Why Twitch is an essential tool for Game Developers

I was sitting down to do some game dev for my Critical Role game and I had a spontaneous impulse to turn on a Twitch stream while I worked. Not someone else’s stream as background noise.. no, my own stream! I had only streamed game dev on Twitch once before, and it was actually a great success… I just never thought to make it a regular thing.

This time around really showed me the value in streaming game dev live, and from here on out I plan on doing it a lot more often. Here’s why.

Distraction-free

When you’re live streaming on Twitch – even if there’s just one viewer – you are so much less likely to get distracted by social media while you work. At the office, if I know my boss or colleague is looking over my shoulder, you best believe I’m not touching Facebook, Reddit, or Youtube. Same goes for Twitch! Even if there are NO viewers at all, just knowing that someone could jump on just at the moment you’re scrolling on Reddit (and then immediately jump off) will keep you on your toes about what you’re working on.

This means you can go for a nice long time, actually working on your game. It’s especially helpful for game devs in a rut with their work or stuck on a certain feature build. Adding a new motivator like Twitch viewers to the equation keeps you on your toes and helps you move through the sluggish parts.

Makes tedious work fun

Often in game development I’m faced with big chunks of tedious, meticulous, time consuming tasks. For me those tasks include rigging characters in my game, animating, and editing my art into clean and bright sprites. Luckily these are also the tasks that don’t require too much brain power – I can easily hold a conversation while doing them.

It’s a cliché but time flies when you’re having fun – on stream these types of jobs just seem to get done.

Live feedback

Sharing your game dev process on Twitch is an excellent way to receive feedback on what you are building. The earlier you get feedback, the sooner you can implement it, and the sooner your game is more user-ready. Especially considering you are developing the game live as you receive input from viewers, you can implement the suggestions immediately.

Understand your market

This is the last but most important point when it comes to using Twitch as a tool to build your audience. Consistent interaction with any group of individuals help you understand how to cater your game to your audience from the get-go. Twitch is already predominantly a gamer audience so you already have the advantage of sharing your game within the video game niche. Through discussions with the chat you can discover what aspects of your game people are the most interested in. Then when it comes down to more active marketing, you can double down on those aspects and really draw people in.

Just the beginning

There are so many more reasons to get yourself on stream (and I cover a few more of them in this youtube video) but hopefully this has given you the motivation to start. You don’t need a fancy set up and you don’t need to spend any money. I stream from my macbook pro from India for gosh sakes. I won’t accept any excuses. You can do it, just give it a shot!!

More to come

Stay tuned for my next post (or perhaps series of posts) on how to build a following on Twitch. It was very easy for me and I don’t think it has to be a complex as people make it out to be. Until then, if you have any questions feel free to leave them in the comments below and I’ll be sure to address them in my next post.

Thanks for reading! Talk to you soon 🙂

Julia