Streaming as a Career

For many teenagers, streaming is a dream job. They aspire to create a living out of playing their favourite game, reacting to viral-videos, or simply “chatting” with their viewers. Streaming platforms such as Twitch are growing in popularity, and more and more people have succeeded in transforming streaming into a full-time career.

Twitch is the most popular streaming platform in the world by a significant margin. As of December 2020, the average viewership and number of active channels on Twitch is almost three times that of the runner up, Youtube.

In 2012, just one year after Twitch was launched, the streaming platform had already gained a surprising amount of traction: there were already about three-hundred thousand unique broadcasters. At any given time, two thousand of them would be live, with approximately a hundred thousand viewers spread among them. Today, Twitch stands at just over four million unique broadcasters, with sixty thousand live streams and one and a half million viewers at any given time. As a result of Twitch’s ever-increasing popularity, many people have picked up Twitch to make a name for themselves, and some even strive to make a living out of it. Additionally, esports, which is mostly streamed on Twitch, has also picked up steam. For example, The Dota 2 International Tournament in 2018 had a total prize pool of over $25,000,000 and smaller tournaments often have prize pools exceeding $1,000,000 USD. In the US, esports has higher viewership than every other sport except the NFL. The esports industry (worldwide) reportedly reached $1 billion in revenue in 2021, and is estimated to reach $1.8 billion by 2022. As a result of the audience base esports tournaments have brought to Twitch, other streamers can also tap into the lucrative esports niche.

Unlike Youtube, streamers on Twitch don’t need to amass hundreds of thousands of views to make a reasonable sum of money. Twitch user statistics (as of June 2021) show that even small streamers that have an average concurrent viewership of just five to ten people can earn between $50 to $200 in one month, and streamers who have a hundred average concurrent viewers make upwards of $1500.

When a streamer reaches a thousand average concurrent viewers, their monthly paycheck averages around $5000-- much higher than the median income in the United States of $3100 a month. Larger streamers with approximately five thousand average concurrent viewers make an average of $13 000 a month, and those with ten thousand make $30 000. Furthermore, streamers who re-upload their streaming content (VODS) to other platforms such as Youtube or Tiktok earn an additional 25% - 50% of their Twitch earnings. These earnings do not include streamers that also create original content for their Youtube channels.

However, one should not be too hasty in investing all their efforts into becoming a Twitch streamer. The probability of any given person becoming popular enough to make a living out of streaming is also miniscule: among the roughly four million unique broadcasters, less than sixty thousand meet the requirements to become Twitch partners (who have an average concurrent viewership of seventy-five and make approximately $600 a month) which is downwards of two percent of streamers (granted, not all streamers put in efforts to become popular, some do it for fun and neither have a consistent schedule or personal brand), The average income that these people make still does not equate to a sustainable living, as there is still a long way to go from being a Twitch partner to becoming Twitch famous. Even Ninja, real name Tyler Blevins, who reportedly made $10 000 000 in a single year, has advised young aspirers against taking the risk. As he once said in a stream, he believes that it is much more reliable to hone other skills.There is also a concern that a significant portion of Twitch’s recent growth is a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic, as its usage spiked by 31% in the summer of 2020. Some believe that there is a risk that when the pandemic eventually dissipates, so will a significant portion of Twitch popularity over the short-term.

Overall, Twitch and other streaming platforms still show great promise and are expected to continue growing in upcoming years. If the world follows its current course, streaming is likely to become an even more viable career path over the next decade.