Obviously, with that sort of influence comes the inevitable advertising and paid-promotion dollars which can make you financially self-sufficient. Lastly, there’s the priceless sense of satisfaction that comes from being able to say that you get paid a ludicrous amount of dosh to sit on your butt and play video games. It never gets old. All that being said, there’s a bunch of hardware you’re going to need to get started. Depending on which platform (and gaming niche) you’re looking to cover on your stream, the costs of your equipment can balloon out considerably. You can go from an initial outlay of a few hundred dollars to thousands in no time at all. So before you fork over any cash, let’s chat about your ideal Twitch setup, how to actually get started streaming, and a few other tidbits you should know before you get started. Does your game cave allow for such a production?Most successful streamers either have a set to film against or (more likely) a green screen setup that also requires some space. Are you skilled at popular games, or at least entertainingly bad at them?Unfortunately, if you’re chasing a massive audience you can’t just play your favorite game title. The bulk of viewers are fixated on a shortlist of “it” games. By and large, your graphics card (or GPU) will be largely responsible for rendering the game you’re playing. Your CPU is what will be taking those rendered or “created images” to transcode into a streamable video format that gets piped out to the internet. While using a laptop, singularly, to both game and stream is not usually recommended, it’s possible if you have decent specs. Alternatively, you can absolutely buy a modest, secondary laptop to serve as a broadcasting workhorse to ensure your main gaming rig suffers no power drain whatsoever. Personally, we’d recommend the ASUS ROG STRIX G15 as a middle-of-the-road laptop with enough oomph to handle a balance of broadcasting and some of the more popular streaming games at a decent graphics setting. But we recommend Twitch streamers get an internet plan with faster download and upload speeds than that. On the lower end of things, you have the Elgato HD60 S, which is effectively an HDMI cable bridge that pipes out HD-grade footage (via a USB cable) to your broadcast PC. Alternatively, you can make a deep-end purchase of the Elgato 4K60 Pro, a dedicated PCIe card that can handle UHD resolutions and HDR. Get a mic in the range of -36 decibels (db) to -47 db, a sample rate of 48 kHz and variable polar pattern support to allow you to focus on single person recording or group/podcast. In our experience, the best of the bunch is the Samson G-Track Pro (beloved for its extra mic supporting 1/4-inch audio input that effectively makes it a two-track audio mixer). We’re also partial to the HyperX’s Quadcast USB Microphone, which comes with a decent shock mount and a more aggressive, “hardcore gamer-cred” design. The clearer and more natural you look, the more connected your audience will feel, which is why the ideal (and most expensive) choice is the 1080p, 60 FPS-delivering Logitech StreamCam. If you want a cheaper alternative, you should look to Logitech’s previous titleholder, the C922 HD Pro (though your frames per second will drop to a chuggier 30 FPS if you stream in 1080p). Those of you out to peacock a little might also want to invest in a gaming chair. But be warned, gaming chairs are one area where spending more (usually) gets you a better product. In fact, on our recent excursion to Staples for a new chair, the employee denounced gaming chairs as cheap with little to no padding. So, since streaming requires long hours (or possibly days) of sitting on your butt, you may as well take care of said derrière and check out more ergonomic options too. (The Beautyrest Platinum is like sitting on a cloud.) Lastly, interacting with your community can be a pain if you have to constantly shift your attention away from your keyboard or controller. You should therefore look into Elgato’s Stream Deck, which is essentially a highly configurable bank of LED buttons that you can assign to quickly handle. . .well, just about anything really. Chat responses. Quick banning of trolls. Camera switches. Ad breaks. You name it. On the lower end you can easily stream gameplay natively on an Xbox One or PlayStation using nothing but the freely available Twitch or Ustream (iOS | Android) apps available in their respective stores. If you’re after better broadcast quality and greatly enhanced audience interactivity options, you need to look at adding a PC and capture device to that setup. Lastly, there’s the deeper end that is PC game streaming. If you’re not Moneybags McGee, playing a newly released AAA game will put your modest rig under considerable strain as it is. Adding video capture and transcoding to that workload will bog things down considerably as well. You should either bolster your specs up with a better CPU and GPU to compensate for this or acquire a secondary dedicated desktop or laptop to handle the stream and help take the load off. The goal now is to find your niche and build an audience. To do this you need to be one or all of the following: highly skilled, highly entertaining and a good host who interacts well with people who happen to drop by. Broadcasting consistently at certain times helps to build rapport and new eyeballs can be drawn in if you can manage to get your grubby mitts on a new game release earlier than anybody else.
720p: 0.9 GB per hour 1080p: 1.5 GB per hour 2K/QHD: 3 GB per hour 4K/UHD: 7.2 GB per hour
If you need to upgrade your plan, here are some of our favorite large internet service providers (ISPs) that offer unlimited data. (Verizon Fios Home Internet doesn’t state a data policy, but we have more than a hunch it’s unlimited.) OBS is a pretty powerful and user-friendly piece of software that allows you to easily conflate and configure a range of different sources (read: cameras, mics, screen windows, etc.), set up green screens, push scenes, set stream delays, and more. And while your initial OBS setup requires a few extra steps, it’s highly recommended by a number of streamers.
