Streamer: A Brand New Career – 2156期

 

Stream Beyond Imagination.

   Can you imagine that people can make money by playing video games which parents always tell their kids not to? Yet it is actually a serious job that many people are doing. With different streaming platforms, streamers broadcast the games they are playing and interact with their audiences. Some do live streaming only to share the pleasure they are having while playing, while others rely on this to make a living. According to statistics, there are at least 1.5 million streamers streaming all around the world. Correspondingly, the amount of the viewers is much more shocking. Some streamers even have hundreds of millions of followers. In Taiwan, there are famous streamers, too. Some people even established a database to collect the related news of streaming and the information about the streamers.

   However, it is not easy if you want to choose to be a streamer as a career. Among the one million and five hundred thousand people in the world, only about ten thousand people can make a profit.  In foreign countries, several well-known streamers earn millions of dollars a year. The key to success is exposure. Many streamers not only manage their stream channels, but also social media sites such as YouTube, Facebook and Tweeter to interact with their fans.

   The main source of income for streamers is from the payments offered by each streaming platform, depending on the numbers of people watching it. Fans also support their favorite steamers by subscribing the channels or by donation. In addition, fans express their enthusiasm to the streamers by painting and filming video clips, making each channel a little society with its own unique culture.

 

Head of Streamer: Twitch

   Being an online game streaming platform（遊戲實況平台）of over one million viewers, Twitch separated from its American parent company Justin.tv in 2011 to focus on running online game streaming. As the head of online game streaming in the West  and Taiwan, it was bought by Amazon at a high price last year and has become one of their subsidiary companies.  

   Aside from providing service for online game streamers, Twitch also opens for game developers（遊戲開發商）, producers（遊戲發行商）, and e-sport organizations（電競組織）. According to statistics, streamers that are popular on Twitch have over ten thousand viewers online when streaming. “What we're proud of is that our users stay online on an average of more than two hours every time”, said Chi-hsiang Chiu（邱吉祥）, the partnership reach-out lead from the branch company of Twitch.

   Online streaming websites have mushroomed over the past few years. Encountering other online streaming websites that are springing up, Chiu said that Twitch has the advantage of having plenty of excellent engineers at bettering the network of streaming. They are also heading towards the direction of becoming business partners with well-known streamers to increase their views, having a win-win relationship with the streamers by sharing profits from advertisements.

   Although online streaming is considered one of the most popular emerging industries, the field of online game streaming is looked down on by the public. “It's actually similar to show business,” said Chi-hsiang Chiu. It's part of the entertainment industry and a future trend as well. We will strive to help more gamers become official online game streamers to attract viewers for their subscription.

 

Live Streaming and Media Convergence.

   Live streaming has just been booming for 1 or 2 year. During the Sunflower Movement（太陽花學運）in 2014, students used the technology to broadcast the movement abroad on the Internet, which made it a rising media prevalence in Taiwan. With the Internet speed brought up from bandwidth 3G to 4G as well as the popularization of smartphones, live streaming has become available to all.

   The Media Convergence Club in Shih Hsin University（世新大學媒體匯流實況社）provide courses including Industrial Designing（平面設計）, Live Streaming（實況學習）, Image Editing（影像剪輯）and Camera Control（鏡頭切換）. Club leader Zhao-jun Yang （楊詔鈞） recruited members through Dcard, a college social platform.

   League of Legends Lan Party （世新大學英雄聯盟校內賽王者爭霸戰） is running currently and also being live-streamed. “We originally just planned to broadcast 4 races, but at the end, we did all of them. Some things if we never try, the opportunity just passes away,” said Yang.

    Being a host is not a simple job because it requires relevant skills, Yang shared. In addition, one's virtue, knowledge, experience and characteristic, also the ability to solve urgent situations and to interact with the audience are very important.

   The Media Convergence Club currently runs on live streaming platforms such as YouTube, by the name of SHU實者, and on Twitch as well. Live streaming is public and meets the needs of people who dislike like pre-recorded programs. They enjoy the novelty when unexpected situations happen. Moreover, live streaming makes it possible to remove ads popping out in the middle of a live show, which gradually increase its popularity among the audiences. Yang and PR man Heng-yi Su （蘇恆毅） also mentioned that one must be prepared both mentally and physically to host a live stream. “People would definitely judge you on your voice, style of speech and so on, and it could really hurt one's feelings. However, though we can't please everyone, we should always do our best.”