STACK #184 Feb 2020

LIFE TECH FEATURE

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1 Try and keep a consistent broadcast schedule. People like to know when they can see you.

2 Have a job and keep it! It’s the only way to fund it because if you think you’re going to get into streaming and get rich quick, that’s not going to happen. This leads me to my next tip...

How do you balance your regular life with being a full time streamer? [Laughs] With difficultly. I can work anywhere between 40 and 50 hours a week, and I can stream 30 hours per week; you’ve also got to add in doing socials, content creation, upkeep, etc. And then I have a wife and children, too, although I’m lucky that my kids are a bit older, but it’s very difficult. I’ve been doing this for nearly two years now and you have to have balance. You need to get out and see friends and you can’t feel guilty about letting your online community down. If you enjoy it, obviously you’d love to do it as a full time job, but you need your family to back you on that. It sounds like a significant commitment. What drives you to keep streaming? Community. The community that I’ve created has almost become like a second family now. It’s the joy that you can bring. I don’t know how many times I’ve had Americans who have just woken up with the time difference whilst I was on a stream, turned on to watch, listen, and laughed and then thanked me for getting their day underway on a bounce. When I think about putting that little bit of light in people’s lives, it makes a difference to me. It seems funny to some people. It’s like “you’re just playing a game”. It’s more than that: you come for the game but stay for the person.

3 Do it for the right reasons. Do it for your love of gaming and the enjoyment of building a community. Don’t do it for the money and the fame – it just doesn’t happen.

4 Cherish the people who are in your room. Whether you get one person in, or 100, treat them like gold. They’re taking time out of their day to come and hang with you, so make sure you treat them well and have a good chat with them. 5 Just try it out. You won’t know if it’s for you until you give it a go. Do it for a couple of months and make it fun. Keep your set up simple to begin with and flex up accordingly if you find you’re enjoying it. 6 Set yourself a particular game to help build a community but don’t 100 per cent yourself on that game. I started on Rainbow Six Siege and I was worried about jumping off it, but I did and while people were surprised at first, they still kinda hung around. I did lose a few people but now I’ve got it to the point where people who jump in on the stream and my community don’t even know what I’m going to play. Don’t just think you need to be playing a popular game to be noticed.

You can catch the Duke here mixer.com/ DukeOfFlukes

The four main platforms you’ll need to consider are Twitch, Mixer (owned by Microsoft), YouTube Gaming and Facebook Gaming. Now there’s a war going on

at the moment with streaming platforms. In a bid to increase viewership, Mixer, YouTube and Facebook are throwing around some serious money in a bid to pull the big streaming

names away from the prevalent platform, Twitch. And indeed, it appears money talks as several huge names on Twitch have made the switch. Choosing which platform you broadcast

from is a personal decision and one that needs some research: do you go with the most popular and risk being lost in the noise, or buckle in with a smaller platform and build?

40 FEBRUARY 2020

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