Being a part of the modern gaming landscape involves much more than playing games in your living room. Players can be instantly connected to opponents and allies from across the globe, enhancing the experience and making it a wholly more sociable one.
The culture has also evolved to include streaming, with many aficionados of the industry setting up their own channels on platforms like YouTube, Twitch, and Discord. Setting up a channel provides the perfect platform for sharing your passion and building a community. It can also be lucrative if you can attract sponsorship and advertisements. You may even consider charging your viewers to tune in.
In this article, we will provide practical advice for setting up your own streaming channel and joining a thriving community. You don’t have to invest hours of your time every day, nor do you have to spend thousands of dollars. With these simple tips, you can be up and running in no time.
Get the gear
Whilst an investment of thousands or even hundreds of pounds isn’t necessary, it’s worth checking out the available equipment to help enhance your presentation. An external camera can offer far superior image capture quality compared to your in-built webcam and need not set you back a fortune. Some of the high-quality peripherals available on this list can be snapped up for less than $100 and will deliver a much higher resolution than what you’d get out of the box on your laptop.
Many of the cameras have in-built microphones, but you may also consider picking up a separate mic to enhance audio capture. Available types include lapel microphones, which are light and discreet, and overhead microphones, which are a lot more noticeable and can deliver studio-quality sound.
Understand your platform
Some streamers choose to focus their output on a single platform, while others have presences across all of the major channels. Whichever route you choose to take, it’s important to spend a little time learning about how each works.
Specialist gamer channels like Discord and Twitch have certain rules and requirements to meet, while Facebook Watch and YouTube are a little broader. Fortunately, there are plenty of helpful guides available online, including this page, which provides comprehensive instructions on how to stream on Discord. Many streamers adapt their content depending on the platform, often reducing or increasing the length of streams. Others allocate particular content to a particular channel. In theory, this provides an incentive for users to follow them across the network of streaming platforms.
Connect with others
Perhaps the most important tip for establishing a popular streaming channel is to spend time engaging with other streamers and their followers. Setting up a channel and waiting for viewers to come to you is a naïve strategy; you must be pro-active.
Reach out to established streamers to explore opportunities for collaboration. Beyond that, consider teaming up with another new streamer, so that you can share and promote one another. The biggest gaming streamers have amassed their followings not only by delivering the best content but also by engaging with the community around them and going out of their way to engage with their followers by replying to comments and encouraging interaction.
When establishing a streaming channel, there are no shortcuts that will help you become an overnight success. But if you can offer something unique, make the right investments, gain the right knowledge and engage with others, you’ll be starting from great foundations.
