Episode 6: Twitch

In episode 6, Dani and Ify are joined by the chief executive of Hyper RPG Zac Eubanks to discuss Twitch, the live streaming video platform. They get in to the beginnings of video streaming, how the gaming category of video streaming sites grew, how it works, how to use the site, Hyper RPG's partnership with Twitch, how Ify built his following, and much, much more! Check out our footnotes on our website www.nerdificent.com to learn more. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome back to netificent. I am Danny Fernandez, and across
from me is yeah, I thought you were about to
take let it rip? Who else was I going to interge?
You know, today we are covering something that is very
near and dear to our hearts, Twitch twitching. Yeah, I

(00:33):
had something else I was going to say about it,
but sure, you know what actually if he because you
are Twitch partnered, I feel like you guys can't see,
but he's blushing. Um yeah, so Twitch, we have both
worked at Twitch channels and if you don't know what
that is, we're going to get into that. But um,
I would say overall, my experience with Twitch has been

(00:56):
extremely positive and I feel really lucky. I've been in
a lot of different fandoms and nerd ums and nerd
channels and sides of the internet, and Twitch is always
my favorite. Yeah. I feel like Twitch and their communities
are what a lot of people hope YouTube could be,
because I feel like Twitch you really get in what

(01:20):
you put out and you can foster some great communities
that are filled with positive people with great input who
doll out if there is any criticism, trying to find
a good way to do it. They aren't just there
to really be horrible people, whereas I feel like YouTube
comments are have the playground, you know, they jump the

(01:42):
shark and it really is where people go to play
and be the worst people. And I feel like it's
also because of Twitches. And we'll get to this later,
but Twitch has a great mod system where you can
adorn people as moderators to just instantly and horrible people
in the blink of an eye. Yeah. In fact, when

(02:03):
we would do a lot of our Twitch streams at
some of the channels that we've been at, um, I
wouldn't even get to see the comments. It would just
say comment deleted before it even came up to me
the host, which is so nice because when I'm doing that,
are hosting a live event, the last thing I want
to see is something that I'm not allowed to say
right now because we're not an explicit podcast because of
our our personal sensoring. But um, I loved that. I

(02:26):
love the mods. I love that they're Twitch actually feels
like a community in a way that I don't necessarily
think YouTube does. I feel like, Um yeah, Twitch feels
like a family to me. The channels that I've been at, Yeah,
well you know, let's just uh jump right into it
and talk about what is twitch. Twitch is an online

(02:48):
streaming platform that it's very similar to YouTube in the
sense that it is a user created content. It is live.
That's one thing I know. I'm trying to find the
best way to package this. It's a site filled with
user created content consumed by other users who also, just

(03:08):
like YouTube, have an opportunity to create the same content
if they liked And I think the simplest way to
describe it would be it's a website where people watch
other people play video games. That's what it is at
its core, at its heart, and that's where a lot
of the separation and aversion to it at the beginning

(03:29):
comes from. There's a lot of people go, why why
would I want to watch someone else play video games?
I don't know. Why would you watch someone play baseball
when you can go outside grab a baseball and to
do that. Why would you watch someone play poker when
you can invite friends over and play poker. Why would you?
The list goes on and on. It's the same reason,
and I think it originally came from wanting to watch

(03:50):
someone more skilled than you and learn from watching them
and it's grown into something more just like any platform
where you can entertain an audience. Well, that is a
thing that I feel like a lot of Twitch streamers
are doing to build their audience is not just being
good at games, but they're actually entertainers. Uh So there
a lot of we know a lot of comedic people
that that have streams, and I think that people get

(04:13):
attached to your personality, so it's not just your gameplay,
but also that particular streamer. But if we're talking about
where Twitch started, so when it first started, it was
actually justin dot tv. I don't know if anyone remembers that. Yeah,
justin TV was launched in two thousand and seven by

(04:36):
Justin Kahn and Emmett Sheer and Michael Siebel and Kyle Vote.
And the site was divided into several content categories. But
what so, what it originally was was Justin Cohn who
would broadcast his life twenty four seven. Yeah, yeah, and

(04:56):
that what was crazy about it is I remember around
this time there was this webcamp web you know, like
I Justine Yeah, yeah, there was just all these people
who were just broadcasting their seven and Justin TV had
a very good run in itself. There were a lot
of Remember, people would make their own kind of talk

(05:16):
shows and their own Howard Stern esque radio shows using
this platform. Yeah, so, so how it originally started was
he had a webcam that was attached to his baseball
cap and then he would stream online via this like
laptop backpack set up that Kyle Vote, who was his
co founder, also designed uh and then Justin would just

(05:39):
stream continuous live coverage seven. It was very like EDTV
Truman Show ship. What did but seriously, what did he
do when he had a poop? Like I know everybody's
thinking that. I imagine there was like a title card like,
dn't then yes, it's time to poop? I would I

(06:00):
would love it if it was just like the camera
was just on like a cat litter box or something
like that. But like if he was saying so, then
what happened was he ended up opening it up to
other people could then create their own channels on Justin TV.
So they ended up having about sixty different channels in
two thousand and seven, and by April of two thousand

(06:21):
and eight, they had signed about thirty thousand broadcasting accounts. Yeah,
that's that's a lot. Back then, I feel like, now
that's just the standard, you know, It's crazy. The fun
part about these numbers is seeing what a lot was
back then, only to seet like you could add like
two more zeros behind that. It's so fascinating too that

(06:41):
we're so obsessed with watching people, because I feel like
this was also a time when like Big Brother, of course,
was huge in Real World, which has been around forever,
which I don't know if I told you if he
but I had signed up really Real World. Actually I
signed up for Next. I remember Next. I was eighteen
and my girlfriends and I love that show on MTV,

(07:03):
and then they didn't call me until I was twenty one.
I think they wanted to make sure that I could drink,
and they asked me to do Real World. And at
the time, I was in college and I was a
journalism major, and I was like, there's no, I'm going
to ruin my life. No, and I don't even use
my degree now. Yeah, seeing you could have been on
Real World now, but I didn't want to my nana

(07:24):
to see me doing it in the showers. So at
least you had the game that you knew, where when
you're not, you're like, I don't need Nana to see
all that. Yeah, But on Justin TV, they added selectable
categories like featured people in life, casting, sports, music and radio, gaming,
news and tech, animals, entertainment, and divas and dudes you know,

(07:47):
very two thousand and but the gaming category grew especially
fast and became the most popular content on the site,
and in June two thousand eleven, the company decided to
spin off the gaming content as twitch TV, inspired by
the term twitch gameplay, and it officially launched in public
beta in June six to two thousand eleven and since
then twhich has attracted more than thirty five million unique

(08:08):
visitors a month, and it's mind blowing. I just love
the story of what Justin TV did, which was following
what works. They're like, this gaming category is blowing up.
Let's make this work. I feel like a lot of
sites and a lot of companies stagnant on that they
they see something cool happening on a part of their

(08:29):
company or the site that they built, and they just
think that that's gonna last forever. They don't really support it,
and then it dies off, or someone smarter goes and
creates something for that platform. But justin, Justin TV saw
an opportunity, and I think that's a very important lesson. Yeah.
By February it was considered the fourth largest peak Internet

(08:51):
traffic in the US. That's I know. Then. That's what's
so funny too, is when people think that Twitch is
kind of like this fringe side our Yeah, it's very big, underground, yes,
because Twitch in itself is international. If you go to
Twitch any time of day, there's someone on it, there's
someone with almost ten thousand, hundred thousand viewers going on

(09:16):
the front page. Yeah, I know the channels that we
were on, we'd get international uh commentaries all the time,
like oh I just got off from work or I'm
heading into work and it's like six am here or whatever.
So yeah, but I agree as far as it being
I think people don't realize the extent of what you
can do on Twitch. Now. It is still largely, like

(09:36):
if you said, largely a gaming channel, But I do
think they're like Stella, if you guys listen to our
Causeplay episode Stella does, she makes her cause play on Twitch.
So that's another thing that you can do that our
friends do. And if he and I had our Dragon
Ball Super After show where we we would talk about
each episode of Dragon Ball Super on Twitch, So it's

(09:58):
not just limited to gaming. And I feel like a
lot of people don't realize that because people in our community,
anytime I pitched them that they should get on Twitch,
they don't quite understand it. Yeah, but it is still
mostly gaming. See because Twitch has become the most popular
sports streaming service by a large margin, leading some to
conclude that the website has a near monopoly on the market,

(10:20):
and and I think that is true, especially since they
just signed a deal with the Overwatch League that we
talked about with my leak. Uh, they have exclusivity to
air it, so they're they're making the moves to make
sure that they keep that huge monopoly on E sports
and that's kind of where their big numbers come from.
Whenever e s L, which we talked about in the

(10:40):
sports episode, all those big you know companies that do
E sports events, they stream it on Twitch and they're
getting usually around a hundred thousand plus views on those videos.
And I think it's just a smart move for both
parties because if you are on Twitch, you have a

(11:01):
high likelihood of wanting to watch the sports events. So
if you put on the sports events, you're gonna want
to put it on Twitch, and that's been uh, that's
been a move. You know, YouTube gaming has made some
moves here and there. Obviously you know they're stepping into
TV with the league, but Twitch still is the game
of e sports it is. People also watch speed running,

(11:21):
which if you don't know what that is, it's essentially
a play through of a video game performed with the
intention of like competing it as fast as possible and
literally on Wikipedia says twitches designed to be a platform
for hot content, So I guess that's what it's considered
hot content speed running. It does have a lot of

(11:42):
non gaming content. It does, like a lot of the
channels and sites that if you and I do, we
do table top games on Twitch, so it doesn't necessarily
have to be an electronic game. There's a lot of
tabletop get like literally rolling dice and improv and stuff
that takes part on Twitch. Uh. And then the I
actually did stream a performance of Fester's Feast from San

(12:04):
Diego Comic Con that was July, and then July they
live stream Steve Aoki doing a live broadcast from a
nightclub and beat that, Beat that. But to really jump
on that, like not just gaming, which Twitch has been
making a big push out of this. In October of

(12:26):
two fifteen, Twitch launched a second non gaming category, Creative,
which was intended for stream showcasing the creation of artistic
and creative works, and that's when they did that very
popular live stream stream of bob Ross. It was crazy too,
because this is one of the ways you got to
see how great the Twitch community is is when you
would pop in and watch The Joy of Painting with

(12:49):
bob Ross. You would see people commenting on it as
if it was an e sports match. Was like, oh,
kill kill on this painting and it was real funny.
It was really entertaining to watch, I want to say
for people that. So the bob Ross it was an
eight day marathon where they aired bob Ross is the
Joy of Painting, um and yeah, everyone got into it. Yeah.

(13:11):
So there's a meme on Twitch called Kappa and it's
a kind of sarcastic looking white guy that's gray scale
and it's actually based off of Jos Desano was an
employee of Justin TV and when they've launched Twitch, they
had the emotes use one of the emotes uh that
were based on the Justin TV employees, and it's usually
used to signify sarcasm, since you know it's the Internet

(13:36):
and everyone's using text and you need a way you
would use the cap at emote. The Bob Ross spun
off into this cap at emote with an Afro to
be Bob Ross and it's uh and I love it.
It's my favorite thing. I love Afro Cappa. What I
was gonna say is, if you listen to our Cosplay
episode or e Sports episode, in our Comic Con episode,

(13:58):
there is something that I don't know if we touched on,
but there is twitch Con. It is huge. Um So
that's essentially a fan convention devoted to Twitch and um
I believe the first one, let's see, the inaugural event
was held in San Francisco and it was September and uh.

(14:19):
Since then, they've also had it in San Diego. See
there's only been three. It's actually very fresh, so like
the one after with San Diego and then uh. This
past year was Long Beach, which I went to. Was great.
It was a good time. It's fun seeing like you know, streamers,
meeting the people, their audience, their communities, getting together. It's
a really fun event, and this year it's going to

(14:41):
be around the same time in October, but in San Jose.
So they announced that it's in San Jose and it's
just like Comic Con where they announced it. They announced
the hotels and hotels are out. It's wild, it's it's
very interesting. Yeah, we should just do a sidebar real quick,
because we just had Comic Con hotel. So what happens
is it is so busy at some of these cons

(15:03):
that you have to actually enter a lottery, like the
hotels have set it up with the con at least
for Comic Con they did um and we just had
that lottery like this past week. But essentially you have
to wake up in the morning and slogg in and
get put into the lottery to see if you can
even get a hotel. Yeah, it's that. So it's not

(15:25):
a monopoly essentially on people buying them up like companies
and stuff. You act, everyone has kind of kind of
not all the time, but everyone kind of has an
equal opportunity. Even though there are a lot of companies
that have deals with hotels because I know them. Well.
That's what's so funny is after you brave the Internet
and fight your way and get a past. You still

(15:46):
have to worry about fighting for a hotel room or
be doomed to take the train down to downtown San
Diego every day from Oh my god, no do that. Yeah,
a lot of people they'll take the train from like
every day. From the ocean side is better. Maybe I
can't imagine coming from La No, that's that's not You
can airbnb technically if you want to spend like hundreds

(16:08):
upon hundreds of dollars um or you can sleep in
your car. Yeah. Yeah, what's good is I wanna talk
about some of the some some hot twitch gas, which
is gonna be great because it's gonna link up with
the third type of a non gaming category that Twitch launch,
which was i r L, which is i r L
is an Internet acronym for in real life and it's

(16:29):
basically a streamer who streams life basically came full circle
and it is just like justin TV. The reason I
say is it comes full circle is one of the
popular things for I r L streamers is to have
a streaming backpack and use it from the hat. It's
so funny. I never knew about the justin TV doing that,
so to see that that that came full circle. Came

(16:51):
full circle. But the reason I'm bringing it up, around
the same time I brought twitch Con, there was a
little one, you know, spicy beef that happened between the
I r L streamers in the regular stream at twitch Con,
mostly because at the twitch Con party it was a
lot of streamers just hanging out, chilling, meeting other streamers
for the first time. But I r L streamers, they
were still on the job in their eyes, and they

(17:11):
were streaming. Yeah. Yeah, they were streaming at the party,
and a lot of people were complaining a lot because
it was very much like popping right next to someone
and be like, I'm here, what's so and so and so.
It was a whole debate that went on online because
what happened was the DJ hopped on loud speaker. It
was like, no streaming is allowed in here. They had

(17:33):
to shut it down. I actually, on my stream, if
you go, I captured the moment where that happened because
I was I r L stream because it was like
everybody's streaming while I'm not do it, and you just
hear that. It was like streaming is not allowed in
this building. It was a very big I understand that. One.
I mean, you are at twitch Con, so of course

(17:55):
there's going to be streamers there. But also, I mean
you're at the after party. Pople are getting drunk, people
are making bad decisions. They do not need those live
streamed for everybody. So I get it. That's like such
a such a taboo thing. It's like when we go
to parties and people are like asking famous people for pictures. Look,
here's the thing you do it. I know you don't care.

(18:17):
The reason I don't care is because I pulled back
because I'm like, yeah, maybe I will send it to
like my sketch team's group text, and they're like you
and they're taking pictures. And then you'll go and you'll
see the other celebs who did the same thing with
each other, and I'm like, see, it wasn't weird. It was.
But I think it's just like it's a case by
case exactly. You got to meet people where they are

(18:39):
people and ask just don't be doing the thing where
you're like something time, oh yeah, where you're like eating
at dinner and you're trying to get the person I'm
sitting behind you. Yeah, you just be like, hey, do
you mind snapping a pick and usually they're like, yeah,
cool because you asked and I can pose for it
and I don't get caught off guard and look like
I have a double chin in this. Oh my gosh,
if he I have to send you. Um there's this

(19:02):
guy that I follow and all he does is take
pictures with celebrities in parking garages. I'm not kidding. It
is so it is. I need to send it to
you because they all just look like they're about to
be kidnapped. Yeah, they're like, what is going on? I
think he finds them after screenings or whatever. Q and
A is that they have at arc Light. I'm totally okay.

(19:22):
You guys come here for the hot goss. You come
here for to learn, um and know the future of
tech and stuff, and you also come here for our
hot gossp Yeah yeah, so that's that's it. You're gonna
be some Some of the celebrities look so dead in
the eyes, and he's just like smiling, because no one
wants to be asked to take a picture when they're
going to their car, because they're just think it's finally

(19:44):
over answered your freaking Q and A. Before we were
almost to the break and I want to break down
the two maybe three main type of streamers who stream games.
The first one is pretty easy to guess. It's your
solo streamer, someone who's sitting at home in front of
their computer, usually with one or two PCs to stream

(20:05):
for you. It's very personal. They're able to build a
community around themselves, and I think it just goes from there.
There's it's a real personal experience it because you're having
a one on one experience. And I think this is
where it separates, you know, the YouTube and Twitch audience,
where I feel like the YouTube audience come to be entertained.
That's their mindset, whereas like your Twitch audience, they're there

(20:26):
for the interactive aspect. And that's what Twitch gives their
audience over the YouTube audience is you're interacting with people
real time. You're actually controlling the story of the stream
because if something you do, if if like I remember
I was watching someone's streaming, someone donated a thousand dollars
and that just changes the mood, It changes everything that

(20:48):
they're talking about because now they're like, you just kind
of change their life in that one second. Yeah, we
should talk about that. That Twitch has the ability for
people to donate, and with the role playing games and
the tabletop games that if he and I did when
we were hosts at hyper RPG, they would which which
is a Twitch channel, um in a studio which we're

(21:10):
going to get into, but people could donate for our
players and characters to get like weapons or plot points,
which is essentially allowing our character to you know, move
forward in the story or whatever. But people could donate
for us to do stuff or to like talk in
a funny accent or something. So people would donate, would
give money to our stream on Twitch, and then if

(21:32):
he and I would talk in a funny accent or
do you know whatever, play this certain character. So that
is an extremely interactive part and could be lucrative as well,
right Twitch. Just on top of that, Twitch does have
a very big reputation for their charity. By two thirteen,
the website has hosted events in which, in total, raised

(21:53):
over eight million dollars in donation to charitable causes. And
that's just the ones they're tracking. And they've actually linked
up with a lot of charitable organizations like Extra Life,
which has a very big presence on Twitch because they
do a thing where any streamer, whether you're small or big,
can sign up on their website and it kind of

(22:14):
signal boost people through the website of people who are
streaming and raising money for their cause. Like it's it's crazy.
I think it's way more than eight million because there's
so many. Yeah, so by now I think it's way more. Yeah. Yeah.
Even the channels that we have hosted at have had
charity like twenty four hour charity events and stuff, and
and people will essentially donate money and that entire money

(22:36):
goes to the charity, and then they'll have you, you know,
we're entertainers, so they'll donate money and then we'll play
a song for them or we'll do you know whatever.
We've had puppets and people like that and so um
and moving into the second type of streamers. You keep
hearing Danny say the places we streamed at, the places
you might be wondering, like, well, you know, I hadn't

(22:59):
mind the soul of stream where are you talking about? Well,
there are studios that actually stream on Twitch. You have
Geek and Sundry Nervous used to stream on Twitch. The
Attack formally streamed on Twitch. You have uh Ginema channel
Polygons is on there sometimes. So those Twitch efforts are
very different than the solo stream because it's a studio

(23:21):
with multiple people and instead of being a one on
one kind of relationship, you're more kind of learning to
love the brand and they kind of put in their
work and trying to build up the community as well.
And there are tons of ways to build a community.
There's a Discord, which is like a free very similar
if you're using Slack. It's basically like a gamer version

(23:41):
of Slack, which is a messaging platform where you can
join a chat room and they already have Twitch integration
where if you're subscribed to a channel, you'll have access
to that Discord. So there's so many different ways, and
the studio is a lot larger. It may seem daunting
at first, but lots of times people break off and
they have their favorites at the studio, they have their

(24:02):
favorite people, and then they connect through Twitter. It's it's
very connected in the Twitch world because a lot of
times it bleeds out to Twitch. It's very it's a family. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I would say Discord super helps with that. Um Like
if he was saying Discord is uh community essentially like
you can have it as an app on your phone

(24:23):
where whatever channels you're subscribed to, you can kind of
just chat with people. Um, and there's different categories in there. Uh.
We had one I remember at hyper called Hugs and
it was just like if you were having a bad
day or whatever, and it was literally just community members
building each other up, people talking about their problems in there.
And that's why it really does feel like a family,

(24:44):
Like there's nothing like that really on YouTube that I
feel like. Um, so we're going to get more into
the future of Twitch and also how possibly you can
get Twitch partnered right after this and we're bad. Yes,

(25:09):
you know, I've been listening to our episodes and we
keep doing that. We keep doing that. We're gonna talk
at the same time. Things. We don't figure it out,
you know, we're still new. Look. I like it, but
I don't know how people are like, let us know,
tweet at us. Do you like that we talk at
the same time? Like do you like if we talk
like this? I thought you were going to continue talking,
so we talk over each other. Oh yeah, I know,
that's that's probably. Look, our guests is just sitting here

(25:33):
while we just go back Yeah, that's someone who knows
us super well. Part of the family. Oh man, that
it's just heavy credentials. This is the man to talk
to about Twitch. He's built one of the biggest Twitch
empires out here. We talked about studio twitch and solo Twitch.
He's been the leader of a lot of the studio twitches.

(25:54):
Uh you know, brought him into the game and he's
just surpassed me because I noped out because he's he
is one of those business guys. Let's just say his
name so we can introduce him, zachaep Yeah. Yeah, you
have done so much before Twitch, Like it's almost unfair
to just say it's a Twitch thing because you have

(26:16):
a production company. You did commercials. That's where I met you.
I met him outside of Twitch and he just happened
to be this dope producer. We worked on an all
deft digital shoot. That was fun. Yeah, yeah turned around
Oh man, Yeah, that was and it came out really well.
It's still like it keeps bouncing back to me because
it was on Tumblr and it's still making the rotation.

(26:37):
It's like millions of notes. Yeah, Zach, how did you
get started in like in the industry, What did you
move out because you moved to l A right, like
you know, most people from the Midwest just pick up
move out. I decided to start, you know, hanging out
around UCB and like, you guys want to shoots down?
Did you move out here to direct or produce or
produce primarily? And um, I got my first foot in

(27:00):
the door right when I came out, got on a
really big shoot and immediately realized I was an idiot.
I got yelled at a lot, I got a custed
off of the set and was fired and that was great.
I needed that so bad because I've been from a
small town in Midwest where it's just like I know
what I'm doing self taught, figured it all out very
first shoot him on. I get fired off that set
and kicked off because I did not know what to
do as a second a c and I was just like,

(27:20):
I want to do all this stuff. And I would
go up to the DP and I'd be like, Oh,
what's your stuff on this stuff? He's like, bro, what
do you get back? You're not supposed to talk to me.
Oh man, I am out of my league. I don't
know what's going on. So it was great. I loved it. Uh,
and then that forced me back into the books. And
because I didn't have a film background, and you know,
that's that big mystery when you're in the Midwest, like

(27:40):
if you didn't study it in school, it's all a
huge mystery, like what is this world? What? How do
you get into it? So I just had to jump
in and make a lot of failures. And the same
with Twitch, I guess too. Actually, yeah, then you have
the production company, aren't clever and you've done lots of
dope stuff work people. Yeah, and then uh, we did
a shoot called All Deaf Digital, but it was something

(28:02):
where we were addressing just how they ignore the racism
in the name Redskins. That was great. But then he
did this thing with his production company called a brunch.
Every was it once a month, every weekend, every week
every Sunday. Yeah, he did a brunch. It was great.
People do it like it's very underground, but like it
was the first I've been to. But it's like an
industry brunch where you'd like invite his industry friends, you

(28:25):
can network eat. He they made the biggest I couldn't
do that at y. Yeah, definitely do that cook for everybody,
Like I like to cook for people because then I
don't have to talk to you. But you also invite
a lot of people from other channels and to come
and meet. Yeah, and so from that, Uh, when I

(28:47):
went to the brunch, I learned he was a huge
nerd and then I fell in love with I was like, oh,
fellow nerd, you know, I love this guy. I knew
this guy and he wanted to do this, like, uh,
launched this Twitch channel with Greg Grunberg called socialtron Live.
You were the one that invited me. Yeah, so I
didn't even know about this. Yeah, this was a totally

(29:07):
new world. I didn't know about Twitch at all. It's
something I just heard about. I had known about justin
TV before that, but that was only when I wanted
to watch something illegally could go to justin TV to
watch it. That's all I knew. And I remember slightly
hearing about it switching over to Twitch. But I didn't
really know anything. And you invited me to get kick
this place out because when I was there there like,

(29:27):
if you know anybody who would love this, you should
invite them. And I just met this cool nerd who
also does film stuff. So I invite Zack and he
just comes in and he's like, he's a nerd for
cameras as much as he's a nerd for everything, so
he immediately was like, oh, this could be so much better.
And just when one of those like savant rambles and

(29:48):
they were just like, no, definitely not. That's when I'm
in my element. Just shut up and listen to me, nerds. No,
that's unfortunately true. But but yeah, that that was really great.
That is an interesting experience because that was you exposed
me to my first sight of twitch and what it
was like, and that was a neat thing. But I
go back sometimes and I watched that very first time

(30:09):
that were it's crap, it's terrible, it's so bad. But
while I was sitting there, I can remember just thinking about, like, Wow,
this is so neat. There's so much you could do
with this, and we're just sitting here like two idiots
making fun of each other, which is fun in and
of itself, it's fun, but it just felt like there
was so much more that that platform was allowing. And
the more questions I asked, the more I got back

(30:29):
answers like I don't know, maybe you could do that.
I don't know, maybe it was like, wait, wait, so
you're telling me that there's I can push out to
this server. I'm not paying for that space, because that
was my first good questions, like, this is a live
who's paying for that? How did where's all the data
coming from? And when I learned that the chat was
an open a p I and that you could build

(30:51):
tools into that chat room, then my brain went nut,
It's just man, you could There's so much you could do.
And still this day, I'm always thinking like, well, what
what could you do? How do you play with that?
You know? Yeah? Yeah? But so eventually Socialtrong Live kind
of fizzled out in its own way, and I just
get a call from Zach and goes, hey, have you
heard of this company, geek in Sentry. So I'm working

(31:12):
with them and I'm launching a twitch champ. Do you
want to be a part of it? And I was
like yeah, already, But little do we know how that
was going to explode into a huge thing. That's great
because basically that first round of hires was all of
my friends that we've been working with on sketches for
UCB and stuff. For the first couple of rounds. I
remember fighting for you guys to be like, no, it'd

(31:33):
be great, It'll be great. You need improvisers for this
kind of content, especially for that first round of content,
it was all hanging out with us on the couch.
You need people who can comfortably keep it moving and
keep it going because watching live content is actually really
boring unless you work really hard to make it not boring. Yes,
so I was really adamant. I wanted my UCB friends
in there. And it's crazy now to think how that's

(31:54):
affected everyone's careers and where people are now, and like
what that was like when we first started. It was
such a fun neat. Literally was just like, hey, here's
five or six people hanging out on the couch and
we're just gonna make bits for you know. What I
was going to say, if you're going back to our
E Sports episode is something that I realized watching some
of the commentators is like, just because you know video
games really well does not mean you're entertaining that you

(32:16):
can't see a space right now. But that is so
and I totally agree. It's so great to have people
that have a comedy background and actually like to fill space.
Like the worst thing I feel like in live programming
is just dead dead air, dead space. It is, And
so it's like, yeah, you can be a total nerd
and be really great and geek out over these things,
but you also have to be an entertainer for people
to want to stay on the stream. And I want
to make it really clear, I'm not dissing anyone who's

(32:39):
a single streamer. I think that part of the reason
my companies have never tried to do that is there's
people who do it so well. There's certain people out there,
like your co Carnages and stuff, who can go live
and you're just like captivated by them do such a
great job with it. I would never want to compete
in that space. We're trying to do stuff that's using
the platform to do something different and cool, but not

(33:00):
infringe on that space or even try to act like
anything in that space is bad or less. It's difficult.
It's really hard. That's why so many people try it
and fail. It's a difficult space. So fast forward to
you with hyper RPG. So what year was that and
how did that start taking off? It took off because
I was really unhappy at Geek and Sundry and I

(33:24):
had a Malika, my fiance who we work with a
lot on the channel. She brought Jordan Weissman out to
one of the shows we're doing on geekin Sundry because
he was the guy who created hero Clicks and I
was a big Hero Clicks fan. And for people that
don't know what is hero Clicks, it's just it's a
tabletop game where you get to play as superheroes. It's
super nerdy, awesome, it's great, it's amazing. I feel like

(33:44):
every episode we find the thing that now there needs
to be an episode about. Yeah, but he created it.
So Emlika was like, hey, he's my teacher, you know,
my professor. You should have him on. So he came
by and immediately you could see he was like, oh,
I'm in Headhunter moone, and he was asking a lot
of questions that were very clear, like he's got something
on his mind. And then he invited me out for

(34:06):
lunch the next week and he was like, so I've
heard through the grapevine you're not happy. I'm like, oh, publicly.
You know, before this week, Zack and I were talking
that like we both show our true colors really well.
If we don't like someone, you know it, Yeah, yeah,
and I'm really bad at lying. Yeah, so if somebody's like,
how are you doing right now, I'm like un and

(34:28):
uh So then he was like, well, why don't you
quit that and start a twitch company with me? Okay, fine,
it sounds great. Uh So I laid out all the
ideas that I had been pushing for last year that
we hadn't got to try, and it was like, as
long as we can go for this totally down and
it's a huge risk. I mean I had the stability
and comfort of working for a major studio that's owned
by legendary and walking away from that's really difficult. Okay,

(34:52):
that's a lie. It was really easy to walk away.
Difficult to walk away from stability and to try to
start something completely new that's completely untested. It doesn't have
any celebrity back king, it doesn't have any large marketing.
You know. We basically started the company with a hundred
grand and just said let's go for it, and um,
we have not shut down yet. We've been going for

(35:12):
over two years now. Um. From that hundred grand, we've
been able to keep it moving. And doesn't mean that
it's like, yeah, money's rolling in, but just to survive
with that little of a startup costs has felt like
a success in it. Yeah, and so when you said
that you had like these core ideas that you wanted
what what were those that you came in with, Like,
I want to do this and this is what I
want to see on this channel. I wanted to get

(35:33):
the audience more involved. One of the key things I
thought was missing from my first round of big studio
programming I say big studio for Twitch it's big studio programming,
was that the shows still felt like there was a barrier.
And I think the biggest strength of Twitch is that
you're becoming one with the audience. You're you're an active
representation of their likes and their interests, and if you're
not involving them, you're you're failing. To me, Twitch is

(35:56):
a dialogue and not a monologue. YouTube is a monologue.
TV is a monologue. You're putting that content out there.
This in a way is a monologue. You get a
little bit back from your social media and stuff like that.
But Twitch is literally a dialogue. It's real time, it's
right in your face, and there's an active chat room
for them. Yeah, I will actually stop you right there,
because that's something we were touching on earlier, which is
the big difference of Twitch and kind of where this

(36:17):
excitement behind it comes from is like you said, and
I think you said it way better than I described it,
but yeah, it's it's a dialogue and people get to
be interacting and there's no way to talk about hyper
without getting into interactivity. So we'll even get deeper in
that soon. But just for the listeners, that's your main
core difference between like Twitch in your YouTube's and what

(36:38):
have you. And I think that is true. If you're
not communicating what your chat, you are failing. And in
small little ways that the audience is coded, like when
I do my own solo stream, the first thing someone
will do before they even follow, will be like, hey,
just to see if you'll talk to them, because if
you don't talk to them, they'll leave. You want to

(36:59):
be reckoning exactly, And the moment you're like, oh, hey,
so and so, how you doing, boom a follow right there,
that's just how ingrained it is to that user base.
And I wish I could remember, but someone was saying
that this is the next phase of online content. It's
something that that's part of The reason I'm pushing for
it so hard is I think that it is the

(37:20):
next phase of media, and you're seeing companies out there.
Now there's a show on CBS that has a live
version for the East and the West Coast, and they
live tweet why it's out because you're getting that real
time feedback. It's kind of as we distance ourselves more
and more online and we become less and less in
touch at each other, I feel like the pendulum swings
back towards like I need something. I need to feel
like I'm a part of something. So you have these

(37:41):
big online games that do really well, but you also
have Twitch where you feel like you're a part of something,
your voice matters. You go deeper than just that too,
the subcultures that exist even on one person's channel. You know,
our discord room has thirty different rooms in it, and
each room sometimes has its own small subculture. Of these
are the things we're interested in. We found each other
through this like minded thing. We just want a voice.

(38:03):
We want to know we're not alone. You know, I
think I don't want to say that everyone on twitches lonely,
because that's not true. But there's a lot of lonely
people in the world right now who feel that they're
missing some sort of connection there and being able to
provide someone that next step in entertainment, you're not just
sitting there watching Netflix alone and eating a bag of chips.
You know, you're watching Netflix with your friends and in
real time commenting back and forth on what you're experiencing.

(38:24):
My idea for hyper was, Okay, now you're watching Netflix
with your friends in your real time watching what if
you could press a button on your remote to make
something happen in that show live and interactively that contributes
to the story as it's happening, and you recognize that
was me. I did that. I'm important. My voice matters.
So that's kind of what we built the whole company around.
Was that level of I was going to say, like,

(38:46):
but as a content creator, though, do you feel like
having constant feedback can never be a hindrance or does
it feel like you now can't just make what you
want to make and you have to kind of yeah,
how do you deal with that? Um At first a
lot of anxiety, now very freely. I think it took
a long time coming from production to get used to

(39:07):
this idea that preproduction doesn't matter as much as real
time production on what's happening at the moment and responding
and reacting to it like an improviser. I've learned more
from my improviser friends and watching their shows and how
you guys perform and react to things in real time
than I have from any other type of media, because
it's about that feedback loop and making sure that you're
adapting your content to the feeling that's happening in the moment.

(39:29):
And it can be really tough. And when you empower
your audience to this level, and I would say from
a studio standpoint, why it's probably you're seeing this happen
with when they open up their Twitter and things like
that too. When you empower your audience to a certain extent,
there comes negatives to that, which is they think that
they know better than you because they're so involved, they're
so connected to it. They think, all of a sudden, well,

(39:50):
this is mine just as much as it's yours, and
you should take my advice. We constantly battle that, and
we try to give people other opportunities to feel like
their voices heard, even if we have to tell them
from time to time, I'm sorry, but in this instance
we know better. We have to say that this is
how it's going to be done. This is the thing
we're gonna do. Sometimes it's trusting analytics and telling them
very honestly and openly. Our analytics actually show that even

(40:12):
though you a couple of you are very loudly saying
this doesn't work, it doesn't work, it doesn't work, analytically,
we're seeing better retention by doing this, this, and this.
That's something we also try to do because there is
that dialogue feedback loop, very honestly tell the audience this
is what's happening in that moment, which is very scary
for a studio or a business to just out in

(40:33):
the open say, hey, so last week we did this thing.
It failed. Here's why it failed. Here's the responses we
got from it, here's all these things we saw that
you didn't respond to it the way we wanted. So
we're gonna make these changes. And yeah, I remember when
I joined the channel, when if you and I joined
hyper RPG, you are very upfront about the financials. E
feel like that was an important part of like keeping

(40:55):
this community feel. Yes, I think it's very important. It's
basically like a live kick started. Now, not every company
should do it this way, that's just the way we
chose to do it. But using Twitch as a platform
to embrace that attitude, if you get to the heart
of it, why would I hide it? That's not what
Twitch is about. Twitch is very voyeuristic in that way.
So if we're gonna run a company, we're gonna have
to run that company voyeuristically and let them behind a

(41:17):
little bit and tell them exactly what's happening and not
hide anything. And what ends up happening is they end
up supporting you more because you're a real person. They
trust you. They see that you're not just taking money
and spending it recklessly. You're just trying to make cool
stuff and do really cool content. And we feel people
support that on Twitch, which is to me that that's
so cool the future of entertainment in a way, like
you pay for what you think is worth it. Yeah.

(41:39):
I remember being in our discord and people would be like,
I want to buy Zach Like he works so hard,
I would just want to buy him a movie ticket.
And like people think if they would see you know,
on the stream, like constantly working all these shows, I
think people got you were a part of their family
because they saw you every single day, and I just
remember it was like I want to take him in
Malika like on a day, and like I feel that

(42:00):
all he does his work. It gets weird. It's a weird. Yeah,
but they're so invested in you, and I feel like
a lot of people, you know, wish that they could
have that with their fans or with their community members. Yeah.
What's also interesting too is I feel like, you know, Twitch,
the the window is kind of on both sides, which
is like you get a chance to kind of know

(42:23):
the people who are watching and the people see you.
And it's very interesting because I remember when I mentioned
Twitch to people who aren't in then now, which is
a k other people in Hollywood who I often are like,
they're like what, there's often this idea that like these
are like, you know, these nerdy kids watching it because
the time you'll see it in public or kids who
will have their iPad in public and they're watching mine

(42:45):
crafting is and all this. But what they don't know
is is actually a pretty diverse age wise group of people.
They're just full grown adults, people with jobs, people, And
I think it's just because people can't understand the concept
of watching. Some times they're not wanting to get it. Sometimes, Yeah,
sometimes when I first discovered it too, I didn't. I
was like, what is this? Why would I? Why would

(43:06):
I get into it? And it took me a little
bit to understand it. And I think that's the biggest
challenge in is the learning curve for a viewer. The
UI is not that intuitive, you know, like they're making
updates to it all the time. But the biggest thing
we get back from new viewers that are coming in,
I don't get this. I can't what what am I
supposed to be looking at? What's going on? I'm always
trying to tell people, like, get in that chat room,
just say something in our community. You'll get feedback and

(43:28):
you'll find you're like, you're tweeting at us, obviously you
like this content. Go in the chat just say hi.
And they're nervous too, because it's a very intimidating platform,
because it's not as inviting as the simplicity of opening
up your Netflix account or going to YouTube. Is a
much more natural kind of thing. T which feels a
little bit more get keeped in a way from its
own UI and its own set up. There is something

(43:50):
on Twitch for every type of nerd, literally, but you
wouldn't know that if you just went to Twitch that TV,
you're gonna be like, oh, so everybody here just plays
Fortnite and over watching League Legends and that's all you
would know. Yeah, that's very That's all you would know,
and you wouldn't. You would walk away thinking this isn't
for me. But if you spent just a little bit
of time you searched or trying to find what you're

(44:11):
looking for, you're going to find your people. And that's
what I love about it. It is tough, though it is.
It is hard to find. It's it's difficult. I think
that is something worth mentioning. Yeah, when you go to Twitch,
there is a hero page with I don't even want
to say top streams, but selected streams are put on
the front page. Some of those positions are paid for,

(44:31):
some of her hand picked, and through that you would
assume you get an idea of the of the makeup
of Twitch, but it's not really the case. Like you said,
if a new game comes out, so you come out
on a Friday where new game drops, you're gonna think
twitches everyone streaming this game, because nine times out of ten,
if you're a front page streamer, you're gonna be playing

(44:52):
the newest game. That's just like, that's just the way
it goes. But it's more than that. They're they're trying
to make updates to the discover a getting platform. But
they're definitely the other thing right under the hero player
you see is top games, and it's always going to
be a very specific four or five at the top.
It's very self already said it. I know if you
if there's a StarCraft tournament, it'll pop up to the

(45:13):
top again, or World Warcraft drops an update, it will
jump up to the top again. But and that creates
this self fulfilling prophecy with streamers to where well, the
only way I'm gonna get seen then is if I'm
playing Fortnite because it's at the top. So Fortnite just
keeps getting bigger because they'll log in and they're like, well,
i'm gonna stream a game, I better stream Fortnite because
that's what everyone's watching. I'm not saying everyone does this,
but that's one of the best tactics to find viewers

(45:35):
because that's what everyone's watching. And that's very true, and
I want to if you are a solo streamer trying
to start up and and your careers, I want to
implore that you do not do that. You get lost
in that, and just to even go more in depth
with it, so you see, basically, you see the quote
unquote cover of the game and the amount of viewers

(45:56):
watching it, and if you are a viewer, you click it,
and then it ranks all the streamers streaming it, but
it's from order of the most viewers to the least.
So if you are a new streamer, you're gonna be
all the way at the bottom. However, if you have
a game that you like that's niche and you click that,
the community for that game is going to find you

(46:18):
a lot easier. I play games like Dauntless, which doesn't
have a big community, and I you know, I usually
only have about like viewers, but I'm at the top
because I'm one of the few sutreaments. You're gonna have
a much higher percentage chance of someone finding exactly at
the top. But even then, I would say anyone who's
wanted to try it out, just do what you love
because it's live content and you can't fake for very

(46:42):
long on live content, people will see through you, So
you better do what you love. If you're trying to
play a game just to be popular or to be
at the top, they're going to see through it eventually.
Do what you love, what you know the most about
what you you know. One of my favorite people in
the world, Jim Stewart Allen. Did you get to meet
him when you want to. He's gonna be town Friday night.
He's doing an organ trail RPG with which is going

(47:03):
to be ridiculous, but Morgan trail is his thing. That's
what he loves. And he went on Twitch and streamed
Oregon Trail for like over two days straight. Every day
he just did the same very first organ trail over
and over and over again. But he's so passionate about
it and what he loves. It's really fun to watch
and it's really interesting and he found an audience from that,

(47:23):
and he found some gigs from that, and he found
some other work from that because that's what he loves.
And I think you have to do that. Yeah, yeah,
and speaking passionately, I know your community is very passionate.
But we'll get into that right after the break and
we are back. Hello, welcome back to Narrative Cent. I'm

(47:45):
if Zack. You bank Yes, um, so we were talking
about the community. Yeah, how I mean, how do you
does it flux to wait for you like your numbers
or how does that work? Because Twitch is something that
you have to pay for every month, or if you're

(48:06):
a subscriber, you don't have to subscribe the contents free
for anyone, so anyone can watch your shows live. So
what are the added benefits of subscribing? Um? For us
in particular, A lot of people don't do this and
we used to get a lot of flak for it,
but we get less flat now is more people have
started signing on to do this. We put our v
o d s behind a sublock and for people that
don't know v o d s video on demand, so

(48:27):
the recording of what we just did. Say, you're a
European viewer and we have a live show at six pm.
You don't want to get up at nine am that
morning or you know, four am whatever it is to
to watch. You want to go to bed. So you're like, well,
I'll catch the v o D in the morning. We
sublock ours, which you know does suck. For those viewers
who want to be able to see it as quickly
as possible, who just unfortunately don't live in the right

(48:49):
time zone. The sad truth of the situation is running
a business costs a lot of money. We pay all
our talent, We try to do everything right as a company,
and we just have to on a financial standpoint. We
have to lock our our votes, but not everyone does that.
That's a choice, which is ultimately one of the things
I like about Twitch. I have control over things like that.
If a streamer doesn't want to sublock their votes, they

(49:11):
don't have to. You get access to a mote to
win new sub um you get access to other special
features as designed by the streamer, so it's kind of
up to the streamer what they want behind that subscription.
It's it's it's a good way to go about it. Yeah,
and it's and it's pretty cool too because, like you said,
it's optional. So if if someone doesn't want to stream
it's like you know, or you know, if someone signing

(49:32):
the financial place to subscribe, then then they can still
enjoy it. But you know that it is really cool,
uh when you do, and I mean they keep releasing
new tools to allow that to be easier for people
to because I mean, ultimately, it's one of the easiest
ways to support a streamer and say I like this content.
It's like signing up for Hulu. It's like signing up
for Netflix. Are saying I want to give this person

(49:52):
five bucks a month to say I support you and
I want you to keep making this kind of content.
And Twitch keeps releasing new tools that make it easier
for people to do, Like Twitch Prime. You link your
Amazon account with your Twitch account. You get a free
subscription every month to give to a streamer of your choice.
It doesn't au already new, so you have to remember
to go back into the channel and to add that.
They added a new extension where it can do it.

(50:15):
The only thing is this an overlay extension, so it
doesn't know though it's just a it's just a pop out.
That's just like don't forget, which I get. I mean
Amazon's business too. You can't. You can't just enable that.
Then it wouldn't have existed in the first place. It's
just like Amazon Prime. They're betting on you forgetting to
get free shipment every single time. That's how you get it.
Same thing, it's you know, most people forget to use it.

(50:36):
That's how it pays off of the people who don't forget.
And um, the other thing, they just releases gifting subs
which people have been asking for for a long time.
That happens all the time in our channel, or somebody's like, oh,
I'm from you know, I'm from here. I'm having a
rough month right now. I really wish I could subscribe Boom.
Someone will gift it to them immediately, just by that
sense of community of like I got you, I got
five bucks, you can have it. It's such a different

(50:57):
community than you, Tobe, so Zack, you actually work to
help people that are trying to transition from YouTube to twitch.
Um so how about like how I know that we're
talking a little bit as far as how people get
started with a Twitch channel, and can you also talk
talk a little bit about how you get Twitch partnered. Yeah,
luckily it's really a lot easier now. Partner for Twitter

(51:19):
used to be much more up in the air, wasn't
really clear set rules. They've done a better job now
saying these are the requirements. If you meet these requirements,
you'll get partnered. This many hours watched you stream this
many hours a week. You have this kind of current
level of viewer base, you'll get partnered. So you just
gotta hit those goals, and those goals are available on
their website and within your Twitch user. Yeah, they do
it as achievements and after every stream you actually see

(51:43):
your progress. Uh. It's it's it's actually really really cool
because it was like back in the day, was how
do you how do you get partnering? There were stuff,
it was it was rough. Ye, Well so then what
are the benefits of being partnered and how do you
get like on the front page? Oh you get paid? Okay,
mean that's you don't people can't subscribe to if you're
not a partner. Well now they have a fili which

(52:04):
kind of work like that. But there are benefits to
being a partner, lots of benefits actually. Um so it's
definitely a goal that you want to hit, including like
special events with Twitch, getting invited to participate in things
with them. You know, they try really hard to take
care of their partner base. They've been growing exponentially, so
I think that's been a challenge for them because they're
growing so fast and they're partnering a lot of people
it's hard to keep everyone happy. Yeah, I was just

(52:26):
smiling because I realized that I had two shows on
your channel and I never had to worry about like
I don't even know the behind the scenes. That's what
happens sometimes when you get to host at a at
a studio channel, is there's people exact taking care of everything.
We worry about that stuff day in and day out. Yeah,
so I just to have fun and I did so.
As far as people moving from YouTube to Twitch, I

(52:48):
see a lot of studios trying to do that now
in people but because twitches asking them to. Okay, I
won't dive in any specifics to keep from getting in
trouble of indias and stuff, but I know that right now,
that's kind of It's an interesting space in the live
world right now because Mixer Facebook are both trying to
buy people out and a Twitch contract and I know

(53:09):
a few people. There was someone I won't name them
because I don't know if they want all their business
out like that. But I was gonna invite a streamer
and unfortunately that streamer is not on Twitch anymore. But
because I probably know you Facebook and the but and
it was because they didn't know that when you are

(53:31):
a partner, you are exclusive to Twitch. You can only
stream yourself playing video There's like little kind of ways around,
like if you're not streaming, you playing video games on
like a different platform and like Facebook. But like when
you're like committing to like Facebook gaming and you're streaming
the same way you would as you would on Twitch,

(53:51):
you are in breach of your contract. I asked this
all the time. Why don't you guys live stream this
to YouTube? Why I want to watch on YouTube? I
don't watch YouTube, Like, I'm not going to breach my contract,
have a contract. I'm also not at liberty to talk
about what's in that contract. But basically, you know, right now,
it's kind of the wild West because which is great
because it's putting power into the content creator's hands a
little bit more. But Facebook buying people out. Mixer will

(54:12):
offer people deals, and you know, YouTube is in a
position where people are flooding away from YouTube and Twitch
is coming to me and like, you you should come
to my platform, come over here. But do you think
that's going to bring some of the toxicity with it.
I feel like it's such a it's been such a
nice community, but it's up to you. That's the difference
with Twitch and YouTube is they give you the tools
and it's up to you to enoct them. And they've

(54:34):
just released some stricter guidelines which some of those people
that are coming over and I won't name names, they're
going to find themselves in trouble because their communities will
get them banned from Twitch if Twitch lives up to
their end of those partner agreements the way their communities act.
I know who you're talking about, yea. So it used
to just be what you did on screen resulted and
you're getting punished for it. There's some new rules now
where if your community is doing things, you can be

(54:55):
held responsible for that because if you're not putting a
stop to you have the ability to those giving tools.
And that's what I want to talk about because there
are so many toxic communities that people turn a blind
eye too because they're getting numbers. But it is very
true that as a content creator, you are in control
of what your community puts out. Your community could only

(55:17):
do what you allow. If your community is saying slurs
and being ignorant and all this stuff, it's because you're
not banning those people, so you're only making it worse
because other people are seeing that happen. It's like, oh,
that's cool, here, let's go. But it's when you and
some of them are four to year old boys that
don't understand how people talk in the real world, completely honest.

(55:38):
They think this is the culture of twitch. I saw
other people say this another channel. So they just come
in and they say stuff and they don't realize, Oh
that's bad. What do you mean I can't call a
girl a grill and know? Yeah, man, you can't do that.
It's so crazy because Zach, I think when I came
over to hyper you really showed me that even having
a channel that's not necessarily as big as some of

(55:59):
these other you tube channels that kind of put their
hands up like, oh no, we can't do anything. Those
channels have the finances and the people and the staff
to actually moderate their comments, and they chose not to,
you know, and you were so specific about like that's
not going to happen here. Yeah, Well, it's tough and
it's a tough decision to make. I'm like, I'm not
gonna lie. I have have to have meetings with investor. You know,
our investors sometimes be like yo, I'm sorry, but we can't,

(56:22):
and then they're with me on it. Believe me. That's
part of the original mission of the company. But it
is definitely a decision because we know that some of
our choices have led to less viewers. We know that
we could have more viewers. We could then open ourselves
up to more brands. By having more viewers, our thought processes, well,
those brands might not be as happy with us, So
let's create a platform that might have less numbers but

(56:44):
higher engagement, which we've also learned leads to more revenue. UM.
If they're comfortable, if they're a more mature individual, they're
more likely to support you through revenue UM. So there's
a it's a plus minus kind of thing. But you
also create a situation where we can have people come
on speak their opinion and talk about really heavy things
and not worry about any negativity coming back because that

(57:06):
we just don't let it fly. It's just not going
to happen. So you you're safe in that space to
speak your mind. I wanted to say so with with
Facebook now also doing um live gaming and things like
what what do you see as far as the future
of Twitch, Like where is it moving to I am
there's places I wanted to move to and there's where
I think it will go, and I think, unfortunately those

(57:26):
are very different. Um. You know, obviously I'm biased because
I create a very specific type of content that honestly
might not last on that platform forever. It might be
I need something new to come out that hasn't been
invented yet to support the kind of content I'm wanting
to make. But you know, with the Drake Ninja situation
at Fortnite, you know, that gets talked about and it

(57:47):
brought a ton of it from people that don't know that. Yeah,
so Ninja is a huge streamer on Twitch. It was
known for he has actually broke the subscriber record on
Twitch a lot. Yeah, Like he basically does make estimated
five thousand a month and that's only if people use

(58:08):
the base level subscription, which I know for a fact
they haven't. And so he's been so big and when
he broke this record, obviously, you know, celebts are starting
to find out and he played with Drake. Drake wasn't
even shown did immediately. Yeah, But what was cool about that,
and I think we'll hopefully continue to happen is it

(58:31):
brings a whole new audience to Twitch. And also when
you have someone like Drake on Twitch, it doesn't make
it have that weird social stigma of like, oh, this
is a nerdy thing. It's like, oh no, this is
a cool thing because everyone plays video games. Everyone plays
video games. But there's like these weird tears that people
socially put in their head that is like, oh that's

(58:51):
too nerdy for me. But when we make channel, but
when you make it more acceptable, when you make it
more like there's a huge tabletop commune. If they only
knew that they haven't found that one, which yeah, they
haven't figured that one. That's what we're trying to break into.
I mean, gen CON's huge every year. Most of the
people I meet at gen Con don't know what Twitch
is still to this day, and it's not very inviting

(59:11):
to them. So I don't necessarily disagree with their Twitch
have sorry to cut you off. Twitch have a present
at None. I've been working on that, but it's I mean,
now they're gonna be pulling out of a lot of
those I think now they're just gonna be mainly doing
They'll have booths at those things. But I know that
this Paxist was like one of the first big cons
where they haven't had a media presence at all, and

(59:33):
that was a huge surprise for everyone. But you know,
I think they're going to be trying to figure out
because that stuff costs money for them to run. It
costs money, and it cost a lot of money. So
they've got people now like this Ninja situation where it's
blowing up, So obviously, from a business standpoint, somebody's gonna go, well,
that's that's great, let's focus on that. That doesn't really
go well with my goals. But I'm happy for the

(59:54):
company because more people coming on the platform could trickle
down to me, possibly if they can find me, but otherwise,
you know, it's it's gonna make things a little interesting
for the type of content I make. But games aren't
gonna stop. They're gonna keep growing. So I think this
aspect of the people playing them are going to be
more famous in the games themselves is just gonna keep
getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I don't see that
stopping anytime soon. As far as live interactive content creation,

(01:00:17):
I think it's going to move probably away from Twitch
a little bit and possibly start showing up more on television.
Things like Netflix and Hulu are going to start adopting
these practice. That's my long term goal. I'd love to
see somebody. It'd be real smart if it was Amazon,
considering they own Twitch. But you know, a lot of
misconceptions happened there with how Amazon or so many people
tell like, oh, Amazon's got their hands so deep and

(01:00:39):
Twitch and all this stuff. I'm like, I kind of
wish they were deeper. Man, I'd love to be able
to log onto my Amazon Fire and or log into
my Amazon app and see Twitch or shows on Twitch.
There aren't there's no presence of that whatsoever. Comics Ology
is owned by Amazon. There's no communication on between the two.
Like Amazon's always been pretty big on like that wing

(01:00:59):
is that wing, this wing is this wing. They've integrated
new features like Twitch Prime, stuff like that, but they
could be going way deeper and oh yeah they're not.
So it's I don't think. I think people just overreact
because they see changes that must be Amazon. It's like
where it's just Twitch growing, you know, trying to grow
as a company. Man. That's very exciting. Yeah, that wraps

(01:01:20):
up nicely. So where can people find you Zach on
hyper rpg, Twitch dot tv, slash hyper rpg. That's literally
where I'm at, streaming every day, every day pretty much
sometimes on the weekends, mostly Monday through Friday. About forty
hours a live content a week. There's always something live though,
something playing always and then your your handle is at

(01:01:43):
hyper underscore IPG on Twitter. Yeah, remember that underscore. I
I had it in my profile without some dude that's
you know, hyper obg since two thousand ten that won't
give it up. We can't find on. I've been trying
really hard on I feel you. Danny Fernandez blocked me.
The guy he blocked me. Someone's just miss Danny Fernandez.
Someone is squatting on just Iffy playing Iffy, and I've

(01:02:06):
tried everything. Twitter has no rule against squatting, like they
literally and I would have to get a copyright on
Iffy to yank it like they're like I have a
trademark on hyperfe gene. I still can't get it. Really,
I've been to is he active at all? No, not
since two thousand He's have one tweet since two thousand ten.
Won't help us, right this guy? No? But you know

(01:02:32):
one day, well, I am at ms ms Danny Fernandez,
and I was going to say make sure thanks to
everyone that's been reviewing us, and Apple podcast gave us
a big shout out that is so dope. Thank you
so much. If you'll haven't yet, it really helps us
and helps get get um, you know, more eyes on
this podcast. Tell a friend about it. Um. But if

(01:02:55):
you could go and just take one minute of your
day and review the podcast, if it's a good rive,
ounds good, I know. No, I've seen the haters trickle in.
There's like just because like if it's a one star
review and someone's saying why they're giving a one star review,
I'm like, all right, you might really hate it, but
there's just like ghost one star reviews or it's like okay,
that must be my ex. But also, you know, I'm

(01:03:18):
gonna set some stretch goals. I've just thought about it
after doing uh today. But on Anthony Carboni's podcast, he
gave us these cool pins. So like you know, at
at game yeah, at one hundred reviews, I'm gonna drop
some stickers. At a two fifty, I'm thinking I'm getting
the pins. And at one k review, I want to
get a vinyl figure of me and Danny. Hell yeah,

(01:03:42):
because I got connects. Now, I got Vinyl Figure connects.
So I thought you were going to say, like a
Varsity letterman's jacket. Oh no, that's a d K reviews.
But yeah, well at each of those at the Vinyl
figure one or two, depending on how many you have
to order to get it. Lucky listeners will get if
you and Danny Vinyl figures at one K reviews. By

(01:04:02):
the way, if on Twitter at if F Y A,
W I, D I D we make sure you follow
Nerdifficent on Facebook and on Instagram and on Twitter, and
you know, tell us what you'd like to see a
lot of you'll have been telling us, and we have
been saying, yeah, yeah, we're writing it down. We got
some cool apps coming, and we will be tackling the
stuff you're throwing at us. And I would say too

(01:04:24):
that if people ask you guys questions about Twitch after this, like,
feel free to loot me into those conversations. I could
talk about this stuff. Well it's it's literally all I do.
So I can talk about it on episode we do. Yeah,
and check out the hyper RBG channel, do it. I know,
I know, y'all know there's some gyms in there. There's
some hidden gyms of Danny and Iffy. Can you look
around just a little bit, there's some hidden have you

(01:04:46):
type in also if you type because if you and
I were on we had a couple of shows, but
we were on a show called Vanquished. So if you
look that up in Giffy Um there's some good deal
you'll find some good gifts of us. Alight, friends, stay nerdy,
thanks for listening. The Ta