![]() ![]() All of this goodwill culminated in the unthinkable: I now watch Twitch instead of playing video games myself.Ī few minutes into his stream, it finally all made sense to me I "got" why people watched Twitch instead of playing a game for themselves. The streamer "EXP" (real name: Cody Hargreaves), was playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, a game I've been miserably stuck in since our own Playdate broadcast. When the email ping came through indicating the channel had gone live late that Saturday, unlike every time before it, I heeded its suggestion and Chromecasted the show to my TV. I'd followed the channel a while back, but never actually tuned in for a stream. For the past few months, Engadget features editor and gaming overlord Joseph Volpe has been raving about a channel called Excessive Profanity. This, sadly, was as close as I got to my scheduled interview with Fred Durst at TwitchCon.Īll of this goodwill culminated in the heretofore unthinkable: I now watch Twitch instead of, you know, playing video games myself. Hell, I even had a chance to meet up with one of our Playdate regulars, Austin "Yauddle" Busch, take him out for drinks and break his five-year Taco Bell abstinence. Almost every person I talked to that weekend was friendly and more than willing to give advice or just talk for a few minutes. They were parting ways, heading back to their respective corners of the country, hugging, laughing and promising to come back next year. As I sat at San Francisco International Airport at 3AM on Sunday to catch my early flight home, I noticed a small group of TwitchCon attendees draped in the company's trademark shade of purple. The "Women in Gaming" panel was even more popular, with BibleThump (one of the bigger theaters) at capacity, and at least 20 folks in line for the open-mic question session.Įven at their most tired, the people I ran into were all smiles. Twitch con how to#When the floor opened for a question-and-answer session, six people immediately jumped up to the mic, asking everything from how to stream from a Mac (use Boot Camp), how to get discovered on the service (persistence) and how much to spend on a streaming setup ( around $800 for your computer). Near the end of that talk, there were people standing along the sides of the theater and snaking through the doorway. I showed up a few minutes late to the "Broadcasting on a Budget" panel and had a hard time finding a seat. ![]() The talks themselves were largely focused on every facet of how to become a better broadcaster. Panels and shows took place on the Kappa stage (the "main" Twitch emoticon), and in the Sandstorm, BibleThump and FrankerZ theaters - each name a heartfelt wink to the Twitch user-base. That feeling of gratitude for the community was a running theme throughout the entire weekend. ![]() Twitch con update#Update your settings here, then reload the page to see it. This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. The former likely because his 1999 track "Sandstorm" got a second life thanks to feature placement ahead of League of Legends streams, and the latter because he's an incredibly active broadcaster on the service and a massive gamer in his own right. Instead, the company hired electronic artists Darude and Deadmau5. ![]() The overt fan focus of the show was all too evident: From the opening keynote where Twitch Director of Programming Marcus "djWHEAT" Graham self-deprecatingly recounted his history of broadcasting to the final moments of Deadmau5's thumping set at the official after-party.įlush with cash from Amazon's $970 million acquisition, Twitch could've gotten practically anyone to play its after-party at San Francisco's Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. But somehow, it didn't seem pandering it felt earnest. What they got was an event that catered specifically to them. Over 20,000 fans made their pilgrimage to San Francisco for a weekend in September without a clue of what to expect from TwitchCon. ![]()
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