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Popular Twitch Streamer Man vs Game Admits to Taking Speed

I'm a fan of ManVsGame and I hope that he can find the balance. I've stopped watching him because it's been more him reacting to subs and donations rather than playing the game, but I have to assume that it's part of the gig on Twitch.

It always depends on the streamer. Other mid/big streamers are doing fine just acknowledging a subscriber and answering a donation message on the fly. Heck, my only subscription in almost 6 years of Justin/Twitch.tv goes to a guy who doesn't say anything when you subscribe/resubscribe.
 
I heard the only thing she said over twitter was that she was concerned for his health. I wouldn't blame her. This needed to come out.

Nah she pretty much put him on blast and said he had brain damage and was a junkie and all this nonsense. Pretty fucked up, even if she sorta meant well. However, it seems its let him confront this, so some good came out of it.

I've been a fan of MAN since his Demons Souls day, even got summoned to his game on one of his casts. I hope his recovery is doing well and I'm looking forward to seeing his Dragons Dogma cast on Friday.
 
I have one of the oldest gaming channels on Youtube, so I've seen things change. Back then competition was low, and most content on Youtube was copyrighted stuff like shows and movies. Things started changing around when Google bought the site; more original content and the birth of the clickbait era. Now it's much, much harder to be successful on there without selling your soul and creating clickbait thumbnails, reaction images and other misleading things. Many of my friends got banned numerous times back when copyright enforcement was more strict, and many never came back.

I often struggle with the fact that I don't do any of that stuff, yet I struggle to make enough to afford upgrades for the channel. I deal with long bouts of depression over it since I'm told that I create good content, but I can't get enough people interested to make it sustainable. I often feel bad that I've had to start a fundraising drive for upgrades numerous times when I've been doing this much longer than the big guys have been, and the constant reminders that I create good content. There is also an immense pressure to keep playing the same game endlessly, which is what the top streamers/channels have to endure. It's not uncommon for the big guys to lose more than half of their viewership simply for trying a new game out. It can definitely turn a favorite game/franchise into something not as enjoyable. The guys who have viewers intelligent/understanding enough to let them switch games are the lucky ones, honestly. The ones who are typecast to a single game are the ones I feel bad for; feeling pressured to play something you've grown tired of just to keep food on the table can't be healthy.

I was around on YouTube back then as well, my old channel got banhammered for uploading game footage too. Then in Feb. 2008 when I saw the very beginning of what would later become Twitch in the form of the Backloggery.com's Justin.tv stream I was energized to eventually start live streaming games. I thought it was the coolest fucking thing ever, being able to play games in front of a live audience and interact with them. By the time I finally got the financial and technical means to start streaming myself however it was around 2011 and... things have changed.

The desire, the romance I once had to live stream myself quickly died. The community was so harsh to get into now. I ended up only streaming a few games, then I tried YouTube again and also found it to be too depressing. In the end I spent a bunch of money on streaming/capturing equipment that now collects dust. There's really no point to do this if you don't have the interaction with even a few people, and it is next to impossible to get noticed to even get a few loyal watchers to interact with. So you're literally just playing a game as you normally would... but with a mic hooked to you and a blank chatroom in the corner of your eye. Needless to say, I've stopped.

I can't imagine the pressure people like MANvsGAME deal with, because I'm sure they are well aware that they can quickly be buried as well. I never thought back then in 2008 that the blissful act of playing games while talking to other people on the internet would evolve into what it is today. In ways, I'm kinda glad I never had any success in it, cause the act of actively trying to keep that success would frankly be too much for me.
 
Well some people take amphetamines for their ADD, others, who don't need it, abuse it for gaming purposes.

They're not victims, they made a choice, like every drug user.
 
Unfortunately it doesn't surprise me and there's no way that was the first time. Hopefully this break helps him and he sets up a proper schedule and stops these stupid 48 hour marathons he'd do.
 
Unfortunately it doesn't surprise me and there's no way that was the first time. Hopefully this break helps him and he sets up a proper schedule and stops these stupid 48 hour marathons he'd do.

Marathons really aren't that stupid, sure you feel like shit but it isn't going to kill you. So many people anymore shit on people, and even try to get their channels banned, for doing long-hauls. It really isn't a big deal. You have to stay up for a helluva long time and do it regularly for it to really be bad for you, you're just gonna feel like hot garbage, but a good nap and you're back in good shape.
 
Man seemed to be doing marathons all the time though. Yeah a one off every now and then is fine but the amount of 24 and 48 hour streams he did was not healthy and he should avoid those at all costs until he's healthy.
 
Well some people take amphetamines for their ADD, others, who don't need it, abuse it for gaming purposes.

They're not victims, they made a choice, like every drug user.

That may be initially the case, for some, but addiction is far more powerful than wanting to enjoy yourself.
 
Man seemed to be doing marathons all the time though. Yeah a one off every now and then is fine but the amount of 24 and 48 hour streams he did was not healthy and he should avoid those at all costs until he's healthy.

It's hard to say really, he's the only one who really knows. He's suffering from depression and has for awhile so he says, and it is known that lack of sleep can help with depression. If that does help him, sure it isn't healthy, but poor sleep would be better than abusing drugs.

But it's safe to say he doesn't want to do it anymore, considering his comment in the archive about him saying the human body shouldn't do that and even 24 hours is too much.
 
MANvsGAME is a really nice guy even if he can be a bit tempered at times, I discovered him and Dansgaming etc back on justin.tv gaming section before twitch existed.

Over last 2 years or so you could clearly see MvG changing especially when he began doing those really lengthy casts, I didn't like seeing it (felt like a helpless feeling when you can see something is wrong).

I hope he finds balance in his life.
 
Man vs Game's channel is more than popular to be able to do a "normal" schedule.

There is no need for 24 hour streams whatsoever, in my eyes.

Yeah I don't get it. He gets thousands of viewers and plenty of subs every time I stop by his channel. He also gets hired on for hosting gigs and conferences and what not.
 
Well some people take amphetamines for their ADD, others, who don't need it, abuse it for gaming purposes.

They're not victims, they made a choice, like every drug user.

What a lovely black and white world you live in. People take and abuse drugs for many, many reasons. I have spent the last few years working with drug users and it's amazing that you still read ignorant comments such as this.

You may say how can you be a drugs worker with such a username? Well not every drug has to be harmful. It's more down to the person taking it and their reasons why.

I feel for this twitch streamer. It's so easy to let drugs rule your life and the twitch pressure is real. Stop streaming for a fee days and you could lose subs. Always someone else waiting in the wings to take your place.
 
Wow sometimes when i watched his stream i thought that this guy must be taking drugs or something.

I never thought i would actually be right though
 
Man vs Game's channel is more than popular to be able to do a "normal" schedule.

There is no need for 24 hour streams whatsoever, in my eyes.

Depression brings on insomnia, couple that with adderall and you're up for days whether you want to or not.

I watched him back in the JTV days til maybe a year ago when he just started looking and sounding like a zombie who didn't seem to want to be doing what he's doing anymore. The entertainment value just wasn't there for me anymore.

I'll definitely come back for the launch of Dark Souls 3, because when he's fresh faced and bushy tailed in a Souls game, he becomes the MANgod that we all enjoy.
 
Man vs Game's channel is more than popular to be able to do a "normal" schedule.

There is no need for 24 hour streams whatsoever, in my eyes.

If you'd watch a bit of the broadcast in the op you'd hear MvG talk about normal streams and his depression. He took the pills exactly because he couldn't do even normal 8 hour casts anymore. And from that point on it spiralled out of control.
 
Feel bad for him but damn man. Wish him the best

Wow

I love video games but the way the social era is with streaming, sharing, youtubing, has turned me off to gaming.

It's crazy how someone can make a living doing this in this day. I know that if I was involved in gaming I would hate it eventually.

The man is an entertainer more now then anything. Catering more to shout outs and what not then actually playing the game. I mean it's good/great to interact with your audience but to spend the majority of your time talking to them ruins it for me at least.
 
If you'd watch a bit of the broadcast in the op you'd hear MvG talk about normal streams and his depression. He took the pills exactly because he couldn't do even normal 8 hour casts anymore. And from that point on it spiralled out of control.

I had watched the video when it came out.

Streamers usually go for 24 hour streams as a way to drive subscriptions, keep their high viewer count going. Helps to establish themselves and be noticed/recognised by the wider twich community.

He is someone that needs a bit more help than others at the moment.

I wish him all the luck in the world. If I could help I would. Spamfish seems similar as well, seems they need a hug and a bit of support at the very least.
 
If he's worried about losing it's audience over taking a short break every now and then it's because he's either paranoic or doing something wrong.
 
If he's worried about losing it's audience over taking a short break every now and then it's because he's either paranoic or doing something wrong.

Fairly ignorant for you to say. Twitch viewers are fickle, they can and will forget about you if you let them, even more so if they're subscribers which is what people like MAN depend on to live. For people who live on Twitch to take a break is just like taking a break from most jobs; you don't make money for that time. Except with most jobs the moment you go back you keep making the same paycheck, but with Twitch the people who make the paycheck could have disappeared.

This is the kind of pressure big Twitch streamers have to deal with. They have to stay consistent, they have to stay visible. Granted he has a partnership directly with Twitch which probably gives him a nice chunk, but make no mistake how big of a deal those subscribers are to him.
 
If he's worried about losing it's audience over taking a short break every now and then it's because he's either paranoic or doing something wrong.

It's a new market, he probably quit his job (or stopped looking) once he started making money out of it and now, like everyone else, he has debts and whatnot, so he can't exactly stop.

And the thing about the internet self-publish/broadcast/produce age is that you are on your own basically.
He is basically doing a tv show without the structure of a tv station and no tv crew. When you get to the point where this is your job, then streaming stops being like, pick a game, set up a webcam and go for it.
You need to maintain the technical structure of stable internet connections, good image quality, good sound, good capturing, etc.; then you have to be the entertainer, be there on camera, be happy (or angry or whatever your gimmick is) all the time. Gotta give them shout-outs.

Basically, it's a small tv show that you are doing completely alone and without any fallback. You take a month off and lose viewers, you just lost money; there's no one to "cover" for you, no company to keep paying you while on vacation. Basically every worker right that we take for granted basically don't exist when you find yourself self employed as a twitch streamer. If it's a hobby, then whatever, but if the electrical bill depends on you having some steady thousands of paying subscribers per month, everything gets a new weight.

So yeah, you become paranoid, to put it mildly. People get paranoid and do drugs when they have relatively stable jobs with companies that give them vacations and health insurance. I can only imagine the kind of pression a streamer falls into when he becomes insecure about his viewership, for whatever reason.
 
every time I checked his channel out it was him pausing the game every 20 seconds to thank a resub or read a donation, there was less gameplay every time I looked last year.

doing drugs to keep up streaming though is rather bad, maybe he should set up a stream time and a day off every week like a lot of other streamers do
 
Back in my day people took narcotics to have fun, certainly people didn't take speed if they were just going to sit in the house.
 
Nope. The third guy, Knight, came back. He is streaming right now, as a matter of fact.

Yeah drk put in some crazy hours but I think that was mostly for the MGSV release. An in depth run will usually run around 18 hours. I don't see them go past that too often, but they do on occasion of course.

Nice! I love all three of them and they really try to watch out for eachother, but sometimes there are just connection failures and more... Didn't threedog even book a hotel room so that he has a stable internet connection for MGSV marathon? i love those guys and always watch them if they do a stream. :) Never gets boring with the chat
 
If we are talking amphetamine sulphate, in the 90's we used to take it and sit up all night smoking weed and playing golf games.
The come down was a bit of a bastard though.

I can't imagine it was methamphetamine this guy was taking, as some people seem to think.
 
And suddenly all these "jokes", that people threw at him on the Twitch Roast, make more sense. I guess the other streamers knew something wasn't alright or they just assumed it.

Pretty sad that he went this far. I hope he can return to a normal state some day.
 
you could totaly tell... from the weight he lost.... also the job is easy and its not really a job.. or work... plenty of streamers stick to a scheulce and stream for no more than 30 hours a week.... guys streamers seem to have more viewers and subs but less donations...one of my fav girl streamers is misskyliee she has max 300 viewers a stream but still makes 3k-7k a month... she gets mad donations, her first stream of the year she got a 5k donation alone.... and she does 4-7 hours a day max with two days off...
you make it hard... but its not.... when you get a certain number of viewers/subs it will fluctuate constantly up and down...
 
I stopped watching him when the streams became more about the community/chat/subs and the notification spiel than him actually playing and reacting to the games.

Hindsight is always 20/20, I find it tough to differentiate between a naturally enthusiastic, charged, energetic person and someone helping that along with substance abuse. And of course, those are charges not easily levelled at someone, especially if you only see that person on a screen, during a performance.

Hopefully he gets the professional help and familial support needed to get that shit out of his life.
 
Taking drugs to keep up on video games.... I've heard it all. What happened to gaming for the fun of it.

Pretty much my thoughts. The only reason you should be streaming video games is because you like playing them, and enjoy sharing your experience. Every financial gain should always be considered as a bonus, and a temporary one at that. Even if you're lucky enough to be able to make a living out of your hobby, enjoy the ride, but keep a plan B in mind.

No, it's essentially adderal. Meth has the extra mythl group that makes it lipid enough to cross the blood brain barrier, hence why it's named Meth and not the best for you.

Jup. Methamphetamine is stronger, more addictive and way more expensive.
 
every time I checked his channel out it was him pausing the game every 20 seconds to thank a resub or read a donation, there was less gameplay every time I looked last year.

doing drugs to keep up streaming though is rather bad, maybe he should set up a stream time and a day off every week like a lot of other streamers do

Man loves his subs. He, like most other big streamers, realizes that without the viewers, subs, and donations he wouldn't be doing what he is doing. I get annoyed when I watch him stream but I understand it. For him, he really wants his viewers to know that they are the important ones. They are what will push a streamer up or keep a streamer down.

Sure he's said some controversial things regarding his subs and viewers and I'm not excusing him for that. What's important for him is acknowledging his fanbase. It's a double-edged sword. You either interact and literally chat with your chat and make them feel special or you sometimes interact with chat and they feel less important and less obligated coming back to your stream. He's a fulltime dedicated entertainer first and foremost. His gameplay is second.

KyleCross makes good points regarding the Twitch community too.

The issues with Man are his health, drug use history, depression, anxiety, and a semi-recent divorce/seperation. The craziest thing in life is the fact that many, many people put up a lie to mask their issues. Do not take this the wrong way but that's what happened to Robin Williams and many other entertainers (may they rest in peace). It's sad and the only thing they should do is to announce it to the world their problems and seek professional help before things get worse.

When he starts feeling better he should definitely change his schedule (even though he has tried plenty of times these last few months) and start remaining consistent.
 
12-hour masturbation marathons ftw.

9HJk0qs.gif


12 hours of flacid.
 
Taking drugs to keep up on video games.... I've heard it all. What happened to gaming for the fun of it.

It's people's jobs now. It is crazy that people pay to watch people play games.

I've been watching alot of Twitch lately its fascinating. I've been viewing ones with only a hundred or so viewers and can see the stress they go through. Their like celebrities but without the protection(people surrounding them) or money. With the constant feedback and the abuse and advice, and the expectations of the audience, Its got to drive them a little crazy.

I was going to subscribe to a few but with this and other things, I have been wondering if Twitch is really such a good thing.
 
I wish him all the luck in the world. If I could help I would. Spamfish seems similar as well, seems they need a hug and a bit of support at the very least.

I worry for Spamfish. He openly talks about his depression and I hope he can deal with it eventually. He's the only streamer I've subscribed to because he's great as a streamer and I think he's also a great guy and it kills me to see him below 1k viewers some days.
 
As someone who had no idea these sorts of things happened regularly in the streaming community, reading this thread has been quite surreal. As for the streamer in question I hope he will take some steps to help himself, health and happiness are always the most important things.
 
I worry for Spamfish. He openly talks about his depression and I hope he can deal with it eventually. He's the only streamer I've subscribed to because he's great as a streamer and I think he's also a great guy and it kills me to see him below 1k viewers some days.

I actually knew him personally, went to the same school etc, N64 mario kart sessions.

I wish I could help them all.
 
I thought speed = amphetamine =/= methamphetamine?

"Speed" is just a street name for stimulants. The actual drugs may vary. Traditionally it was amphetamines, but drug dealers are apt to sell whatever is cheaper and easier to get, so it could be any mixture of stimulants, including meth.

Same story with "Ecstasy". Traditionally it meant MDMA, but nowadays it may contain some mixture of meth, MDA, and other more dangerous drugs.
 
I haven't watched in a while but he looks like absolute shit in that video. According to his twitter, he's trying to kick on his own, unless I missed something. That's pretty bad news, actually, if he's been taking it every single time he's streamed. He's already planning his comeback stream a month after admitting it to his viewers and seems to have spent most of this time posting gifs of himself (tweeked out) on twitter, bad sign.

The stream/twitch career is an excuse to take speed at this point, I imagine. Strange that some people think he HAS to stream as much as he does--that's 100% bullshit. He could live off of a normal 8 hour shift, easily. He also has the popularity to diversify like crazy, if he isn't just a complete mess off stream or unskilled or tough to work with. But nobody aside from other speed addicts expects him to stream as much as he does.

I can't imagine having pressure like that to play games, but at the same time, shame on him for not building it up on his own healthy terms. Plenty of others have, he just likes speed.


For SPEEDruns?


LOL

<3
 
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