Twitch.tv

Big Phoenix said:

If police used just a tiny bit of common sense SWATing would be impossible.

But since they dont use any and thanks to qualified immunity face zero consequences for their idiocy, here we are.

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Crime lords of Seattle are now registering all their places as "swatting targets", for that extra bit of protection against raids.

I'm gonna sign up some of you guys now. Seems easy enough.

Somewhat interesting money breakdown from DisguisedToast, didn't know how the sponsorship stuff worked personally:

Nice behind the scenes look. I wonder how the tax situation looks.

I also laughed because my Twitch name popped up during a short bit where they showed Shroud's twitch chat.

Gotta stuff those mattresses with money during your window of popularity in order to make sure you're fine once it runs out, so I can understand why folks wouldn't want him to discuss the income openly.

"I've been self-employed for the last 7 years playing video games 12 hours a day and editing videos for youtube another 5, but then the company who makes the games I was good at shat the bed and my viewership bottomed out" probably doesn't work well in job interviews later.

That’s wild, everybody knew the sub count conversions but the ad revenue and sponsored stream $$ is actually insane lol

The influence top streamers have on sales must be huge

Yeah the money from sponsors is way higher than I expected. I don't care what he says though, there is no way you turn down 10k/hour for playing a game you hate lol.

It's more than just hating a game, it's mostly their reputation on the line. No one wants to be the guy streaming some cancer mobile p2w game, no matter much cash they are throwing at you.

Kuro said:

Gotta stuff those mattresses with money during your window of popularity in order to make sure you're fine once it runs out, so I can understand why folks wouldn't want him to discuss the income openly.

"I've been self-employed for the last 7 years playing video games 12 hours a day and editing videos for youtube another 5, but then the company who makes the games I was good at shat the bed and my viewership bottomed out" probably doesn't work well in job interviews later.

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Kind of what I thought as well. Watch a streamer who has a masters degree in remote sensing. He plays a game that is not like the really popular games. I think he averages 3k viewers 3 times a week for 8 hours or something and youtube videos and such.

He says he's making enough to live on in England but he's basically tied to that game and if it dies oh well. Not only that his degree I would imagine has a lifespan once you don't have any new relevant experience in the future.

The game is world of tanks and he gets free trips to the wargaming office in Cyprus or wherever it is.

Borzak said:

Kind of what I thought as well. Watch a streamer who has a masters degree in remote sensing. He plays a game that is not like the really popular games. I think he averages 3k viewers 3 times a week for 8 hours or something and youtube videos and such.

He says he's making enough to live on in England but he's basically tied to that game and if it dies oh well. Not only that his degree I would imagine has a lifespan once you don't have any new relevant experience in the future.

The game is world of tanks and he gets free trips to the wargaming office in Cyprus or wherever it is.

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Funny how far WoT dropped now. It used to be in the top row of the twitch directory, but it is like a million years old now.

Is the artist still alive?

Quineloe said:

Is the artist still alive?

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Ya, Gary Larson is still alive. He stopped making The Far Side in the early/mid 90s, but that cartoon is from the 80s. No one in the 80s could have predicted esports/streaming as it exists today. I mean hell, there was no such thing as streaming back then and there wasn't even the web lol

Anyways, back to income, Shroud has sometimes talked about events and unless it is something he is contractually obligated to do, he basically won't go if the fee they pay him is less than what he would make in the same amount of days of commitment just streaming at home...which makes sense. Why accept a 20k appearance fee if you could make double that for the same amount of time commitment?

Other streamers have also noted that it can be hard to get a mortgage, even as a fairly successful streamer, because your income is considered too unstable...even if you can demonstrate you've pulled consistent income/numbers over a number of years.

The other factor people forget about is that unless Twitch is offering an equivalent of employee benefit plans to big streamers, they're going to have to pay for medical/dental/retirement all on their own /w no employer helping subsidize that. Making 10k a month might seem awesome, but then you realize that combined with taxes and other insurance/retirement needs, your actual monthly pay of leftover money would probably be much, much smaller. Many of these streamers are pretty young, so that may not be on their radar, but it could hurt them long term if they aren't accounting for that.

I agree that was a silly comment but it only makes sense if streaming another game is actually higher (or near) profitable.
Yes, maybe he turns down 10k/hr but then he streams something else that is making him almost as much?

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It is more about brand. If you become known as the "sellout", play games you clearly hate, and have a hard time entertaining people while doing it (probably hard to shit on the game when they are paying you to play it), then people will start tuning out and over time, you'll end up making less.

Cybsled said:

Ya, Gary Larson is still alive. He stopped making The Far Side in the early/mid 90s, but that cartoon is from the 80s. No one in the 80s could have predicted esports/streaming as it exists today. I mean hell, there was no such thing as streaming back then and there wasn't even the web lol

Anyways, back to income, Shroud has sometimes talked about events and unless it is something he is contractually obligated to do, he basically won't go if the fee they pay him is less than what he would make in the same amount of days of commitment just streaming at home...which makes sense. Why accept a 20k appearance fee if you could make double that for the same amount of time commitment?

Other streamers have also noted that it can be hard to get a mortgage, even as a fairly successful streamer, because your income is considered too unstable...even if you can demonstrate you've pulled consistent income/numbers over a number of years.

The other factor people forget about is that unless Twitch is offering an equivalent of employee benefit plans to big streamers, they're going to have to pay for medical/dental/retirement all on their own /w no employer helping subsidize that. Making 10k a month might seem awesome, but then you realize that combined with taxes and other insurance/retirement needs, your actual monthly pay of leftover money would probably be much, much smaller. Many of these streamers are pretty young, so that may not be on their radar, but it could hurt them long term if they aren't accounting for that.



It is more about brand. If you become known as the "sellout", play games you clearly hate, and have a hard time entertaining people while doing it (probably hard to shit on the game when they are paying you to play it), then people will start tuning out and over time, you'll end up making less.

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It all depends on other factors too. Does Shroud showing up to an event grow his audience even more? Then technically that'd be an investment of time. Tough to say on that sort of thing anyways.

Look at someone like Asmongold. He had some blog post about how his teeth are rotting out of his head and he's in sad physical shape. Guy is pulling $50-100k/month. Seriously, just stop and go to the doctor. It takes at most a couple hours. I don't feel bad for these guys and their lack of insurance.. they can afford COBRA at those incomes. But someone older like Asmongold needs to realize the only way to stay in the game is to stay healthy. Not streaming for a few hours isn't going to break his career.

Also I don't feel bad about the mortgage thing, they chose the path with volatile incomes. Just get an apartment and save up to buy a house with cash.

COBRA is just means of temporarily continuing employer group benefits (usually for up to 18 months), it isn't a standalone insurance product. Actual standalone medical insurance, which isn't complete shit (ie, those worthless high deductable plans which don't pay a dime until you've racked up 10k in deductables...aka, IRL you're spending probably 3x+ that amount out of pocket before they start tossing in some money), will easily cost you over 1k per month in premiums.

Regime said:

holy shit boogie getting raiding hard by trolls being over the top racist.

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Insane.

The thing that pisses me off is watching Shroud and Lirik and getting ads every 20 minutes.... how much money do those fucks need.