If you haven't already guessed, I'm a huge gamer. I love playing games and recently, I've been getting more into streaming my game play. Why you may ask? Well, it's a bit more complicated than just one simple answer.
Since I joined Extra-Life, I've learned a few things. One main thing I've learned is how important it is for your stream to look as professional as possible. I've watched streamers before, but I never really paid any attention to detail of what they were doing.
Since I'm the owner of South Town Productions, I should have realized sooner what I was doing wrong. I've taken a couple of screenshots to show you my thought process.
This first one is from the last broadcast on Game Day. Pretty rough right? I had the grey boxes there to show the chat of both Youtube and Twitch. Guess what, no one was there to chat with me for a long time that day. Why? Well, it's because the stream didn't look that good. The layout was good, but it's not as exciting as others that are already doing this full time. So I took a look at some of my favorite streamers and came up with something else.
This screenshot is a few months ago and I incorporated different things like on screen alerts and progress bars for my follower goals. Looks way better than the last layout, but there is another problem. I'm covering up the most crucial part of the game with all my information! Now why did I not think of this before hand? Well, hindsight is 20/20. You come up with something cool, you like it, you use it. That was the thought process for the time, but then I looked at the footage again and realized I made a mistake. So I had to come up with something else. Except this time, I was also streaming to Mixer. I needed to incorporate that if I wanted to please the viewers on that platform too. So I came up with another idea.
This layout is my favorite so far. It's not completely in your face and it doesn't cover up crucial parts of the game. If it does, I can shrink the game and put it in front of another background. Plus, I was able to debut my character for the live stream. It actually follows my facial expressions and talks when I talk! Easy as pie and cool to look at too. There's still some flaws to it for some people, but it's what I like so deal with it! Haha.
One common denominator of streaming is making sure you have good equipment, but if you don't have the money to drop on high end equipment, then you'll have to do with what you got. From a business standpoint, I always say, "Work with what you have now." If you can manage to hold off on a few things, then do it. Save the money and get it later. Especially if you want to get stuff like an audio limiter, a reverb pedal, green screen, lighting kit and other stuff you might want for streaming. One thing you can save money on is the green screen. You can either get a sheet, paint the wall green or just do without it for a while. Sometimes you'll see major streamers just have the room they're streaming from in the background. There's nothing wrong with having your room in the background, but that's where personal preference comes in.
When I started my business, I decided to save money on stuff like green screens and lighting by getting used stuff and some paint, you can read about it here. That was how I got started and that's how I continue to run the business, "Work with what you have". For a very long time, I didn't even use a webcam when I streamed games. All you saw was the game and heard my voice. Again, there's nothing wrong with that. Everyone has their preference. Over time, I started getting things I needed for whatever project I was working on and got stuff for the businesses that I only used a couple of times and it ended up getting used for my gaming stuff. I'm still using the business to raise money for the kids and using the business website and the business social media accounts. This is where business and gaming mix for me.
I love my business and I love gaming. I love the fact that I can do both at the same time because I'm doing what I love while doing something good for someone else. It makes me happy knowing that my fundraising efforts goes towards something that is way bigger than me or anything I can do for the business.
If you would like to help me raise money for the Children's Miracle Network at UMC, visit my Extra Life Page. If you want to support one of my team members you can find the roster here and see what hospital that player is supporting! Keep an eye out for the upcoming events I have planned for this year as well!
-Adam