If I Started Streaming Games in 2026, I'd Do This!

[00:01] is a fantastic way to connect and build a community with other like-minded individuals all while having fun but as great as that sounds is it possible to grow in such a saturated Niche how would you even get started well that's what

[00:15] brings us to today's video is I'm going to show you exactly what I would do if I Channel [Music] today so the first thing that I would do is just simply try streaming if you're

[00:29] is just simply try streaming if you're gaming on a PC PS5 or an Xbox series SRX console there are no excuses because these devices have streaming capabilities built right within the

[00:42] device itself if you're on PC you can download free application such as streamlabs desktop to pull in your gameplay feed and push it directly to whichever social media platform you desire PlayStation 5 Gamers it's even

[00:55] easier for you as you can just go and press the create button scroll over to the streaming options link your accounts and then push your gameplay sessions directly to YouTube or twitch on Xbox you can go to the capture and share

[01:08] section scroll down and then you'll find the live streaming option oh and another you should be playing games that you're genuinely interested in if you're popularity to hope to get lots of viewership it's going to show through

[01:22] hiding it when it comes to the gear that you'll need to stream with please do not spend a ton of money up front the most important thing you'll need is a quality microphone and this is mainly due to the fact that if your audio is absolute

[01:37] garbage good luck getting anyone to stick around to watch your stream for those of you looking for a good starter microphone I highly recommend the am8 description of this video also if you get used to using a face cam on your

[01:51] live streams it can be a nice touch as people can put a face to the Creator pretty much any webcam you find will do the job just make sure you add some lighting so you can be clearly seen up next we have stream location now unless

[02:06] probably know about the big streaming platforms such as twitch YouTube and even Tik Tok for vertical streaming and my rule of thumb is stream to the platforms that you actually use and actually better yet stream to as many

[02:21] platforms as possible ideally at the same time so you'd be doing a thing called multistreaming I've made a couple tutorials in the past how to do this completely for free but the reason why this is so good to do especially if

[02:35] you're running channels from ground zero this will give you the ability to see most traction creators like Tim the tat man and Nate shot they stream in horizontal format on both YouTube and twitch there's also creators like Sam

[02:48] ham that stream to twitch but then use Tik Tok to stream in vertical format all right so you find out throughout this process of trying out streaming on multiple platforms that you really enjoy enjoy it you want to do more of it it

[03:01] excites you well now I need to lay down the truth to you so that you can accept the realities of streaming looking at twitch tracker data there are 6.4

[03:13] million channels streaming on Twitch every single month and only 45,000 of those channels are partnered that puts the percentage of partnered folks making a pretty decent income at only 0.7% of live streamers on the entirety

[03:29] of twitch and I would imagine YouTube might be in a similar ballpark so why am I even telling you all of these statistical facts well it's to get you to understand that the likelihood of being able to stream for a full-time

[03:43] living is extremely low for those of you who put in the time and the effort it can definitely become more than a hobby turning into a fool on side hustle making you pretty decent income but thinking you're going to get rich quick

[03:56] or fully sustain yourself streaming especially in the short term is just not the mindset you want to have when going into this so now even after me saying all of this you're still like midnight man I am all in on streaming then you're

[04:09] block out a few times a week where you'll know you'll have the space time and freedom to stream your games I totally get it that some of you have full-time or in school maybe you're raising a family if you can find a way

[04:24] to stream three to five times a week even if it's not on a set schedule yet more traction up next we have choosing your game or audience Focus so similar to growing a YouTube channel this would entail figuring out the type of person

[04:40] that you want to be attracted to your live stream so this may involve choosing a specific or regular game that you'll play on your stream if you would rather be playing a variety of games on stream then I would at least consider picking a

[04:53] then I would at least consider picking a genre whether that be FPS role playing racing retro you kind of get Point picking games under a certain category will at least attract an audience that may be interested in those similar games

[05:07] what I wouldn't do is pick random games throughout the entire gaming universe that only I myself is interested in because it's just tailoring to me instead of to an audience once you grow large enough then you can start

[05:22] expanding and exploring other games but you're going to need to get known for something in the early parts of your streaming Journey before before you can really start branching out I'm not saying to just play the same games all

[05:34] the time but at least stick to something for the most part and then have a little bit of leeway to experiment with some other games to see if those take off my goal here for you is to help you retain returning viewers and you can do that if

[05:48] you have some consistency in what you're streaming don't believe me here's some examples the streaming Creator apply grew off of playing OverWatch and then moved to Marvel Rivals recently Sarah Kendall has grown significantly playing

[06:01] The Sims Symphony played fortnite originally then moved to Cod war zone and now is playing Marvel Rivals chica grew off of streaming fortnite and still streams fortnite to this day Athena made a name for herself playing rocket league

[06:15] menthos is a variety streamer but they focus on simulators and indie games you got ISO speed and Ka Senate out there that do gaming reaction and INR live streams those are totally variety creators but they've been doing this for

[06:29] a very long time and the one thing that has really propelled their growth is their personality this is probably the most important piece to being able to have the freedom to play whatever game you want you have to remember I show

[06:44] speed Kai Senate they're extremely funny on even some chill people out there that stream such as loserfruit three stream

[06:57] snipers is evil but I guess in this case it's not the case everyone's chill she doesn't have this over-the-top energy within herself but she's just cool and she's just herself and people resonate and love that but all of that to say

[07:12] personality it's something that you'll get better with over time and and I almost think of it as a character that you kind of have to portray when you're live that's why it sometimes takes years for some of these big creators that you

[07:26] know of today to be discovered they've been hustling a long time way before you even knew about them the more you keep streaming the easier it will come but you're live is making sure you guys have

[07:40] a stream objective this will not only add excitement and shock value to the in your game but it will also give you the ability to film other videos while you're live whether that be long form or shorts let's just take the Gran Turismo

[07:56] shorts let's just take the Gran Turismo 7 Creator Rory he recently did a 28h hour race where he was live for the entirety of this time his numbers are absolutely off the charts this stream more than any other that he's done which

[08:10] he was later than able to edit down and repurpose as a long form video which got over 1.2 million views now the same approach can be given to YouTube shorts check out the YouTube and twitch Creator

[08:23] prospering he streams post shorts and long form videos from his streams to his YouTube Channel and one thing you'll notice is that his viewership is solid across all three formats which kind of debunks the theory of short form killing

[08:38] your long form videos good game bro streams his football gameplay to Twitch and shorts content to his YouTube channel as well as to Facebook and Tik Tok want to see a small Channel example well check out McBay he's had two of his

[08:52] YouTube shorts from his League of Legends live streams reach into the millions of views but the main point to take away here is if you're posting really good high quality engaging content in both of these sections long

[09:05] form and shorts you'll find that both of these sections can be successful on their own terms and push people to your live stream I know that many of you who are new to this space may not have the skills to be able to edit down your long

[09:17] form content and make shorts out of them that's why I highly recommend checking out Nexus Clips this is a very affordable service where you can link your YouTube or Twitch account and with the power of AI this tool will generate

[09:30] the most highlight worthy moments from your stream you can then easily edit using their user interface you can set where your face cam and gameplay are add saying and then be able to easily download or upload your Clips to YouTube

[09:44] or Tik talk it's a very handy tool to use and can definitely speed up the growth of your streaming journey by being able to post short form engaging content across multiple social media sites moving on we have interacting with

[09:57] viewers while you're live one mistake I see a lot of viewers making is because they have zero people in their chat they just don't say anything they don't say a word they're just silent but this is not the way to go guys you want to at least

[10:12] be able to talk through your thought process and react out loud to things great example of a streamer who does this well that doesn't have tons of people in his stream is the streamer Y

[10:25] and D xcj pay attention to what he does here oh here oh yeah no she jumped in the window oh my yeah no she jumped in the window oh my God I needed

[10:41] that oh yeah I tried to pedigree him it ain't work it ain't I was too far I was too far to hit the pedigree hey the goal is far to hit the pedigree hey the goal is to get like maybe five maybe five bodies

[10:55] bro we get any more than that it'd be a great day so what you guys saw there is someone that keeps the energy up in their Stream So no matter who comes by even if they have something to chat or not they're going to be engaged with the

[11:09] content and be able to enjoy it and another thing once you guys do start getting Chatters to your live stream actually pay attention to them respond chatting streams so you can connect a

[11:22] your audience now with a growing audience comes bad behavior and that's something that you do not want to acknowledge ban the trolls the spammers

[11:34] the aggressors these kind of folks if you just let them go unhinged because you just want to have somebody chatting in your chat they will be a virus to go one step further than that you as the Creator should also have some control

[11:49] within yourself to not act too horribly on stream even if you think oh yeah this will get me a lot of clicks and Views here comes another one

[12:05] outside of streaming and you don't want thing you're thinking about doing on stream also maybe you want to work with brands in the future and some of them don't like a lot of crazy foul language

[12:19] some do and are cool with it but you know not all of them and if you do become a little bit outlandish on your streams that will limit your optionality for future brand deals and potential money-making opportunities so all of the

[12:33] stuff that I mentioned thus far can definitely help you grow a stream Pretty substantially but if you want to separate from the pack a bit more then now it's time to invest in quality let's take video for example instead of using

[12:47] the built-in streaming features on the PS5 or Xbox series X or X console you guys can get a computer that is capable of live streaming and pair that with a high quality capture card like the ones Elgato and a media cell if you've been

[13:00] using a cheap old webcam as your face cam you can update that to a fullframe mirrorless camera with HDMI out capability so that you can use that as a newer better quality face cam the same goes for microphones lighting headsets I

[13:14] mean it can be a deep rabbit hole but the point is you can update these things over time to really enhance your quality especially if you're planning to invest longterm into streaming now Tech and gear aren't the only things you guys can

[13:27] invest in but you can get help with video editing as well as thumbnail design on YouTube you need to have nice quality thumbnails to actually attract viewers to your long form or even live stream content I understand that having

[13:40] a thumbnail is optional for your live streams but I highly highly encourage it frame of the game you're playing while you're live that isn't going to entice them that much to come in you need something very clickable very

[13:54] eye-catching such as the ones here from jivy and this guy just reuses the same thumbnail for each and every one of his streams now I will admit that this isn't the greatest level of effort you can be putting in but it does work and it can

[14:09] do the job until you get the skills necessary to make your own thumbnails or pay for additional custom thumbnails for your stream that actually ties into the next Point here which is improving your technological savviness those of you

[14:22] that have the benefit of additional time on your hands I would highly encourage learning software such as video editing so that you can do it yourself Photoshop photop pixelr so you can make nice thumbnails I think it's important to

[14:36] understand how to make quality content on your own before you even Outsource it the other thing here is that all of the tech and gear that is being used to actually run your stream you need to learn how to use it some of the stuff

[14:49] comes with its own software if you want to move Beyond applications like streamlabs desktop then you can make the jump to OBS Studio where there's much more conf configurable settings to work with within that tool but again you got

[15:02] to take the time to learn it so that you can master your audio Master the quality of your video and luckily I've made a bunch of tutorials on my channel around that I'll link it in the card above but I find it important to understand how

[15:15] all of your hardware and software works together moving on to the last thing brand new streaming Channel and that is do whatever it takes to increase my viewership traffic so I think we touched

[15:27] on a lot of stuff in this video such as having the schedule streaming somewhat consistently having short form content to be posted across a variety of social putting all of your eggs in one basket I would also try to network with creators

[15:42] around your size that do similar streams to what you do so at least you can kind of start building a community with each other around a similar genre or topical area and even play together on stream for all that matter and a really good

[15:57] one is just sending a raid from your stream to their stream and if they're cool there might be a time where they send their viewers to you and it's another good way to grow all right I know that that was a ton of content but

[16:09] I'll leave you with this guys trust the freaking process it does take time this is not an overnight thing and you have to enjoy doing this the more you can continue to stream consistently week in week out keep up with the trends in your

[16:24] game as well as creating short form and long form content while you're live to be posted across your other social media sites the greater chances that you have learn about how I would grow a YouTube gaming channel from zero then watch this

[16:37] video here and I will see you in the next one peace