Natasha Vijji

Indian Streamers

Posted on March 16, 2019 by Natasha Vijji

The gaming industry of the country is expanding faster than ever before. Major manufacturers of peripherals as well as hardware now have centers of operation in the country, even brands that were once cherished as “premium” brands. Thanks to improved network facilities as well as cheaper access to fast internet, the streamers living in the subcontinent can play games online without having to worry about latency. One such streamer is Dhruv ‘Ris3y’ Gupta.

He has been gaming for more than 20 years and been working in the gaming industry for almost 7 years now. Previously working as a Game Tester, Teacher, Writer & Critic, he is now focused entirely on his channel and has been doing so full time for the past one year. As a streamer, he focuses on interacting with his audience, entertaining them, and bringing them new games to watch from time to time. Having spent over 1400 hours of streaming on Twitch alone (used to be a YouTube Streamer as well) the journey for him has been exhilarating.

In the last one year, he has successfully partnered with Twitch, Discord, Stream Labs, Humble Bundle & PUBG. Becoming the first Indian to be selected to go on the Twitch Partner Spotlight and being selected to represent India on a global scale at the Twitch ❤ Creators Program. With over 3900+ followers, 60 concurrent Twitch Subscribers, and more than 650,000+ views on his channel, this continuous support from the community has enabled him to grow, improve and develop better streams, hence becoming a better entertainer over the last year.

Twitch in India

Posted on March 16, 2019 by Natasha Vijji

With improved internet speeds over the last few years and increased opportunities to monetize content, video game streaming in India is on the verge of a breakthrough. While there has been a meteoric rise of streaming in the gaming industry worldwide, India has been lagging behind despite a growing urban gamers.

The gaming culture in India is weak, people don’t game let alone follow a site to watch gaming. Some reasons for this may be due to low income many can’t afford decent hardware to play triple AAA games and another being internet speed and data. Twitch streams are too big which requires huge data compared to few minutes of reviews. The average Indian college kid is still almost fully supported by his parents. They usually aren’t allowed to work part time and are supposed to put their full focus on their education. There is a very different scenario in the US and Europe.

Twitch is a market leader in terms of live game streaming platforms, Its viewership increased by 40% over in 2018. In India though, it has yet to sky rocket in terms of popularity. Some reasons for this maybe the lack of gaming culture present in India that discourages Indian viewers from starting their own broadcasts. Also gaming for long hours requires special hardware which is unaffordable for many Indian children, since they are mostly imported. At the rate with which the gaming industry is expanding in terms of popularity and revenue, it’s time to encourage young gamers to start broadcasting content . And before you know it, they could be making a living off playing video games thanks to twitch.

Gamer’s Merchandise

Posted on March 15, 2019 by Natasha Vijji

Every Twitch partner who has “made it,” enough to have paying subscribers can sell branded T-shirts. Twitch encourages broadcasters to make merchandise by building Teespring, ( a website that Twitch has partnered with where they can design and sell items) into the dashboard of their personal Twitch page. Let’s use Twitch broadcaster Lirik for example. He has 1.1 million followers. His latest $23 “cat in a helmet” Tee had 6,681 sales. That’s $153,663 in gross sales. We’ve seen a large growth recently in game developers combining both digital and physical products to further create a more immersive gameplay experience, as well as help their players better connect with the stories and characters of the games they play.

Besides this Twitch also hosts TwitchCon, an annual convention for the live streaming video culture of video game streaming. For streamers, it gives them an opportunity to seek improvements for their streams and grow their brand. It also provides fans with a unique chance to meet streamers, play new games, and meet with online communities in real life

Brands on Twitch

Posted on March 15, 2019 by Natasha Vijji

Twitch reaches a huge audience, yet it is an under-utilized advertising platform. Mainly because advertisers and media buyers don’t know about Twitch or why it’s important, the negative stereotypes of gamers and internet culture scares brands. Moreover, there are no widely accepted practices for advertising on Twitch or identifying Twitch influencers.

The social environment created between streamer and viewers has shown that a person’s social environment can have a significant impact on brand awareness. When your brand is mentioned on a stream, viewers instantly react. With scheduled streams, you should be able to accurately track how being mentioned on Twitch can direct viewers to your brand. The online influence of a Twitch Influencer has grown significantly due to esports, competitive video gaming and the accessibility of the stars by bleeding into other channels like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Unlike traditional media, most gameplay live streams are user-generated media, and the social context of a stream is influenced greatly by individual streamers. Among the most well-known brands that have already capitalized on the popularity and unique advertising opportunity of Twitch are Tyson, Old Spice, Amazon Fresh, and other CPG-related brands.

Revenue Model

Posted on March 15, 2019 by Natasha Vijji

Twitch subscriptions are a monthly payment made to Twitch Partners and Affiliates as a way for viewers to support their favorite channels. Subscribers are given a variety of premium perks such as special emoticons (emotes) to use in a stream’s chatroom while the streamer gains a recurring source of income that can help pay their streaming and living expenses. Subscriptions are one of the more popular ways to make money on Twitch. Reaching that level of financial success on Twitch requires a lot of dedication though with most of the more-popular Twitch Partners and Affiliates streaming five to seven days a week to maintain their audience.

The subscription fee collected from the users is distributed between the platform and streamer equally. Viewers can also purchase bits, When a viewer sends the bits in the chat of a live stream, it means they’re cheering the streamer for playing a particular move.

Viewer have the additional option of directly donating their contribution to a streamer without subscribing, in this case no revenue is shared with twitch.

Twitch Prime

Posted on March 14, 2019 by Natasha Vijji

Twitch Prime is a premium membership for Twitch which links to Amazon’s Amazon Prime program. Anyone with an Amazon Prime membership automatically gains a Twitch Prime subscription and the two are often used as a way to cross-promote the other. Twitch Prime includes bonus games and exclusive in-game content, a channel subscription every month at no additional cost to be used on any Partner or Affiliate channels, exclusive emotes, and chat badge.

Users with a Twitch Prime membership are given an ad-free experience on Twitch, get access to in-game loot, free digital downloadable content (DLC) for select titles, video game discounts, and a free subscription which they can use on any Twitch Partner’s channel as a way to support them. Twitch Prime is now available in all major regions worldwide.

Twitch Lingo

Posted on March 14, 2019 by Natasha Vijji

Kappa – The Kappa emote is actually a black and white image of the head of one of Twitch’s early engineers. When you see it, it’s basically denoting sarcasm. For example, if a streamer is playing a game and loses badly, someone might post in chat, “Wow, you did awesome. Kappa.”

PogChamp – In the somewhat crazy world of Twitch Chat, PogChamp is generally called in as a legitimate means of congratulations or praise.

PJSalt – The viewers hit the PJSalt emote in chat if and when the Streamer gets frustrated and angry at something in the stream or on the game they’re playing . It is sometimes accompanied by some variant of “gitgud” — meaning, “Get Good” or “You need to get better”.