Tag: twitch

Leveling up the streaming game

Leveling up the streaming game

Posted on by Sari Piittinen

Since achieving affiliate status on Twitch late last year as a videogame streamer, I’ve been continuing to stream about three times a week. I may not stream for work, but a lot of work still goes into this activity!

I’ve done a few things in 2021 so far to improve the quality of my stream – to make it look more professional, although I’m not a professional… It’s something fun to do and a source of pride and achievement during a time when not much else is happening.

Things I’ve done:

  • I moved my desk so I would have a visually more neutral background for the stream (with the exception of a cat tree, since cat guest appearances are a win)
  • I looked for some good DMCA free music to use in my stream; I aim to avoid any copyright issues. A lot of the available music is synthwave or lofi (or otherwise electronic), which I also like, but isn’t exactly “my thing”. But I finally found Slamhaus who has pretty cool alternative rock and jam playlists, and I like to use those now!
  • I finished working on a new emote for my stream after finally unlocking another emote slot. I’m not at all a graphics expert, so it took a while for me to work on the emote that still clearly looks amateurish, but it’s mine and looks mine.
  • I bought a set of sub/bit badges to use. These are badges that appear next to one’s name in chat if they have a subscription to the stream or have donated bits to the stream. (Bits are Twitch’s currency that you can buy and use in different ways to support a stream.) The appearance of the badges changes based on how long they have been subbed or how many bits they have donated. I chose a batch of cat images to choose from, so anyone who supports the stream can have a cute cat badge. Nyan nyan.
  • I also purchased some quirky, cat-themed BRB, stream starting and ending screens, as well as frames. I love having some colourful, animated visual details to the stream that I genuinely enjoy looking at myself. (This is where I got them – the exact same set is no longer available)
  • After doing the above, I re-did my stream’s description page (the text and topic banners) and icon to match the colours of the new cat-themed graphics.
  • Figuring out other small fine-tuning things like boosting my microphone’s audio level on OBS (streaming platform)
My old streaming background and video frame on the left vs. new on the right

As you may have noticed, I’ve now actually invested some money into my stream by buying visuals made by others. I used to think I’d be happy just using anything I made myself, but the experience of trying to make emotes was humbling and made me realize that if I really wanted to be pleased with my stream’s appearance, I’d have to rely at least a little bit on professionals (which I consider people who sell their work on etsy to be – at least more professional than me!). Now that it’s all done, I don’t regret the choice at all.

Showing off my new BRB screen on stream

And to think, it all started when a friend linked me a page to a cute cat-themed stream overlay that made me wonder if there was anything more suitable to my tastes out there… I still ended up with a cat theme, but just… a quirkier style!

Of course, the most important thing I’ve done is still missing from the list of things I’ve done… Streaming. There are things you learn as you stream more, like what kinds of games work for you as a streamer and which ones don’t. You only learn by experimenting. For example, I’ve had some good experiences streaming The Lord of the Rings Online not only because it’s been a fun semi-roleplaying experience, but also since it has brought some new people to my stream who also stream or watch others stream this game. It seems to be a small, but tight-knit community, which doesn’t surprise me for its Tolkien affiliation. Other games have made me wonder if I should never stream them again, simply because they don’t fit my personality or what I want to do with my stream.

A prime example of backseating – without fail also mentioning their own experience in the game

Another thing I still have to learn is how to respond to some chat messages. I don’t really get sexist/misogynist comments, but I’ve had some backseaters especially every time I play a new game. Backseating is when a viewer starts to constantly give the streamer advice on what they could or should do in the game. Usually streamers just want to do their own thing and learn things in their own pace. That’s why it’s really annoying to have someone constantly trying to influence what the streamer “should” do or know. I’ve (just now!) added “no backseating” into my chat rules, so now if people keep doing it I can simply ask them to review the rules…

Most of the time, however, I love interacting with chat. New people who come in tend to be friendly and interesting (when they share something about their lives). Friends I already know from other communities tend to burn each other and myself… lovingly. The good thing about streaming being so oversaturated right now is possibly that there are too many streams for trolls to harass. The number of awkward comments, mostly related to appearance, that I’ve received I can still count on one hand. For a female streamer, that’s very little.

Something that isn’t often mentioned is how watching streams is also a part of a streamer’s activities. Why? To make friends, support other streamers, stay informed about what everyone is doing, get inspiration for what you could be doing… Often, this isn’t consciously done research. To me, Twitch is my radio. As in, the same way as some turn on a radio or tv to have some background noise, I turn on Twitch streams. Sometimes I see something that makes me think “huh, I wonder what I’d do in that situation” or “hm, I wonder if I should have something like that in my stream”.

But in the end, streaming relies so much on individual personalities that no matter how you set up your stream, it’s you who needs to draw and keep people in, if you don’t wish to only talk to yourself (which is also perfectly fine, and something that some people do). It takes time, work and commitment.

Today, I’ll continue this rewarding learning experience with another stream!

2020 in reflection: games and teaching

2020 in reflection: games and teaching

Posted on by Sari Piittinen

Perhaps in today’s world, writing a reflection on the previous year on January 19th is already terribly late, but here we are. I’ll focus here on some new gaming experiences, the teaching I did in 2020, and what might be coming in 2021.

I probably don’t need to address that 2020 was a globally terrible year mostly (but not only) because of Covid-19 and, for example, how odd it was to see wearing masks become a daily normal occurrence in my home country of Finland. Lots of strange, scary, lonely moments took place that year.

Most of my pictures from 2020 are of my cats.

The inability to go outside as much or travel (I travelled nowhere in 2020, not even inside Finland) didn’t impact me as much as many others because I enjoy spending a lot of time at home with the cats. However, my history of almost annual visits to Japan has started to influence my brain somewhat, since I keep having dreams of being in Tokyo, or some sights or sounds remind me of previous travels and made me long for another visit. At the same time, the thought of leaving home for even just a week seems to become harder as time goes by – I’ve got so used to not doing anything in particular, and not going anywhere in particular.

But these are the specific topics I want to talk about separately: my hobby of playing video games, and work.

Voice chat and a new level of gaming

Even if I’ve played games in groups of friends for over ten years, it was only in 2020 that I started using voice chat while playing with others. Before this I would only communicate with my friends using a text-based chat in-game. The first game I tried voice chat with was also an intimidating one for me: Rust, a ruthless peer-versus-peer game in which technically anyone can kill you and loot all your belongings at any time. (It’s also possible to play the game in a friendly way, but many choose not to.) This is not a genre of games that I’d normally choose to play, but I wanted to join my favourite streamer and friend SpaceKat on her adventures. Since I’m kind of generally quiet and wasn’t used to using a mic in game, these first experiments with voice chat were a little awkward and I was a bit worried people might be less willing to play with me in the future… But luckily that wasn’t the case, in the end.

Heading to the oil rig in Rust, barely knowing what to do with a gun.

Other games I played using voice chat were the demo of Party Animals (in which voice chat was mostly endless giggling); Among Us, which blew up as a who-did-it “murder mystery” game; Phasmophobia with its ghost type analysis in haunted houses; and most recently Dead by Daylight, which isn’t designed voice chat use in mind, but becomes a lot more fun that way, since you can share information, laugh at each other’s silly gameplay moves, and offer sympathies if the killer is extra merciless.

I feel like being able to hear the voices of folks in my online community has made the bond between us stronger (even if I also firmly believe you can develop a close online relationship without it). In any case, I’m becoming more confident with using the mic, especially in combination with my gameplay streaming on Twitch, and I’m experiencing the difference in being able to communicate information immediately in a game instead of having to pause for a moment to type what I want to say.

At the same time, my introverted personality hasn’t changed. If there are several more outspoken players speaking, I tend to take the backseat and am mostly heard giggling at their jokes. I struggle to claim space for my voice to be heard, while at the same time don’t necessarily feel like I need to be speaking that much. Sometimes I also still get a little self-conscious about my accent and worried that my joke won’t land well if people don’t understand what I said… So there are still things to work on if I want to be fully confident in a voice chat gameplay situation.

Thrown in at the deep end of teaching

Earlier this year I decided to “quit academics”, but then my university suddenly needed a university teacher for the duration of the fall term and since I was available and happy to continue working with colleagues I knew to be good people, I ended up being asked and accepting this position. Before this, I’d only taught two university level courses before. Now I was responsible for remotely teaching five courses which were not designed to be taught remotely, and for developing one online self-study course (this one I wish I’d had more time to work on; I would have liked to make lecture videos etc.).

My initial goal was just to survive, since I didn’t have that much teaching experience and always compare myself to my colleagues who are very capable and enthusiastic teachers. Additionally, many of the courses were a part of a refreshed curriculum, which means they were being taught for the first time in their current form (and that I had a lot of responsibility in doing justice to changes that others had previously brainstormed).

Perks of working from home: turning around to see this in the middle of a work day…

In the end, I think it turned out that I was a great match for teaching the courses remotely, and although I have some regrets about things I could have done better (which, honestly, I think teachers need to have to improve), I also received some very good feedback and comments from students, which I treasure. I enjoyed teaching from home and since I’m very comfortable using online spaces for interaction, anyway, I was probably less intimidated than many other teachers about this Covid-19 fall. Even if I was teaching remotely, I think I learned more about interaction with students both in spoken and written form, which was especially rewarding. Since I was generally doing more teaching, I also got more used to it as an everyday thing and was able to worry a little bit less about myself and more about how to provide for the students. This means that my teaching could improve.

I’m not sure how much teaching I will be doing in the future (if any! It’s all a matter of chance and opportunity) but I find the experience very rewarding and valuable regardless. One, I learned I’m very flexible and able to adjust to new challenges and situations quickly, that I’m good at problem solving (e.g. “how to do this task remotely when it’s been designed for in-class meetings?”) and more about how to communicate clearly and how important that is. Teaching writing and communication skills to students also reminded me that these are skills I have myself, and can use in the future. Which leads us to…

Coming in 2021?

My future is, in all honesty, still open. But I think I am now interested in tackling copywriting. It’s a wonder I haven’t thought of it before, since producing texts comes so naturally for me. Even when I did the translation and copywriting test for Acclaro, I remember really enjoying the copywriting tasks. I’m not sure we’re allowed to talk about what’s in the test, but for me the process involved doing a bit of research to write short marketing blurbs in the popular culture field. I found myself thinking I’d like to do more of it, and certainly would love to be compensated for it.

I’ve also applied to study, in my freetime, pedagogical studies that would give me formal qualifications to teach with longer term contracts at university and vocational schools. I don’t necessarily see myself competing for already scarce teaching positions, but there is a chance I will be able to make use of such knowledge in other ways. I genuinely enjoy sharing whatever expertise I have and guiding others to develop their skills, so even if I never find myself at a university again, I may be able to use teaching skills to, for example, produce online courses (especially since this seemed to work for me quite well this fall) or offer workshops, trainings, etc. Whether I do copywriting or something else, down the line I may be able teach others what I’ve learned and more. However, it’s still unsure whether I’ll be able to make it into the student selection for the pedagogical studies. I’m waiting to receive paperwork from the university that I need for the application. Last time I applied I didn’t have enough teaching experience to be even considered, so I’m nervous about that, too.

In any case, I’m trying to be brave in 2021, since starting anew (which I seem to have done each January in the past 3 years) always takes guts and hard work.

I guess I’m a streamer now

I guess I’m a streamer now

Posted on by Sari Piittinen

Last week I had a week off from work (I’ve been teaching mainly a variety of communication and writing courses at the unversity this fall). I decided to spend this week doing something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time, but always chickened out or postponed: a whole bunch of streaming gameplay on Twitch.tv. Somehow, in a period of 10 days altogether, I managed to achieve the requirements to become an Affiliate on Twitch. Affiliate status means you can (theoretically) earn money by streaming, as people can subscribe to your channel or donate bits. However, since I’m approaching streaming as a hobby and am very aware of how oversaturated streaming is at the moment, I don’t look at this as a realistic source of even partial income.

Saying it only took ten days to become affiliate is in a way an exaggeration. That’s because most of the people who attended my stream are friends I’ve made in other streams in the past year, and mainly SpaceKat‘s wonderful community. I’ve been an extremely active viewer and “fan” on Twitch long before I finally decided to give streaming a chance myself, and I plan on continuing as a viewer. When experienced streamers say that building a community is the most important thing to do if you wish to succeed as a streamer, I really can’t doubt that, because without this community I’m happily a part of, there is no way I would’ve had the viewership and follower numbers to become an Affiliate this fast, or at all.

How does it then feel to go from not streaming at all to streaming almost every day for over a week? Well, I can honestly say I don’t feel like I really had a holiday last week. Even if my streams were relatively short (by this I mean they were mostly under 4 hours), I was constantly thinking about streaming – when to start, what to do, how to modify some stream features (which pre-affiliate aren’t that many, but anyway). It had other mental effects on me, too. On one day in particular, I felt socially insecure; I was questioning my existing friendships, whether people really liked me, whether I really liked people… It was mentally taxing to wonder whether some relationships would change if I were to also start streaming, if I was taking a risk and making a mistake. Now, everything is fine again, but the move from a viewer to a streamer is no doubt a complex one.

Last Knight played on my stream, with awkward resolution

So what did I actually stream? My current (most likely motherboard related) crashing issues whenever I play something more ‘demanding’ required me to focus on games that wouldn’t be too heavy to handle for my PC. I first turned to random indie games I’d got from a charity bundle for racial justice and equality on itch.io. I can honestly say that I probably wouldn’t have ended up playing these games if it weren’t for streaming to motivate me. Exploring new games is more fun to do as a shared activity. The game I’ve played the most so far from the bundle is Last Knight, … a silly and simple, but fun game in which you control a knight who occasionally does jousting to fight off enemies on his path. I’d never heard of this game before, but currently it’s a legendary one on my channel. Probably not for ever, but it was a fun one to start with…

Hiding from a hunting ghost in Phasmophobia, with a flickering light and only armed with a camera

The game that really helped me with the whole Affiliate thing is Phasmophobia. In this game, you explore evidence (with a group of up to 4 people) in haunted houses to find out what type of ghost is haunting it. While some players don’t experience this game as scary, or say that it quickly becomes less scary, I’m still very sensitive to the sounds and anticipation of the ghost hunting that I still get scared and get a deeply ‘concerned’ feeling in my stomach whenever I play it. It’s the kind of game I’d only play with friends because otherwise the effect it has on me isn’t worth it – I won’t lie, I’ve slept with the night light on a few nights since I started playing this game.

In any case, this kind of ghost game seems fun for people to watch, even if I tend to try to play it ‘seriously’ whenever I do. This is also because the game still scares me. The sooner we discover the ghost type and possibly complete extra objectives, the sooner we can get out of the house. That’s why I want to focus on doing what needs to be done, and not do so much of trying to anger the ghost for a laugh (even though it’s entertaining when people do that in other streams). Regardless, it seems Phasmophobia especially interested people enough to tune in for a while, which was fun and awesome.

Face of optimism: when I thought I could successfully continue using my phone’s camera as a streaming webcam

A part of streaming is also setting up the stream and dealing with technical issues. For example, I initially wanted to stream by using my phone’s camera as a webcam, but for some reason this caused severe lag in my stream’s picture, so I had to give that up. The good thing is that I’ve finally had use for the rather high quality Rode microphone I bought way earlier when I was also planning on making some kinds of gameplay videos (but back then, probably for YouTube). It stands awkwardly on my desk (it doesn’t have very sturdy feet), but I’m quite happy with the sound quality. I’ve always been super insecure about my quiet, high voice, and I used to feel even worse about it when I used lower quality mics that didn’t pick it up properly. I thought I sounded weak, pathetic, and monotone. I still don’t sound exactly loud and super expressive, but at least the sound is more accurate. Sometimes proper gear can give you the confidence you need to try something new.

I’m now waiting for a webcam from a friend to arrive in the mail because the times I could use my phone as a camera I enjoyed being able to express myself with facial expressions and gestures in addition to just voice. I do wonder what I’m going to do about my appearance, however. I really can’t imagine myself putting any make-up on for streams – make-up has become such a non-factor in my daily life. But with female streamers especially, there seems to be an expectation of appearing ‘representable’. I kind of have a really red face and flat hair, and it seems that’s what stream is going to have to settle for… Maybe I’ll wear a funny hat or head accessory to distract folk, who knows.

Setting up the software initially was simpler than I thought (I use OBS Studio), but now after achieving Affiliate, setting up more customized stuff has taken more research. I still don’t have a proper “intro” to my stream. I kind of tend to just start. It’s been, again, a bit exhausting, but also fun to think about how to customize the stream more. I’ve tried to do it little by little after work. Another addition I need to think about as well is my first and only emote slot. I’d prefer to make the emote myself, but my graphics skills are… severely rusty… It may take a while.

My ‘new follower’ stream notification gif features my cat

Tomorrow (Saturday) is my first stream since Monday when I completed the Affiliate requirements, and it feels like it’s been a long time since I last streamed. It can be quite addictive. I hadn’t even planned on streaming last Monday, but an opportunity presented itself, and I ended up streaming for 5.5 hours after work. I’m looking forward to it, but also wondering if I’ll ever have a “proper” weekend again if streaming now becomes a part of my life…

The experience has also been interesting because I’ve been fascinated by streaming not just as a hobby, but also as a researcher. I’ve read papers about streaming, observed some phenomena in streaming that I would’ve studied if someone had funded me, and somehow thought I’d be able to apply this kind of critical thinking in my own activities once I started streaming. Well, thus far, I haven’t really had the time to stop and think about any of those things. For example, one thing I’ve been interested in is what types of skills one needs to stream, how they are learned, whether those skills are applicable in other types of contexts, and whether streamers can identify those skills themselves (or take them ‘for granted’). I was mostly interested in this from the perspective of wanting to help streamers who either weren’t able to succeed as streamers and had to look for other types of work, or wanted to switch careers for other reasons. At some point I need to sit down and deeply and critically self-reflect on everything to have my own thoughts recorded somewhere. One day, they might be valuable (to me or others).

I always thought as a researcher that streaming is a complex, multilayered phenomenon. Now I can also say that it’s a complex, multilayered experience.

Here are some helpful suggestions I received for how to end this post:
“and that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped. THE END” – confushi_sushi
“that’s all fuckos” – Elentari
“and they lived happily ever after” – definitely not Mark

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