Can you imagine what it would be like to waste 12 hours of your life in a virtual world, only to have no idea where the time went? Well, here is a video game blog for you.
In our 2015 Twitch stream, we followed a handful of people who were playing video games for 12 hours straight. Together they managed to rack up over 640 million kills and hit 4 billion shots. The goal? To see how many glitches and bugs these players could create. It was an incredible display of what the gaming community is capable of — a true glimpse into the minds and souls of these gamers.
However, just as playing games for 12 hours can be fun and entertaining, it can also be stressful and overwhelming. As streamers on Twitch, we are constantly striving to improve at our craft; hence, listeners are always eager to hear what our next project will be, or hear our feedback on a previous stream. However, as avid gamers ourselves it can sometimes be easy to forget that you’re not in your own comfort zone. After all, there is only so much that we can learn from other people before something starts to feel repetitive or dull.
For proof of this, we need look no further than our very own fanbase. Our loyal fans are the ones who have always been there to watch us grow and improve; they were the ones who stuck with us through hard times and helped keep us motivated. However, they also come with a certain level of responsibility. When at home or offline, it is easy to make excuses for why you didn’t complete that achievement or get that trophy; after all, it’s not as if you have to worry about people watching your stream anyway. But when playing on Twitch, you are forced to play by the rules set out by your audience rules that can often feel restrictive.
You can’t go off-screen because you know that viewers are waiting. You can’t spam chat and create a distraction. And most importantly of all, you can’t go to sleep without knowing that your “haters” are still watching, waiting to pounce at the slightest glitch or bug.
As a streamer, it is important to understand the line between entertaining your audience and being boring; even more so, it’s important to understand how boredom affects our gameplay. When we stream we tend to focus on getting better because we want our viewers and subscribers to enjoy what we’re doing. This requires us to constantly be on our A game. When it comes to being entertaining, our focus is entirely on the viewer after all, that’s what we’re there for. The moment you give your audience something specific to look out for or a goal they can work toward, viewers want you to get better as quickly as possible. This can be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it after all, improving at gaming should always be in our best interests.
