essay incoming, there is no tl;dr, read it if you're interested
Since I got involved with competitive, which was not too long ago, what got me hooked for a lot of time during the first few months were streams of top matches (at the time by vanillatv) and from the beginning I was impressed with the production value of the whole thing, the games were enjoyable, the casters entertaining, the streams itself good quality and it was genuinely interesting to watch even for someone who although was familiar with the game never had contact with the competitive scene.
Greg and admirable among others, kept me entertained for months. After that I started playing, got more and more interested in the scene (and better at the game), until I got involved myself, with projects like comp.tf or tf2pickup. My point is, the exposure of the game on stream is probably the main reason I got into competitive tf2, and I
[i]essay incoming, there is no tl;dr, read it if you're interested[/i]
Since I got involved with competitive, which was not too long ago, what got me hooked for a lot of time during the first few months were streams of top matches (at the time by vanillatv) and from the beginning I was impressed with the production value of the whole thing, the games were enjoyable, the casters entertaining, the streams itself good quality and it was genuinely interesting to watch even for someone who although was familiar with the game never had contact with the competitive scene.
Greg and admirable among others, kept me entertained for months. After that I started playing, got more and more interested in the scene (and better at the game), until I got involved myself, with projects like [url=http://comp.tf/]comp.tf[/url] or [url=http://tf2pickup.net/]tf2pickup[/url]. My point is, the exposure of the game on stream is probably the main reason I got into competitive tf2, and I
go get lange to stream i'm sure we'll reach the top 3 in no time ;)
go get lange to stream i'm sure we'll reach the top 3 in no time ;)
it's simple
we get dendi to play tf2
it's simple
we get dendi to play tf2
I think most of us would rather play than watch someone else
I think most of us would rather play than watch someone else
a few things imo:
CS:GO has a "live streams" box in it's main menu, that no doubt helps generate viewers (valve pls).
The TF2 streaming scene is relatively new when compared to super popular games like LoL, Minecraft, WoW, SC2. I think we're doing pretty good.
So what is hurting our stream viewership numbers so much, why is it not increasing despite all the extra content being pumped out there?
I think overall viewership across TF streams has been growing slowly but steadily. I wish twitch.tv had public stats for all of the tf.tv streams to see if this is true. Mr. Slin showed me a picture of the top 20 tf.tv streams by total viewcounts and the numbers were pretty impressive.
CarlI think most of us would rather play than watch someone else
also true.
edit - just thought of this: really popular competitive games like SC2, Dota, LoL, CS:GO all have dedicated spectator modes where spectators can check things like gold advantage, overhead maps, food totals etc...
TF2 lacks these features so spectating is less user-friendly.
a few things imo:
CS:GO has a "live streams" box in it's main menu, that no doubt helps generate viewers (valve pls).
The TF2 streaming scene is relatively new when compared to super popular games like LoL, Minecraft, WoW, SC2. I think we're doing pretty good.
[quote]So what is hurting our stream viewership numbers so much, why is it not increasing despite all the extra content being pumped out there? [/quote]
I think overall viewership across TF streams has been growing slowly but steadily. I wish twitch.tv had public stats for all of the tf.tv streams to see if this is true. Mr. Slin showed me a picture of the top 20 tf.tv streams by total viewcounts and the numbers were pretty impressive.
[quote=Carl]I think most of us would rather play than watch someone else[/quote]
also true.
edit - just thought of this: really popular competitive games like SC2, Dota, LoL, CS:GO all have dedicated spectator modes where spectators can check things like gold advantage, overhead maps, food totals etc...
TF2 lacks these features so spectating is less user-friendly.
Well the tf2 community is really diverse a large percentage of those who play are traders who really don't have any interest in the competative side of tf2. Even if you go into a pub more people will ask what competative tf2 is rather than already know. I think this is still a matter of getting Competative Tf2's name out there because pubs aren't the most fun thing to watch at least for myself. We should find out what part of the big tf2 streams people really enjoy (such as tip of the hats) and center not content around that, hopefully this would draw in a new crowd to competative tf2. Also my friends who play league are always talking about streams and the things I pick up on are they watch these streams because, they want to learn how to play the game better to raise their ELO or the streamer is just really good and they want to see how they play. I think it all starts with getting the competative scene bigger. People would begin watching our streams more if they benefited from it in some way
Well the tf2 community is really diverse a large percentage of those who play are traders who really don't have any interest in the competative side of tf2. Even if you go into a pub more people will ask what competative tf2 is rather than already know. I think this is still a matter of getting Competative Tf2's name out there because pubs aren't the most fun thing to watch at least for myself. We should find out what part of the big tf2 streams people really enjoy (such as tip of the hats) and center not content around that, hopefully this would draw in a new crowd to competative tf2. Also my friends who play league are always talking about streams and the things I pick up on are they watch these streams because, they want to learn how to play the game better to raise their ELO or the streamer is just really good and they want to see how they play. I think it all starts with getting the competative scene bigger. People would begin watching our streams more if they benefited from it in some way
Kaneco, I was thinking about this exact thing just this morning.
One; TF2 is an old game. Content refresh is important, but the game remains pretty old (in terms of age, not playability)
The same year it was released:
Microsoft announced Games for Windows Live
Bioshock was released
Crysis was released
Playstation 2 was the number 3 ranked console system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_in_video_gaming
I think that a lot of people may have written the game off due to its age. Also... I hate to say this but $$$. If Valve sponsored a $1 Million purse for a tf2 event, you'd see the kind of numbers that DOTA 2 sees pretty quickly.
Kaneco, I was thinking about this exact thing just this morning.
One; TF2 is an old game. Content refresh is important, but the game remains pretty old (in terms of age, not playability)
The same year it was released:
Microsoft announced Games for Windows Live
Bioshock was released
Crysis was released
Playstation 2 was the number 3 ranked console system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_in_video_gaming
I think that a lot of people may have written the game off due to its age. Also... I hate to say this but $$$. If Valve sponsored a $1 Million purse for a tf2 event, you'd see the kind of numbers that DOTA 2 sees pretty quickly.
A lot of it has to do with the TF2 community. The vast majority of people who stream TF2 are competitive players whereas most people who play TF2 are not. Games like SC2, Dota 2, LoL, CS:Go that really dominate the viewer list are competitively focused and people watch their favorite streamers, normally top players, to learn and have a good time. The same thing happens in TF2 but there is just a lot more people.
On a similar note, the timing of the eXtv HL streams are awful. They have a stream that appeals to HL players going on at the same time as most people in NA who like HL are playing it. Hard to fix that but still.
GgglygyI think overall viewership across TF streams has been growing slowly but steadily. I wish twitch.tv had public stats for all of the tf.tv streams to see if this is true. Mr. Slin showed me a picture of the top 20 tf.tv streams by total viewcounts and the numbers were pretty impressive.
Do you mean twitch.tv/teamfortresstv streams or the tf.tv streams?
A lot of it has to do with the TF2 community. The vast majority of people who stream TF2 are competitive players whereas most people who play TF2 are not. Games like SC2, Dota 2, LoL, CS:Go that really dominate the viewer list are competitively focused and people watch their favorite streamers, normally top players, to learn and have a good time. The same thing happens in TF2 but there is just a lot more people.
On a similar note, the timing of the eXtv HL streams are awful. They have a stream that appeals to HL players going on at the same time as most people in NA who like HL are playing it. Hard to fix that but still.
[quote=Ggglygy]
I think overall viewership across TF streams has been growing slowly but steadily. I wish twitch.tv had public stats for all of the tf.tv streams to see if this is true. Mr. Slin showed me a picture of the top 20 tf.tv streams by total viewcounts and the numbers were pretty impressive.[/quote]
Do you mean twitch.tv/teamfortresstv streams or the tf.tv streams?
Ggglygyedit - just thought of this: really popular competitive games like SC2, Dota, LoL, CS:GO all have dedicated spectator modes where spectators can check things like gold advantage, overhead maps, food totals etc...
TF2 lacks these features so spectating is less user-friendly.
Oh, yeah. Spectating an FPS is hard already but TF2 sucks in terms of specatating. bluee is saving us a bit with the outlines, ubercharge stats and DMG/Kills stats but there is only so much that can be done to mod the game. There are so many things that would really add to the game. Sadly Valve doesn't care.
[quote=Ggglygy]
edit - just thought of this: really popular competitive games like SC2, Dota, LoL, CS:GO all have dedicated spectator modes where spectators can check things like gold advantage, overhead maps, food totals etc...
TF2 lacks these features so spectating is less user-friendly.[/quote]
Oh, yeah. Spectating an FPS is hard already but TF2 sucks in terms of specatating. bluee is saving us a bit with the outlines, ubercharge stats and DMG/Kills stats but there is only so much that can be done to mod the game. There are so many things that would really add to the game. Sadly Valve doesn't care.
Some people just aren't good or entertaining enough to watch; Streamer interaction with the audience plays a big part in gaining or retaining stream viewers and some people aren't very good at it.
I don't think the majority of casual TF2 players realize that we have such a large streamer base though it would pay off to try and network ourselves better to related or affiliated sites.
(I know we have similar stream list's on VanillaTV and ETF2L)
It would be great if we had a sidebar like TFTV on sites like the TF2 SPUF forum or possible the Valve blog but that seems like a stark possibility.
It's also harder to engage pub players to watch TF2 streamers (The large majority of the player-base of TF2) to watch competitive players play as a lot of them have the mentality that our format is full of elitists or they think because we're typically better then them we hold some sort of superiority complex over them (which isn't typically true.)
There's always going to be that block of casual and competitive but if we could possibly utilize highlander as a more appealing introductory competitive format and then introduce people to 6's after it may reduce that barrier.
Some people just aren't good or entertaining enough to watch; Streamer interaction with the audience plays a big part in gaining or retaining stream viewers and some people aren't very good at it.
I don't think the majority of casual TF2 players realize that we have such a large streamer base though it would pay off to try and network ourselves better to related or affiliated sites.
(I know we have similar stream list's on VanillaTV and ETF2L)
It would be great if we had a sidebar like TFTV on sites like the TF2 SPUF forum or possible the Valve blog but that seems like a stark possibility.
It's also harder to engage pub players to watch TF2 streamers (The large majority of the player-base of TF2) to watch competitive players play as a lot of them have the mentality that our format is full of elitists or they think because we're typically better then them we hold some sort of superiority complex over them (which isn't typically true.)
There's always going to be that block of casual and competitive but if we could possibly utilize highlander as a more appealing introductory competitive format and then introduce people to 6's after it may reduce that barrier.
MerchantDo you mean twitch.tv/teamfortresstv streams or the tf.tv streams?
I mean tf.tv streams.
[quote=Merchant]Do you mean twitch.tv/teamfortresstv streams or the tf.tv streams?[/quote]
I mean tf.tv streams.
Yes the tf2 is the 2nd most played game on steam.
Want to know how many of those are like F2P players or people who just have fun with it.
I would say like 90%
The other 10% or what ever, most don't have a good enough internet to stream nor most can't be bothered to do it on a regular schedule.. because people are lazy, including me.
PS. no idea what anyone else said, I just skipped all that poop :3
Yes the tf2 is the 2nd most played game on steam.
Want to know how many of those are like F2P players or people who just have fun with it.
I would say like 90%
The other 10% or what ever, most don't have a good enough internet to stream nor most can't be bothered to do it on a regular schedule.. because people are lazy, including me.
PS. no idea what anyone else said, I just skipped all that poop :3
When I was streaming, I would get my best viewer counts from a couple of sources:
1. When I casted TF2 matches
2. Doing stuff in Kerbal Space Program on a regular basis
I'll take these in reverse order, when it comes to streaming, it's good to stream consistently on a regular schedule and have a consistent schedule of when you stream. For a bit I experimented with doing daily KSP streams for a couple of hours and do a variety of informal segments, usually involving doing some mission to the Mun for specific purposes (since it's easy to fit an entire mission there and back in a couple of hours). Then close to the end of the stream I would do silly stuff around the main base like attaching rockets to trucks and flinging them down the runway. I think I did this for about 3-4 weeks and at the end was able to consistently pull about 15-20 viewers, usually the second or third-best performing KSP stream whenever big names like Ridgedog weren't streaming as well. Mind you I'm no KSP expert, but at any particular point I'd try to explain what was going on and what was going to happen next (rapid unplanned disassembling not included).
Now to TF2. Typically when I did casual pub/pug streams I'd only get 5-7 viewers, but then I started to cast lower-level matches and slowly I was drawing more viewers. I think my peak was something in the neighborhood of 50 viewers casting an IM playoff game while TFtv was on as well. I'm not exactly the greatest at much of anything TF2-related, and I had a few glitches during my casts, but I tried my best to tell the story as it happened and got lucky with a few close games that other people didn't cover.
So, I think where the link is missing for TF2 is this: Viewers want to watch either really good players playing, or want to watch really good games at a decent level. What they don't want to watch is stuff they could easily do themselves.
That's just my observation, anyway.
When I was streaming, I would get my best viewer counts from a couple of sources:
1. When I casted TF2 matches
2. Doing stuff in Kerbal Space Program on a regular basis
I'll take these in reverse order, when it comes to streaming, it's good to stream consistently on a regular schedule and have a consistent schedule of when you stream. For a bit I experimented with doing daily KSP streams for a couple of hours and do a variety of informal segments, usually involving doing some mission to the Mun for specific purposes (since it's easy to fit an entire mission there and back in a couple of hours). Then close to the end of the stream I would do silly stuff around the main base like attaching rockets to trucks and flinging them down the runway. I think I did this for about 3-4 weeks and at the end was able to consistently pull about 15-20 viewers, usually the second or third-best performing KSP stream whenever big names like Ridgedog weren't streaming as well. Mind you I'm no KSP expert, but at any particular point I'd try to explain what was going on and what was going to happen next (rapid unplanned disassembling not included).
Now to TF2. Typically when I did casual pub/pug streams I'd only get 5-7 viewers, but then I started to cast lower-level matches and slowly I was drawing more viewers. I think my peak was something in the neighborhood of 50 viewers casting an IM playoff game while TFtv was on as well. I'm not exactly the greatest at much of anything TF2-related, and I had a few glitches during my casts, but I tried my best to tell the story as it happened and got lucky with a few close games that other people didn't cover.
So, I think where the link is missing for TF2 is this: Viewers want to watch either really good players playing, or want to watch really good games at a decent level. What they don't want to watch is stuff they could easily do themselves.
That's just my observation, anyway.
A lot of good streamers actually quit streaming, that's probably hurting it a lot.
A lot of good streamers actually quit streaming, that's probably hurting it a lot.
this game is boring to watch but fun to play
this game is boring to watch but fun to play
Saberit's simplewe get dendi to play tf2
I was really hoping that after "it's simple" you had "we kill league of legends"
[quote=Saber]it's simplewe get dendi to play tf2[/quote]
I was really hoping that after "it's simple" you had "we kill league of legends"
It gets said every time this sort of thread pops about, but it's worth noting again: competitive TF2 is a pretty small fraction of the TF2 player base.
If every starting player of every ESEA team this season played the game today, that's still less than 1% of the daily concurrent TF2 players - which itself is less than 13% of the DotA2 players.
The reason these numbers are important are because, even at the most generous numbers for highlander players, retired players, etc., the number of competitive TF2 players is most likely still under 5% of the total TF2 player base, and competitive TF2 is not the same as regular pub TF2. The distinction here is that DotA, LoL, SC2, etc. all have the same game being played between pub games and comp. games.
So that being said, the typical person watching a stream of a game is probably(and this part is totally my own assumption) a player of that game, or at least somebody interested in playing it. This means that less than 5% of the total TF2 player base (which, again, is tiny compared to most other popular streaming games) is probably even interested in these streams to begin with. As you said, LANs and such change this a little bit, but the unfortunate fact of the matter is simply that the viewers just don't exist. Sad, but true.
It gets said every time this sort of thread pops about, but it's worth noting again: [b]competitive TF2 is a pretty small fraction of the TF2 player base[/b].
If every starting player of every ESEA team this season played the game today, that's still less than 1% of the daily concurrent TF2 players - which itself is less than 13% of the DotA2 players.
The reason these numbers are important are because, even at the most generous numbers for highlander players, retired players, etc., the number of competitive TF2 players is most likely still under 5% of the total TF2 player base, and competitive TF2[b] is not the same[/b] as regular pub TF2. The distinction here is that DotA, LoL, SC2, etc. all have the same game being played between pub games and comp. games.
So that being said, the typical person watching a stream of a game is probably(and this part is totally my own assumption) a player of that game, or at least somebody interested in playing it. This means that less than 5% of the total TF2 player base (which, again, is tiny compared to most other popular streaming games) is probably even interested in these streams to begin with. As you said, LANs and such change this a little bit, but the unfortunate fact of the matter is simply that the viewers just don't exist. Sad, but true.
synchroIt gets said every time this sort of thread pops about, but it's worth noting again: competitive TF2 is a pretty small fraction of the TF2 player base.
If every starting player of every ESEA team this season played the game today, that's still less than 1% of the daily concurrent TF2 players - which itself is less than 13% of the DotA2 players.
The reason these numbers are important are because, even at the most generous numbers for highlander players, retired players, etc., the number of competitive TF2 players is most likely still under 5% of the total TF2 player base, and competitive TF2 is not the same as regular pub TF2. The distinction here is that DotA, LoL, SC2, etc. all have the same game being played between pub games and comp. games.
So that being said, the typical person watching a stream of a game is probably(and this part is totally my own assumption) a player of that game, or at least somebody interested in playing it. This means that less than 5% of the total TF2 player base (which, again, is tiny compared to most other popular streaming games) is probably even interested in these streams to begin with. As you said, LANs and such change this a little bit, but the unfortunate fact of the matter is simply that the viewers just don't exist. Sad, but true.
if 5% of TF2 players play competitive then 90% don't even know that there are leagues for TF2. There are people with 1k+ hours that have no idea there is a competitive scene
[quote=synchro]It gets said every time this sort of thread pops about, but it's worth noting again: [b]competitive TF2 is a pretty small fraction of the TF2 player base[/b].
If every starting player of every ESEA team this season played the game today, that's still less than 1% of the daily concurrent TF2 players - which itself is less than 13% of the DotA2 players.
The reason these numbers are important are because, even at the most generous numbers for highlander players, retired players, etc., the number of competitive TF2 players is most likely still under 5% of the total TF2 player base, and competitive TF2[b] is not the same[/b] as regular pub TF2. The distinction here is that DotA, LoL, SC2, etc. all have the same game being played between pub games and comp. games.
So that being said, the typical person watching a stream of a game is probably(and this part is totally my own assumption) a player of that game, or at least somebody interested in playing it. This means that less than 5% of the total TF2 player base (which, again, is tiny compared to most other popular streaming games) is probably even interested in these streams to begin with. As you said, LANs and such change this a little bit, but the unfortunate fact of the matter is simply that the viewers just don't exist. Sad, but true.[/quote]
if 5% of TF2 players play competitive then 90% don't even know that there are leagues for TF2. There are people with 1k+ hours that have no idea there is a competitive scene
oov don't do this[b][/b][b][/b]
TF2's main viewership is TF2 players, which causes a lot of problems.
I watch streams in the background sometimes when I'm doing homework, or when there's a major match I want to watch, but other than that - I usually prefer playing, as I imagine many other people do.
It's possible that the irc pug scene could help viewership by promoting streams in channel, so people have something to watch while waiting for a game to fill. However, this would still bring in only relatively pathetic numbers.
Making content interesting for non-TF2 players, and engaging to someone who doesn't know the game that well, is a huge challenge, but I think it would help TF2s viewership overall.
TF2's main viewership is TF2 players, which causes a lot of problems.
I watch streams in the background sometimes when I'm doing homework, or when there's a major match I want to watch, but other than that - I usually prefer playing, as I imagine many other people do.
It's possible that the irc pug scene could help viewership by promoting streams in channel, so people have something to watch while waiting for a game to fill. However, this would still bring in only relatively pathetic numbers.
Making content interesting for non-TF2 players, and engaging to someone who doesn't know the game that well, is a huge challenge, but I think it would help TF2s viewership overall.
Oh, that would be sweet... pug channels that auto stream. Wouldn't even need a caster... I wonder if there is a way that it could do that.
Oh, that would be sweet... pug channels that auto stream. Wouldn't even need a caster... I wonder if there is a way that it could do that.
a certain someone, let's call him _RATS for no reason, gets 1k+ viewers sniping and market gardening in pubs.
This is the actual audience in TF2.
(not that I think that's a huge deal. It's just a matter of taste.)
a certain someone, let's call him _RATS for no reason, gets 1k+ viewers sniping and market gardening in pubs.
This is the actual audience in TF2.
(not that I think that's a huge deal. It's just a matter of taste.)
A lot of streams is just pubbing or dming. That's not fun to watch.
Some people don't even talk! What's the point in that?
A lot of streams is just pubbing or dming. That's not fun to watch.
Some people don't even talk! What's the point in that?
Well, if you really wanted to find out reasons, you should go to list of streams for those games.
For example, right at this moment, I clicked on SM64, which has 1.7k viewers (TF2 at 200~). Further inspection shows that 1.6k of those viewers are watching a speed runner, who has 16,963 YT subscribers and 71,674 Twitch.tv followers.
Pokemon Snap: 2,736 viewers, all but 9 from a channel with 82,038 YT subscribers and 26,139 Twitch.TV followers.
The top 5 games have thousands upon thousands of players, yet can only get 20-82k. It sounds big, but when you compare that to the games population as well as consider the fact that those are some of the most popular games currently being played around the world, that's low.
How about a newer game: GTAV
Around 7.5k total viewers, most popular viewer atm has 2.7k viewers, 142,885 Twitch.tv followers and 35,981 YT subscribers.
Let's compare to the TF2 ones you listed.
ExTv: 72,405 YT subscribers and 6,028 Twitch.tv followers.
TF.TV: 10,158 YT subscribers and 5,433 Twitch.Tv followers.
TF2 streams are mainly focused on being viewable to the non-casual audience. TF2's main audience is traders and casuals, don't forget that. TF2 does not have the backing others games do.
Seems like, with this all said, the game is doing as well as it should be. You need popular players to praise and play your game to get views, and even then it's still hard to pull viewers in. There are only 2 TF2 people that have the popularity to bring in viewers 24/7 that I know of: stabby (47,813 YT and 10k Twitch) and STAR_ (304,284 YT subs and 16k Twitch). People like playing video games more than watching them, that simple. Special things like SaltyBet and Speed Runs get views for doing something out of the box, other games are just popular, and guess what? Popular people will go to popular games for more popularity.
Well, if you really wanted to find out reasons, you should go to list of streams for those games.
For example, right at this moment, I clicked on SM64, which has 1.7k viewers (TF2 at 200~). Further inspection shows that 1.6k of those viewers are watching a speed runner, who has 16,963 YT subscribers and 71,674 Twitch.tv followers.
Pokemon Snap: 2,736 viewers, all but 9 from a channel with 82,038 YT subscribers and 26,139 Twitch.TV followers.
The top 5 games have thousands upon thousands of players, yet can only get 20-82k. It sounds big, but when you compare that to the games population as well as consider the fact that those are some of the most popular games currently being played around the world, that's low.
How about a newer game: GTAV
Around 7.5k total viewers, most popular viewer atm has 2.7k viewers, 142,885 Twitch.tv followers and 35,981 YT subscribers.
Let's compare to the TF2 ones you listed.
ExTv: 72,405 YT subscribers and 6,028 Twitch.tv followers.
TF.TV: 10,158 YT subscribers and 5,433 Twitch.Tv followers.
TF2 streams are mainly focused on being viewable to the non-casual audience. TF2's main audience is traders and casuals, don't forget that. TF2 does not have the backing others games do.
Seems like, with this all said, the game is doing as well as it should be. You need popular players to praise and play your game to get views, and even then it's still hard to pull viewers in. There are only 2 TF2 people that have the popularity to bring in viewers 24/7 that I know of: stabby (47,813 YT and 10k Twitch) and STAR_ (304,284 YT subs and 16k Twitch). People like playing video games more than watching them, that simple. Special things like SaltyBet and Speed Runs get views for doing something out of the box, other games are just popular, and guess what? Popular people will go to popular games for more popularity.
It just isn't as fun to watch tf2 unless the person you are watching is very entertaining or has some draw about them (kurt, lange, byte, casts, other high level players, etc.)
Anyone can just go pub, the game is free to play, so the barriers to entry are super low, meaning the content is fairly homogeneous. It's the pub experience, you aren't going to get something super special out of a pub, and if you do it usually ends up on stream highlights so you aren't missing out anyways.
If you're streaming dm or mge or jumping or surfing, its still pretty homogeneous to those who surf or jump or dm or mge frequently.
Scrims are fun to watch, especially with a little viewer interaction, but most people who watch streams are comp tf2 players who have teams and scrim at the same times. Another issue is that tf2 can be fairly difficult to stream since everyone wants 100000 fps and completely smooth gameplay so its really easy to blame streaming on bad performance (see: anytime I've ever streamed) so a lot of people just won't stream scrims.
Stuff like dota and starcraft have very little issue with streaming it seems and you can go and play a competitive game any time of day with their lobby system. The best we have are infrequent pugs, and those are usually the streams at the top anyways. With streaming pugs, its seeing the same thing from a bunch of different perspectives, and you sort of just pick whoever is more known to you as a player to watch and then just watch their stream. There's usually only 1 pug at a time, often 2, but that means there can really only be 2 to 4 people streaming a pug and getting viewers at a time. Its really nice to have those Friday night fights because you can have 16 people streaming unique sides of games going on simultaneously.
It just isn't as fun to watch tf2 unless the person you are watching is very entertaining or has some draw about them (kurt, lange, byte, casts, other high level players, etc.)
Anyone can just go pub, the game is free to play, so the barriers to entry are super low, meaning the content is fairly homogeneous. It's the pub experience, you aren't going to get something super special out of a pub, and if you do it usually ends up on stream highlights so you aren't missing out anyways.
If you're streaming dm or mge or jumping or surfing, its still pretty homogeneous to those who surf or jump or dm or mge frequently.
Scrims are fun to watch, especially with a little viewer interaction, but most people who watch streams are comp tf2 players who have teams and scrim at the same times. Another issue is that tf2 can be fairly difficult to stream since everyone wants 100000 fps and completely smooth gameplay so its really easy to blame streaming on bad performance (see: anytime I've ever streamed) so a lot of people just won't stream scrims.
Stuff like dota and starcraft have very little issue with streaming it seems and you can go and play a competitive game any time of day with their lobby system. The best we have are infrequent pugs, and those are usually the streams at the top anyways. With streaming pugs, its seeing the same thing from a bunch of different perspectives, and you sort of just pick whoever is more known to you as a player to watch and then just watch their stream. There's usually only 1 pug at a time, often 2, but that means there can really only be 2 to 4 people streaming a pug and getting viewers at a time. Its really nice to have those Friday night fights because you can have 16 people streaming unique sides of games going on simultaneously.
Open finals for s14 hung around 500 viewers despite it being a massive cluster fuck :/
I'd say right now anything is going to be biased because people traditionally don't like streaming pre-season stuff - and we're still not really in season for another few days here - once we get casts and such going it'll be a larger draw.
Although, I do say I'd rather there be more impetus to restream old games/casts particularly with how easy it'd be to do that.
Open finals for s14 hung around 500 viewers despite it being a massive cluster fuck :/
I'd say right now anything is going to be biased because people traditionally don't like streaming pre-season stuff - and we're still not really in season for another few days here - once we get casts and such going it'll be a larger draw.
Although, I do say I'd rather there be more impetus to restream old games/casts particularly with how easy it'd be to do that.
http://i.imgur.com/1s7cZrU.png?1?4873
Of two streamers sleeping and of course stabbystabby
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Streams gotta be unusual, different from other streamers and attract viewbase.
[img]http://i.imgur.com/1s7cZrU.png?1?4873[/img]
Of two streamers sleeping and of course stabbystabby
[spoiler]http://teamfortress.tv/forum/thread/9569-pledge-vs-slin-in-sleep-mge[/spoiler]
Streams gotta be unusual, different from other streamers and attract viewbase.
I wanted to contribute really bad to this thread, but everything has been said already.
I can only say that personally I used to watch streams a lot, every night almost, but then I joined a team and started playing the game, so now I don't watch streams because I'm playing the game instead.
I wanted to contribute really bad to this thread, but everything has been said already.
I can only say that personally I used to watch streams a lot, every night almost, but then I joined a team and started playing the game, so now I don't watch streams because I'm playing the game instead.
Just basing it off of that screenshot alone I'll tell you the reason why I wouldn't watch any of those streams.
I recognize only a few names, most are unknowns, sorry but I don't want to watch people play a game that may or may not be only slightly better at it than me and I don't know them.
None of them are really charismatic or interesting to watch, the exception maybe Mangachu but I haven't really watched his stream so I can't say.
The streams I've always watched consistently are anyone who's in a top 4 team in etf2l/esea, people who are funny to listen to like Cbear or DJC, the official streams from TF.TV and VTV (except if Mia is casting, I just don't like her voice, nothing against her casting although last time I watched it was pretty bad too).
And I'd watch anything with Ruwin in it.
I loved watching Cbear doing an impromptu scrim cast (I think I only watched it once due to timezone differences).
Just basing it off of that screenshot alone I'll tell you the reason why I wouldn't watch any of those streams.
I recognize only a few names, most are unknowns, sorry but I don't want to watch people play a game that may or may not be only slightly better at it than me and I don't know them.
None of them are really charismatic or interesting to watch, the exception maybe Mangachu but I haven't really watched his stream so I can't say.
The streams I've always watched consistently are anyone who's in a top 4 team in etf2l/esea, people who are funny to listen to like Cbear or DJC, the official streams from TF.TV and VTV (except if Mia is casting, I just don't like her voice, nothing against her casting although last time I watched it was pretty bad too).
And I'd watch anything with Ruwin in it.
I loved watching Cbear doing an impromptu scrim cast (I think I only watched it once due to timezone differences).