Quote:
Originally Posted by pokeraz
As a professional poker player, and being sponsored to stream, what is your justification for soliciting and accepting donations? Aren't the extra twitch subscriptions enough?
I am providing a stream for free. If people don't think it's worth anything to them it can of course be free. However some people find it provides value to them in the form of either advice or entertainment. If they want to support my broadcast by sending me a donation, I think they should be able to do that.
When I'm watching a stream, my own personal metric is if someone has provided me an hour of entertainment, I usually want to ship them 5 bucks for it. I recognize I'm in the minority on that but instead of paying $100 a month for a cable package, or paying for a movie ticket, I watch amateur broadcasters playing video games. (well I do all of those but you know what I mean.)
Also the word "enough" is not the way I think. I have never been a "make enough", or "just be successful enough", or "just get good enough at poker" kind of person. I want to be as successful as I can and it's the reason I have worked so hard to get to where I am on Twitch. I am obsessed with climbing the mountain and constantly improving which has been something my three passions in life have all had in common. (Golf, Poker Twitch, all never ending games that you can constantly improve in.) It's how the best in any industry get to be where they are at the top, and it's what drives me to hopefully have a huge stream one day. The financial side of business feels very much like poker in that the actual $'s utility is not what drives people. Earning people's support is just a way to denote that someone liked your **** enough to give you $5 for it. It's the earning it which is way more fun then having it.
There is no question that I strive to grow my stream as big as possible and I don't view that as a bad thing. I want to provide value. Whether that is entertainment, strategy, a way to pass the time, whatever it is, I want more people to find me talking about poker useful and yes that will equate to more money.
I can understand the angle you are coming from with this question fwiw and I think you have what Twitch is wrong. It is a fremium economy. "Free to watch, support is appreciated" is the standard across almost all streams.