Something streamer culture needs to embrace more is the classic radio tradition of the 'relief presenter' to enable holidays and breaks.
And Twitch in particular needs to have better tools to enable it safely and easily.
When Craig Charles goes on holiday, his daily afternoon show on BBC Radio 6 doesn't go off air for two weeks, leaving silence in its place. That would be disastrous for the radio station.
Instead, a relief presenter comes in, or a relief show is scheduled. /1 #gaming
@garius Gareth Dennis keeps #RailNatter on tickover with a few pre-recorded episodes when required - I know nothing about game streaming, how much would that work for gaming streams? Obviously no chat feedback etc...
@garius@LoadingReadyRun has been doing the collective streaming thing for a while, but they tend to focus more on dedicated "shows" than "talent", so they can easily swap out hosts while still keeping the same audience.
Most streamers are their own brand. Where they operate as part of a collective, it's often as individuals, with their own schedules and channels, who co-stream in an additional place or hand viewers off to each other at set times.
It's radio with games.
Being unable to stream in your established slots has a major impact on a streamer's income and audience share.
That need to ALWAYS be streaming is not healthy. It creates burnout. It reduces quality of output. It's bad. /3
@garius Pretty much everything that platforms are doing to engage audiences is bad for the creators, and - as an added insult - the pay isn't nearly what it could be if those streamers had a dedicated platform.
The days of YouTube and Twitch being a nexus for these things is likely going to come to an end when people realize they don't need these networks once their audience is large enough.
Then others can move away from the horrors of "always broadcasting" lifestyles.
Now you could THEORETICALLY take the radio approach as a streamer already - find one or more people who are prepared to stream for a full or partial slot as a relief presenter.
But the culture of doing so isn't really there. And there are major logistical issues, too. /4
Right now, in most instances this EFFECTIVELY means turning over complete control of your channel - on a technical and content management level - to the relief. You'd be giving them the keys to your ENTIRE kingdom.
They do something bad, it's YOU that the risk falls on entirely. /5
The tools aren't there to allow selective control, or to share revenue (such as on-screen bits or subs) or risk (in terms of content strikes, for example). It would all sit on the account holder.
So you'd have to REALLY trust someone to let them do it. /6
It's not my goal here to come up with a full solution to those problems. But I've seen a few big streamers openly talking about the worry that comes with taking an extending break lately. And those worries are valid.
But the problem ISN'T insurmountable.
It's just one of those areas where both streamers and platforms, need to look to traditional broadcasting. Streamers then need to innovate, and create the culture and pressure, for change. Which the platforms will then have to respond to. /END
@garius All of this is tremendously interesting, because we can agree that it's another case of "the Tech Industry" inventing something that already existed, but worse, where "worse" means "with a turbocapitalist approach of convincing the labour-producer that the means-of-production-owners are not exploiting them and hyperindividualist rhetoric that only reinforces that".
@Illuminatus yes, although i'd caveat that by adding my standard disclaimer that we need to describe this as a 'US Tech Industry' problem. That first bit is important as there's wider cultural issues that contribute to it.
e.g. i'd argue the streamer problem is very similar to the wrestler problem: the insistence that the performer has more control than they do, in return for granting less support and forcing a grind culture.
@garius I actually know of someone who's pulled this off, but his relief streamer is his nesting partner, so they've already got that trust and some amount of vibe continuity
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