When you donate…

Within my Twitch career there are a few occasions which I remember very well. These include, having more than me and the bots talking in chat, receiving confirmation of my Twitch Affiliation and my first ever donation! I do believe that you can actually see my reaction to the latter on Youtube. A viewer once asked me, what do I do with all the donations and subscribers contributions? Well in order to assure you that I am not using it to build an army of androids to fulfill world domination (hideous laugh!) I thought I would write a waffle to describe where the money goes…

The first thing I have to say in this waffle, that I am so grateful to everyone who supports the stream. I really value everyone whether you turn up and lurk or chat, whether you follow or host, or whether you subscribe or donate. Since I have gained affiliate status, my channel has been able to receive subscribers and donations in the form of either ‘bits’ or money. You can often see my bit target for each month at the top of the stream and in January, I managed to reach 75% of my target of 100 bits by the end of the month! A great success in my eyes! This is accompanied by people who have been so kind to donate money to the stream. But where does all this money go? Well if you are interested then do read on…

Keep a-streaming – I really enjoy streaming. I almost think that streaming is like a good bubble bath. Once you are in it it is relaxing and enjoyable, although there is a certain amount of preparation to do in order to get to that stage. I think streaming is like this. I really enjoy doing it but sometimes I am tired from work or the day’s activities including the usual cleaning routine, blogging, rule reading and adventure writing(remember how old I am!) and I feel like having a nap or even just curling up on the sofa and watching the tele. It is at this point that I remember the people who support my stream, including those who are subscribing. Their commitment to the stream inspires me to get up, grab a coffee, erect the green screen and get into the bath….I mean start to stream. As the chat fills up and my ‘friends’ arrive it is so nice to see everyone and I laugh and smile and get a real buzz from the ‘show’. I do think that without subscribers it becomes a little harder to motivate yourself to keep going so I see these people as my extrinsic motivators or even that ‘jump start’ to keep me streaming – thanks guys – I appreciate the support and for running the bath for me.

Gaming and DMing – I hope that when people see me streaming or DMing on Twitch, they see the finished product which doesn’t include all the work which has gone on in the background before hand. It is almost as if I hope you see the beautiful white swan gracefully gliding along without seeing it’s legs frantically moving under the water! In order to bring everyone my streams there is always some investments of time and money to be made. Whether this is for the green screen behind my head, the water cooled computer or even the chair I sit on (how many people have been fooled by that! – don’t know what I mean? – just look at the AFK screen on one of my ESO streams). When my headphones were fallimg to bits (the plastic kept sticking to the side of my head when I took them off) someone kindly donated some money to replace them – and I managed to get a new keyboard as well! (the ‘Q’ key wasn’t working at all – probably from pressing it too hard during OverWatch!). When DMing I have quite a significant expense from the yearly price of Zoom to the Roll20 pro account. There is then rules, modules and, because I don’t really have a huge amount of time to create adventures every week (that’s a full time job for you!) the floor plans which I buy for the games. At the moment, I purchase all of these out of my own pocket, although I would like to make my streaming self financing. When watching other streamers I see that people have targets for their donation for weekly food, rent or even a new car – with some even setting a minimum donation. I actually dislike putting targets on my channel and really dislike even asking people to subscribe to me, let a lone donate but, in order to reach the self financing goal, I have to make some attempt to do this. I can’t take shots for $10 a go (being T-Total) and I’m not that good at dancing to make this an option, but I hopefully can create watchable content. My channel has grown so much since I started it over a year ago and, although people come and go, its nice to see the stoic few supporting it as it grows.

As the most observant of you might have seen, I’m not the most youngest streamer on Twitch – although I am guessing that I am not actually the eldest. I do have a full time job at the moment, but I am getting to that time in life when I am actually thinking about retirement and preparing to start to enjoy life! As retirement looms, I know that some of my current ventures, e.g. my radio station, will have to stop due to the reduction in income, although I feel that I will be able to stream more often due to the increase amount of ‘free’ time I will have. Work really does clash with my dream of being a full time streamer! One thing I am interested in is whether I could actually make some sort of income from my stream. I know I am not going to be a huge streamer but a small income would be nice over and above it being self financing. I might not retire for some years, although I think I need to build things up before then to see whether it is viable so, although this is not precisely where the donations go, it is why I have opportunity to donate, whether bits or money, open.

I’m never one to sit back and expect loads amount of donations to flood into my virtual excel spreadsheet for nothing. I am prepared to work hard and actually deserve your subscription and donations by being as regular as I can and producing my unique content. I don’t expect hand me outs, so never feel you ‘have to’ donate or even subscribe. I’m not the best or the most handsome streamer but (remembering my new year resolution) I hope that some viewers enjoy my ‘uniqueness’ and it is that which encourages you to come back again and again and, for that, I am eternally grateful.

I hope this gives you some insight into where the money goes. If you have any questions or comments then please add them in box below. So, until next time, remember to be who you are and say what you feel because the people who mind don’t matter and the people who matter don’t mind. Have fun and I’ll catch you all later and, until then, consider yourself waffled!