Week One Recap: Stay the Course

Week One

I’m going to start out with some statistics.

Hours Streaming: 33

Number of views: 177

Followers: 12

Primary Game: Zelda Breath of the Wild

Given I would say at least an hour or two of the above streaming time was devoted to troubleshooting video and sound, but for the most part, I streamed quite a bit. More than I expected.

Two of the followers are people I know. My girlfriend and my mom. I think the number of views is potentially recurring views from the same people over and over again. Like if they come in and then leave for a bit and then come back. I think both of those count as a view. So it could really be one person viewing over and over again, even though I know that isn’t exactly the case.

Looking at it all as a whole, I’m pretty proud of myself. Not only for what I’ve accomplished in my first week streaming, but for how I think I am as a streamer. I was afraid that I wouldn’t know what to talk about but it turns out I have plenty to talk about when I’m playing puzzle or strategy games. I like puzzles and strategies, and I like explaining how I’m figuring things out. It gives me something to talk about and it’s interesting. Though it’s still to be determined if it’s interesting for others to watch. It could be a good way for viewers to engage.

I have a total of ten unknown followers. That’s pretty good for one week. Especially since I’m playing a game that doesn’t have a very high viewer-count overall, on a streaming platform that is 4^th largest overall.

I’ve been really good with engagement. When I say really good, I mean I talk A LOT. It’s not as hard as I expected.

I am now streaming my Wii U, which is not what I was expecting to play, but something I knew was a possibility. I think I’m trying to avoid the over-saturated games, so I’m playing Nintendo games for now. I may eventually move to a Switch game if I buy the Switch, but that’ll be in a month or two. In the meantime, I have a lot of Zelda to play.

Other games I want to get into are different Mario games, Stardew Valley, and potentially some puzzle games. Platformer games are super fun for me too.

Part of my planning will need to research some puzzle games to check out. They are fun to play, and fun to talk about.

I managed to get the audio working pretty well for my stream. It took some troubleshooting and some wonderful help from my awesome girlfriend. There are ways that I can improve the experience still, but I’m not going to invest any money into streaming until it makes sense (any more money).

I’ve had a couple of followers talk quite a bit in chat, but it’s been mostly lurkers for my viewers and followers so far. That being said, having people talking at all in my chat is surprising for me in my first week.

Another notable accomplishment: graphics. I've begun to create my own overlays. I'm also working with a little Avatar/ICON for my stream. it'll constantly evolve but I think it's a good start.

For now, I am going to stay the course. I think I’m going in the right direction so far.