Ways To Make a Career in Game Streaming Work for You
A couple of decades ago, the idea of pursuing a career in game streaming would have been considered a fantasy. However, the advances in live streaming technology and shifts in the gaming industry have made it viable. This isn’t limited to the well-publicized streamers like PewDiePie and Ninja, who earned $40 million and $25 million on Twitch respectively. It’s possible to earn a comfortable living in this field.
Yet, forging a career path in game streaming can still be quite a daunting prospect. It is certainly not an easy route to pursue and requires a great deal of strategy and dedication to pull off successfully. Many people start a channel and fail to transition into a career. This is usually because they don’t really have a clear idea of how to navigate the challenges as a professional.
So, let’s take a closer look at the ways you can make a career in game streaming work for you.
Create a Plan
Perhaps the most important thing to recognize about a career in game streaming is you need to treat it as a business. Game streaming is a lot of fun and it’s focused on one of your personal interests. But transitioning this into a viable job means taking a more serious approach. As such, one of your first steps should be to create a solid business plan.
Any good business plan makes it clear for you and anyone else you partner with what your business wants to achieve and how to get there. As such, it should set out what your day-to-day operations will look like, who your target demographics are, and how you intend to make money from it. In essence, this needs to act as your guide to at least your first few months of operations, perhaps up to your first year. You’ll find that taking the time to set this out in advance helps provide you with clarity and structure to move forward confidently.
It’s also worth remembering that the game streaming marketplace has no shortage of competition. Therefore, part of your planning focus should be on how you can do things slightly differently to stand out from the crowd. This isn’t always easy, but using a design thinking approach can help you to solve problems with a more creative and outside-of-the-box mindset. This philosophy requires you to empathize with your target audience to understand their needs. It also provides you a structure to establish ideas before prototyping and testing them. Having this clear process in place gives you space to think more creatively.
Gain Initial Financial Support
If all goes according to plan, you’ll be bringing in a regular income from your game streaming. But this isn’t always an immediate guarantee. It is, therefore, important that you pay some attention to how you can gain initial financial support.
Developing a live streaming career can take some investment of time and resources. You may also need additional funding for better equipment so you can take a more innovative approach. It is unlikely that you’ll be able to secure traditional business loans. However, if you’ve already started to build a following, crowdfunding can be an effective option.
Rather than seek external sources of funding, though, it’s worth maximizing your personal capital first. If you can easily commute to your day job and other duties, it may be practical to sell your car. You can usually get more money by selling your car privately, as dealers naturally want to maximize their profits. There are various ways you can do this, from utilizing dedicated car sales sites to posting on social media. It can take more time, but you tend to get a bigger return. Considering which of your belongings you can practically liquidate can provide you with capital while also ensuring you’re not having to pay back a loan.
Behave Professionally
It is not unusual for game streamers to leverage a more relaxed and sometimes even chaotic persona in their content. This is fine and it can help audiences more readily connect with and relate to you. Nevertheless, it’s certainly not conducive to a successful streaming career if you’re this casual in all your dealings. If you have ambitions to perform as a professional, you need to behave as such.
Firstly, get organized. It’s difficult to maintain a thriving business if there is chaos surrounding everything you do. Set up solid scheduling for your activities. This should include your streams, your social media posts, and your outreach to potential sponsors. Keep your physical space tidy. Decluttering responsibly can help you maintain good organizational practices and minimize mental pressure. Be proactive about donating outdated equipment to charity and recycle as much as possible. Your clear surroundings also tend to look more professional when you have video meetings with potential partners and sponsors.
Another area of professional attention must be your networking activities. Collaborations with influencers and sponsorship partners are a familiar part of the streaming landscape. They can be fun and friendly, but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t behave professionally throughout. Make sure your outreach is polite and clearly outlines the benefits of collaboration for both of you. If you make agreements or arrange meetings, be sure to stick to them as planned. When you receive rejection (as is inevitable), respond with as much professionalism as you would if you had been successful. You never know who they may pass your details on to.
Diversify Your Approach
Much like any business, pursuing a career as a gaming live streamer benefits from diversity. This stops you from becoming stagnant and boring. It can also mean you can take advantage of a wider range of opportunities. This approach should apply to as many areas of your live streaming career as possible.
Start with your content. Avoid simply focusing on a single type of stream. If your audience enjoys your unique approach to your streams, they will want to see more from you. Mix things up with a range of videos. This could include regular playing streams, esports competitions or commentary, and interviews with industry professionals. You should also diversify the platforms you stream on. Certainly have a main channel focus, like Twitch. But also cater to audiences who can’t watch live, by posting replays on YouTube or Vimeo. It can also be wise to post clips and previews on TikTok and Instagram. Make it easy for a wider range of audiences to find you.
Your diversification should extend to the people you partner and collaborate with, too. Part of the incentive of streaming collaboration is you get the chance to mutually benefit from one another’s audiences. This doesn’t work if you both have largely the same audience. So, step outside of the box here. Team up with streamers in different fields and see what interesting content you can make together.
Conclusion
Making a career in game streaming work for you is not an insurmountable goal. However, it does take some planning and commitment to do it well. Treat it like a business with a solid plan and be sure to always interact with others as a professional. Be sensible about where you gain your initial financial support from. Wherever possible, diversify your content and platforms. The game live streaming landscape is growing and it’s worth putting in some focused effort to make the most of it.
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