How To Start A Gaming Career With Streaming | Musician Nerd
Updated on Dec 22, 2021
Starting your gaming career with streaming can be an extremely challenging, ambitious, but potentially rewarding path in life. At the time of writing this, it's one of the most popular careers for the younger generation looking to start a personal brand from home. However, the concept is not new despite all of the buzzes you'll see in the media about video games making you rich and streaming being all the rage. It's not very different from what people have been doing for the past decade on YouTube; there are just more niche platforms built around the streaming market these days.
When you think about having your career as a video game streamer, it sounds like the most lavish lifestyle you could ever live. Odds are you love to game, so why not make money while doing it? Well, there's a hard reality you need to think about. I love music, as you may be able to tell by the name of our brand. Growing up, I wanted to be an artist, but it's easier said than done, as you may realize. Some people think streaming is just gaming & recording, and then the fans will come. The reality is, you need to work for it, just like a musical artist would if you want to stand out.
So I'm not going to BS you into thinking this is some easy, fast track to the life of riches (though more and more people are blowing up today than ever). If you're serious about this, you need to understand the risk you're taking fully. Once you do and believe in yourself enough to work hard, and I mean hard, then we can get started. In this guide, I'll walk you through the essential steps you'll need to take to start your streaming career.
How To Start A Gaming Career With Streaming
Table Of Contents
Before You Begin
Before you begin, I encourage you to ask yourself and be brutally honest about whether this is the right path for you. There are many factors to consider, as this is not going to be an easy journey. Yes, the results for all your hard work can be extremely profitable, but the majority of streamers will fail to become successful. If you can't accept this, then you're already on the wrong path.
One of the first things to consider is your financial situation. What will you need over the next five years to support yourself, and how much time will it take out of your life? Do you need to work a full-time job to pay rent and put food on the table? You're unlikely to make any money off of your streaming career for a while if you ever do, so make sure you can handle this risk without putting yourself out on the street. Some people are fortunate enough to have families to allow them to stay at home and work towards their careers. Still, most creators, whether it's in gaming or music, won't get much support or encouragement from their families when working on such a risky career path.
The other thing you'll need to consider is what equipment you have now and how much you can comfortably invest. The average cost of a gaming computer on the low end is around one thousand, but can easily get into the multi-thousands. On top of this, you'll need audio and video equipment, which we'll talk about in a later section.
The Platforms
As you likely know, multiple platforms exist for streamers. Most beginners make the biggest mistake of choosing just one platform to build their audience. It sounds clever, in theory, as you don't want to spread yourself too thin, but the reality is, you need to build status. We'll talk more about making status in the next section, but a key component is your audience. One thing you'll need to do is get used to recreating the same content on multiple live streaming services so that you can spread your brand and build up fans.
Holding Up Phone With YouTube
There are many popular gamers who stick to one service, like Twitch for all things streaming related. There is a difference between them and you, however. You may reach a point in your career that Twitch wants to sign you to an exclusivity contract, but that doesn't happen until you're very well-known in the industry. They do this for a reason. Your audience looks for you, whereas right now, you're looking for them. Until you have enough brand awareness that you can rely on people going out of their way to watch your content, you need to be doing EVERYTHING you can to get in front of as many people as possible.
One of the reasons people find it so difficult to get their streaming career off the ground is because they don't understand how much time it takes to create content. You probably want to make as many unique live streams as you can, and the thought of doing the same stuff across numerous platforms sounds exhausting. You may only acquire a few viewers at a time per service, and the idea of putting all your eggs in one basket to increase momentum sounds like the better strategy. But I assure you, if you keep giving each service your all, it'll benefit you much more in the long run.
Equipment
If you're looking to start a career in gaming, I'm going to assume you already have a gaming console or PC. Otherwise, that should be your number one priority. But what else will we need?
As we discussed earlier, having your viewers watch your gaming content is all good and fine, but you're building up a brand around you. That means they need not only to hear you but see you. One mistake people (like myself) make when starting any new career is investing in the best of the best equipment they can get their hands on. With streaming, you don't need to best camera in the world. Just something better than your computer's built-in device. If you use an iPhone, their cameras are great for those on a budget. As long as the picture is clear, the other factors involved in streaming will have a larger impact than the quality of your camera.
Audio Recording Equipment For Live Stream
The audio for your video will have another massive impact on your streaming quality. Out of all your equipment, I'd put more effort here. Even if your video is a little fuzzy and the lighting is mediocre, there's nothing more off-putting than trash audio. Fortunately, most of the best microphones for streaming are still affordable. The USB market makes it easy to plug and play while keeping costs to a minimum. The creators of the Elgato Wave:3 have a streaming software that allows you to control the sound of your mic, add effects, and control your gaming volume all in one place. Fortunately, you can use this software with other mics as well, so you're not limited to theirs.
The last thing you'll want to consider is the lighting. This goes hand-in-hand with the video quality. Unless your streaming room has large open windows facing the sun, and you plan to record during the day, you'll need to invest in lighting equipment. Again, you don't need the best of the best. Please don't buy one of those large umbrella lights they use in professional photography. Just an affordable medium-sized ring light is great for those starting out.
The Number One Rule...
In my opinion, this is by far the hardest step. As hard as it is, it's the secret recipe for success. Whether you're a musician, an entrepreneur, or a streamer, there's one thing you're going to need if you even stand a chance. And that is confidence. This might sound cliche or stupid, but it's not only proven that confidence leads to success, but if you think about it, it's going to make a lot of sense to you.
Camera Recording Group Of Streamers
When you begin your career as a gamer, you're most likely going to burn out soon. You'll be pouring in all your energy to create as much content as you can, working every avenue you can find to succeed. This is great and extremely important. But what about when you're exhausted & burnt out six months later, after putting countless days and nights into your career with little to no results? As someone who has been there, let me tell you, it's the most demotivating feeling in the world. You'll either want to start on something new or give up altogether. But the unicorns of the streaming world have one thing in common; They believe they were destined to do this. And believe me when I tell you, that type of feeling is more powerful than anything in the world.
The only thing you need to get there is confidence. If you believe in yourself and never give up hope, you're bound to get there. We talk about celebrities being "lucky." We mentally envision that they got there overnight; however, most of them put in more work than most people will ever do in their lifetime, knowing that the odds were heavily against them. It's not easy, and you're foolish if you think it is. So make sure you stay confident.
Conclusion
By now you should have an idea of what it's going to take to build the most lucrative career you could imagine. It won't be easy, and even after years of work, you could walk away with nothing. But I'm a strong believer that those with their head held high, willing to do everything it takes, will walk away with something. The worst mistake you can make is thinking it's going to be easy and that creating a little bit of content in one corner of the internet is all it'll take to build that audience.
Building up a career as a streamer is like any other business. The difference is that YOU are the brand. So make sure you have the most personality you can offer, being funny, charming, and likable. Be everywhere. People on every streaming service are looking for content, so don't limit yourself to save some time. Building a small audience in multiple places will be the best long-term move you can make and offer you the opportunity to expand your brand worldwide.
If you do everything right, and never give up, the odds will remain in your favor. So stay confident, believe in yourself, and good luck.
Posted on Aug 22, 2021
Streaming
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Social Status & Personality
Building social status goes hand-in-hand with what we talked about above. Let's be real; there are a lot of gamers out there, and likely many who are better than you. However, statistics show most people don't care how good you are, but rather, how entertaining your content is. A huge component of that is who you are as a person.
Gaming PC With Gaming Monitors For Streaming
Think about it, do you watch streamers who are dead silent, just running around and playing? I highly doubt it. The most popular gamers in the world have tons of personality that makes people attracted to their content. Typically, you'll want to watch a streamer who is funny. If you're smart, however, you're going to take this well beyond the live streams. There's more than one way to build your social status and expose your personality. Those popular streamers I mentioned all have one thing in common; They use social medias like Twitter or Instagram.
This is by far one of the easiest strategies for staying engaged with your fans with minimal effort. When using social media to build your social status, you can fire off a tweet in 1 minute, saying something random or funny. It doesn't even have to be about gaming, which will allow your audience to learn more about you & your personality. This gives depth to your character. It makes you more memorable. And once you build an audience on those sites as well, it gives you more opportunities.