Streaming with Heart

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 201 - Streaming with Heart

When you’re streaming, are you using all the parts of your brain? As streamers, we can sometimes get set into an overly limited mindset, where we focus too much on certain problem solving methods, and ignore all the great solutions and ideas that are floating just outside the borders of the ordinary. If we want to be really effective in our pursuits, we should try to get to the core of whatever we’re facing- whether that’s a tech issue or an overall gameplan for our channels- and approach the issue with new inspiration. I call this ‘streaming with heart.’ 

➢ CREATIVE PROBLEMS

Streaming with heart can help you with any kind of problem, but creativity is where it’s going to shine most. If you need to come up with an identity for your channel, or you want to decide how to best conduct yourself on stream, it always helps to look inwards. In beginner-focused entries like Three Steps to Start Streaming, as well as more intermediate or advanced-focused entries like How to Use Your Influences for Streaming, I’ve spoken on the importance of utilizing the things that are important to you when building your brand. Whether you’re passionate about cars, dancing, or solving Rubik’s Cubes, incorporating those things into your broadcasts will not only make your channel stand out more to viewers, but it will make you more excited to produce the shows.  

Tolkien made sure his languages were 
supported by a world, not the 
other way around.

It may not come as a surprise to many who have read his works, but J.R.R. Tolkien was a very accomplished linguist. In addition to speaking dozens of languages himself, he also loved to invent languages from scratch. His world of Middle-earth is full of them- elves, dwarves, orcs, even different factions of men like the Rohirrim have their own fully fleshed-out tongues. And though many readers may assume that these languages were created in order to better serve the stories in which they appeared, in fact the opposite is true. Tolkien was quoted as having this to say about his passion for words: “what I think is a primary 'fact' about my work, that it is all of a piece, and fundamentally linguistic in inspiration. ... It is not a 'hobby', in the sense of something quite different from one's work, taken up as a relief-outlet. The invention of languages is the foundation. The 'stories' were made rather to provide a world for the languages than the reverse. To me a name comes first and the story follows.” 

To give you a reference point, Tolkien first started constructing one of his Elvish languages around 1911. He didn’t even start writing The Hobbit until the 1930’s, and of course The Lord of the Rings was even later than that. For J.R.R. Tolkien, one of the most famous writers of all time, his books were almost a sideshow, something to show off his real passion for invented language. Would The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit still be great stories without all the languages? Arguably they would. But would the writer have been as inspired to bring those stories to life in the first place, without his passion for language driving him to do so? Almost certainly not. By utilizing his ultimate passion in his writing, Tolkien was able to give his works a place among the all-time greats. 

➢ PRACTICAL PROBLEMS

Historically, the Greeks were responsible 
for solving many of the world's
toughest brain-teasers.

You can solve more mundane problems with a similar mindset. But instead of looking deep down to bring your passions into your streams, you’d be looking deep down at the root of an issue and coming up with an inspired solution. If 99 other people saw the same problem, they may not have come up with the same fix that you did, but as long as it works for you, that’s all that matters. In the entry Keep Your Twitch Goals in Sight, I told the story of Alexander the Great and the Gordian Knot. An oracle had foretold that anyone who could untie this incredibly complex knot would become the ruler of all Asia. Many men tried and failed over the years, and it was deemed impossible. Until Alexander came, cut straight through the knot with his sword, and fulfilled the prophecy. 

In the world of music, drummers will sometimes wear headphones in order to hear a recorded track while playing, so they can keep time for the rest of the band. Keith Moon, drummer of the rock band The Who, used to take this concept even further. His animated performing style would mean he was essentially putting his whole body into playing the drums, and in order to keep the headphones from falling off, he would duct-tape them to his head! Not the most elegant solution, but it worked for what he needed. 

➢ ANY KIND OF PROBLEM

In countless entries across The Twitch Playbook, I’ve outlined the various small and large solutions I’ve reached for problems across my streams. Whether I was recording my screen with a camera before being able to capture directly from an iPad, or lighting my streams with ordinary house lamps clothespinned with diffusion paper, I try to keep my solutions as simple to use as possible. Is it ugly? Maybe. But it works. When looking to solve your own stream problems or come up with creative overhauls, don’t look for ultra-specificity in your inspiration for fixes. For example, most of the things I did on my streams aren't going to apply directly to yours. But if you look deeper than that, into the core of the issue, you'll always find something. I often use examples from fields other than streaming in this podcast, to remind us that problem solving is universal. It’s not about the solution, but rather the mindset that led to the solution. If you can cultivate a problem-solving mind, the problem doesn’t matter. Creative or technical, big or small, you’ll be able to solve it. That’s what it means to steam with heart. 

Customizing an IRL Streaming Backpack

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 199 - Customizing an IRL Streaming Backpack

In past entries, I’ve gone into my process and mindset for travel streaming. Being able to go to interesting places around the world has always been a dream of mine, and now that I create Twitch broadcasts, I’m able to share that dream with my audience. In the entry Travel with an IRL Streaming Backpack, I went into the specific options someone can choose if they want dedicated equipment for IRL streaming while they travel, and I also detailed the specific kind of backpack I made for my own adventures. 

I built my streaming backpack about five months ago, in preparation for my trip to Greece, and even in that short amount of time I’ve gotten a huge amount of use from this new streaming accessory. As I always talk about in The Twitch Playbook, experience is the best teacher, and I try to stay open-minded about where my experiences can guide various tweaks to my equipment. Each time I’ve gone live with my streaming backpack, I’ve come up with new quality-of-life improvements. These things are the lifeblood of a healthy stream- not huge purchases, but inexpensive (or even free) alterations to what you’ve already been working with. In this entry, we’ll go through some of the broadcasts I’ve done with my streaming backpack, and what alterations I’ve made because of them. 

First off, remember that you don’t need an IRL streaming backpack to do IRL streams. If you’ve never done a show like this before, try going live using the (completely free) smartphone streaming options I talked about in the entry Streaming from Your Mobile Device. But whether or not you own a streaming backpack, or even do IRL streams at all, my various tweaks in this entry can still help your own shows, if you pay attention to the underlying logic. 

➢ GOING TO GREECE

I first decided to build a streaming backpack when I was about a month out from a trip to Greece. I knew I wanted to go live from my vacation, but I didn’t want to keep paying to rent my equipment. And after I decided to build, I took the preparations very seriously. There wouldn’t be any phone support with the rental company this time, or any kind of guarantee. It was up to me, and only me, to make sure everything worked.

Greece was kind of like this, but with 
fewer clouds.

I tried to think of the practical uses of my backpack out in the field. What would cause the most friction? Where could I streamline the process? One immediate thing that stuck out to me was the issue of cables. In order to use a GoPro with my stream setup, I’d need to attach a USB-C cable for power, and a Mini HDMI cable for the video signal. Having two separate cables snaking around my body to plug into the backpack could easily get cumbersome. So I bought a length of sleeve that could wrap around the cables, essentially turning those two cables into one. I then measured the exact distance and position at which the two cables stood when plugged into the camera, and jury-rigged them together so I’d be basically plugging one large object into two ports. It worked perfectly, and saved me a lot of headache. 

The other major problem I foresaw was charging. There are four portable batteries in my streaming backpack, which power the various devices needed to make the stream work. Every night, I’d have to charge those batteries so they wouldn’t die while I streamed the next day. I got a cheap power adapter with four usb ports, along with four long USB charging cables. I then used a set of velcro ties to affix all the cables to each other, so they acted similarly to the wrapped camera cables. I left just enough space that I could break each of the four cables away and plug them into their respective devices. This saved a lot of time and headache in potentially having to deal with four separate charging plugs, figuring out where to plug them in, trying to untangle them, and any number of other issues. My configuration allowed them to act essentially as one cable with four heads, very compact and neat when stored, and long enough to reach even the furthest wall outlet. 

➢ AMERICAN ADVENTURES

Always love getting a chance to visit 
Liberty City.

The backpack worked perfectly in Greece, and my early modifications caught a few of the major potential problems before they had a chance to form. There were several smaller changes I made along the way as well, like stuffing a piece of cloth behind my camera mount to change its orientation, using a black bag to cover my lens while paying with a credit card, and taking advantage of screen sharing software to control my PC at home while going live. I was very satisfied with my performance with this backpack, and had really refined my technique throughout the streams overseas. At this point, the backpack had already paid for itself. Even if I never used it again, it had already cost less than the two-week price of an equivalent backpack at a rental company. So, I mostly expected to leave the backpack in a closet until my next big trip.

But then I had a realization: I’m always traveling for work, so why not bring my backpack along? I don’t typically have a lot of time in each location, but it couldn’t hurt to have just in case. So, after my Greece vacation I started bringing the streaming backpack as a carry-on for all of my flights around the US for business. And despite not often having a lot of downtime on business trips, I found that (with a little creative scheduling) I could make time for IRL shows every once in a while. The backpack uses prepaid SIM cards to go live. It’s easy to buy the dates for data coverage in advance when going on vacation, but not necessarily when you want to do an impromptu stream while away on business. For that reason, I would sometimes do my American episodes totally pre-recorded and non-live. But those ones were a lot of fun as well! Since starting to bring my streaming backpack with me on trips in the past few months, I’ve done episodes from Seattle, New York City, The Mall of America in Minnesota and more. One time I even caught a ghost on camera! (That one’s a long story- extreme sleep deprivation may or may not have been involved.) You never know what use you’ll get out of a tool like this, but simply having it around creates new opportunities for content creation. 

➢ BACK TO JAPAN

The optimization lessons I learned in Greece, plus the impromptu style of my American IRL backpack shows, really came together for my most recent trip. Last week, I returned from another trip to Tokyo, Japan. For anyone who doesn’t know, the entire country of Japan has been entirely closed to foreign travel for the past three years. So as soon as there was a rumor that they’d announce a reopening, I gambled on a flight and hotel room, in the hopes that the country would be open by the time I arrived. As it turned out, I got to Japan on the literal day that it reopened to foreigners. And I had my streaming backpack, with all the wisdom and customizations I’d learned on my previous trips, along with me. 

Footage of me in Tokyo.

This time in Japan, much of my IRL streaming experience felt like a well-oiled machine. I knew when to tilt the camera down while talking face-to-face with a shop employee or entering a bar. I was able to cover the lens efficiently when paying a bill with my credit card. Having more or less conversational Japanese skills at this point, I was also able to politely ask permission to broadcast from businesses, and was often granted access. My various IRL streaming experiences, along with the language abilities (another skill I learned thanks to Twitch streaming) really allowed me to be not just a better IRL streamer, but a better overall traveler. 

In Japan, I utilized my American pre-recorded episode ideas to optimize my shows even further. I streamed everywhere there was internet, but I also recorded each stream locally on the camera. Every morning, I uploaded the previous day’s local recordings to YouTube. This ensured that any part of my stream where the internet cut out would be restored for posterity. 

I also started doing a lot more first-person eating on my streams. In Tokyo, the average size of a noodle shop, or even a restaurant, is incredibly small by American standards. Often it’s no more than a set of stools at a bar, and a wall roughly twelve inches behind your back. Taking off my streaming backpack to set up a tripod for my camera while I ate, like in America or Greece, would be incredibly cumbersome in many of these Japanese locations (not to mention annoying to fellow customers). So instead, I’d simply keep my streaming backpack on my back, and point the shoulder-mounted camera down to look at my food while I ate. I could still talk into my mic and read chat, the only difference being that viewers didn’t see my face while I was eating. Ultimately, I think this gave an even more authentic feel to the broadcasts, because it showed viewers what it’s really like to eat in Japan. 

During this trip to Tokyo, just like my trip to Greece, along with every other day in the last four years, I didn’t miss a single one of my three daily livestreams. And every time I went live from my streaming backpack, it got a little easier. Not because of the equipment itself, but because of the critical thinking I employed while using that equipment. On my IRL streams, just like on my normal Twitch streams, I always try to stay inquisitive. I don’t just assume something is as good as it can be, I always look for a way to make it a little better, or a little easier to use. That philosophy has greatly helped me to customize my IRL streaming experience, and it’s helped me to become a better streamer in general. Even if you don’t do IRL streams on your own channel, I think this same inquisitive mindset can greatly help to boost your shows, either in front of or behind the camera. Small changes can make a big difference on a Twitch stream.

Get Your Foot in the Door: A Memoir

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 194 - Get Your Foot in the Door: A Memoir

Are you nervous to start on Twitch because you don’t feel prepared? Like there’s some secret ingredient you need if you want to be taken seriously as a streamer? Maybe you’ve been streaming, but you can’t quite get yourself to make the leap to another category or feature on your channel. This is a very common concern among creatives in many fields. However, I’ve found that for the projects and accomplishments I’ve completed throughout my lifetime, perseverance is always better than preparation. Someone with enough drive can usually find a way to make their dreams into reality. 

In previous entries, I’ve spoken about how I used to cover video games for a living. This time, I’ll go into more detail about how I made that dream real. Keep an eye on the challenges I faced in my own journey, and the creative ways I overcame them. Are there any places on your Twitch channel where this same kind of outside-the-box thinking might serve you too?

➢ BOY WITH A CAMERA

My first ever video game industry coverage took place at the PAX East convention in 2011. I was attending as a fan, but throughout my years of consuming video game coverage up to that point, I began to feel the allure of such a lifestyle. Why couldn’t I cover this amazing, ever-evolving industry? I was in college at that point, and had just switched my major from Fine Arts to Film & Television. I was a novice in every sense of the word, not knowing how to make professional-looking videos, conduct on-camera interviews or really do anything in-between. But I had the passion, and I figured that being in the thick of things at this huge convention center was as good a chance as any.

Bastion ended up being an incredible 
video game as well. 

I ran to every booth for a game I was interested in, trying to find someone in charge of granting interviews, and asked for a slot. I got a lot of ‘nos.’ But doing this, I quickly learned the law of the land: AAA games were very unlikely to grant me an audience of any kind. Glimpsing the clipboards and schedules of PR people I spoke to, I could see that their days were booked solid with appointments, and it became clear that these kinds of things were set up in advance of the convention. Smaller games however, would sometimes have a few openings, and after getting dozens of refusals I finally got to film a few interviews. I’ll never forget my first ever industry interview. I spoke to a very gracious Greg Kasavin, an idol of mine from his previous days working at video game news giant GameSpot, about the newest game he’d been working on, Bastion. I was over the moon after finishing this talk, and I was proud of the interview footage I got. After filming a few more discussions and of course getting plenty of extra footage of the convention, I went home ecstatic. I was still very far from my goal, but I had gotten a taste of what it must be like. As unofficial and unsanctioned as it was, this was the beginning of my career in the games industry. 

➢ BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

Upon getting back to school, I started a video game-themed show with some friends for the campus TV station. The fact that we already had on-camera interviews and footage from my time at PAX East helped us get a green-light from the TV station’s director of programming. For the next year I got my team into progressively larger video game events. We went to the launch of the Nintendo 3DS in Times Square, as well as the launch party for Gears of War 3. With my group of fellow filmmakers behind me, our content only got better. I don't think anyone ever actually watched that campus TV show, which was screened only around our school. But we all gained a lot of valuable experience. After leaving school, I continued the legacy of the show by turning it into a website. I was able to leverage the video packages we’d made from other events to get press badges for progressively larger conventions. As early as the next year, we were attending conventions as actual press, and I had even managed to get us into a few parties and behind-closed-doors game showcases. I remember eating hors d'oeuvres in a swanky Manhattan loft during a private reception for Square-Enix’s Rise of the Tomb Raider at New York Comic Con 2012, not quite believing how far I’d come in such a short time. 

Square Enix always had good events. 

Though it may seem like everything just sort of fell into place, in reality the journey was anything but easy. I had zero connections in the video games industry on starting, and I used every trick I could think of to dredge up contacts. At any convention or event where I’d been refused an interview, I always made sure to get the PR person’s business card. I’d make sure to send that person my team’s coverage of their game later, which often opened doors for me to set up appointments at the next exhibition or event. I also made friends with other journalists at the events I attended, who could sometimes help me get further access. There were still huge gaps in my list of contacts however, and where all traditional routes failed, I simply made things up as I went along. I would trawl the internet for hours each night, trying to find working email addresses for people with access to games I wanted to cover. I looked everywhere- on the game’s sites, the publisher’s LinkedIn, the PR firm’s roster, sometimes even just making my best guess at email addresses for people whose names I knew. (This last one, surprisingly, did work a few times!) Slowly, despite my complete lack of resources, connections, and know-how, I started to build up a small contact network for my budding little video game website. Even during this time, I don't think anyone really read my website or watched any of my videos. But once again, I was gaining extremely valuable experience over the course of these next few years.

➢ DON’T WAIT FOR THE RIGHT CONDITIONS

In the entry Stay Curious About Streaming, I described the next stage of my career, when I was hired by a major entertainment company to attend the industry’s biggest events around the globe and create content seen by tens of thousands of people every day. At this point, six years into my journey, I was being paid to do the exact thing I had set out to do back in PAX East 2011. But the early part of my video game industry career is still what I look on with the most fondness. This was a time when I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Everything I accomplished involved simply willing a solution into existence. There was no rulebook, I had no mentors in the industry, and I had no idea where the journey would take me. But I didn’t let my lack of experience or equipment bother me. I didn’t stress that I was doing all this while simultaneously going to college and working for a living. I had a dream and I followed it. That passion allowed me to push through a lot of personal boundaries and create something that I could really be proud of. 

My career making video games industry coverage, which lasted (in various capacities) from 2011 to 2018, wasn’t the usual trajectory. I didn’t interview for a job, I didn’t take a test, and I didn’t wait for anyone to give me permission in order to cover video games. I just started doing it. There are very few things in life that you absolutely need to be prepared for. As long as you’re crafty and dedicated enough, you can always get your foot in the door. As you’ve seen above, this is true for the games journalism industry. You’ll find similar stories behind many of your favorite creatives and businesspeople. And it’s the same for becoming a Twitch streamer. If there’s something holding you back from starting your dream, or beginning a new feature on your channel, just ignore it and start anyway. You can always get better while you move forward. And whatever happens in the end, you’ll never regret having tried. 

Streaming from Your Mobile Device

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 187 - Streaming from Your Mobile Device

In the recent entry Travel with an IRL Streaming Backpack, I spoke about buying, renting or building an all-in-one solution for streaming on the go. But this is a very advanced piece of equipment, which I really only recommend to those who have done a good deal of IRL streaming in the past, and plan to do a lot of IRL streaming in the future. Isn’t there a way to livestream your morning walk, or your trip to a restaurant, without making such a commitment? 

Why yes, yes there is! In this entry we’re going to explore a very simple (and free!) way to stream your adventures in life, by using the smartphone or tablet you already own. And on top of IRL streaming, I have a few excellent options for beginner video game streamers using these methods as well. 

➢ THE REAL WORLD 

Any smartphone or tablet could become
your next streaming device.

Going live from your phone or tablet is a very simple process. Just like when using a PC, all you need is a piece of streaming software and an internet connection. For iOS and Android there are several good options for accomplishing this, but the one I’ve been using for the past few years is the Streamlabs mobile app. This is the same company which makes all sorts of streaming widgets, layouts and tools, as well as the excellent Streamlabs OBS software for Windows. As one might expect from such a developer, their app for phones and tablets is similarly feature-rich. You can set up various output settings for different kinds of connections, multistream through the app itself or a custom RTMP, add custom widgets to your shows, build overlays, see your chat and view count in realtime, and monitor recent follows, hosts and raids. To be honest, using this mobile app you have almost all the same possibilities as on your stream at home. 

If you want to do IRL streaming through the app, it will harness your phone’s front or back camera, in either horizontal or vertical mode. This means you can hold the phone in front of you while walking down the street to show a POV shot, and then flip it around to your face at the touch of a button to show yourself talking to chat. I’ve done this kind of stream several times when I was in interesting locations, and it works great. It’s also perfect for when you eat at a restaurant. You can either prop the phone up against something, or get a cheap little mini-tripod on Amazon (usually around $10) to show either your food itself or your face while eating. I’ve had a lot of fun doing restaurant and cafe streams with my phone, and doing so has helped me to discover a lot of cool new places I hadn’t visited before. 

Now, using your phone for IRL streaming does have its drawbacks. Depending on your carrier plan, you’ll need to keep an eye on how much you’re streaming. Unless you’ve got unlimited data, you could find yourself facing overages if you’re not careful. Letting your phone run the stream also poses the logistical concern of not being able to use your phone for anything else. This can be tricky when traveling, as you might want to look up directions to where you’re going, or reviews for restaurants and attractions before getting there. And while I can’t speak to Android capabilities, iOS will pause the broadcast if I switch to another app. It would also flat-out end the entire show if I got a phone call during the stream. Lastly, you should keep in mind that, just like with a PC, the mobile device’s performance comes into play when streaming. Adding too many widgets or overlay elements can make the stream lag or crash, depending on your phone or tablet model. All these concerns are minor however, when you consider what you’re getting. This is an incredibly powerful resource for IRL livestreaming, and it’s likely you already own all the hardware you need to get started. It’s tough to beat a deal like that!

➢ SCREEN TO SCREEN

On top of IRL streaming, there’s another feature I’ve personally gotten a lot of use out of on my phone and tablet. Using the Streamlabs app (as well as several of the others) you can actually broadcast whatever appears on your phone or tablet screen directly to Twitch. This has been incredibly useful for me personally. Whenever I’m out of town, I do all my non-IRL shows like this. Instead of setting up my laptop to broadcast my streams, or going live from a phone pointing at the iPad (a workaround I unfortunately had to use for a while), I can simply do all my streaming directly from my iPad. My daily Duolingo show goes live from a Google Chrome window, and the artwork I make comes straight from iPad Photoshop. Remember all the book illustrations I described creating in the entry Make Your Masterpiece on Stream? Those were all done straight from my iPad too! I’ve even streamed video games using iPad screen capture, complete with a PS4 controller that I keep in my luggage. It’s like having a miniature stream PC on vacation or business trips. 

There are lots of popular mobile games 
out there for you to stream.

This screen recording feature can also be extremely helpful for those wanting to get into streaming for the first time. It’s a great way to start broadcasting without needing a console, PC, or any other kind of equipment. Even if you have no interest in the portability aspect, you can go live straight from your phone or tablet with only a few button presses, using your home WiFi, without paying for anything at all. 

On top of that, I’ve seen other streamers use the screen recording feature in lots of creative ways. Someone with a streaming backpack for example, can use their phone’s screen as a secondary camera for an IRL broadcast. This would allow them to show themselves playing a mobile game waiting for a bus near their house or while standing in line at a ramen shop in Tokyo. 

➢ ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES

As you can see, going live from a mobile device can be useful for all types of streamers, throughout the full range of skill levels. Whether you’re an absolute beginner, a seasoned expert or anything in between, you’re bound to find something that can come in handy. Plus, there’s no risk- it doesn’t cost anything to set up. So consider adding a new dimension to your livestreams. Take that phone or tablet and make something amazing! 

Growth Check-In: Keep Your Streams Going

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 184 - Growth Check-In: Keep Your Streams Going

When learning about Twitch streaming, most people want to know about the glamourous stuff. How do you make your channel grow faster? Can you get the streams to look more professional? What can you say to make your chat more engaged? How do you make money? These are all very useful topics, and I’ve covered them all several times in the past. But the most important subject for a Twitch streamer is one that new content creators usually don’t think about: keeping your habit alive. 

This simple subject, despite being less popular (and probably less interesting), is the one we come up against the most often on Twitch. Our channels are constantly under attack. And the enemy is within ourselves. For any number of reasons, you will see streamers begin to falter in their broadcast regularity, until eventually they take long breaks and then give up altogether. In this growth check-in entry we’ll look back at a few of the recent Twitch Playbook tips dealing with this topic. If you utilize the advice within, I’m confident you’ll be able to keep your streams going for that much longer. 

➢ FIND YOUR INSPIRATION

The easiest way to stick to a habit is to truly love what you’re doing. When you’re excited to go live each day, you’ll feel much less friction when preparing to do your broadcast. Many streamers however, confuse loving what they’re doing with loving the attention they get from what they’re doing. Both of these can help you keep going, but only the former can propel you even through the worst of times. If you’re confused as to which motivating factor is driving your stream, ask yourself the following question: If your channel never grew, and every broadcast had zero viewers, would you still enjoy what you're doing? In entries like Streaming For Yourself, I spoke about how even positive feedback like channel growth or chat activity can skew your view of your own content, and potentially stunt your overall enjoyment of the craft. 

Keep your habit afloat.

Now, what if you really do end up in a slump like I described above? Whether it’s your viewership, chat engagement, or performance while playing games that are inexplicably drying up, you might find that this recession in momentum starts to erode your will to stream. These spans of decreased activity on a Twitch channel are the most common reasons a streamer might throw in the towel. Don’t let a temporary setback become a permanent failure. In the entry Survive the Streaming Doldrums, I spoke about how you can overcome your reliance on the fickle ‘winds’ of outside factors, and instead use the self-propulsion of a strong creative vision to drive your channel forward. 

No matter how passionate and driven you are about streaming however, you will still have your off days. You might wake up to find that your confidence is simply drained, or your computer is suddenly having problems. These things can’t be predicted or prevented, but they can be planned for. In the entry Stream With the Hand You’re Dealt, I compared Twitch streaming to playing an eternal game of poker. Each day the cards might be good or bad, but even in the worst scenario you can protect your interests. And sometimes, in streaming as in poker, you can have major success even with a terrible hand. 

➢ SETTING UP SYSTEMS

It helps to create smaller routines for yourself within your streaming habit. A few interlocking micro-habits working in concert can do wonders for keeping a larger habit alive. The entry Cut Down on Stream Errors will help you to break down your most troublesome weaknesses and prevent you from falling into various creative traps. Creating a Pre-Stream Checklist will help you to automate the setup time before your show begins, ensuring that you don’t forget or botch any of the steps. Strengthen Your Twitch Habits goes into detail about how to retrain your brain to replace any bad habit with a good one. All of these things involve solving small problems on a Twitch channel, but you’d be surprised how much these improvements can help your overall streaming habit. When you often make little mistakes, that embarrassment and frustration can keep compounding until you don’t want to stream anymore. Being able to go live without worries removes all that friction. 

More ingredients doesn't always mean 
a better dish. 

Finally, in the recent entry Build a Better Streaming Habit, I talked about how implementing good ideas at the wrong time can be very harmful to a Twitch channel, especially for new streamers. We can get overly ambitious, whether we’re trying to implement daily or weekly show concepts, widgets and plugins for our chat’s enjoyment, raffles and contests, or other features we think might help our channels. None of these are bad ideas in themselves, but they can bring harmful results if you’re biting off more than you can chew. Just because something can be implemented doesn’t always mean it should. Each feature we add to our Twitch channels attaches baggage to our streams. If you add too much, you may not be able to carry that weight each time you go live. 

➢ STAY IN THE GAME

Being a Twitch streamer means constantly trying to stop yourself from giving up. This isn’t what most prospective streamers want to hear (and many won’t even believe it until they’ve streamed themselves), but it’s the reality that everyone should hear. If you can keep your broadcasting habit going, even if you don’t do anything special to improve your content as you go, you’ll already be doing better than the majority of other streamers to ever grace the platform. The most common Twitch channel is a flash in the pan- a lot of big ideas and excitement in the beginning, only to disappear as quickly as it came. Instead, aim to keep your flame alive for years to come, and build something that stands the test of time. 

Streaming When Plans Go Awry

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 183 - Streaming When Plans Go Awry

Throughout The Twitch Playbook, I’ve talked about the many ways you might reach a roadblock in making your streams. Many of these are mental, but some are completely out of your control. It’s important however, not to let the unpredictability of life prevent you from achieving your goals. In this entry we’re going to explore one of the tougher scenarios I’ve faced in my own content creation journey: being quarantined away from home due to Covid. We’ll look at the challenges I faced, and the compromises I made in order to ensure I didn’t let the flame of my content die out. 

First, let me clarify a few things before jumping in. I’ll be describing how I powered through my problem and got my work done on my own terms, despite being sick. However, I was lucky enough not to get very seriously ill after testing positive. This entry is not a way of minimizing the difficulty or danger of sickness in any form. We’re here to talk about the scheduling challenge that being quarantined away from home created. The virus itself does not come into play in this entry. If you feel sick, you should seek medical attention, and when you’re not sick you should take whatever precautions are required where you live. Stay safe, everybody! 

➢ LONG HOLIDAY

It was the most wonderful time of the year. I had flown from LA to New Jersey to stay with my parents during the holiday season, and we were excited to host our big yearly party for friends, attend some others, and then see our relatives during Christmas and the new year. In December of 2021 however, this just wasn’t meant to be. Everyone around the country had the same idea, and ended up spreading a lot more than just good cheer. When the number of cases kept rising, my family decided to be responsible and cancel all our party plans, instead opting to do a small Zoom call. I had flown two and a half thousand miles to do another holiday over the computer screen, but at least I was with my immediate family at my parents’ house, and I was happy not to be part of the larger problem. 

Since I'd be away from home, I couldn't
stream video games, but I had a 
backup plan in place. 

Unfortunately, due to a weird ‘six degrees of Kevin Bacon’ scenario which made its way to one of my family members, a few of us got sick anyway. As I mentioned, I was lucky not to be badly affected by the illness, but this all occurred right before I was scheduled to fly home, so I was forced to extend my stay. I ended up being in New Jersey for almost an extra two weeks while I waited for the virus to run its course, and in that time you could imagine how some things about my content might be thrown off. Since I wasn’t going to be home, I needed to have some kind of stream I could do consistently, and in my then-weakened state. I was fortunate to have already come up with the art-making shows that I’ve mentioned in other entries, so those were perfect for this scenario. I could stuff a tissue in my nose, draw a few pictures on my iPad, finish the show and go to sleep. I didn’t need to go anywhere or exert a lot of energy. However, if I had been planning to do IRL streams where I would walk around town during my stay, it would have required a bit more strategizing to come up with a lower-impact show I could do while quarantined. That’s why it’s always useful to have some alternate stream ideas in your back pocket. You never know when you might need to use them. 

Since I had the livestreams mostly under control, the thing that actually ended up causing me the most stress during this time was The Twitch Playbook podcast. More than a week would pass before I got back to my house, where I had all my recording equipment. And because I didn’t plan to be in New Jersey for the extra time, I didn’t create enough episodes beforehand that I could release while I was away. I was faced with a real conundrum. 

➢ ACCEPTING IMPERFECTION

As I’ve mentioned in earlier episodes, I had always structured this podcast like an audiobook, with each entry acting as a new chapter. There are section headers within each week’s episode to separate my thoughts, and everything is written and copy-edited beforehand to be as concise and entertaining as I can make it. It wasn’t necessarily the kind of podcast I had heard before, but it was one I knew I personally would want to listen to. I had always taken pride in the production value of the show, and the lessons I learned recording and editing it eventually helped me to become a narrator of actual audiobooks. But now, faced with the prospect of being away from home for an extra stretch, I had to decide between either skipping a few weeks and recording the episodes when I got back to my real setup, or coming to terms with imperfection and simply getting the work done. Keeping with my usual belief that it’s more important to be there than to be perfect, I chose to make the episodes from quarantine.

Sometimes, life (or dragons) will 
get in the way.

So it was decided. I knew the show would be lower quality in some way, but it was still my choice where I would make those concessions. Luckily, I had a project file from an old episode of the podcast on my laptop, so I could still have the usual intro, outro and other effects applied. Plus, being away from home didn’t affect my ability to write, so I could make the entry on the page just as good as any other. Really, the only thing I was lacking was a professional microphone. So I had a mission statement. I was determined that the quality of the content wouldn’t suffer from this setback, even if the presentation had to. The point of this show is to help someone understand how to stream on Twitch after all, and therefore it’s the information that matters most- not the audio’s crispness. 

Finally, I thought it would be important to let listeners know about the dip in audio quality before listening to the episode. Then, first-timers who landed on that entry would know it wasn’t always like this, and long-time followers would understand there wasn’t something wrong with their speakers. I carefully worded my addition, appended right after the episode title, to present only the basic facts. Keeping it in the audiobook style, I called it an ‘editor’s note’: 

 

"I’m currently away from home, so this entry will sound slightly different than others. Hope you’ll stick with me, and I hope you enjoy the episode."

It was important to me not to go into a long-winded explanation or make excuses. Yes, my situation was understandable, but I didn't want to use that as a crutch. As I’ve mentioned in entries like Don’t Apologize for Your Streams, Just Improve, long explanations, apologies and promises are nothing but empty words meant to make the speaker feel better about themselves. The best thing is always to simply do what you can, and do better next time. Therefore, this short introduction presents only what’s relevant to the listener. Yes, it’s going to sound different. But I hope they like the episode anyway. Simple and, hopefully effective.

With this small editor’s note in place, I felt the new ‘away from home’ podcast episode concept made sense. A listener could follow along without missing a beat, and I could keep making the podcast, even when life got in the way. When I got home, the show returned to its normal audio quality. I didn’t re-record the quarantine episodes- they were simply part of the canon of the podcast. A reminder of a major problem I overcame, both technically and mentally. And some of those ‘imperfect’ episodes ended up becoming personal favorites, despite their inferior audio quality! It makes me really glad that I didn't skip those weeks, in order to wait until I got back to my normal setup.

➢ MAKE YOUR MISTAKES INTO VICTORIES

Eventually, while on a different vacation, I got quarantined overseas in Greece (a story for another entry) and was able to use this time-tested method again to continue making Twitch Playbook entries despite the unusual circumstances. You might not have the exact same problem, but I can promise that at some point, life will interfere with your content plans. It’s important then, to accept that what we make can’t always be perfect. And while life as a whole might be outside our control, there are still plenty of things we can guide in our favor. So whatever kind of content you make, don’t let an upset in your plans ruin your streak. Take out your thinking cap, conquer your ego, and come up with a solution that works for you.