Your Going the wrong way?!

With May behind us I have learned a couple things, and as always I would love to share that with you.

1st things first, sorry for the last 2-3 weeks with no blog post, I've been slacking I am sorry, Late nights early mornings, surprise trips etc. So my bad. Will it get better? I hope so I have a weekly reminder on my phone and shit now. Lol.

May came with another game full of amazing and honest deserved hype. Overwatch. I love this game; I want to be playing it right now, why? It’s just fun, I want to be better at it. Etc. Anyways as a small streamer these kinds of games are a crazy time for us. I mean how we compete with the big guys, these streamers who have the companies themselves behind them.

This time, I said "Nope" If everyone else is going to be streaming the same game, it's going to be the Division, Destiny, and more all over again. The question is how do we get noticed? How can our little streams be found in the massive ocean of other streamers. I decided I wanted to do some tests and "go the wrong way." Vaz what are you doing? Everyone else is playing this super hot game right now, you should too if you want blah blah blah. Trust me I want success as much as the next guy, but I don't want success being that guy, I want to do something because I want to for fun.

Okay so on to a couple of my findings. On May 20th I got one of the most surprising emails as a streamer ever. A steam key and the blessing of a much anticipated game to stream it 5 days early. You bet your ass I jumped on this chance. Installed that bad boy and got to stream it. Tossed it on, views were good, got some follows, made new friends, Overall really good times. But where was the views in the 1000's? How come the channel isn't like top of the list blowing up? I checked on this multiple times and came to find out I was on a list...a very short list. 6 people in the world streaming this game, there’s little ol Vazio82 on the bottom of the list. It felt special. I mean with only 6 people playing this 5 days early why are there not more flooding in? Well the big guys are...the big guys! I mean I was on a list with LIRIK and ItmeJP and a couple other larger streamers with very large communities already established. I stopped and thought man little ol Vazio82 on twitch is on the same list with them even for a day, damn cool. But here’s the realization, Even though I had the game early and was advertising it I was seeing a trickle not a flood. (Not Complaining BTW, all of this is an observation) I got to thinking, why? Why would people come into a smaller stream when the larger one is going on? Why would people leave the giant ass party and come to the kinda small party next door? And that’s our job as smaller streamers. How can we stand out? How can we make people come to our party?! So more ideas kept coming to me. Things I hope to have the chance to use in the future. But my point of this small story is, even with the same access, same game, same ability to stream, those people have worked hard for years and have much larger communities and deserve what they have. Everything that's worth something should be worked for.

May 24th ~ Overwatch is finally here. I want to play it! The Hype has infected me! But I also want to play something else and that’s what I do, I spend Overwatch week playing a title that released the same week but got overshadowed. I had fun, it's difficult to try to have fun while people are screaming at you, "Why are you playing this trash?!" "Why are you not playing the game everyone else is playing?!" But we did it anyways, and it was worth it. It was worth it in so many ways. I played something that I wanted to play. I played through an entire game with friends, Twitch related perks, the day after the hype died a little people were already looking for something new, guess where they ended up? Yup that one idiot playing something different.

Don't be afraid to try something different.

I am not trying to stand here with my Vazio flag and point the world into a new era of streaming, I am not trying to stand here and make you feel like shit cuz you decided to stream Overwatch this month. All I am trying to do is to remind you for whatever reasons may come in your way, STAY YOU! Streaming is a challenge but do it because you love to do it. Since streaming is something you do that opens a window to the entire world there's always going to be people yelling at you telling you which way to go. They seen So and So do this thing and it will work for you. Nah, You do you and I'll do me. Make your own path. See your own successes. As I say over and over again, twitch numbers are all business, Are you having fun? You hanging out with friends while doing what you love? Success.