Quineloe
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
- 6,978
- 4,464
Crime lords of Seattle are now registering all their places as "swatting targets", for that extra bit of protection against raids.
I'm gonna sign up some of you guys now. Seems easy enough.
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- Thread starter Mick
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Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
Go here and give us your nominations!Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
Crime lords of Seattle are now registering all their places as "swatting targets", for that extra bit of protection against raids.
I'm gonna sign up some of you guys now. Seems easy enough.
Kuro
Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
- 8,937
- 23,492
Gotta stuff those mattresses with money during your window of popularity in order to make sure you're fine once it runs out, so I can understand why folks wouldn't want him to discuss the income openly.
"I've been self-employed for the last 7 years playing video games 12 hours a day and editing videos for youtube another 5, but then the company who makes the games I was good at shat the bed and my viewership bottomed out" probably doesn't work well in job interviews later.
"I've been self-employed for the last 7 years playing video games 12 hours a day and editing videos for youtube another 5, but then the company who makes the games I was good at shat the bed and my viewership bottomed out" probably doesn't work well in job interviews later.
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Borzak
Bronze Baron of the Realm
- 25,466
- 33,225
Kind of what I thought as well. Watch a streamer who has a masters degree in remote sensing. He plays a game that is not like the really popular games. I think he averages 3k viewers 3 times a week for 8 hours or something and youtube videos and such.
He says he's making enough to live on in England but he's basically tied to that game and if it dies oh well. Not only that his degree I would imagine has a lifespan once you don't have any new relevant experience in the future.
The game is world of tanks and he gets free trips to the wargaming office in Cyprus or wherever it is.
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Have to consider it from a long term(or well medium term) point of view. Playing garbage games for 10k might hurt your viewership, which will then snowball into losing a fuckton of money later on.
Anyway this isn't too surprising although a bunch of people weren't aware of the kind of money you make streaming as a "top" streamer.
Getting there involves being really fucking lucky AND grinding 16-18hours a day for a couple of years generally speaking though. Also being likeable enough which is largely innate, not everyone have charisma. Even then there's a good chance you'll just be able to pay your bills and not much more, like you'll get 500-800viewers or whatever which is enough to sustain yourself as a fulltime job and live decently from what I've read, but if you're putting in 12hours a day(in and offscreen), plus the pressure, I don't know if it's that's worth it, since you have 0 benefits and your "job" will probably stop in a few years. Guess it depends on your other options for "real" jobs.
Quineloe
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
- 6,978
- 4,464
Funny how far WoT dropped now. It used to be in the top row of the twitch directory, but it is like a million years old now.
Ravishing
Uninspiring Title
- 8,456
- 3,577
I agree that was a silly comment but it only makes sense if streaming another game is actually higher (or near) profitable.
Yes, maybe he turns down 10k/hr but then he streams something else that is making him almost as much?
Remember these shitty games probably won't help his Sub counts, ad revenue, etc.
Sub counts are an important metric and if you lose 500 subs streaming a shitty game it's probably not worth it at all.
But if it was me and I could make 30k streaming for 3 hrs, It would be very difficult to pass that up.
Pretty hard to fathom that just 10k avg viewers makes you around $250k/yr.
Although he said he's turned down 10k/hr before, I'd really like to know the specifics of that case, because 3hrs to earn 12% of your avg yearly income seems like a no-brainer. I would guess it was either during a very popular time period for Hearthstone (expansion just released) or he had some other obligations that just made it impossible.
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Cybsled
Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
- 17,091
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Ya, Gary Larson is still alive. He stopped making The Far Side in the early/mid 90s, but that cartoon is from the 80s. No one in the 80s could have predicted esports/streaming as it exists today. I mean hell, there was no such thing as streaming back then and there wasn't even the web lol
Anyways, back to income, Shroud has sometimes talked about events and unless it is something he is contractually obligated to do, he basically won't go if the fee they pay him is less than what he would make in the same amount of days of commitment just streaming at home...which makes sense. Why accept a 20k appearance fee if you could make double that for the same amount of time commitment?
Other streamers have also noted that it can be hard to get a mortgage, even as a fairly successful streamer, because your income is considered too unstable...even if you can demonstrate you've pulled consistent income/numbers over a number of years.
The other factor people forget about is that unless Twitch is offering an equivalent of employee benefit plans to big streamers, they're going to have to pay for medical/dental/retirement all on their own /w no employer helping subsidize that. Making 10k a month might seem awesome, but then you realize that combined with taxes and other insurance/retirement needs, your actual monthly pay of leftover money would probably be much, much smaller. Many of these streamers are pretty young, so that may not be on their radar, but it could hurt them long term if they aren't accounting for that.
It is more about brand. If you become known as the "sellout", play games you clearly hate, and have a hard time entertaining people while doing it (probably hard to shit on the game when they are paying you to play it), then people will start tuning out and over time, you'll end up making less.
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Noodleface
A Mod Real Quick
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It all depends on other factors too. Does Shroud showing up to an event grow his audience even more? Then technically that'd be an investment of time. Tough to say on that sort of thing anyways.
Look at someone like Asmongold. He had some blog post about how his teeth are rotting out of his head and he's in sad physical shape. Guy is pulling $50-100k/month. Seriously, just stop and go to the doctor. It takes at most a couple hours. I don't feel bad for these guys and their lack of insurance.. they can afford COBRA at those incomes. But someone older like Asmongold needs to realize the only way to stay in the game is to stay healthy. Not streaming for a few hours isn't going to break his career.
Also I don't feel bad about the mortgage thing, they chose the path with volatile incomes. Just get an apartment and save up to buy a house with cash.
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Cybsled
Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
- 17,091
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COBRA is just means of temporarily continuing employer group benefits (usually for up to 18 months), it isn't a standalone insurance product. Actual standalone medical insurance, which isn't complete shit (ie, those worthless high deductable plans which don't pay a dime until you've racked up 10k in deductables...aka, IRL you're spending probably 3x+ that amount out of pocket before they start tossing in some money), will easily cost you over 1k per month in premiums.
tera
Lord Nagafen Raider
- 234
- 12
Insane.
The thing that pisses me off is watching Shroud and Lirik and getting ads every 20 minutes.... how much money do those fucks need.
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