"It was a full time job": Inside a new streamers quest to turn gaming into income
Video game streamers can earn millions simply playing video games in front of fans. But as Tom King learned, the figures belie how tough it can be to grow an audience.
Redundancy was the opportunity Tom King was waiting for.
For the first time since he turned 18, he was fully unemployed. No side hustles, no part-time jobs, and a tidy cash buffer from the redundancy payout.
So, he decided to explore a new venture, something that many gamers think about but rarely actually do; he would dip into the world of professional streaming.
Video game streaming is one of the fastest-growing categories of new media on the planet. Each day, millions log into platforms like Twitch and YouTube to watch and interact with others as they broadcast their gameplay. According to Statistica, revenue in the live game streaming industry is expected to hit $US13.65 billion in 2024, with that figure projected to grow to over $US18 billion — just shy of the current gross domestic product (GDP) of Albania — by 2028.
Individual streamers have been reported to earn into the millions, broadcasting to tens of thousands of fans at a time — many building their audience within just a few short years. Much like eSports, it’s become yet another way in which playing video games has been turned into a viable career, if you can build enough of an audience.
For Tom, his goal was simple: Spend a few months all-in on streaming and see where that got him. He picked a game, Call of Duty: Warzone, and a new gamer tag (or nickname), Aussie Dingus, and dove in.
“It was a full-time job,” he says. “I would spend four hours a day either learning about the software I was using or putting videos together… And then when I was streaming, I would do probably 3 to 5 hours.”
“I also found that different nights of the week were kind of more interactive or more fun. I decided to not stream on a Saturday, for example, because apparently that's when all the really good players were on. And while I'm not necessarily bad, I'm also not a pro Call of Duty player. So I was getting absolutely destroyed.”
A high bar for monetisation
There were a few important decisions that would factor into Tom’s success, first of which was which platform he would stream on. He picked YouTube largely because he was familiar with the platform and felt Twitch was overly complicated and controversial.
Amazon-owned platform Twitch shocked the streaming community last year when it changed its advertising guidelines, reducing the amount its streamers would receive from ads — a primary source of revenue for many. It later reversed the decision, but Tom’s preference for YouTube is perhaps an indicator of the ongoing fallout Twitch faces from that move.
Both platforms have thresholds that would-be streamers need to meet in order to generate revenue from their work. With YouTube, streamers need to meet the requirements of its YouTube Partner Program, which includes reaching 1000 subscribers and either 4000 public watch hours in 12 months or 10 million public Short views within 90 days.
Twitch’s current requirements are lower but tiered. To become an Affiliate — with access to a limited pool of monetisation features — you need a minimum of 50 followers, to broadcast seven times to an average of three viewers for just over 8 hours (or 500 minutes) in a month. Streamers hit Partner status after reaching 1000 followers, with a number of other conditions tied to views and engagement.
Streaming is a competitive space. On Twitch alone, there are over 50,000 Partners and 2 million Affiliates. YouTube’s partner numbers aren’t as clear, but it says it hit the 2 million mark in 2021.
Three months later
After three months of streaming five days a week, Tom hit around 84 subscribers on YouTube over 36 separate streams. He says getting sick during this period and moving house mucked up the early success he had in building an audience.
“I had a good bit of momentum,” he says. “I had built up 38 subscribers inside of the first month. So I reckon if I had been able to dedicate to it, I could have reached the first milestone of 500 subscribers within probably about four or five months.”
Most streamers often end up posting content for months or even years before gaining traction and mainstream recognition — even those who seemingly go viral. One new streamer who went viral out of nowhere within the past few months, Sketch, actually started streaming on TikTok in June 2023, before porting content across to Twitch and then finally YouTube.
Tom was realistic from the outset; it was very unlikely streaming would replace his career. So after three months of streaming full-time, Tom is back on the hunt for a new job. He’ll continue to stream, reducing his output to three nights a week.
However, he says it was by no means a waste of time. He’s found skills in video editing and presenting that he wouldn’t have usually gained in his line of work.
Another happy byproduct of the decision to cut back is that Tom feels less of a need to always play games that have a mass audience tied to them, such as Call of Duty. He intends to revisit older games on his stream, including Fallout: New Vegas and some of the older Assassin’s Creed titles. He also plans to stream content related to another hobby of his, the card game Magic: The Gathering.
“It [streaming] has given me confidence in my own identity. I guess that’s a bit of a buzzword these days, but yeah, it’s made me more comfortable in my own skin,” Tom said.
Tom’s tips for starting out with streaming:
Don’t expect to go viral overnight: Going viral is a happy accident in a lot of cases. Expect to grow your audience slowly over time.
Choose when you stream carefully: Audience engagement and competition for eyeballs differs each night of the week. Work out your market, and who is streaming what when and work backwards from there.
Your first video is going to be bad, just keep going: As with any content creation, consistency is key. Your first video or stream is not going to be as good as an established streamer, but keep at it all the same.
What I’m playing: Fallout 4
It was novel to think that I’d have a new game for each week’s edition — especially when some take over 80 hours to beat. So I’m nipping this issue in the bud, and writing about Fallout again.
I beat the game again on the weekend, siding with the Railroad — a faction that wants to save human-like robots from their oppressive creators. Think Westworld.
There were two things that really enhanced this play-through and make it feel a bit fresher.
First, having Diamond City Radio playing in the background through most of my run. After the Fallout TV show, I can’t get enough of 50s music. I also checked, and luckily having your radio on doesn’t affect your ability to sneak in-game.
Secondly, playing with mods (player-made additions or alterations that you can download) that made my character grossly overpowered. Fallout 4 is one of the few games of PS5 that allow for mods. The only other one that comes to mind is another Bethesda game: Elder Scrolls Skyrim.
Yes, this breaks the balance of the game, but sometimes that’s even more fun than playing by the rules — perhaps a post for another time.
Worth trying (if you haven’t already) if you like: Elder Scrolls Skyrim, Prey, The Outer Worlds, or enjoyed the Fallout TV series.
Available on: PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S.