2020 has been a funny year. I came into 2020 with so much optimism. My theatre company had events planned and we seemed unstoppable. Then the pandemic completely took over and the whole world seemed to screech to a halt.
The bright side to being stuck inside for months was that I had plenty of time to work on the second edition of my play, and I was able to return to an old hobby: streaming on Twitch.
First I tried code. It didn’t really work out for me. So I tried a little game called Skribbl.io which seemed to make me far more popular than I’d imagined. Also, I was having a lot of fun. My poor old 2012 MacBook though… wasn’t having so much fun. The machine wasn’t fit for streaming and gradually my streams became more and more unwatchable.
We decided to invest in a stream-worthy budget gaming PC- a huge investment at the time. Then the 24-hour stream. A painful marathon but so much fun. It marked the beginning of a journey.
Not too long after, I became a Twitch affiliate and made some incredible new friends. Things were looking great!
Those of you that have been around for a while will know that I often poke fun at my financial situation. It probably seems like exaggeration a lot of the time but my bank balance has genuinely been resting at 0 for most of the year. My partner, Sophie, as well as buying the streaming machine also bailed me out of the existing payments that I’d fallen behind on but everything seemed fine because I had Twitch- that was my job now.
Unfortunately, the reality of my situation is dawning on me and it’s a cold realisation. In the 5 months I have been an affiliate for, I have made $88.75 which seemed incredible to me- but then I really thought about it. You need to make $100 for Twitch to payout. Even if I could pay out now, I’d have earned the equivalent of $17.75 per month which is hardly a salary. Since I haven’t reached a payout yet, I don’t even have that.
Despite this, I’ve had such amazing support! From Bits and Subs, to gifting games. You’ve gone above and beyond to be by my side throughout all of this and I can never repay for that. You’ve all been amazing.
The situation now is that we need to buy our home or find somewhere else to live. Since my income is non-existent, the banks won’t give us a mortgage. The bottom line is- I need an income.
I may need to semi-retire from streaming. It won’t happen today, and I won’t stop streaming completely. It will mean that I won’t have a schedule. I’ll stream as and when I can. It might be once a week for an hour… it might be once a month. I don’t know yet. It’ll depend what “real job” I am able to get.
Since my presence may be heavily limited, I want to pass on what I’ve learned and keep my community active. That’s why I’ve decided to launch a dedicated gaming community.
From cross-promoting Twitch streams, competing in competitive e-sports, and hosting leagues of our own, I hope Team Sperk will be an active community of gamers. But more on that soon…
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