The Reinvention of the SotA Streamer Program

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Justyn, Nov 14, 2019.

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  1. Alleine Dragonfyre

    Alleine Dragonfyre Avatar

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    (on mobile i can't edit too easily, so deleted original for formatting reasons)

    Thanks for opening this up for discussion.

    I agree with @Elgarion that while an official overlay would be cool, I hope its not required to be on the team. Official graphics are great and I've made use of fan kits for games, including this one, often in the past. I'd be more of a fan of a "livestreamer fan kit" with assets we can use as a whole set or pick or choose individual pieces to include in our own designs.

    Like @macnlos elaborates on in the next reply below, there is a problem with "top streamers receiving cotos." Viewers might be more apt to watch popular streamers because they have stuff to give away. Time streaming could also be a problem for some streamers who cannot dedicate 8 hours a day to streaming. This would force new or lesser popular streamers to pay out of pocket to compete and that creates inequity out of the gate. Any of this could ultimately discourage streamers. Plus you can buy viewers, followers etc. Let's not revisit mistakes from our past in this new frontier.

    Honestly, I am not a huge fan of streamers having to compete with other streamers based on what they have to give away. It's not really how Twitch works and no streamer should have to bribe their viewers to stick around. There is already an expectation in viewers that they're going to get stuff for watching. This is really foreign in the livesreaming community but it's kind of become the culture of our streams. I mean giveaways are great and a definite perk. It increase viewership but we need to also concentrate on our information and entertainment value of our streams above all else. Imho, of course.

    I agree with @Phamyns that there absolutely must be a scalable and equitable means to providing giveaway items to livestreamers that is inclusive for everyone streaming. Or, just don't give out stuff at all if equity isn't possible. I'm grateful that @Chris is providing these perks but there are many ways it can cause issues.

    Edit to add: it would be more helpful to streamers if the developers dropped by our streams, promoted them, gave us in game titles, announce in game and on the front page or the site when streams go live, and continue to do so on a reliable and regular basis.
     
    Last edited: Nov 16, 2019
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  2. macnlos

    macnlos Avatar

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    The whole concept that there needs to be give aways, provided by Port or not, is flawed. It basically ties viewership numbers to what is being given away. That creates a cycle that in order to maintain or grow viewership, more and more needs to be given away. This is bad, very bad.

    Viewership should be driven by two things: 1) personality of the streamer, and 2) quality of the game being streamed. The best streams I watch on a regular basis give absolutely NOTHING away. When I was streaming SOTA, what really bumped up my numbers was a) playing with people while on stream, b) when people like Travis would sneak in and do something crazy to my character.

    Should Port do something to support streamers? Yes. What should they do?

    1. Overlays, templates, graphics for OBS and so on.
    2. Streamer Tags for the ingame characters.
    3. Drop on by during streams to say hello.

    I'm not saying streamers shouldn't do giveaways. But I am saying that giveaways should be used sparingly and reward viewership/participation. For example, on some streams I would get, at least to me, a lot of Bits thrown at me. That is people throwing $$$ at me. I'd keep track and would take a percentage of that and throw it back with something in game or a steam gift card, etc.

    That all being said, let's be very honest with ourselves here. All of this will not move the needle on the overall number of players for the game. The game is what it is. The is at where it is at. The only thing that will significantly change that is a change to the game itself. Streaming will supplement and support, it will never drive it.
     
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  3. Strider99

    Strider99 Bug Hunter

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    Thank you Justyn and Ravalox for taking this on! Having two in-game players manage, monitor and improve the streamer program is a great way to build on this wonderful community.

    I agree with most of what has been said. I think the streamer rewards such as giveaway COTOs and other special items like trophies and cloaks are partially about exposing the game to new players and partially to keep existing players in the game. They also motivate streamers to keep playing and advertising the game. Both are probably critical to growing SOTA and keeping it around for us for years into the future.

    I do feel that the amount of hours that a streamer spends streaming is most relevant to how much support they should get from portalarium or “Catnip Games”. I also believe additional support should be given to the streamers that have the largest following. Anyone who has watched Elgarian or Fzol’s stream knows that they do a lot for the community and spend almost all of their time trying to assist, train and just help new and existing players and they do it longer than anyone else and for more viewers. I believe they should get more support than someone who spends 8 hours one day a week streaming.

    I would like to see a graduated scale of streamer support rewards that is consistently followed so we know what goals to work for to obtain a particular amount of support. I feel that If I want the largest payout amount of cotos, I should have to produce the largest amount of stream content. I think the amount of followers is important but not most important. I think stream time is the main factor followed distantly by the number of viewers. Regardless of the criteria, I do also feel that there needs to be some subjective analysis of the stream content so someone can’t just turn on the stream 24 hours a day with no real active content to falsely represent their active stream time.

    Thank you so much for this effort!
    Strider Green...the frog
     
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  4. Sol Stormlin

    Sol Stormlin Avatar

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    I understand receiving giveaways seems shallow, but the truth of the matter is that it does help streamers gain viewership. If there is no viewership then the game is not being promoted to higher numbers of people. I DO also believe that viewership is gained through personality and content and there are other factors such as how much you pay attention to the chat and communicate with your viewers, but I also believe that if you are a streamer who provides those important aspects and you make into a top tier of streamers, there should be an incentive for that. What better way then to reward with items from the game that you can then turn around and give BACK to the viewers and reward THEM for sticking around to watch the streams.

    We have a few people, one I know of in particular, who painstakingly promotes the Shroud streamers. We could reward people like that, also moderators in our streams, etc. There are a lot of reasons TO have stuff to give away. You have to work for that, and that was why I suggested a criteria to follow. A list of items that you have to accomplish in order to be considered for giveaways on your stream. This puts the responsibility on the streamer to work for it, and that makes it less about competition and more about the streamer themselves.

    Like I said in a previous post, there is the option for the community chest in Twitch. That let's viewers donate items from a particular game into the chest, then the streamer can pass them out at the end of the stream. However, I'm still looking into this and have already submitted a question to their help center. I'll update this thread when I find out. If it's possible, I assume the Devs would need to reach out to Twitch to set up those details. Then viewers would be donating, hopefully, a wide variety of items and also have a chance to receive them.
     
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  5. macnlos

    macnlos Avatar

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    Sol, I think you are confusing "viewers" with "view counts". Will giving away stuff boost your numbers for that stream? Yes. Will that translate into a repeat viewer that will be there even if you are not giving away free stuff? More often the answer to that is no.

    Viewers, people continuing to watch your stream on an ongoing basis is built on you personality as a broadcaster and what it is your broadcasting (i.e. what game). I streamed this game... I made over 300 videos of this game... My #1 video by a mile and a half had nothing to do with SotA, it was a 20m video on how to setup a Game PC and a Streaming PC with a Mixer. CONTENT, not free stuff.

    Giving away free stuff is flashy, burns bright and then dies out super fast. I will tell you the #1 way to boost your numbers. It is having someone with numbers raid or send their audience to you. My YouTube channel was just starting out. I happened to make a video on Forest Sieges with a couple of players. One of those players, unknown to me, has one of the largest YouTube channels for a particular game. He saw my video and decided to throw me a bone and told his viewers in one of his videos to go check my channel out and give me a like. All of sudden that video popped! Videos I made were having around 300 views, this one video all of a sudden had 10,000 views in one day. You want to help grow channels? Share the love and direct your viewer to other streamers.

    Free stuff is nice. But if the goal of this "Streamer Program" is to help the game then it needs to be focused on activities that drives viewers, not viewer counts. Streamers have to have credibility. When an aspect of the game is good, then they should call it out. When an aspect of the game is bad, then they should call it out. And the people at Port-a-Cat had better be prepared to listen. If they don't, and the critiques fall on deaf ears then all this program will do is highlight that. It will piss off the streamer because they aren't having fun being ignored, and the viewers who are wondering why anyone is streaming a game with problems. That's just cold hard truth.

    I have spoken...
     
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  6. Sol Stormlin

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    Good advice! Thanks!
     
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2019
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  7. Sol Stormlin

    Sol Stormlin Avatar

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    I still think that you need to focus on a lot of different points. I did say that content is important, not just giveaways. We can bring people to the game, but the game needs to be attractive and working for those people to want to play. So we need to think about what we are promoting. I agree with @macnlos that we need to call things what they are honestly and not sugar coat the stuff that doesn't work. But I'm still curious to know how many of those 10,000 viewers you had actually made it to Shroud and stayed? Was your intention to bring them to Shroud? And does that actually work? If so, then there you have it, it's something to focus on.

    I'm new to the streaming community but I made it into the top 10 most watched in less than a month, without being on camera. I had a lot of support from the other streamers and I'm truly thankful for their help and dont take it for granted. I do quests, tutorials, and stream roleplay events. That's content right there. And people like that. They also like it when you pay attention to them in chat, are nice to them, treat them with respect, reward them, and are excited about what you're streaming. I also promote my own streams AND OTHER'S through social media. I have not recieved incentives for that, and that's fine I've done all of my give-aways out of pocket and that's a choice I can live with based on my budget, but not everyone can afford to do that. And that's my point. We actually have quite a lot of streamers based on what has been investigated. And it's a pretty sizeable number of people who can get the word out there.

    I'm not sure what happened to the streamer program since it began, and why it needs to be reinvented. If the Devs decide not to incentivise it, so be it. I just think from a promotional standpoint, it's a mistake not to.
     
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2019
  8. Rada Torment

    Rada Torment Community Ambassador (ES)

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    We are mixing things here. I don't think we are here to discuss the game's flaws or anything related to design/mechanics. If we want just talk about what this game needs to improve, we have other ways to do that. We talking here about streamers and how to incentive this program to bring/show the game to more people.

    Please, let's keep in mind the purpose and the topic of this thread.
     
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2019
  9. matpsch

    matpsch Developer Emeritus

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    Maybe Catnip Games can pay to send all of the streamers to the next Twitch-Con!
     
  10. Ravalox

    Ravalox Chief Cook and Bottle Washer Moderator SOTA Developer

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    :eek:
     
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  11. necronut

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    cotos have cash value. Catnip is giving these streamers something with tangible value and these streamers are in turn turning that back into cash through subs and bits. We'd be lying to each other if we said a Shroud streamer with no coto giveaways gets as much traction as a Shroud streamer with coto giveaways. Consider also that any business paying an advertiser would pull those payments immediately if the advertiser spoke negatively about the product across social media. Consider also requiring any member of the coto program should freely share their twitch dashboard with Catnip so that real, quantifiable statistics can be gleaned to see if the program is getting any new exposure or simply feeding the existing userbase. There are too many people who swap tabs around just to farm streams for cotos and there are too many stream titles that advertise coto giveaways and aren't doing anything to boost a positive view of the game. If I'm a new player, I don't know what a coto is, much less what this game is about... i.e. If I'm paying an advertiser and they are not advertising, or are negative about my product, then I am wasting my money and the return on investment is a negative amount. If you want to see net positive gains by giving streamers cotos to giveaway, you need to consider how to get a reasonable ROI. Use moobot so that viewers can't claim rewards if they aren't listening to the stream to know they won to eliminate stream swapping coto farmers, limit or eliminate "Give me bits and I'll give you a chance at cotos" as a requirement, if a streamer has Catnip cotos require them to keep giveaways open (no sub only giveaways unless paid out of pocket), and keep tabs on those cotos on the backend to see where they went. Require streamers who get Catnip cotos to keep their titles and content across social media positive as well as requiring all content be archived so that it can be viewed by Catnip to make sure the investment remains fair and wise. This also means streamers receiving Catnip cotos would have to keep streams unmuted, i.e. no copyright music so the content isn't muted by twitch.

    A lot of great ideas were already dropped, I just wanted to give my 2 cents because I still feel the real hard truths aren't being discussed. This program could work great for Catnip and the streamers if some of the loosey goosey Wild West stuff is reigned in or eliminated completely. Frankly, no other game's streamer partner program is as wild and unregulated as this one and it's time some real rules were put in place. I'm available nearly 24/7 to get angry and passionate about this if anyone wants to hear my opinion or argue with me. I love this game and I'd love to see the streamers work for the game as much as the game has worked for them. What I see right now is a running paper tiger chasing its own tail with streamers giving cotos to other streamers or people who aren't even interested in the stream and are instead farming every stream for as many free cotos as they can get.

    :mic drop:
     
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  12. Sol Stormlin

    Sol Stormlin Avatar

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    I like to stream and not advertise that I'm doing a giveaway at the beginning of my stream. I'll wait like an hour then SURPRISE! throw one up for 5 minutes.

    I don't really like doing 30 minute giveaways. I did it once for an item that I was trying to get from a quest, and honestly I didn't like starting it that early cause I ended up taking longer than I intended. I was trying to time it right when I got the object but got lost along the way. Also, I just dont like giveaways that last that long when I'm watching a stream. Cause I'm impatient lol! Sometimes I even do a one minute giveaway for a bigger amount to create a little sense of urgency. It makes things fun!

    I agree that the streams should be more focused on showcasing the content of the game. That's my goal as well. I don't think there is anything wrong with saying, hmm that doesn't look right, because it's pretty common to find yourself looking at a bug in the face. Best way to move past that is to check to see if it's been reported then report it real quick if you need to. It's setting an example for what players can do to help the game instead of just ignoring the problem and talking smack about the game.
     
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  13. necronut

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    At minimum, anyone in the Catnip streamer coto program should be required to use moobot to completely get rid of coto farming streams. I hereby volunteer to demonstrate just how it can and should be done. Completely free of charge, get at me @Justyn04 and @Ravalox
     
  14. Phamyns

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    How much you getting paid by Moobot?
     
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  15. necronut

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    None. I prefer it because if your viewers aren't listening to your stream they won't know they won and you can pass those winnings on to someone who is just as interested in you as a streamer as they are in winning your giveaway. Simple. Honest. Not shady.
     
  16. necronut

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    Amen. Anything that brings Shroud more up to pace with other games that have had existing streamer partner programs and keeps the streamers honest. There are games that only offer in game partnership to people with 10 or more average viewers, 1000 youtube subscribers, at least 1 game related youtube upload per month, etc., etc.

    If you want to see this game able to reach out to a new audience, the coto giveaway program needs to be more than a self serving closed loop: Shroud streamers giving cotos to Shroud players. So yes, I absolutely agree with a referral code.

    The current program serves no purpose other than to give cotos to existing players, and the lack of any regulation allows for the streamers to charge money in bits/subs to initiate giveaways and allows the stream audience to swap tabs and farm all the streams that receive free cotos with total impunity. Remove the program and the real audience numbers would look much different. Example: a streamer receives a raid from the shroudoftheavatar official channel and within 20-30 minutes a 100+ user raid has dwindled to 20. I've seen it countless times.
     
  17. necronut

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    Still doesn't stop bit/sub thirsty streamers from starting up their streams right before or right after Chris, popping in, dropping bits/subs and waiting for that sweet, sweet raid to come their way. Another fact I've witnessed countless times. EDIT: In fact, I just saw it again today. lol

    EDIT: Back to the referral code, what stops me from signing up for alt accounts and using my stream referral code? And if it's just IP based, what stops me from having my friends sign up for alt accounts and using my stream referral code?
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2019
  18. Alleine Dragonfyre

    Alleine Dragonfyre Avatar

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    This would be great! Borderlands 3 drops pinatas in-game for streamers that explode with in-game cash. That could be done with Cotos or something. The more you stream, the more drops you get. I see a problem with farming this though, so there is that.
     
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  19. Alleine Dragonfyre

    Alleine Dragonfyre Avatar

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    Ok, that's just annoying AF. That means that Catnip either has to stop raiding or start paying more attention to their streamer community.
     
  20. necronut

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    I'm not suggesting Catnip stop raiding, I'm suggesting Catnip put concrete rules in place. Current wildly unregulated system:

    • Streamer gets free cotos (which have value)
    • Streamer charges viewers bits/subs to get a CHANCE at those cotos they paid nothing for.
    • Streamer realizes more viewers mean more bits/subs so streamer withholds free cotos until the opportune time.
    • Streamer sees catnipgames is going live and starts up an hour before or an hour after
    • Streamer gets catnip raid and e-begs in exchange for cotos they paid nothing for
    Simply put... it's broken and badly in need of fixing. I know I'm not only one who can see this happening repeatedly.
     
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