Twitch times: the future for Later Levels’ streams
Over the past fortnight, we’ve discussed streaming. We’ve looked at what it means to accept an Affiliate invitation from Twitch, the games are made for playing on air along with advice for new streamers. I’ve also introduced you to bloggers who stream that are well worth following.
This was the lead-up to my other-half and I making a return to the Later Levels’ channel last weekend. After realising at the end of May that we’d stopped enjoying ourselves on stream through feeling as though we had to be constantly online, we decided to take a break for several weeks. It was difficult to admit it was what we needed to do back then but it turned out to be for the best: it gave us the space we needed to refocus, and the chance to think about how we want to do things going forward.
Thank you so much to everyone who joined us for The Great Blog Crawl 2020 stream on Saturday evening, and congratulations to Frostyilyte from Frostilyte Writes who was this year’s winner. I’d also like to give a massive shoutout to Solarayo from Ace Asunder, my partner-in-crime for this event and all-round awesome friend. We had so much fun putting together the quiz and would love to do it again next year – we’ve already had some ideas about how we can improve and get more blogs involved so there’ll be more news coming soon.
The blogger-friends who joined us for that session and Sunday morning’s hangover stream may have noticed that the channel looked and behaved a little different. This was because Pete and I didn’t just sit around eating cake during our break (although we did a lot of that too); we took the time to really think about what we wanted to achieve and introduced a few new things to help with that. Here’s a round-up of the changes and what you can expect from Later Levels’ streams in the future.
New branding
Still no subs, but more viewer interaction
Taking some time out from streaming confirmed for me that not accepting the Twitch Affiliate invitation last year was the right thing to do. Being Affiliated has no bearing on whether we’re having fun with the channel and seems like a way to turn an enjoyable hobby into a job. That doesn’t mean we aren’t able to show our viewers how much we appreciate them though: check out the Affili-cat panel on our Twitch page for a list of commands and try using them in chat when we’re next live. There’ll be more coming soon.
Plenty more #KaraokePete
Games we want to play
I think the biggest lesson we’ve learnt through all our streaming experience is not to play titles we’re not going to enjoy, even they seem as though they’d be good for Twitch. It’s a sure-fire way to turn a maintaining a channel into a chore: it’s not fun for you and that means it’s no fun for the people watching. From now on we’ve promised ourselves that we’re only going to play games that appeal to us, regardless of whether they might attract viewers. So that means more adventures, full-motion video (FMV), Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 and Eurovision Division events.
Fun without the pressure
That’s enough about writing about streaming – it’s time to start doing more of it. Thank you to everyone who has supported the Later Levels’ streams, and congratulations to those who started their Twitch journeys during the past few months. We look forward to seeing you live soon.
Kim View All
Video game lover, Later Levels blogger and SpecialEffect volunteer. Big fan of wannabe pirates and fine leather jackets.
I’d better dust off The Division 2 then!? 🤣
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Might have better luck with that, than withe the GTA loading screens. 😉
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Thank you for hosting the event, and big thanks to Genni for co-organizing the event. It was a lot of fun (and I’m not just saying that because I won).
Also really liking the rebranding. Pete did a fantastic job with everything. As you’ve pointed out it definitely looks like all of the Later Levels…uh…stuff(?)…has a cohesive theme now.
Glad to have you two back and looking forward to catching you whenever I can in future. 😀
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Thanks Frostilyte! Hopefully we’ll be able to repeat the event next year and see if anyone is able to hit full marks on the quiz again. 😉
Looking forward to catching more art streams for you too. I can only apologise for Pete though… milking… *shakes head*
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Reblogged this on DDOCentral.
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Ooh After Effects! That’s really cool and we’ll done to Pete for figuring it out, was very impressed!
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I feed him cake, he goes off to figure out After Effects. It’s a win-win situation.
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