Twitch - Otomo April Report 2018

Hello hello and welcome to my monthly Twitch report.

This is my fourth issue ever, I only started chronicling my Twitch journey since the start of 2018. Check out what I did in January, February and March. Now without further ado let's look at what I did in April and how much it helped.

Things I experimented in April

1- Green Screen

The most obvious improvement I did for my stream was adding a green screen. Green screens help a channel look a lot more professional and clean. You no longer need to hide the mess behind you, just prop up a green screen instead.

Here's what made my eyes bulge

Green screens do take a bit of work to use properly. You will need consistent lighting in the room or your filter will mess up. It took me about a week and one lamp purchase to get my green screen just right. But if you can get a good green screen, it will definitely make passers by stay a bit longer while checking out your stream.

Almost 45% of the total time people have watched my stream was in April

I wouldn't credit the green screen entirely for such a large increase in viewer attention, but it definitely helped a lot.

Conclusion: I would strongly recommend adding a green screen to your streams. It adds a certain amount of professionalism and you can play around to add effects. Perhaps make the streamer appear in black and white only, or add some cool backgrounds effects.

However I'd definitely suggest adding a green screen when you're more established at streaming. It adds production value, but spending the first few months focusing on being entertaining and marketing would help grow a channel more than a green screen.

2- More quality options

I stream at my job, yes yes it's a dream come true. I work at Logical Increments and I have the freedom there to use some of my time for projects I'd like to do. I decided to try my hand at streaming and it's been 2 years since I started.

It's been sometime (3 years) since I had my PC upgraded, so my bosses did not skimp when they got me a new CPU. The I7-8700 is a huge upgrade over my former dinosaur and it allows me to stream pretty much any game I want on any settings.

On demanding games, the FX-6300 just couldn't handle it and dropped tons of frames

In the above video, you'll find a lot of stuttering, frame skipping and just overall reduced quality. Dark Souls 3 (on low settings) was the absolute max my old PC could handle. That adversely affected my stream quality.

Despite being more demanding, Witcher 3 ran far smoother than DS 3

I was asked to play Witcher 3 several times by friends online and offline, I couldn't stream it till I got the I7-8700. After assembling my new computer you can see the improvements.

(For transparency's sake, I must add that a boss fight in a game is more demanding than a dialogue scene.)


So besides quality, what more does a better PC provide for a streamer? The answer, is that it allows streamers more versatility in picking games to play. Being able to stream popular but PC demanding games opens up a whole new market of viewers to appeal to.

2.1 Browsing views

There's more here than meets the eye

Firstly, what is a browsing view? it is when someone finds a channel by looking around Twitch. Browsing views exclude follower views, e-mail notification and direct views from other websites.

In January I got 124 browsing views from playing Cuphead (popular at the time, lots of competition) Okami (re-released game, lots of nostalgia) and Evil Within (great horror game with lots of fans).

In February I dropped to 67 browsing views only. I got them from streaming Hellblade (Short-ish game) and Resident Evil 4. Because I didn't have much variety of games in February and played the same game for a long time, that meant that I got much lower browsing views than I expcted.

In March I continued streaming Resident Evil 4, I also started FF Tactics (old classic) but I got most of my browsing views due to streaming Super Seducer (New Meme game).

In April is when I started to actually pay attention on browsing views and they are fascinating. I streamed a bunch of different games and the difference in response between games was massive.

The two biggest differences was between Witcher 3 and Contradiction: Spot the Liar. I streamed Witcher 3 for 3 days and got 83 browsing views from it. I streamed Contradiction for 4 days and got....6(!) views.

That is a massive difference, if I stream Witcher 3 for 20 sessions (my average monthly) I would get around 500 browsing views. If I stream Contradiction for 20 sessions I'll be lucky to hit 40 browsing views.

Conclusion: Upgrading your PC to the latest technology gives you a lot of room to work with. Being able to stream any games offers a ton of value. Browsing views are some of the hardest to increase but picking the right game makes a world of difference.

Anyways now let's talk numbers

1- Average Viewers

Solid growth, but less than I expected

April was another solid month for growing the channel. 24 average viewers is a nice increase from 21 in March but I was definitely hoping for more in April.

Because I kept up with the same marketing strategies as before, the only variable factors I could affect was the games I played. If I spent more time on titles like the Witcher 3 and Battle brothers I might have hit 30 average viewers. That's all speculation of course but there is one thing I did do that affected my viewer count negatively.

How the hell did I turn off so many viewers?

April had a lot of work done to improve the stream's production quality. Unfortunately to get some data, I had to go live on my channel for a few minutes at a time. These tests allow me to judge what would bottleneck my stream. Is it my internet? Can I increase the bitrate? FPS? Resolution?

Another thing I did was I did one bonus stream at a different hour, roughly 5 hours after my usual stream time. I did this bonus stream for a friend and while there were some viewers, it was half my usual audience, this further reduced my average viewers for April.

Conclusion: I probably averaged 25 or 26 viewers in April if it weren't for these test streams I had to do. I also question if Twitch measures average monthly views by sessions or by time?. Either way I still grew steadily in April and I am happy with the progress I made.

2- New Followers

The only measurable metric that I had a decline in was new followers. Did I suddenly just lose my appeal to new viewers?

Nah, that's impossible. Everybody loves me because I am literally the most humble person you could ever meet.

Humble people unite!

It's good to recap that March was my biggest growth in new followers ever and April comes in at an extremely close second, so it's not a big deal there. The reason why I got slightly less new followers are probably the same reasons I got less browsing views. I listed those before.

But there is one other reason I can think of, and that's my marketing strategy.

For almost 2 months I have been posting on the same subreddit. That's helped me out alot but it at some point there has to be diminishing returns to doing the same thing. So while these giveaways got me a lot of traffic and new followers, eventually most people who frequent the sub have seen it, and therefore I started to get less return for my marketing.

Conclusion: Very very solid growth for me, but a slowdown is a sign to switch things up. Marketing is an expensive and time-consuming process, once diminishing returns set in, it might be time to try out new things and move on.

3- Total live views

A really nice 500 view increase or 18%

Because of Twitch's new analytics, Unique views is going to be replaced with total live views in my blog.

Despite some setbacks with marketing, overall I had more viewers in April and cracked over 3k views. I would love to hit 4k in May. I think that's very possible if I can find a better way to reach out to people.

Games I played in April 

April had an interesting mixture of games I played, going from somewhat indie games to incredibly popular games. I got very different responses for the games I played, which is always fascinating to analyze. So here's the list of game played and my thoughts on them.

I will also try to put in a more systematic approach to this section. I will state some facts about the games I played and then put my opinion on them. This will include how many followers the game has on Twitch. Lastly I will add my opinion of the game in terms of how viable/worthwhile it is to stream.

1- Dead Space (53k followers): Dead Space is an action/horror game. It can be finished in under 15 hours and costs $20. I got 25 followers from Dead Space over the course of 5 streams.

I liked Dead Space for the first 7 hours, it has an interesting mechanic for killing monsters and the game has great presentation all around. However after a few hours it felt like I was just doing the same type of quests over and over again, there wasn't much plot progression for me and only 2 boss fights in the game.

Perhaps I was experiencing horror games fatigue, but I felt like Dead Space didn't measure up to the better horror games I played this year. Still well worth streaming and playing, but consider some other horror games first.

2- Contradiction: Spot the Liar (1k followers): Contradiction is a murder mystery game. The entire game is through live action videos. I finished the game in 9 hours and it costs $10. I got 11 followers over the course of 4 streams.

Contradiction is unlike any other game I've streamed. It has minimal amounts of gameplay but it offers a very interesting murder mystery. I've been planning to play this game for a long time and it did not disappoint. It was very enjoyable to stream this game and go over clues with viewers and hearing different theories on what had happened.

I would not recommend streaming this game until you can pull in a solid audience though. This game has near zero appeal for new streamers. It has no following on Twitch and it's not a game anyone would ever replay. I love this game but I doubt anyone will grow their channel by streaming it.

3- Witcher 3 (700k followers): The Witcher 3 is an action/story based game. I only streamed it for 9 hours but I believe the game length is around 60 hours. Witcher 3 costs $40. I got 6 followers over the course of 3 streams.

It's unfortunate that I did not love Witcher 3, it has tons of good things going for it. A good story, choices that matter, great visuals and voice acting. There is just a lot to like in this game. For some reason it just failed to appeal to me though.

If I had kept streaming it, I would no doubt have gotten bigger numbers though, I got 30% of my browsing views from just 3 days of Witcher 3. It has a huge community and so much content, it would be easy to stream Witcher 3 for 2 months without finishing the game. If you enjoy it, I highly recommend streaming this game.

4- The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (3.2k followers):  A first person story game, Ethan Carter has no combat or action but is entirely based around puzzles and exploration. I streamed this game for slightly less than 4 hours and it costs $20. I got 2 followers over the course of 1 stream.

While I liked Ethan Carter, it was a little on the slow side. It has a decent story but even with a good friend guiding me, I still backtracked quite a bit to find everything. It's fun to play as a oneshot stream but the game wasn't as gripping as I hoped.

For streaming I would not recommend this, it's simply too short to grow a channel around and it has a tiny following. It might be nice to stream this as part of a 24 hour stream that focuses on stories. That's the only situation I'd recommend streaming this.

5- Battle Brothers (13k followers):  Battle Brothers is a tactical RPG, it plays very similarly to Xcom. Players control a group of soldiers in turn based battles. Outside of combat the game has a heavy focus on managing economy and other strategical aspects. The game has no real ending, I've been streaming it for 30 hours so far. Battle Brothers costs $30 and has gotten me 23 followers across 7 streams in April.

I love strategy games, I am a huge fan of Xcom and BB is right up my alley. The game is brutal, the dialogue is hilarious and the music is lovely. It is also one of the ugliest games (graphically) that I've ever played. BB has been a ton of fun and I've enjoyed lots of great moments with my viewers thanks to it. Due to being able to name soldiers, I've murdered all my friends in game at least 7 times, most of them have forgiven me!

For streaming this game is a fantastic choice, it doesn't have an ending and can be replayed as many times as you want. It has a good community following it and tons of depth to go along. I can't recommend streaming this game enough.

Conclusion

April was a good but slightly odd month for me. I enjoyed the actual streaming in April but there were many behind the scenes distractions. From production improvements to marketing controversy, there was a lot to juggle in April.

Overall it was a good month, I had the highest amount of viewers per stream, highest average viewers and a ton of fun. I look forward to what May brings.

Favorite moment in April.

Figuring out a clue in Contradiction almost gave me an Otogasm.