Game Streaming: Full Circle

This is just a quick entry to wrap up my adventure with online streaming.  It started like anything does: with nothing but an idea.  I wanted to see if I could understand and figure out the technology behind streaming.  I started on YouTube because they allow a near infinite upload bandwidth (turns out: it’s 51Mbit/sec) which made it possible for me to send a 1440p/60 stream to them right from my gaming rig.

Then I moved to Twitch because that’s where everyone else is; but this required me to start using my server to compress that stream to fit into Twitch’s pathetic upload limit of 6-7Mbit/sec (it really is pathetic Twitch, come on.. crack it open!)  Some time into my Twitch career, I earned the Affiliate status, but I didn’t keep it for long.  The issue is that Twitch has a silly exclusivity clause in their Affiliate and Partner contracts that doesn’t allow you to multi-stream to Twitch and other services simultaneously.  And I wanted to do that: Twitch and YouTube.  I had Twitch revoke my Affiliate status and kept on streaming to both YouTube and Twitch.

Then I added Mixer just for giggles.  But nothing came of it.

This past summer, I upgraded my displays to 4K for gaming.  That changed everything as far as my streaming was concerned.  My server couldn’t compress a 4K down to 1080p/60 stream, so that put an end to my Twitch streaming.  I stopped sending anything to Mixer because… well.. it’s a dead platform.  And that left YouTube, which happily took my 4K/60, 51Mbit/sec stream.  The video quality was peerless.  But: no one cared.

No one was watching.  Ultimately, after about 2.5-3 years, I ultimately decided that this was a silly thing for me to be doing.  I have an audience of 1, maybe 2 when I stream.  And that’s fine; some guys have it, others don’t.

I’ve since disassembled my streaming setup.  The lighting and green screen are down.  The streaming rig is shut down and disconnected.  And now I’m just playing for the sake of… FUN!  No more streaming for me.