r/SmallStreams

I'm a solo dev who just started reaching out to streamers about a speedrun challenge running until the end of August.

I'm finding a bit tedious, to go to Twitch, find a streamer I think that would enjoy the game, follow them on socials, send a message, wait.

I'm just wondering if there are some place where small streamers look for content ideas/games to play?

I'm aiming to get 8 more people on the leaderboard before the end of the month :)

Thanks for the help!

I used to think the first 10 minutes of a stream didn’t really matter. I’d put up the “Starting Soon” screen, make some coffee, fix my mic, check everything twice, and then finally start. Looking back, that was probably a terrible way to make a first impression.

If someone finds your stream and joins during that time, they have no reason to wait. They don’t know you yet, there’s nothing happening, and the chat is usually completely empty. They just click on the next stream. Honestly, I’d probably do the same.

I started doing cold starts instead. I go live and get straight into the game or whatever I’m doing. No long countdown, no spending five minutes adjusting things while everyone watches. I’d rather have a slightly messy start than make someone sit there waiting for the actual stream to begin.

It made me realize that those first few minutes are basically your storefront. If someone walks in and sees an empty room, they leave. If they walk in and something is already happening, they might stick around.

Do you guys still use a “Starting Soon” screen, or have you ditched it completely?

[removed]

I've just released my first game, Rhythm Racer, into Early Access and one of the main modes was built specifically around Twitch interaction.

Viewers don't need to own the game. They type !play in chat and they're entered as a racer alongside the streamer. The race itself is generated from whatever music the streamer chooses, so you can even take song requests and turn them into races.

I'm particularly interested in smaller streams because I think this works better when you actually know the people in chat and they can cheer on their own racers.

I'd be happy to give some Steam keys to small streamers who genuinely want to try it out and give me feedback on how the Twitch side works in a real stream.

If you stream on Twitch, Amazon is currently scraping your broadcasts, VODs, clips, channel text, and even your chat log to train their Generative AI models.

They opted every single creator in by default. You were not asked for permission.

How to opt out immediately:

1. Go to Twitch Settings
2. Open the Security and Privacy tab
3. Scroll down to "Training for Generative AI"
4. TOGGLE IT OFF

Stop letting megacorporations use your voice, face, and creative labor for free to train their AI models.

Pass this on to every streamer you know.

I used to be so obsessed with "the grind". I felt like if I wasn't live for at least 5-6 hours every single day, I was doing something wrong. But honestly? I was just exhausted. I started hating games I actually liked, and most of the time I was just sitting there streaming to basically nobody and feeling like a total zombie.

Then I tried doing way shorter streams. Now I usually only go for about 2 hours, but I try to actually bring some energy to those 2 hours instead of just filling airtime. And honestly, it’s been so much better. I’d rather have 2 high-quality hours where I’m actually enjoying myself than 6 hours where I’m tired, bored, and barely talking to chat.

I think I was way too focused on the "hours streamed" metric instead of whether anyone was actualy enjoying being there.

Has anyone else cut their streaming hours and noticed a difference in their growth? Or was I just the only one making this mistake? lol