The Streamer Spotlight

JUNE 3
Welcome to Thursday, peeps. Grab your drink.
This week, a cheater is not your buddy and Valorant is a case study, but first...

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Made by Franco

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Right, let’s get straight to the point. Well, ain’t nobody getting straight this month tho. Happy Pride Month, be who you want to be family, we only have one life — simple as that.

Anyways… streamers. If you’re reading this newsletter there’s a 90% chance that deep inside, you would love to stream a game or a hobby to a community. The ugly truth? Only 5% make it a sustainable reality.

This week, I read a small post about Kelly jumping into streaming for the first time and it made me want to talk about it. Let’s condense some thoughts:

Getting to the 5% streamer spotlight takes A LOT of consistency, zero fear to “what others will say” and creativity to stand out.
A streamer has to go through a similar process that the Youtube Vloger had to go years ago to be successful.
For the ones who made it, they don’t really know when it is going to be over. The environment is truly volatile. Once you make it, the work is actually harder.

But we are in special times. If you really think about it, streamers who made it are currently in control of the gaming industry as a whole.

Esports teams main source of views: streamers.
Esports teams main source of merch income: through streamers’ funnels.
First people approached by new sponsors in the scene: streamers.
First people approached for NFT activations: streamers.
Streaming platforms are literally fighting each other with hundreds of millions for streamers in the 5%.

The NBA just confirmed that the Brazilian streamer Gaules will be streaming the NBA Playoffs. Fucking massive.

What about mainstream? Not a team, not a league, not a collab, not new technology. Only streamers go mainstream. Ninja playing with Drake, HasanAbi covering the elections, Ludwig streaming for a month, even Courage JD interacting with Ariana Grande.

A streamer is a dream come true for sponsors, they get real time visible and measurable data. Testing is easier than ever. If you are a sponsor, it’s a no brainer to be honest.

What about the audience? At the moment, the streaming world has several niches but there are two huge audiences to target:

The more nerdy only spam Poggers and Omegaluls in the chat type of audience. Familiar with gaming since it’s inspection, Reddit heavy users, loyal to Twitch subscriptions.
The more hypebeasty only spam W and Gang Gang in the chat type of audience. Familiar with all shit-talking drama, IG heavy users, loyal to limited edition drops.
There’s a new wave of people getting formed, which is a combination of the other two audiences. I consider myself, and probably a lot of Weekly readers, to be part of this one.

Pick your fighter and monetize.

What’s next?
Nobody is slowing down on streamer activations. Publishers and the tech industry are looking at each other like… “well fuck, who we got to promote our product this time?”

The necessity for variety to promote products + the growth of other niches in streaming will increase the 5% streamer spotlight. However...

The downside to streaming comes from the fact that people’s attention is limited as shit unless you involve them in the process. Attention is limited because the audience wants the attention for themselves. I think this is what will mark the next era of content creation and a possibility for companies to finally be at the front of it. Epic Games and Roblox are starting to do it. We just need to wait, not to build a Metaverse, but to realize what does the best version of the Metaverse looks like.

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🎞️ Trailers of the Week
Far Cry 6
Pokemon Legends: Arceus
Battlefield (Teaser)

🏆 Esports Highlights

Sentinels win VCT Stage 2 Masters Iceland.
Atlanta FaZe wins CDL Chicago Home Series.
Team Liquid wins cs_summit 8.
Mouseports wins Flashpoint 3.

🖼️ Where are we headed with technology?
Nice post. Observations: we will have second lives in a virtual environment, online communities are the next big thing, crypto for transactions, privacy will cost us, manufacturing and logistics will be fully automated.

🐦 Tweet of the Week
About the Metaverse, by John Carmack.

🔌 Product Spotlight
Ryvals — Competition platform launched by Optic Hecz.

🔑 A Case Study About Success
Through everything that’s being talked about Valorant, the facts are:
As a publisher, when you organize a proper competitive scene, hire passionate people and release good content… the game can be successful.

When you don’t, you aim to be competitive CS:GO or Dota.

📖 Read of the Week
The Pursuit of Legendary, by Shahar Sorek.

💼 Cool Job of the Week
New open positions in Apex Legends — Electronic Arts.

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Steam top sellers of the week by revenue.
Dark Horse Comics starts a gaming and digital entertainment division.
Ahman Green, from NFL star to esports student coach.
Throwback to EVO’s 2002 trailer. My eyes.
Memorial Day, from Halo.

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Summer Game Fest x Netflix Geeked

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Xbox x Pride

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BY ADAM FITCH

Cheating the Cheaters
The online era of CS:GO hasn’t been kind when it comes to competitive integrity in the esports scene. The Esports Integrity Commission are the only active party who are outwardly attempting to safeguard vs corruption — whether that be match-fixing or in-game cheating — but it’s not all been positive in terms of the reception surrounding their efforts. While ESIC has been successful in clamping down on integrity breaches in the past — a recent case in a spectator bug that many coaches abused and were charged for — they’ve been sloppy in some cases too.

There are still players in Australia waiting to get their bans overturned as they allegedly have proof of their innocence. Realistically, ESIC are understaffed and lacking crucial resources and bandwidth to fully attend to what is a global competitive scene. If they’re this backlogged reacting to sentences handed out over a year ago, what happens when the inevitable happens: another exploit surfaces or another wave of match fixing appears. I think it’s clear that every major player in the scene believes ESIC’s mission is a healthy, righteous one, so I truly think that it’s up to those who purport to want to stamp out such corruption to offer resources and support wherever possible. CS:GO will not, and honestly cannot, thrive when it’s built upon a compromised act.

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