6 Years, huh…?
Damn, if this site were my son, he’d be a first grader now. I feel old; send help.
You know, I been thinking about a lot this year, and almost didn’t want to write this annual post because I don’t really have much to say. A simple 1 line post with ‘2nd year in a row of no good games lmaoooooo‘ was what I was thinking about. But this is has become one of my few chances to provide you with some insights, so I’ll talk a bit more.
Twitch Streaming
This past year, I put a considerable amount of ‘effort’ into streaming to Twitch. I’d think about topics to discuss on stream, put energy into being insightful, entertaining and informative if I could. Created a customizable 3D model for my mascot Yanagi, and proceeded to use her for stream overlays and channel emotes etc. Pretty much standard streaming stuff.
Was streaming consistently for more or less the whole year. It started out fun-ish and as good practice for both talking and playing simultaneously, and for being able to articulate myself better with more complex topics. I also got invited to do commentary for BlazBlue a few times in another stream. I felt like I was becoming a little more competent at all these aspects, and streaming wasn’t not fun to do so I didn’t really mind it taking up a lot of time initially.
But the more I did it, the more and more I felt like it was outright a waste of time, man. Which was sort of convenient for me because I just wanted to waste time this year so ended up streaming way more than I intended. Well why is it a waste of time? Let’s see.
The mechanical aspects of streaming suck (getting OBS to work etc), talking and getting people to understand you sucks, twitch discoverability sucks, viewer expectations suck, viewer retention sucks, monetization for small channels suck. The best part? You don’t exist when you aren’t live. So passive growth isn’t really a concept here.
To be honest, Twitch is good for you if you already have a sizeable following, run events or do collaborations with bigger channels constantly, have an agreeable personality, live to chase trends, have nice tits and don’t really mind showing them off, or will do anything for a follow.
Lol, you wanna play your favorite 3+ year old video games at high level and make something out of yourself on Twitch? Bitch please. You better show me a speedrun or you better play Warzone or whatever the newest mediocre anime game of the season is. Show me your nips too or put some vtuber rig you couldn’t afford on screen and pretend to be something I think I like. Dance for me, you slut.
I use foul language to emphasize that this is what you are conditioned to feel like on Twitch if you’re a smaller channel grinding to reach Partner without any party tricks to show the kids. Then when you get Partner, you still sit with 11 viewers when you genuinely stream what you want to play. How can I not call all of this a waste of time?
At least I never took Twitch seriously and I kinda just used it as practice for YouTube and to stream for my friends. Almost all of the people that appear in my chat are people I know from outside twitch and I enjoy that. Even so, I wanna break the cycle of time wasting. So I made a decision to not stream as much next year because I prefer videos and guides and want to go back to that.
But uh, for what games?
Gaming in 2022
I don’t know what to tell you man. A week ago I started work on a DMC5 guide and I’ve been playing it seriously every day for the past 3 or 4 months, and think I’m over the anxiety I was feeling when I tried to make videos for it the last few years. But it’s gonna be a 4 year old game next year and I’m gonna be putting content out into the platform where you have to adapt to an algorithm to be successful, so I don’t expect too much. I just want to keep myself busy and distract myself from thinking about the prospect that gaming is kind of not that great in current day.
I feel like we are in a rut where most new releases are fast food tier shit. Titles that are marketed well and do an excellent job of making you want it regardless of whether the actual substance of it is quality or not. Releases that are just intended to offer you a comfortable/familiar experience that’ll hold you down until the next release. To the point that I firmly believe not many people have a tangible concept of what a ‘good game’ even is.
Contempt aside, the perspective is debatable depending on what you play, of course. I personally feel like this mostly because Fighting Games sold out and have become straight up unfun, God Eater 4 doesn’t exist, Bayonetta 3 and Gunvolt 3 were both disappointments, and because Action RPGs feel like the same cookie cutter bullshit with cooldown systems, unnecessary skill trees and oh boy, randomized passive skills on loot drops. Unique game systems? Engaging the player? Thought based gameplay? Skill based combat? What’s that? Does it taste good?
You know, it always sounds like I’m foaming at the mouth with anger when I write this stuff out, but I’m just telling you what I honestly feel man. I can only be honest. I just want to have fun with games and want this to be a fulfilling hobby and not just a chain of wasting time.
Well, What about about 2023 Then?
Earlier I said I’m gonna do a DMC5 guide. Unsure what the scale will be at the moment, but it’ll be a combat focused guide. Will translate information from the official strategy guide and try to compile some informative stuff. DMC5 videos will then follow. I don’t think there’s any prospective upcoming games to cover because I honestly don’t think there’s anything worth making guides or videos for. Maybe Stellar Blade, but we will see.
If I was a success orientated YouTuber and website owner, I’d turn this platform into a trophy guide website or indie game review site, repeating information already on the internet and I’d cover whatever basic bitch anime game of the season there is on YouTube. These ideas are still on the table, but right now I’m just trying to base my content creation approach around “What I genuinely want to do”, so that I can be passionate and deliver something you won’t find anywhere else. That’s why I will be working on a DMC5 guide even though the game is 4 years old. I feel like I can deliver something good because I’m really passionate about the game.
Unfortunately, you paint yourself into a corner being a niche gaming channel on YouTube and people only expect/want you to cover adjacent games in your genre. Don’t think I need to list what I’ve been told to play over the years because you probably already know. But I do not give a fuck about being successful on a platform where the rules are obeying an algorithm and trying to present what people think they want to see.
I want to do me, and I want to be good by my own standards. If you can’t respect that, then I don’t know, man.
…
In any case, I think that’s all I wanna say right now.
Will silently work on the DMC5 guide when I have free time and look for a new job. I’ll never lose hope that a good game will come out and I can go balls deep on a Super guide again, but for now, I’m gonna entertain myself with DMC5, Doom Eternal and probably a few more videos from Gunvolt games.
Thank you for reading.