Sam Houston

"Cool, well I'm very glad to hear that you're taking discoverability seriously. As a streamer myself, I find it very frustrating and demotivating that conventional wisdom is that most streamers will never gain many viewers. Obviously this is a hard problem to solve on a UGC platform, but I hope there are more opportunities for streamers to grow their community. Thank you for hearing me out! :)" - Sam Houston

"Interesting, have you guys found why that is? I imagine there are several reasons..people like to watch a stream that other people are watching (social acceptance, being apart of a group, etc), in some cases it could be quality..... Hopefully you guys and gals can figure that out. It'd be a shame if it's just considered "the way things work", and that there's not much to do that will help a streamer grow their audience." - Sam Houston

"I think giving streamers an ability to advertise themselves is a good idea. Streamers need more outlets to be discovered, as there are currently very few outlets available to folks. I'd like to see more productized options that do not involve ads/payments from the streamer. There needs to be a much better discovery system on Twitch, one that suggests streamers to viewers based on the content they like viewing (games they like, streamers they like, times they watch, etc). The current hand-selected approach helped you when you were scaling, but now the company needs to create something that scales to the size of your viewer and streamerbase. Hand selecting streamers for promotion on the front page (and Twitch Weekly, etc) has resulted in only a few streamers being promoted, and those streamers continue to be promoted for weeks, months and years on end. It basically creates a formidable moat around the streamer, making it very hard for others to compete for viewers. I'd like more equal..." - Sam Houston

"I imagine this sort of stuff will continue to happen as they give advertisers and brands access to particular streamers. Brands will come to Twitch and say "Hey dude, I've got an FPS that I want to stream & advertise on Twitch...do you have a big streamer who can play the game?", and Twitch will likely make those introductions. As a part of that marketing program they will want to promote the event, which means ads like you saw. I imagine this sort of stuff is happening already, since matching influencers (big streamers) with advertisers and giving brands access to an audience is good money. I imagine those ad deals pay more than a regular banner ad, as Twitch could probably argue that a well-known streamer playing your game will have a higher conversion rate to sales. But anyway...it's going to be a tough dance for Twitch & Amazon. It makes sense to position streamers as a great marketing vehicle for brands (that's what ad networks like Maker Studios do), but they risk alienating..." - Sam Houston

"Congrats! Sounds like we've got very similar streams, as I just hit the 400 follower mark and have been streaming for roughly 3 months. I've built my following almost exclusively from streaming PVZ Garden Warfare, but I've started to hit a ceiling with that audience as interest in the game dies off and I get most of the followers I can from the game. I'm also pretty bored with the game at this point... I've started to stream other games and many of my viewers don't watch the stream..which is difficult. It's an ego blow, forcing me to reset my expectations and remember what it was like when I started to stream 3 mos ago. It can also be tough because some games no one wants to watch...so I have to continue to experiment and find games that garner viewers but are also a lot of fun for me. It's a struggle and definitely not as easy as it was when I started with PVZ, but I'm personally looking forward to playing new games and hopefully meeting new people :)" - Sam Houston

"Fuck geese" - Sam Houston

"Hmmm...very interested in who their partner would be. I wonder how involved the partnership will be, if it would be some sort of record deal or if it's just a publishing and distribution deal. Glad that they've got something lined up though. It's clear that the band needs external pressure to help push them along and get them to stick closer to a deadline." - Sam Houston

"Not sure.....but what does that have to do with anything?" - Sam Houston

"Typically they're looking for people with a couple hundred to 500 avg concurrent viewers." - Sam Houston

"Running it at 60 fps may be hurting you especially because you're streaming at a lower bitrate for that FPS. Try switching to 30FPS and see how that looks to you?" - Sam Houston

"You mean a bearded man will appear with a machete?" - Sam Houston