KELSEY ALPAIO: I'm a gamer.
I have a headset.
Like, is it really that easy?
Could I make money on the side while playing Animal Crossing?
For this episode I want to explore content creation
around gaming.
How do I turn my passion for playing video games
into something I could maybe one day live off of?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I've been watching a lot of Twitch recently.
Like pretty much every day.
And with this platform, there is money to be made.
So much so that people make a living off of it.
Here's some stats and headlines.
I'll just keep pointing.
To find out more about the Twitch economy,
I talked to Steve Sarumi.
He's a full time Twitch streamer.
He streams all things Pokemon, five days a week.
STEVE SARUMI: Trying to collect them all.
Pokemon.
KELSEY ALPAIO: He also has a Pokemon podcast
called, "It's super effective."
Jack, let me tell you about this character.
Is Pokemon your job?
I do this full time.
KELSEY ALPAIO: He basically lives and breathes Pokemon.
STEVE SARUMI: My whole body is literally shaking.
I've always dreamed of like pursuing content creation
full time.
I'm up to date on all Pokemon news.
I can tell you in what episode Ash and Misty ran into scyther.
I can remember a specific card from Black White Emerging
Powers, back when that TCG set came out.
KELSEY ALPAIO: So, before Steve became a full time streamer,
he worked at an Apple store and was a front end developer
for a startup in Wisconsin that abruptly went out of business.
All that time, he was working on a Pokemon podcast that
had a moderate following, but really
wasn't enough to support him and his wife.
STEVE SARUMI: Twitch was getting a little bit
momentum, and my wife and I talked about it
and she was like, well I think this
is like really your only opportunity to go for it.
I mean you have all the time in the world now.
And I was like, OK I'm still going to apply for jobs,
but also I'm going to stream a lot more,
and I'm going to really double down on the podcast.
KELSEY ALPAIO: So when did you start
kind of seeing growth on your channel,
and how did that happen?
Like how did you make the growth in your channel happen?
STEVE SARUMI: It's hard to grow on Twitch because you are so
buried under already established people.
So like when the new Pokemon game came out,
there was 20, 30, 50 people above me in the Twitch
directory that were pulling 1,000 people, 2000 people.
But I had my core, small audience.
And I think when I started off on Twitch
we were pulling like 15 to 20 people.
When I lost my job, I sent out a Patreon message
and I was like hey, just a heads up.
Losing my job today, don't worry about it.
My wife and I have like a savings account.
We'll be fine for a couple of months.
We doubled the Patreon revenue instantly.
People just upped their pledges, or new people
decided to pledge that listen to the show.
So it was really cool to see your fan base kind of champion
behind you.
KELSEY ALPAIO: So obviously it takes time to grow on Twitch,
but let's get specific here.
How many hours a week do you work?
STEVE SARUMI: OK, it's probably close to like 80 hours a week.
I pretty much do everything.
Doing the Instagram, the TikTok, figuring out
what is going to YouTube or what is going to Twitter,
planning out the streams, doing the streams.
I'm recording the podcast, I'm editing the podcast.
Watching my own content, editing my own content,
prepping the content.
All of that stuff I feel like is more time consuming
and more important than the going live part of it.
Like that's kind of the easy part.
I can't keep it up.
SPEAKER: You're not.
You are failing.
I don't even know what's going on.
STEVE SARUMI: I try to plan out my stream
to hit content points of like, OK, well
it might be a boring six hours, but if we can at least get
two things to happen, like that's perfect.
People never remember the whole six hours.
They only remember the moments that you've created.
And that's so important too.
I think Twitch, but also just creating content in general.
Oh.
We got it, we got it, we got it.
KELSEY ALPAIO: So, let's say you do the work,
you get the following.
How do you actually turn that engagement
into cold, hard cash.
STEVE SARUMI: Well, Twitch is really
good at giving the streamer opportunity to make money.
There's the subscribe button, which is $4.99,
and then that money gets split.
Half the money goes to Twitch, and then half the money
goes to the streamer.
Or I get a different portion depending
on if you have a specific contract with Twitch.
Which I'm sure somebody like Ninja is not getting 50-50,
I'm sure he's getting a lot more money.
And then there's another way to give the stream
money, which is bits.
And bits is a currency that you buy with real money.
So I think it's like $12 or $13 for 1,000 bits.
But one bit is one penny.
So when you're paying that $12, you're getting $10 back.
But that $10 can fully go to a streamer, and then the $2
up front is what Twitch is taking.
There's the old fashioned streamers that
still have tips through PayPal.
So some of the older streamers, they might have like a PayPal
link, and that's just, here's your-
and then PayPal takes their cut.
And then there's ad revenue.
Although I think the ad revenue on Twitch
no one ever depends on.
But that's, the best way to make money on YouTube is ad revenue.
And then the last way to make money on Twitch,
purely on Twitch, because obviously you
can have outside partnerships and stuff,
is there's a bounty system that they have.
So like Twitch will reach out to video game companies.
Like they had an Adidas one at one point.
So I'll use the Adidas one for an example.
So it was, watch a 1 minute ad of Adidas with your audience,
and if you have 200 people here, you will get this much money,
and if you have 500 people here, you'll get this much money.
And so you just pull up the ad, you hit start bounty,
you play it, and then after an hour
it'll process how many people were actually there,
and then Twitch will pay you accordingly.
But that last option was only for specific partners
on Twitch.
KELSEY ALPAIO: I hope that answer
some questions about how money is actually made on Twitch.
It takes time to get there.
It took Steve a while to make his current six figure salary.
Yeah.
So now if you want to pursue this,
here are some things to get you started.
Number one, ask yourself, what can I do differently
on my stream, and what incentive am I giving my audience
to keep coming back?
STEVE SARUMI: Somebody came into my stream
and they're like, I want to stream Pokemon.
Cool.
Super supportive of you, but what
are you going to do differently to get to where I am today.
KELSEY ALPAIO: Discoverability on Twitch is extremely tough,
so you have to build yourself up on other platforms
and bring those people to Twitch.
STEVE SARUMI: You have to go all the way.
You have to have a Twitter, you have
to have a TikTok or Instagram or Clubhouse.
You have to have a YouTube.
You have to kind of commit to everything.
KELSEY ALPAIO: If I wanted to start streaming tomorrow,
what would be the things that I would need,
both in like gear and also like skills or like mindset.
STEVE SARUMI: I think the most important thing
is a microphone.
Most people can deal with a bad webcam,
but not everyone can deal with a bad microphone.
No one wants to hear you sound like you're
recording from your bathroom.
KELSEY ALPAIO: Don't be afraid to fail at first.
The niche you pick at first might not
take off, which means you might have to switch to another one.
STEVE SARUMI: Just because you love a game,
or just because you're passionate about game,
doesn't mean there's an audience for that.
KELSEY ALPAIO: Be confident.
Steve says that confidence goes a long way, especially
in the beginning when it comes to building your audience.
STEVE SARUMI: I would never start my stream being like,
I don't know what to do stream today.
I've done bad then in myself if I'm like,
I don't know what to do today.
No, I always know what to do.
I know what I'm going to do next week,
I already know what I'm going to do next month.
And I think that's so important is
to have some sort of confidence in, not only while you're live,
but in what you're planning on doing.
KELSEY ALPAIO: I definitely still have a career crush
on Steve and pretty much any Twitch streamer.
I do think there are some serious pros and cons to being
a Twitch streamer.
Some major pros.
You get to play the games you love and make money from it.
Obviously a major pro.
STEVE SARUMI: That was like the number one card I wanted.
KELSEY ALPAIO: You get to build a community,
make friends, and have these people that you get to see
and check in with every day.
STEVE SARUMI: He's not going to come over here.
He's thick, he's super thick.
What's up Dry bones?
You're complaining about Pokemon getting XP.
KELSEY ALPAIO: And for cons, sometimes this job
can mean working 80 hour work weeks
and spending your free time building up your audience.
And I'm not necessarily down with that.
If I ever do want to make Animal Crossing my full time job,
I definitely feel more equipped to do so now.
Thanks for watching.
Do you have a career crush?
Tell us about them in the comments,
and we'll see if we can talk to them for you.
Subscribe to our channel to see more interviews with people
actually living the dream.
Bye.