I Want to Play Video Games for a Living | Career Crush

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0:35The versatile Equinox tackles your entire day. The spacious Traverse fits your crew and your whole weekend. And tracks bring style with value you can count on. All infused with tech that has your back. So your drive always hits the right chord. Chevrolet. Together let's drive. I'm a gamer. I have a headset. Like, is it really that easy? Could I make money on the side while playing Animal Crossing? For this episode, I want to explore content creation around gaming. How do I turn my passion for playing video games into something I could maybe one day live off of.

1:29I've been watching a lot of Twitch recently, like pretty much every day. And with this platform, there is money to be made. So much so that people make a living off of it. Here's some stats and headlines.

1:48I just keep pointing. To find out more about the Twitch economy, I talked to Steve Surumi. He's a full-time Twitch streamer. He streams all things Pokemon five days a week. Trying to collect them all. Pokemon. He also has a Pokemon podcast called It's Super Effective. Chat, let me tell you about this character. Is Pokemon your job? I do this full-time. He basically lives and breeds Pokemon. My whole body. It's literally shaking. I've always dreamed of pursuing content creation full-time. I'm up to date on all Pokemon news. I can tell you in what episode Ash and Misty ran into Scyther. I can remember a specific card from Black White Emerging Powers back when that TCG set came out.

2:39So before Steve became a full-time streamer, he worked at an Apple store and was a front-end developer for a startup in Wisconsin that abruptly went out of business. All that time, he was working on a Pokemon podcast that had a moderate following but really wasn't enough to support him and his wife. Twitch was getting a little bit momentum and my wife and I talked about it and she was like, well, I think this is like really your only opportunity to go for it. I mean, you have all the time in the world now. And I was like, OK, I'm still going to apply for jobs, but also I'm going to stream a lot more and I'm going to really double down on the podcast.

3:15So where when did you start kind of seeing growth on your channel and how did that happen? Like, how did you make the growth in your channel happen? It's hard to grow on Twitch because you're so buried under already established people. so like when the new Pokemon game came out there was 20 30 50 people above me in the Twitch directory that you know we're pulling you know a thousand people 2 ,000 people but I had my core small audience and I think when I started off on Twitch we were pulling like 15 to 20 people when I lost my job I sent out a Patreon message and I was like hey just a heads up losing my job today don't worry about it you know my wife and I have good sleep is everything That's why Oli's science back support is made with a blend of melatonin and L-theanine for both kiddos and grownups.

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4:43That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Like a savings account will be fine for a couple of months. We doubled the Patreon revenue instantly. People just upped their pledges or new people decided to pledge that listened to the show. So it was really cool to see your fan base kind of champion behind you. So obviously it takes time to grow on Twitch, but let's get specific here. How many hours a week do you work? It's probably close to like 80 hours a week. I pretty much do everything doing the Instagram, the TikTok, figuring out what is going to YouTube or what is going to Twitter, planning out the streams, doing the streams.

5:27I'm recording the podcast. I'm editing the podcast, watching my own content, editing my own content, prepping the content. All of all of that stuff, I feel like is more time consuming and more important than the going live part of it. Like, that's kind of the easy part. I can't keep it up. No, you're not! You are failing! I don't even know what's going on! I try to plan out my stream to hit content points of like, okay, well, it might be a boring six hours, but if we can at least get two things to happen, that's perfect. People never remember the whole six hours, right? They only remember the moments that you've created, and that's so important to, I think, Twitch, but also just creating content in general.

6:12Oh, whoa, we got it. We got it. We got it. We got it. So let's say you do the work, you get the following. How do you actually turn that engagement into cold hard cash? Well, Twitch is really good at giving the streamer opportunity to make money. There's the subscribe button, which is$4.99. And then that money gets split. Half the money goes to Twitch and then half the money goes to the streamer. or I get a different portion depending on if you have a specific contract with Twitch, which I'm sure somebody like Ninja is not getting 50-50. I'm sure he's getting a lot more money. And then there's another way to give the streamer money, which is bits.

6:55And bits is a currency that you buy with real money. So I think it's like$12 or$13 for 1 ,000 bits. But one bit is one penny. So when you're paying like that$12, you're getting$10 back. But that$10 can fully go to a streamer. And then the$2 up front is what Twitch is taking. There's the old-fashioned streamers that still have tips through PayPal. So some of the older streamers, they might have like a PayPal link. And that's just, you know, here's your... And then PayPal takes their cut. And then there's ad revenue. Although I think the ad revenue on Twitch is like no one ever depends on. But that's like the biggest...

7:37That's the best way to make money on YouTube is ad revenue. And then the last way to make money on Twitch, purely on Twitch, because obviously you can have outside partnerships and stuff, is there's a... This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom scrolling? Smart move. Another smart move? Getting help from one of State Farm's 19 ,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling. Just another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state.

8:18Ever wonder where Tropicana got its name? The Tropics. And every time you enjoy a glass, you're not just drinking juice. You're taking a trip. Stepping into sunshine and embarking on a flavorful journey into the Tropics where ripe fruit is crafted into wildly delicious juice. and the best part no passport required draw vicana give life some juice bounty system that they have so like twitch will reach out to video game companies or like they had an adidas one at one point um so i'll use the adidas one for an example so it was it was watch a one minute ad of adidas with your audience and if you have 200 people here you will get this much money and if you have like 500 people here you'll get this much money and so you just pull up the ad you hit start bounty you play it and then after like an hour it'll process how many people were actually there and then twitch will pay you accordingly um and but that that last option was only for specific partners on twitch i hope that answers some questions about how money is actually made on twitch it takes time to get there it took steve a while to make his current six-figure salary.

9:35Yeah. So now, if you want to pursue this, here are some things to get you started. Number one, ask yourself, what can I do differently on my stream? And what incentives am I giving my audience to keep coming back? Somebody came into my stream and they're like, I want to stream Pokemon. Cool. Super supportive of you, but what are you going to do differently to get to where I am today? Discoverability on Twitch is extremely tough. So you have to build yourself up on other platforms and bring those people to Twitch. You have to go all the way. You have to have a Twitter. You have to have a TikTok or Instagram or Clubhouse.

10:10You have to have a YouTube. You have to kind of commit to everything. If I wanted to start streaming tomorrow, what would be the things that I would need, both in gear and also skills or mindset? I think the most important thing is a microphone. Most people can deal with like a bad webcam, but not everyone can deal with like a bad microphone. Like no one wants to hear you sound like you're recording from your bathroom. Don't be afraid to fail at first. The niche you pick at first might not take off, which means you might have to switch to another one. Just because you love a game or just because you're passionate about a game doesn't mean like there's an audience for that.

10:53Be confident. Steve says that confidence goes a long way, especially in the beginning when it comes to building your audience. I would never start my stream being like, I don't know what to stream today. I've done bad then in myself if I'm like, I don't know what to do today. No, I always know what to do. I know what I'm going to do next week. I already know what I'm going to do next month. And I think that's so important is to have some sort of confidence in not only like while you're live, but in what you're planning on doing. I definitely still have a career crush on Steve and pretty much any Twitch streamer.

11:29I do think there are some serious pros and cons to being a Twitch streamer. Some major pros, you get to play the games you love and make money from it. Obviously a major pro. That was the number one card I wanted. You get to build a community and make friends and have these people that you get to see and check in with every day. Nah, he's not gonna come over here. He's thick. He's super thick. What's up, Drybones? You're complaining about Pokemon getting XP to - And for cons, sometimes this job can mean working 80-hour work weeks and spending your free time building up your audience, and I'm not necessarily down with that.

12:09If I ever do want to make Animal Crossing my full-time job, I definitely feel more equipped to do so now.

12:22for you. Subscribe to our channel to see more interviews with people actually living the dream. Bye!