Oversaturated Games and Why It’s Best to Avoid Streaming Them While Growing
I think it goes without saying that the misconception everyone has when they first start out as a streamer is to stream the popular games because that’s where they can easily rake in as many viewers as they can in order to grow their channel and following.
From Fortnite to Overwatch, League of Legends to Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, Among Us to Phasmophobia, Apex Legends to VALORANT, the list goes on and on and on.
While these games are definitely great to stream, they’re not exactly the best games for growth when you’re starting out as a streamer. I most certainly learned that the hard way.
I wasn’t averaging a lot of views and it took me many months to finally become a Twitch Affiliate. At times during my journey, I questioned myself as to whether or not what I’m doing is worth it, but I kept on (as much as I hate to use this term) grinding my way to eventually getting Affiliate. Now I’m currently on the long road to becoming Twitch Partner, but that’s hopefully another story I would be able to share with you once I get Partnered.
I was playing Fortnite, TONS of Fortnite. There were other games I streamed as well, but I relied heavily on Fortnite for my growth and it was just a rather foolish move on my end for several reasons.
For one, I was never much of a good Fortnite player. I’m nowhere near as great as the NickEh30s of the world or any other professional Fortnite player out there. I’m a casual at best and I play it because I enjoy it. Secondly, as someone starting out, I don’t have as big of a following as other Fortnite streamers, such as TimTheTatman or Pokimane, so whoever comes into my chat, that’s pretty much who I have as my audience.
The key to knowing how a game is oversaturated is to look at the number of viewers in its category and the number of people streaming it. Unless you see yourself in the first two to three rows of the category on Twitch, it’s going to be immensely difficult for you to be discovered by others. Play a game with little viewers and there’s a good chance you’ll get more people dropping into your streams (I’ll probably touch on chat interaction in a future blog), niche as the category may be.
It is a bit of a double-edged sword because then you’ll ask, “Who would be tuning in to see an unpopular game being played?” There will always be a market for various games, from e-sports titles to obscure cult classics. Chances are whatever you’re streaming may not appeal to the masses, but there may be a small group of loyal fans of the game who might be curious to see how you tackle their favorite game that probably doesn’t get talked about very often.
And before you guys say, “Just play what you like!”, by all means sure, everyone should be playing games they truly enjoy, but keep what I said in mind if growth for your streams and content is what you’re aiming for.
Hopefully if you’re looking to get into streaming and you stumble upon this, you would be able to get your streaming career off to a good start. All the best in your journey! I’ll be cheering you on.