Video Game Buskers

I’d like to propose an idea and see what you think:

Video game streamers are online buskers.

Okay, this is probably not a particularly controversial idea and maybe it’s something you’ve already considered but no one has mentioned it to me before. Here is a little more detail about why I think this:

• Streamers perform live, sometimes for hours at a time, and people come and go throughout the performance. It’s like sitting on a street corner at a busy market.
• The chat room is the audience and the streamer occasionally interacts with the audience and answers questions or makes jokes or takes on challenges from the room. Much like how you would sit with a friend and chat while you watch a performance.
• Chat occasionally drops a few dollars into the streamers virtual hat.
• These streamers are very good at what they do. They make the game look easy. If you try the game yourself, you can quickly appreciate the skill so it’s quite fun to watch.
• The performers live a persona. They may be that person or they may not be but generally they don’t use their real names and they are just your average everyday person with a day job and family and kids. Performing is likely not their only role in life.
• The best players are not necessarily the best streamers. To be successful at streaming, you’ll need a certain charisma to keep the audience entertained.

That last point I want to elaborate on a little bit. One of my hobbies the last few years was studying the old video game, DOOM. I got into this because I wrote my own port and, as I was coding and testing and learning about the game and the community around it, I came across a bunch of streamers on youtube who stream themselves playing DOOM. It was, and still is, fun to watch. Mostly I’ve been watching decino, Coincident. and Vytann but there are definitely others. What’s interesting about these guys is that decino probably isn’t the most skilled player of the three. Don’t get me wrong, he’s very good, but Vytaan just seems to make difficult things look easy. Even playing keyboard only. So why is it that decino has 200K subscribers while Vytann has only 5K? I think there are a few reasons. Decino has been around longer and has published interesting analysis videos of obscure behaviour and bugs in the game but I don’t think that’s the whole story. Decino has never revealed his face so there is a sort of mystique about him. Perhaps you’ve walked by him on the street and didn’t even know. Decino also has a certain charm that makes him entertaining. Don’t get me wrong, Vytaan seems like a really nice guy and, I enjoy his streams, but I’m not sure he has the natural charisma of a performer. Just listen to his voice as he plays with his child on his lap.

To further elaborate, there are arguably even better players out there like Brainfreezzzzz or PeterLawrence or ancalagon. Ancalagon, for instance, is in the top 10 speed runners in the Doom Speed Run Archives including holding the record for UVMax on Cosmogenesis maps (probably my favourite map set). While these guys are great, perhaps they don’t have the time or interest to become street performers or perhaps they don’t have that natural charisma that’s required to keep people entertained? I’m not sure.

The parallel isn’t perfect of course so here are a few counterpoints because the medium is so different (street corner vs internet):

• Video game streamers can be extremely niche and probably still find an audience because they are accessible to almost the whole world. Even something like a 30 year old video game can build up an audience of hundreds of thousands.
• Streamers have the advantage of online tools like a history of recorded videos or message boards to connect with fans between shows. I suppose buskers could do this too but their performance is so localized that online tools may not be the best fit.
• Online audiences can be much larger. I’m sure some buskers could attract 50 or 100 people to watch but it’s not uncommon for 1,000 or more people to show up to a decino stream.

Overall, performing your special skills on a street corner is not a particularly new idea and streaming services, like Twitch or YouTube, simply offer a different kind of street corner. There is still nothing new under the sun. I’m still puzzling over what an “influencer” actually is. Maybe someday I’ll figure that out.