hours long and a given broadcast can be split into several highlights if need be), preserving them indefinitely. Click the channel name and you should get controls to access this stuff.
Some channels lock their VODs behind a paywall, some save them locally and then reupload them to Youtube with minor editing, and yet others just block them entirely. It’s basically decided per-channel, so I can’t give a more definitive answer, unfortunately.
Ahhh. So that’s what I was missing. I was searching the sidebar for any kind of button that would allow me to view this person’s old videos, but it was just site-wide stuff. NEATO.
80% of the channels seem to be League of Legends play. Crazy.
Well, there you go. Twitch is just for that.
It’s like, for me (over 30), something like Twitter is, if you’re not some kind of media persona\marketing shill and use Twitter - you have half a brain. Nuff said. Why would anyone normal use Twitter is beyond me. I think i heard a very enjoyable Lee Mack’s rant on the topic a while back…hold on, i’ll go find it now : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fjf2eilz7Aw
I’ve always enjoyed watching people play games, especially those games where I’m not really skilled (MOBA’s etc). And who says you can’t interact with the person playing?
See, i do enjoy watching people play games, provided they have at least something insightful to say about the actual game. But all that flies out the window the moment that person stops paying any attention to the friggin game and starts debating inane topics to the people in chat. Yeah, i dont care how many pairs of socks you’ve got left, or that you went to the bank yesterday, or where you went out to eat last night. I want to know what you think about the game , dammit !
I will confess that beyond places like this the social media train pulled away from the station and left me holding my suitcase. I see value in Facebook for connecting with friends and checking in to see what they’re up to now and then, but most of it is inane. “I made meatloaf for dinner tonight and it was yummy! Here’s a pic.” Or “Here’s another 14 photos of my kid. Later, more photos of my dog.” I guess it’s just following Sturgeon’s 90% crap law.
Twitter just seems like a place for celebrities to embarrass themselves.
Twitch is for watching people play games, I gather. That’s worth $2B? I am old.
I wouldn’t watch Twitch if it wasn’t built into the PS4. It’s so convenient to quickly jump to a channel and check out a new game. Even the most obscure, non-mainstream games, someone is bound to be streaming it.
If I’m having trouble falling asleep at night, I’ll watch someone play Minecraft. :)
