I'm a Streamer Now
2021-07-28 23:33 - Gaming
In addition to all the normal kind of video entertainment available online these days, it's become not unusual for video game players to broadcast or "stream" their gameplay online, for anyone out there to watch live.
In late 2018 I got into Magic: The Gathering, a trading card game (for lack of a better term). But it also, at that time, had a rather new official online computer game equivalent. In the computer version you could collect (most easily buy, with real world dollars) the same exact cards that you would (buy and) collect in the physical world. I started watching a video game streamer as a result at the time, as a way to better learn the surprisingly deep strategy of the game.
Afterwards I started slowly branching out to watch a little bit more. There's a lot of people streaming their game play, and lots of them are very entertaining and pleasant to watch. The pandemic escalated this for me: I don't want complete silence but I also don't really want to be playing music all the time either. I've been watching a lot of game streams in the background while working. It's always something to keep it from being quiet, and then it's a gentle and easy way to relax or fill otherwise dead time (i.e. waiting for something).
I'd heard of the phenomenon years before, and always idly thought it would be a fun thing to do. Since I started watching more, I started thinking about it yet more. About nine months ago I truly started acting on the impulse, acquiring the hardware to let me record (and/or live stream) my video game play.
But it was easy to come up with excuses. I want to use my powerful desktop CPU to do the real time video encoding, but I can't see the TV when I'm sitting in front of it. I want a good microphone to talk into, and a camera to show my face. (Not all streamers show their face, but in my limited experience, the better ones definitely do.) I want good lighting for that, I want so many little things. For those nine months I kept delaying and not making progress.
On this past Sunday, the 25th, I finally put it all behind me. Gave up on the face cam for now, got a cheap but effective headset for a good-enough microphone that's easy to put near my mouth (for decent quality audio without excess noise). Decided to use my laptop to run the stream. Good enough for now!
I've already hit my first milestone, on my fourth day streaming (and only for an hour or two each day), my first viewer showed up and even chatted with me! Sadly right at the end of the time I had, but it's still fun and exciting! I'll have to keep streaming and see where this goes.
