Well...this is the first time I've ever blogged so I will give it a shot. I have been in love with gaming since I can remember being alive. My first console was the Intellivision system, I must have been 2-4 years old at the time. I fell head over heels and never looked back. Of course this was the eighties, there wasn't much thought put into having a career in the gaming industry and my family always looked down on the hobby. Because of this I just never really put much thought into it.
Fast forward twenty years, I had just got done going to school for Film and Video and Digital media at a school called Full Sail. I was instantly pressured to get a job in the corporate graphic design industry. In southwest Florida there isn't much to go for job wise besides local print shops and corporate advertising agencies in those industries. So I did just that, picked up a basic graphic design job at a phone book company. I was getting paid $12.50 an hour to reformat an entire client list of ads. Basically I opened up an ad design, saved it as one file, then opened it with the new program and saved it as a new file format. I did this thousands of times and that's all I did for months. I figured out this wasn't going to work for me very fast. Why didn't I think about my dreams? I wanted to make films and or work in the gaming industry.
I soon landed a bunch of my own graphic design clients and quit that job that was sucking my soul out of my ears. I made it! Right? The funny thing about doing what you love is that once you move on to the next level it unlocks new potentials. I was 22 years old, working for myself doing design work and animation. Not much changed in the next six to seven years. Most of my clients were "safe" jobs, art galleries, real estate, basic business logos. It just wasn't doing it for me. I had no passion for it anymore. It was then I realized what my end game was, I wanted to use all my skills to do something I felt passionate for. I also wanted to feel rewarded for doing so at the end of the day.
Around this time video game live streaming was becoming a thing over at Twitch.tv. I had always thought about doing youtube and making content for the gaming world. But, because of the way my brain had compartmentalized work and careers I just never took it seriously "Can I really make a living off of gaming content?". Do yourself a favor. If you have a dream, stop thinking about it. Stop thinking about how it has to be perfectly setup before you start. I know it sounds cliche but JUST DO IT. The best way to start and continue doing and learning something is to begin said thing.
It's wild to me now that I never thought I could "make it" in the video game content land. I have played games all my life, had a passion for it and as a kid I pretty much entertained all my friends with video games. This was before the internet. My friends would come over and play games with me or just watch me while we had a blast. I didn't even realize I was a live video game entertainer before the interweb even existed. I am also a film and video artist as well as digital media and I love people. Live broadcasting games is also a great way to raise support and awareness for various causes around the globe. This whole time the thing that I was supposed to be doing was sitting there right in front of me and I never realized it!
So around 2012 I decided to test the waters a bit streaming on twitch. I didn't have a great setup, standard headset mic and webcam. I streamed a game called Fallout 3. Unfortunately I was rather unlucky and the first two sessions the only people who visited my stream were trolls. The first chat message I got on twitch was literally one word "faggot", that's it! Someone came in just to say that. My next stream was very similar, someone came in to troll me with a random insult. Two streams, two viewers, both trolls. This brings me to another very important part of doing what you love. Never be discouraged by trolls! After that experience I put the streaming aside, didn't want to be subjected to constant trolling.
Here's the ironic part. While I was streaming Fallout 3 there was another guy also broadcasting Fallout 3. He had a small amount of viewers at the time, 15-20. Maybe he had more luck with his streams and didn't get the trolls I had. Or maybe he did and just kept going. I really wish I had because now that streamer is one of the biggest names on twitch. He brought in over 6 figures(guessing) last year and consistently has 5,000+ viewers per stream. So that brings my two most important learning experiences when it comes to making the dream a reality: JUST DO IT and IGNORE THE TROLLS or haters and keep moving forward!
Fast forward once again three years. I had pretty much moved away from video and digital media design for more lucrative and less frustrating endeavors. I had also gone through some pretty tragic events which really messed with my head. The video game live streaming and content creation kept growing at a rapid rate. I got that itch to bring all my skills together and JUST DO IT. I had recently got into some enlightening activities such as yoga and meditation practices. This really helps a lot guys, if not it's the third most important thing to making the dream a reality. Maybe even the most important. During meditation and self realizing I was inspired once again.
On August 8th 2015 I started streaming again! This time I didn't encounter the trolls, I also didn't care I was gonna do this. A really awesome viewer came into the stream and complimented me. We talked about the game, various things and I ended up having 15-40 viewers on my first stream! that first month I hovered around the 20-70 viewer ranged and was super hyped. I met so many cool people and started to build my community and improve the stream.
It's now a year later. My stream on twitch has over 12,000 views, almost 700 followers and have met some of the coolest people I know. My youtube is growing and I have over 60,000 minutes watched this month. Imagine if I had JUST DONE IT, IGNORED THE TROLLS and used self realizing techniques years ago!? This is my story. I am sharing this with the world so that maybe others will read this and learn something from my learning experience. I wish everyone the best with fullfilling your dreams. If you ever want to hang out you can find me live streaming on twitch.tv/inaliz.
https://www.youtube.com/mrinaliz
https://twitter.com/inaliftw