By Iateyourpie

If you take a quick peek at the top 50 channels on Twitch you are sure to find some quirky things that attract the attention of viewers. Whether it’s a streamer that sings for every big donation, an animated sub train that’s catered toward the game a streamer is playing, or just a dumb joke that the streamer does to entertain viewers; a lot of streamers have little things they do on their streams to differentiate themselves from others and bring in new viewers. People refer to these quirky stand alone tricks as Gimmicks. Today I want to talk about how you can harness the power of gimmicks to attract viewers to your stream, while not sacrificing gameplay and content.

Gimmick 2014

When you say the word gimmick, there often seems to be a negative reaction to the word. To many people a gimmick is what you use when you can’t rely on your own skill to build an audience. While there may be some truth to that thought, gimmicks are not necessarily a bad thing as long as you understand the purpose of it and don’t let them affect your content in a negative way.

So let’s start out by tackling what a gimmick actually is. According to Dictionary.com a gimmick is defined as “an ingenious or novel device, scheme, or stratagem, especially one designed to attract attention or increase appeal.” It’s something that you use to grab the attention of the viewers in your stream, or help you stick out in the sea of thousands of streamers. Think of it as your personal secret stream weapon. Whenever you use it, you’re sure to get your stream excited and engaged. While gimmicks sound like harmless options for your stream, there are some dangers that you need to be aware of.

1. Respect the Game Choice

This is by far the most important step to follow. Too many times I see viewers going into streams and the first thing they say is something along the lines of “WHY ARENT YOU PLAYING “X” GAME RIGHT NOW????” Viewers have to understand that just like any gamer out there, broadcasters like playing multiple types of games on stream. Just because we’re not playing the game we played yesterday doesn’t mean it’s gone forever. The stream is going to be happiest when the broadcaster is playing a game they enjoy. If you see your streamer playing a game you don’t enjoy, don’t watch! It’s as simple as that. There’s nothing wrong with politely asking when they might play a certain game at some point in the future, but don’t be a nag! 

2. Don’t beat a dead horse.

This is something I think both broadcasters and viewers can do a better job of. People think that if they tell one joke that gets the streamer to chuckle for a few seconds means that they’ve been given the green light to continue to tell the same joke more times. I love memes, but at some point the joke gets old and it’s time to move on. I feel like viewers try way too hard to impress the broadcaster and force unfunny jokes all the time. Savvy viewers know when to drop good jokes and when to stop and just enjoy the chat. Also, the Kappa isn’t an open invitation to tell a really bad joke. If I ever see a viewer post 5-10 straight lines that all end with the use of a Kappa, you’re moving down the totem pole of viewers that I’m going to pay attention to in chat. Meme Responsibly.

If there’s one life lesson streaming should teach you, it’s the value of patience. Growth of a stream is not something that’s going to happen overnight, or in a week, or in a month. I see so many streamers get into streaming expecting people to show up on Day 1, and their stream to blow up instantly. They’ll stream for a week or two with huge excitement, but when they see little to no growth, they give up and stop streaming. They start to look for reasons on what went wrong, and give up on the dream of growing their stream. Today, I want to talk to you about how important it is to have the right mindset and why good things come to those who wait.

Comparing Yourself to Others

Another major problem that I see streamers do often is to compare their streams to others. “Streamer X gets way more viewers than me and he plays the same exact game, it’s not fair.” Stop. This is the wrong mindset to have when you get into streaming. Yes, we all want growth for our streams, but questioning and complaining why someone gets more views than you is the wrong way to go about it! Not only does this not improve your stream or attract viewers in any way, it worsens your stream and pushes viewers away.

This isn’t just a problem with streams that are small, this happens at all levels of streaming. I sometimes feel like people forget why they got into streaming. Streaming is about fun and enjoying a game with a group of people. Sure everyone wants to grow, but complaining will never get you anywhere. If you feel like others are gaining growth faster than you, find out why! Are they better at certain aspects of streaming than you? Are they more engaging as a streamer? Streaming is a constant learning process. I love going into streams and learning from them. 

I remember when I was perusing streams on the Front Page and I stumbled upon Brotatoe’s stream (twitch.tv/brotatoe.) At the time, I was using a really bad microphone for my stream and the sound quality was not up to par. When I came into Brotatoe’s stream, his microphone quality was amazing. It made me stay around and check out his stream. Within hours I made the decision to upgrade my microphone set up and improve my stream. When you go into new streams for the first time, go in with the mindset that you can learn something, not “WHY DOES THIS STREAMER GET MORE VIEWERS THAN ME!”

By: Iateyourpie

Keeping your cool on stream is one of the most underrated skills to have as a streamer. While some people are able to pull off the angry reaction streamer persona, a lot of people aren’t. I’ve seen countless streamers who get into the habit of getting angry on their stream about something that happened in the game, or reacted in a way towards a viewer in a really harsh way.  As a viewer it’s really awkward. I have countless amounts of streams to choose from, if you’re making the stream awkward, I’ll just go somewhere else. While it may feel great to blow off steam while playing a game, there’s a right and wrong way to do it.