Good job OP for the find.
Yeah, pursuing Twitch for income is a very interesting world indeed.
My wife and I have streamed for a little over a year, with viewership only going over 100 probably once or twice. We usually play whatever we want, new games when they're released, but usually go back to old favorites once we're done. However, the big appeal for the viewership comes from the interactivity you have with them.
And so while my wife and I never got partnered (we did come close) we did receive a lot of donations. Just ballparking I would say close to $1k over the course of 8 months. People pretty much donate to keep the stream going. The donations pay for the games that otherwise we may not be able to afford, or for streaming equipment to make the channel better.
But once you start looking at numbers and really pursuing that Twitch partner money it becomes a big headache. You start trying to appease your audience and that may mean playing games you don't find that interesting. And so that big question of "why am I doing this for?" Comes into play.
The money is definitely alluring. On occasion even when we don't stream regularly it's pretty ordinary for us to stream for like an hour or so and still make about $40 for that one stream. Our followers really enjoy us and like the banter and so it's easy for us to get entangled in the "should we really go after this full-time?" Then we go over the finances of how much we make at our day-jobs (which we make a little over minimum wage) and we realize even if we went all in we still make more money now then if we did Twitch full-time.
Yes. I'm waiting for the bubble to burst. I hope these streamers have back up plans. The money isn't going to last forever.
This is also another big "what if" that comes into play. One time we did a big 48 hour marathon for a newly released game where we switched over every 8 hours. We put a lot of effort into it and our earlier marathons had got huge viewer numbers, however, one of the bigger streamers was doing a "re-run" stream. Now a re-run stream is where they practically play a video of what they streamed earlier, and which I think is complete bull, but I digress. Anyway, all of the audience for that game was going to that re-run stream and it was very deflating. It's truly very difficult to break out and get discovered and start raking in views. That being said, I wonder if it's hit critical mass and newcomers are tougher to come by since the bigger streamers have established themselves enough that there aren't many viewers to even go after. And I'm always questioning how long this will go.
Obviously Twitch has grown exponentially off the backs of a younger audience who is more interested in a personality than a static character from a cartoon. So it's hard to really know whether or not Twitch will eventually ride off into the sunset once some of the bigger streamers get tired or if that same audience will just wander off to feed off someone new. All in all it's very interesting but completely hard to prop yourself up since it's ever changing.
Anyway, just figured I'd throw in my two cents of experience.
