I actually think that it’s okay to link other things to viewer numbers as well. For example - not sure if possible - I could see stuff like “In the next Dev Q&A, we will add 15 minutes to the stream if we have X people watching” - this could be an incentive to attract more people to it who might shy away from it right now because they think they will never get their question in in the first place, so adding “more time since more viewers mean more questions” is a logical thing that might attract people and make the idea of attending more enticing.
The real fault is just that an uncertain thing was made the main selling point of the stream in the last weeks. That doesn’t bring viewers in, it keeps them away since they don’t know what they will get. Attaching different things to numbers is fine, including spoilers. But then just don’t tell people about it. Tell people about what you will show for sure so that they know what to expect.
I think a lot of youtubers who do Let’s Plays do that right - when they get a certain numbers of subscribers or just a certain number of Likes on a series, they sometimes host giveaways or just do an extra video or something. But they don’t announce these things. I click on their videos because “Hey, it’s part 12 of that game’s Let’s Play, awesome!” and then hear in the video that there is an extra available. I get what I was promised AND a surprise extra. That’s good marketing which makes me want to check every video of the series.
Maybe they can pay me for views, then make their money by monetizing the channel. After all, each ad is worth roughly 5 cents, so if they paid me 5 bucks I’d make them 5 cents.
What, doesn’t make sense? Neither do cash shops or gem prices.
Tomorrow I will be streaming once again! It will be a more relaxed stream with some team building, codes and the final art of the cat dragon being shown!
It’s tomorrow at 6 30 PM PDT, which is 11 30 AM AEST. Can’t wait to see you there!
Steve (also known as Sirrian) and Nimhain do developer Q and A’s on our twitch channel. We don’t currently have one scheduled, but we hope to do another within the next two months.