STACK February 2017 Issue 148

56 / 95

How did you get into streaming
in the first place?
I’d been watching other
people streaming for a long time
before I got into it. There were
some cool competitive games
doing the rounds when I started
out – competitive Catherine was
one of the first ones I watched. I
just saw everyone having heaps
of fun. When I left the television
stuff I was doing, I still wanted to
do something similar, so I ended
up taking up streaming. A part of
it was also my girlfriend trying to
get me to use the capture card I’d
bought a year prior.
How difficult is it to get noticed
in the medium?
There are so many streamers
on Twitch these days – and that isn’t a bad thing.
There is a lot of luck involved, but a lot of it just
comes down to why it is you want to stream
in the first place. I never streamed with the
intention of becoming big, I just wanted to make
some friends. Anyone can do it. It’s just how
you go about it; the people you meet and the
people you network with along the way can go
a long way into getting you noticed. Even the
conventions you might go to. Everything you do
helps to grow your audience, and to solidify it.
Do you think it’s more important to stream
popular games or to have a friendly and
welcoming personality that people are likely
to come back to?
For me personally, I stream a wider variety of
stuff than perhaps other streamers might. A lot
of it is more Japanese-centric, so I know that the
core audience is going to be smaller because that
kind of stuff might not be appealing to everyone.
Because I stream so much different content,
people could be watching for either the games or
the personality – it’s a good mixture of both.
What kind of advice would you
give to people who might want
to get into the business?
I always say just do it – just start.
Download a streaming program,
pick a game you like, and just
start, just do one. It doesn’t matter
if there’s no mic or no webcam.
At least then you can say you’ve
done one – congrats, you’re a
streamer now. You need to ask
why you want to do it – it’s very
good to come into it knowing
why you’re there in the first
place. Knowing why is important
to figure out from the get go.
Doesn’t matter if it’s for money,
or just because you’re keen to try
something different, or because
you want to make friends, or even
simply share your games with an audience. You
need a purpose.
For someone like you who needs to be up
at ungodly hours of the morning for an
international audience, how do you keep
pepped up?
I sleep in blocks. I also work a nine to five, and
so I’ll get home and sleep for two to three hours.
I’ll then wake up and stream from maybe 10pm
until two am, then I’ll go back to sleep and wake
up and go to work. I don’t sleep very much.
Do you think the Australian scene is making
much of an impact compared to the rest of
the world?
We’re still our own tiny little thing. In the
grand scheme of things, there isn’t a huge
streaming audience here, but it has grown so
much since last year. At PAX 2015 there were
only 10-20 streaming partners in attendance, and
at least 150 showed up in 2016. It’s growing at
an alarming rate, and I hope it grows a lot more.
In Australia, we’re getting a lot more attention.
Aussies and New Zealanders are getting flown
to more places, getting more content and more
sponsored content easily. Publishers and other
firms are waking up to content creators being a
good way to show the stuff they’re doing. We’re
getting a lot more freedom, allowing us to grow
more quickly in comparison to other regions. It’s
100 per cent an advertising thing. For example,
the other month a bunch of content creators got
ringside tickets to the wrestling, because they
knew we could post pictures and whatnot. It
was good fun.
We had a quick chat with Australia’s own
multilingual streamer Bradley Jolly, aka DYoshiiTV,
about what it takes to become a video game
streamer Down Under. Words Alesha Kolbe
stream
time
visit GAMES Q&A
I never streamed
with the
intention of
becoming big
– I just wanted
to make some
friends
Catherine
Monster Hunter
Bradley Jolly
Q &A
56 FEBRUARY 2017