Perfecting Your Post-Stream Process

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 208 - Perfecting Your Post-Stream Process

In various past entries I’ve made the case for all the automated processes I love to use on my streams. In Creating a Pre-Stream Checklist I helped you to keep your streaming tasks organized. The entry Setting Up Pre-Stream Automation went even further into preventing setup mistakes by making a plan and sticking to it. There’s more to be explored outside the pre-stream process, however. After your show is finished there are also various tasks that need doing, whether that involves creating clips, making social media posts, or downloading your episode for archiving purposes. What’s the best way to keep track of everything so you don’t forget? In this entry, we’ll talk about how to perfect your post-stream process. 

As I always say in entries like this, experience is always more valuable than mistake prevention. If you haven't done at least ten official broadcasts on your channel yet, get out there and start streaming. For more info on breaking into the craft, see the entry Surviving Your First Ten Streams.

➢ SAVING FOR POSTERITY

If you’ve been following The Twitch Playbook, you’ll know about how I use YouTube as a Twitch streamer. When I was a Twitch Affiliate, I would post my full streams to YouTube 24 hours after they had gone live. After canceling my Affiliate contract, I now simply go live directly to YouTube at the same time as Twitch. This makes it even easier to archive my content, as there are fewer steps involved. But whatever your Twitch situation looks like, using a solid post-stream process is a great way to archive your shows. 

For some reason, episodes I did of the 
first Yakuza Kiwami 5 years ago
still get viewed today.

The above-mentioned entry Setting Up Pre-Stream Automation went into detail about some of my process in setting up a YouTube video. Since I go live directly to that platform along with Twitch, it means I do some of the archiving steps before my stream, rather than after. But once the show is over, there are still a few things to do. I find a nice moment from the just-finished stream and take a screenshot. I then add that screenshot to a templated thumbnail I’ve created in Photoshop beforehand, adding a little unique title about the episode and the episode number. I then add that thumbnail and descriptive title to the previously broadcast Twitch and YouTube streams. Once this is done, I add a little green check mark ✅ emoji to the end of the episode title. This is a signal to myself that the formatting step for this episode is complete. 

The ‘check mark’ step might seem redundant, but considering the lifestyle I lead, it’s proven itself to be one of the most critical elements on my shows. On a day I’m traveling across the country for business, I may do a Duolingo show from the airport terminal. On another day I might be going live from Tokyo. Or I could be home, but need to run out to a restaurant immediately after the stream. The day after that I might still do my shows but be so pressed for time that I don’t have time to format them yet. So now it’s two days later, which means I’ve done six streams, none of which have been formatted. Until I had a system in place to make it very easy to see which shows are completely finished being archived, I would often lose track of which ones needed to be worked on. 

But why archive your shows at all? I’ve spoken in past entries before about how many things you can do with your old streams, but we'll go into it a bit here too. You can learn from them by seeing your old performances, you can pull clips for highlight reels or channel intros, and of course it can allow viewers to discover or rediscover your old content if they didn’t see it live. I’ve found that old VOD archives of my streams on YouTube would sometimes gain a good amount of popularity out of nowhere. When a game’s sequel gets announced, a stream I made of the previous game might rise in views, or a certain type of food I ate on stream in Japan would garner a huge amount of interest in the corresponding video. Sometimes a stream in which I played an old PS2 game gets attention, presumably because there aren’t many other videos showing that rare game to be found. These spikes can happen the next day, or sometimes years after I released the video. You never really know how or when stream archives will affect your channel, but I’ve always found that these comprehensive, nicely formatted, and well-organized archives have been a major benefit to my streaming experience. For more info about how to archive your own shows, see the entry Archiving Your Twitch Streams. 

➢ MAKE IT YOUR OWN

Archiving is the primary purpose for my own personal post-stream process, but there are many useful things you might want to do after your show. If you like to grab clips of your shows, or even edit those clips into highlight reels that you show every Friday on stream, it’s useful to become disciplined about grabbing those once the stream is finished. In the entry Clipping and Highlighting Your Streams, I talked about my process for marking clippable moments during my show, so I could take the time to properly save them later. If you like to clip your streams, this technique will help to make your post-show process much more efficient. 

Shoutout. Get it?

Many streamers also like to make social media posts after their show is off the air. I personally do this in a barebones way, writing a Tweet that simply describes what happened on stream and posting an embedded link to the finished episode. In the past, when I used to raid other streamers after each broadcast, I would also give a shoutout to the person I raided, as well as any other streamers who raided me, in my post-stream Tweet. This is great for networking on Twitch, as it helps others as well as yourself. Some streamers even post shoutouts to viewers who cheered a particularly high amount, or repeat subscribers who reached a major milestone. Social media is a great benefit to a Twitch streamer who wants to grow, and you can help your channel a lot by making this into a regular step in your process. 

There are all sorts of useful things you can attach to your post-stream process, and they don’t always have to be related to the episode you just finished. You could say that you’ll make one small fix to your stream each time you end a show. Or you might want to make one new Instagram post after each episode. You can even use this habit as an excuse to start another habit, like going for a quick run after each episode, or doing some pushups. But no matter what you add to your routine, I’d be surprised if you didn’t see positive results pretty soon after enacting this kind of organizational technique. So give it a try. With a solid pre-stream and post-stream process, you’ll go far on Twitch.

Streaming as a Solo Traveler

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 207 - Streaming as a Solo Traveler

As we all head toward the new year, you may be planning to take some big trips sometime in the next twelve months. You might be going out of state, out of country, or out of continent. You could be visiting someone, embarking on a cruise, or buying a package tour. Your interests may vary, from museums to scenery to local cuisine. Your group of companions may be large or small. No matter what configuration your trip takes, I’m sure you’re going to have a great time. In past entries like How to Stream While Traveling Anywhere I’ve talked about going live while traveling with someone else. In ones like Travel with an IRL Streaming Backpack I’ve covered the various tech options available, and in the entry Streaming from Japan I covered my specific anecdotes as a Twitch streamer in Tokyo. This time, I want to further explore a particular type of trip that I’ve recently come to love: solo travel. And furthermore, we’ll explore how I take advantage of this method's strengths for my Twitch streams. 

➢ GOING WITH NO PLAN

This year, I’ve been incredibly lucky to have taken three separate trips outside the US, first going to Athens, Greece and then going to Tokyo, Japan twice. I approached all three of these in the same way: simply arriving in one single city and existing. I didn’t plan to go to any other parts of the countries I was in, despite both locations having numerous gorgeous locales outside their capitals rich in history and culture. I didn’t even look at where others would recommend to visit in those cities, other than a few cursory glances. I’d just get a small local hotel room near the center of town (or near a train line) and figure out what to do as I went along. 

As a solo traveler, you can spend as 
much time as you want, doing what 
you want to do.

I realize that this particular method of travel is a major turn-off for many. Lots of us reason that since we only plan to visit wherever we’re going once in our lives, we’d prefer to see everything we can see in a single whirlwind trip. I certainly understand the logic, and I’ve had plenty of amazing trips of that style as well, but there are some distinct advantages to my kind of unplanned traveling. The biggest benefit is also the simplest: when you have no plan, you’re open to many more things. In Greece I found out from locals about events, landmarks and interesting parts of town that easily became my evening or next day’s objective. In Japan, being able to speak the language I was able to get even more spontaneous. I took someone I met in a bar to their first maid cafe, I went to karaoke with a fellow lover of movie musicals, and met friends on the first trip who invited me to events on the second trip. Since there was never anything on my schedule, there were no limits to what I was available to do on a moment’s notice. 

A fear of missing things can always creep up when on vacation to another country. If I’m in Greece, can I really miss out on the amazing history of Crete or the beauty of Santorini? In Japan, do I not care about seeing Mount Fuji or visiting a hot spring? I combat this anxiety however, by simply telling myself that the trip I’m on is only the first trip, not the only one. With Japan, this ended up coming true even within the same year. Greece is less likely on that front, but even if I never came back I’d be more than satisfied with the experience I had. I saw so many amazing things, and I found a lot of places I wouldn’t have found if I were rushing from bullet point to bullet point. 

➢ SOLO TRAVEL STREAMING

My trip to the Mall of America was 
pretty much like this, but with 
fewer zombies.

As a Twitch streamer, it can be very uncomfortable to go live when others are with you, if they aren’t a part of the shows you make. Depending on who your traveling companions are, this may even make you uncomfortable enough not to want to go live at all. Having traveling companions who all have their own interests and desired destinations can also make it difficult to decide what to do and where to go. This can create a lot of tension and indecision among the group, and by the time you’re on the way to wherever you’re going there might not really be enough time for a broadcast. Conversely, as a solo traveler you’re given complete freedom in when you go live, where you want to go and what you want to do. The trip is completely yours, and you can take as much time as you need to fiddle with your stream (something that can be awkward when others are with you and don’t want to wait), talk to chat (outright rude when you’re with a group and having a separate conversation with virtual people they can’t see), and do whatever kinds of show-hosting activities you like to do on stream. 

Interestingly, as I continued making these kinds of shows on my trips this past year, I came to the realization that I conduct my solo travel streams in much the same way that I play singleplayer video games. In an open world game like GTA, Elden Ring or Spider-Man, I’m often more interested in pursuing side quests, appreciating artwork, and reading random text entries that I find than I am in accomplishing the actual objective. My style of solo travel streams allow me the same level of independence and exploration, and that’s why I find them so fulfilling. 

➢ THE OPEN WORLD

Of course, when traveling alone it’s important to be extra careful. Make sure you know how to call the local police, and take a look online at which parts of town you should avoid. Like with any travel experience, it’s also important to pay attention to how you handle your money, and where you keep your money. Pickpockets and scams are common in pretty much all tourist destinations, and you can find out about some of the biggest issues wherever you’re going with a quick online search. I like to keep a bit of ‘emergency money’ in different places. Most stays in my wallet, but I keep a bit of cash in my streaming backpack, and a bit more cash, along with one of my credit cards, in my hotel room, just in case. That way, if something does happen to my wallet, or even to the bag I’m carrying, I’ll at least have something. 

As long as you’re paying attention and using common sense, you’ll be fine. Travel is such a rewarding experience, because you really gain perspective about how other people live. Especially after going outside the country, you may even end up reconsidering what you think of as ‘normal’ when back home. Most of the tips in this entry have been specific to my preferred method of solo travel as a Twitch streamer. But again, no matter how you like to take your trips, or whether you stream while taking them, you’re going to have a great time. There’s a whole world out there to explore. Go out and make some unforgettable memories! 

Read Between the Lines of Your Twitch Chat

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 205 - Read Between the Lines of Your Twitch Chat

Comments from viewers are a big part of the Twitch streaming experience. In the entry Up Your Showmanship on Stream, I spoke about how you can always give a dynamic response to even the least dynamic chat messages. This is a subject worth exploring a bit more, however. Many streamers take chat messages too literally in my opinion. Just because the question someone asked only really warrants a one-word answer doesn’t mean your answer actually has to be one word. It’s your stream, and you can talk about whatever you want. This person’s question is merely a jumping-off point for whatever you want to talk about. In my view, questions on a livestream aren’t really meant to be taken literally, but rather as a suggestion for larger conversations. In this entry, we’ll look into how you can read between the lines of your Twitch chat.

Many people aren’t naturally very talkative, and this applies to Twitch chat as well. Sometimes they can’t express what they really mean. I often try to see the intention behind whatever the person said, and instead of responding to the question they asked, I respond to the question they wish they asked. Even if someone asks what you think of as a stupid question, it’s always within your power to lift them up, instead of pointing out their question’s flaw and knocking them down. The entry How to Flesh Out Stream Ideas touched on how standup comedians use the philosophy of ‘Yes, and…’ to ensure they’re always building on the jokes of others, rather than shooting down ideas. This is a hugely helpful mindset when dealing with comments on a Twitch stream. 

➢ SPINNING NEGATIVITY

I got a lot of hate when playing 
this one. 

In the past, when I used to work for another company and each broadcast would have anywhere from 100 to 1,000 concurrent viewers, the comments would fly very quickly, and they weren’t always very nice. From early on however, I decided that I would try not to shut down even the nasty remarks. I was trying to help grow the company’s brand, and I wanted to ensure that everyone felt like a part of the show. I also knew that when people say mean things, they aren’t necessarily mean people at heart. So I’d take a comment in which someone said, “You’re horrible at this game. Please stop trying,” and instead of reading the comment word for word, I’d say something like, “[viewer username] sees room for improvement in my playstyle. Definitely let me know if you have any tips!” Not with irony or condescension, but with real genuine interest.

For some reason, people would also get really mad that I had a job where I played video games for a living. They’d say, “This guy is terrible. He’s so annoying. Why did [company] ever pick him to do these videos?” and several much more vitriolic versions of the same idea. This of course hurts to hear, but I’d try to take it in stride. I recognized that these comments often had a deeper unspoken meaning, and I’d respond with something like, “[viewer username] has a great point, I’m lucky enough to get to do what I love each day and get paid to do it!” And then I’d go into a story about how I was able to build a body of work and get hired by a company to make these kinds of videos. I’d give tips for other viewers who might want to start a career doing the same thing. I wouldn’t brag, preach or put down the original commenter, but would actually thank them for bringing up such a helpful subject. 

➢ SPREADING POSTIVITY

These kinds of responses would usually have one of two effects. First, they would often get the original commenter to turn their attitude around. Many people on the internet don’t really consider the consequences of what they say, because they feel anonymous. But when you put their comment in the limelight and give them a bit of attention, they quickly realize that they’re having an effect. Believing the best in someone is also a strong motivator for change. Notice that in the above examples, even though the original comments were pretty mean, I wouldn’t treat the commenter like a mean person. Rather, I treat them as someone nice who maybe asked a question they didn’t intend to be hurtful. I ask the question hidden within their question, rather than the question itself. And psychologically, if others see the good in us, we want to meet those expectations. This causes the chatter to come around, start posting other more positive comments, and sometimes even apologize, even though I never said they did anything wrong. 

Paint the chat however you want. 

The second effect of this kind of response is sometimes even more important than the first. Because of the way I phrase my answer, the chat becomes flooded with a higher volume of positive comments than negative. In the first example, I asked for the commenter’s tips for the game. This often gets other viewers talking about their own strategies, in addition to the person I asked, and populates the chat with more constructive comments. In the second example, by talking about my own tips and tricks for becoming a professional livestream producer and video host, people are more interested in asking about how to get into that world themselves. People in the chat are suddenly engaged in talking about something far more interesting, and might even begin to police themselves. If the original commenter persists in being negative, other chatters (who are now more interested in the new topic than the previous negative one) would actually ask the negative person to stop. By creating a topic where positivity is more engaging than negativity, you’re turning that negative person into a minority within the chat. And it’s much more difficult for that negativity to gain a foothold when nobody else is on their side. 

The way you respond to a comment is kind of like planting a seed. If your most recent response is negative or dismissive, negativity is going to grow. But if you plant the seeds for interesting conversations, you’ll soon see the positive effects of that choice.  

➢ POSSIBLE AT ANY SIZE

Since starting my own personal Twitch channel, these kinds of mean comments very seldom come in anymore. The amount of viewers and chatters is much smaller, and I don’t really have to go out of my way to please everyone watching either. But the same principles often come in handy for me, even at a smaller scale. Whether someone asks a question that only really requires a one-word answer, or they make some unintentionally cruel remark like ‘You look/sound really tired,’ I’m always able to spin it into something more interesting. Don’t forget however, that just because something can be spun into a better topic, doesn’t mean that you have to spin it, or deal with it at all. I put up with a lot when I was working at that high level of streaming, and I found ways to make the job easier to take. But that kind of constant negative bombardment still takes its toll, even if you spin it to make the show itself better. In my personal streams, I don’t care as much whether every single chatter stays around. If someone is being intentionally mean, I will often timeout or ban them. Like I mention often throughout this podcast, stay true to the priorities of whatever kind of show you’re trying to make. And if you want to raise engagement on your streams, try keeping this subject in mind. It’s always better to read between the lines of your chat. 

Streaming from Japan

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 204 - Streaming from Japan

A few days ago, I arrived back in the US from Tokyo. Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Nick, weren’t you just in Japan?” You’d be right! I took a short trip two months ago, and then came back again last month for another 18-day stay. Once you’ve been there, it’s a hard place to stay away from! I’ve been to Japan five times now. I wouldn’t say I’m an expert on the country by any means, but I’ve been there often enough to have a general idea of what’s right and wrong, and I can speak the language well enough at this point to avoid most major snafus. On top of that, I have the somewhat specialized distinction of having livestreamed regularly from Japan on three different trips. In this entry, I’m going to share some of my thoughts and experiences as an American in Japan, both as a Twitch streamer and as a traveler in general. If you’re planning a trip of your own, hopefully this will help you to avoid some of the larger sticking points for foreigners. 

➢ FILM RESPONSIBLY

Japan is one of the tech capitals of the world. When you’re there, you’ll see things that westerners could only dream about. But just because the country in general is responsible for much of the modern world of electronics and video games doesn’t mean that everyone there is comfortable with technology being in their face. As a Twitch streamer creating IRL content in a foreign country, it’s always important to be extra-sensitive to what may or may not be appropriate. Of the kinds of places I’d frequent, there are three locations that are off-limits for filming: bars, arcades and trains. The idea of not filming in bars you can probably understand without me explaining it to you. Arcades however, are probably a bit more of a surprise. Or at least they were to me. I’m not entirely sure about the cultural paradigm here, but it’s generally considered very bad form to film (or even take photos sometimes) in a Japanese arcade. Trains are a pretty obvious one as well. Someone else doesn’t want to be face-to-face with a random livestreamer while trapped in close-quarters on a train. It’s also useful to keep in mind that you’re not really supposed to talk at all on a Japanese train. So depending on what kind of stream you do, you probably wouldn’t want to stream on a train anyway. Having said all this, I’ve filmed in all three locations at different times, keeping in mind basic manners. It helps to know the language in this regard. I’ve gotten permission on entering an empty bar to film myself, I’ve asked arcade employees about shooting video of the game I was playing, and I’ve gotten onto mostly empty trains to point my camera out the window the whole trip. Use common sense and you’ll probably be fine. 

Try to stick out as little as possible.

Like with any IRL streaming setup, the quality of your final video isn’t the only important thing to consider. Your crazy camera rig with numerous massive accessories may create a brilliant looking broadcast, but it’s also likely cumbersome to carry around, and hard to blend in with. People are going to stay away from you, shops will turn you away, and you’ll get exhausted faster lugging everything around. Put simply, the larger your streaming rig, the fewer authentic experiences you’ll be able to have. If you’re planning to build a streaming backpack from scratch, or if you’re thinking of paring down an existing setup, I’d recommend sacrificing small amounts of quality for large amounts of convenience. The less intrusive you can be, the better. In the entry Travel with an IRL Streaming Backpack, I spoke about the various options you have in that department. 

Finally, it’s not guaranteed that you’ll even be able to stream from the room you’re staying in. The walls in an average Japanese residence are very thin. I’ve stayed in Japanese AirBnBs where you could hear the person sneeze in the room next to you. This meant I had to adjust the way I did my daily morning Duolingo shows, so I wouldn’t disturb everyone around me. If some part of your content requires streaming from your room, keep in mind that you may need to adjust your shows as well. 

➢ NUTS AND BOLTS

On the tech side, there are a few things to be aware of. You thankfully don’t need an adapter to plug your electronics into the wall sockets in Japan like you would in Europe, but they don’t use grounded (three-pronged) power cables over there. Make sure you’re using a two-pronged cable for whatever you use. I personally recommend getting a two-prong power strip with several ports in it. Then you can plug in whatever electronics you have without having to worry. 

One very specific technical thing I’ve noticed is that you might get a strange flickering effect while filming IRL video content in Japan. It took me a while to realize what this was, but I eventually found out it was because the fluorescent bulbs in Japan operate at a different frequency than in the USA. For anyone old enough to have been filming video in the era of CRT tube televisions, this is similar to the effect you’d get when trying to shoot video of a TV screen. Unless your shutter speed was at an exact setting, you’d get a very undesirable-looking static effect. The solution for Japan, as I found out, was to set the shutter speed in my camera to 50, rather than 60. This may already be the default depending on where you live, but it’s useful to keep in mind either way. 

➢ TRAVEL WELL

I have a few general travel tips for Japan as well, which have helped me to have progressively more interesting experiences during my time there. First, give yourself chances to explore. Instead of booking a whirlwind trip where you only see the most popular checklist items every day, build a few days into your vacation when you can simply get lost. I grew to like those parts of my stays so much that I’ve recently ended up doing entire trips that way. For my two Japan visits this year, I spent over three combined weeks just in Tokyo, by myself, without a single plan for where to go, what to do, or having looked up anything at all. I’d just pick a direction to walk every day and find places, people and food along the way. Like when playing an open-world game, sometimes the most interesting experiences on a foreign vacation are what you do between your big plans. 

Every street and alley has amazing 
places just waiting to be found.

Second, for food I recommend trying to go to small shops rather than restaurants. Get a feel for what’s popular in whichever part of the country you’re in, and try not to lean too hard into your own preconceived notions of what Japanese food looks like. For example, many friends and relatives are surprised that I almost never eat sushi in Japan, but in the parts of Tokyo I frequent that’s not such a common food. Many dishes that westerners think of as Japanese are not as popular over there as you might expect. Ask waiters what they’d recommend, try going outside your comfort zone, and experiment. You’ll find plenty of amazing foods you’ve probably never heard of that are hugely popular among Japanese locals. Not many Americans would think of barbecue skewers or fried chicken as Japanese specialties, but in my experience these are more prevalent than any other type of food I’ve seen in the major parts of Tokyo. 

Finally, and most importantly, don’t impose your own values on the country you’re traveling to. This applies to Twitch streaming as well as general traveling. Americans tend to do a lot of complaining, and we’ve built a reputation in Japan especially for causing scenes. The cultural difference plus the language barrier essentially makes Americans into ticking time bombs of cultural faux-pas, and many Japanese businesses aren’t equipped to deal with it. Unless you speak the language, you might even get an instant refusal upon stepping through the door. I can’t say I blame them either. As an American myself, I can attest that we’re pretty annoying. I’ve watched with embarrassment as other Americans drunkenly stumbled into a peaceful little Japanese bar, or argued with a small shop’s owner-operator about something wrong with their order. If you’re going to Japan, try to let the culture sink into you, without forcing your own culture onto them. My personal trick before I could understand the language was to simply assume I was wrong in every scenario, and never complain. Even asking questions often makes Japanese people flustered, because they’ll typically assume you’re complaining in a way they can’t understand. Just try to internalize whatever happened and not do it next time. Travel like that and you’ll have a much smoother experience.

Japan is an incredible country, and if you’re planning a trip there you’re going to have an amazing time. There’s so much to see and do, I’m sure you’ll feel the same itch I always do upon getting home, that you need to go back. As an American however, I’ve done my best to respect the cultural differences and avoid becoming a nuisance. And that goes double as a Twitch streamer. Despite making some embarrassing blunders at first, I’ve since carved out a pretty solid set of guiding principles while streaming in Japan. If you’re hoping to stream during your time as well, or even just to enhance your travel experience, I hope these tips can help your trip go that much smoother. 

Choosing Communication Methods on Stream

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 182 - Choosing Communication Methods on Stream

There are several ways to communicate the same point to your viewers on a livestream. No method is inherently wrong or right, but it’s more about what you want to get across with the method itself. In this entry we’ll explore a few different styles I’ve used on my stream over the years to communicate the same specific rule, and how each has helped in its own way. 

➢ PLAYING ON YOUR OWN TERMS

To set the scene, let’s talk about the rule I was trying to set up, and why I needed it. As I’ve mentioned in previous Twitch Playbook entries, I like to play games without hearing spoilers. But that description is a bit of an oversimplification, which I’ve used for the sake of writing these entries more clearly. In reality, I like to know literally nothing when going into a game. I don’t look at trailers or screenshots, I don’t watch other streams of the game, and I don’t read anything about it. I enter with as few pre-existing notions of what to expect as possible, and I like to preserve that ignorance throughout the time I play the game. In my opinion, this makes the playthrough more exciting. I may miss an entire section of an open world game if I’m not paying attention, and I could lose my favorite character in an RPG because I didn’t know what was best to do to prevent that outcome. Because my play habits for a game will form essentially in a vacuum, it can make a playthrough much more unique. In 2018, there was a popular story about how the Twitch streamer negaoryx played The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for 95 hours, beating most of the major bosses, before ever finding the tutorial and learning to do certain basic moves. This is the kind of thing that can’t happen when you’re receiving help, and it’s the type of thing I aspire to in any playthrough of a game. 

Now, there’s not really a tag on Twitch, or a pre-existing term in existence, to describe this specific kind of playthrough. Most people would hear about the way I like to play and equate it to the closest concept they’ve heard of before: no spoilers. And that’s true, I don’t want to know what’s coming up in the story. But the term ‘spoiler’ is very limited in scope. I also don’t want to hear anyone’s tips for how to get through an area, or hear what weapon they think is best, or even know what kind of choices they made for their own character. All of those things would seem to be okay if someone thinks that I want to play without spoilers, and it’s understandable if they make the mistake. But I needed a better means of communication for my own streams. 

The Souls games have a great community,
but it's not so great for the way I like to
play video games.

There are certain kinds of games where people are much more likely to come in and tell me things, and it can become a big problem. FromSoftware titles for example (Dark Souls, Demon’s Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro, and most recently, Elden Ring) have the largest and most aggressive community of people entering a stream and offering unsolicited advice. I guess it’s because those games are so difficult that many people who have finished the game just take it for granted that other players will want any tips they can get. Certain Twitch tags, like ‘First Playthrough’ or ‘No Spoilers’ only attract this kind of attention even more, like throwing chum into shark-infested waters. Some streamers I know, who play games the same way I do, actually refuse to stream FromSoftware games, because it’s nearly impossible to prevent the game’s community from constantly trying to influence the experience. I adore those games too much not to play them on stream, and have gone through many methods to try to communicate my channel’s rules in the past few years. Some with more success than others. Below are a few of the communication methods I’ve tried, along with the pros and cons of each. 

➢ ALTERNATE PATHWAYS

The first, and clearest, way to communicate anything is to simply tell it to someone. This involves verbally saying what you’re trying to say to the chatter in question, and explaining what you’re trying to get across. Assuming you’re being nice about it, this way is most likely to get them to understand your meaning, and it’s least likely to offend them. However, this doesn’t necessarily work at scale. When I play a Dark Souls game for example, someone like this comes in several times every episode, and having to intricately explain the rules every single time someone breaks them can get old very quickly. Plus, this method also requires that the person break the rules before you explain them. Depending on the rule itself, you may not want to wait. 

Second, you can use your preferred chatbot software to set up a command explaining the rule. This would merely require that you or a moderator enter the command in your chat, and then the new viewer would be able to read it for themselves. This saves you the trouble of having to explain the rule every time you want to communicate it, but it also feels less personal. Depending on the chatter, they might even feel like they’re being singled out and attacked. For this reason, you’ll want to use rules commands delicately. 

The unsolicited tips got so bad while I was 
playing Bloodborne that the auto-responses 
were going off all the time.

Third, certain chatbot software can actually auto-respond to flagged terms and instantly spit out a message of your choosing. So in my case, I noticed that if someone heard my rules and responded with, “Got it. I won’t say any spoilers,” that usually meant they were still likely to break my rules, because they thought I was only asking them not to post spoilers. So at one point I had the word ‘spoiler’ and all its variations flagged, which would spit out a “It sounds like you read our rules and thought we’re only asking for no spoilers” message, which would then further explain the rules to anyone who said the offending word. This got messy really quickly, and didn’t make people feel very welcome. I don’t recommend it for arbitrary rules like mine, but you could certainly imagine this method being very useful to auto-ban anyone who says actual bad or hurtful words. 

In addition, you can set up a message for anyone who joins your chat, which they have to agree to before entering. This is usually just white noise to a Twitch viewer, and I don’t think people read them very often, but it may help in certain cases. On top of that, there are tags you can set, which I find are most useful when helping people find a community of like-minded people, rather than telling them what not to do. 

➢ MY CURRENT STYLE

Luckily, the number of people entering my chat just to tell me how to play Elden Ring this year has been much smaller than the amount of chatters who would do the same when I played Bloodborne or Dark Souls a few years back. The way I communicate my rules has changed accordingly. When I was playing Bloodborne and new viewers would almost vindictively come in every few minutes trying to tell me their protips, I had all the strictest tools in place. The automod would instantly warn them if they talked about spoilers, and my human moderators would often have to time out and ban repeat offenders. 

These days, there’s a simple message for anyone who enters my chat, which says, “Hello! I like to play games and know absolutely nothing about them. Here, the only thing we DON'T talk about in chat is the game itself.” I figure this pretty much covers all the bases. When someone does come through and offer help, I try to be diplomatic. Even though they’re breaking my own rules, I thank them for their enthusiasm, and explain calmly about how I like to play without knowing anything. I also tell them I’m aware that’s not how everyone streams, and I know it’s not how everyone likes to watch streams, so I understand if that’s not their thing. However, if they do choose to stick around, I’d love to get to know them. This usually gets its point across, and using this method I’ve found a much higher rate of people who initially came in to offer help actually staying to join the show. When someone does try to offer help even after the explanation, that’s when I’ll post the chatbot message explaining the rules (and the consequences for breaking them again) more fully. Typically, when someone sees this after we’ve explained the rules, they understand where we’re coming from. Plus, seeing there’s a whole command for that specific scenario, they realize how big a problem it must be for us, and they join the chat normally.  

I’ve worked hard to come up with clear communication about my channel’s particular playthrough rules. Even now it’s still not perfect, but I’m proud of its evolution. You may not have the same interest in playing games without getting advice on your own streams, but consider anything you’ve struggled to communicate on your channel. How can the various communication methods I’ve mentioned help you in getting your point across? Are there scenarios where you could do more personal one-on-one explaining, or are there some things that would benefit from the colder strictness of a chat command? No matter what you choose to do, remember that there isn’t just one way to communicate the same idea on stream. You could be just a few revisions away from perfection. 

Archiving Your Twitch Streams

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 179 - Archiving Your Twitch Streams

In the entry Using YouTube as a Twitch Streamer, I spoke about how to get the most out of YouTube as a satellite platform to support your streams. There, I discussed several ideas for Affiliates or Partners, as well as a few extras for those who haven’t signed a contract with Twitch. But as I mentioned in that episode, my personal favorite use for YouTube is as a permanent stream archive. Any Twitch streamer can do this, regardless of Affiliate status, and it can be very useful in several ways. In this entry I’m going to cover the reasons I love archiving my streams, and take you through the various methods I tried when perfecting my workflow. 

➢ SAVING YOUR SHOWS

So first of all, what are stream archives good for? Right off the bat, as you’ll know if you’ve been following The Twitch Playbook, I’m a big fan of watching old episodes to keep track of progress. And while it’s possible for a Twitch channel to save past broadcasts, they don’t get saved forever. They’ll stick around for a maximum of two months, possibly shorter depending on your channel, and after that they’re gone. I like to have my oldest streams around, just in case I want to watch them again later for some reason. I’ve found a lot of use from periodically revisiting episodes from a long time ago. Sometimes I can simply reassure myself how much better I’ve gotten, but other times I use those old shows to remind myself of a great feature I used to have, and possibly inspire something to implement on my current channel. 

For my kind of content, it's nice to have a
library of videos that viewers can browse.

Second, viewers can watch your archived streams. Based on the kind of content you make, the usefulness of this will vary. On my shows, since I play through singleplayer games and focus on the plot, viewers often like to catch up with the story’s progress by watching old episodes between streams. If I start on a sequel for example, the previous game may have appeared on my channel six months ago, and the stream wouldn’t stay on Twitch as a past broadcast for that long. Having an archive can be really useful for that. If you mostly do competitive games, entire stream archives won’t be as useful for viewers to watch in order to catch up with your streams, but they can be great to have in case you ever want to make compilation videos or track the improvement of your skills. Artists and musicians can find a similar use for this feature, being able to make timelapses or other clips from old paintings or performances without worrying about whether they’ll expire. 

And why put them on YouTube rather than Twitch? There are good arguments to be made for keeping your content stored on either platform. For me, YouTube is cleaner. There are better tools for sorting your content, editing after the fact, and adding descriptions, links and other information. Even though it’s nice to have everything all in one place on a Twitch channel, I personally think it’s better not to have my Twitch page cluttered with highlights alongside each stream. Plus, the way I archive to YouTube, the whole process is much more automated. 

➢ AUTOMATING THE ARCHIVES

Sometimes you need to let the machines
do the heavy lifting so you can focus
on more important things.

If you think about the amount of content I produce (now over 6,000 videos since starting my channel!), you could imagine it getting prohibitively time-consuming pretty quickly if I wanted to archive all my shows manually. For that reason, I worked hard to get all my episodes to YouTube in a way that requires the least input on my side, while still allowing the shows to be nicely formatted, well-organized, and uploaded in a timely manner. In order to reach that goal, I explored several different options: 

1. Saving Locally - In streaming software like OBS, it’s possible to actually save a video of your stream to your computer while it’s broadcasting. This is technically the safest option for archiving, because if you have network issues during the show, all the content is still there in the local video file. However, this was overkill for my purposes, and the added time of uploading each file later would have taken too long.
   
   

2. Highlighting on Twitch - As I mentioned before, you can actually make a Twitch highlight of a full stream, which will save it forever on your channel. But Twitch doesn’t have a great way to display large amounts of playlists, and there aren’t many good organization features for viewers looking through hundreds or thousands of old episodes.
   
   

3. Download and Save - If you don’t want to save files locally while streaming, you could always download the stream from Twitch after it’s over, then post it on YouTube. This takes a lot of time however, and unlike the local saves, it will still show any network issues in the video you get from it.
   
   

4. Video Export - As I mentioned in previous entries, you can actually click the ‘Export’ button on any stream in the Creator Dashboard, and Twitch will send it to your linked YouTube channel. This works well, but it takes time to encode and send to YouTube, and I personally don’t like having to remember to click that button after each stream.
   
   

5. Multistreaming in Software - Within streaming software like Streamlabs OBS, you can actually go live to two platforms at once, right from the app. This only requires linking the two accounts (in my case, Twitch and YouTube) and hitting the Go Live button. It’s even possible to set the YouTube broadcast to private if you’re Affiliate, so it doesn’t break the 24-hour exclusivity clause in the Twitch contract. However, this doesn’t account for when you’re streaming outside of the software. And that’s what led me to my current method.
   
   

6. Multistreaming with an Intermediate API - The solution I finally arrived at was to use the free intermediate service Restream, which would send my broadcast to Twitch and YouTube from its side. Now, you might think this sounds like it serves the same function as multistreaming from Streamlabs OBS, but it has one big bonus: my show gets archived, no matter what device I stream from. So whether I go live from my games PC, do a quick show from my phone, make art while capturing my iPad screen, or broadcast from an IRL streaming backpack, they all simply send the signal to Restream, and Restream does the work of sending the show to Twitch and YouTube. No need to set up all the specific settings on each device before I go live.

Depending on the setup of your channel, you may not need to use the same workflow I use. Even the options that were imperfect for my own streams might be what works for yours. If you want to archive your shows, make sure to consider what you actually need, and tailor your choices to those criteria. Just like I did when coming up with my solution. But no matter what kind of content you make, I think you’ll find some use from having your old streams around. Whether you curate them for others to watch, or you just keep them private to watch on your own and make videos from, consider archiving the streams you make on Twitch.