EPT"Lag" issues
The biggest issue of the night was many people in twitch chat reporting lag / stuttering issues with the stream. It had a knock on effect of taking a large amount of my attention away from casting / observing to try and find the cause and fix it.
From my side, there was no evidence that there was lag. No fps issues, 0 dropped frames and no max out computer resources. Likely, the issue was being caused by the twitch encoder for quality settings. As I will touch on later, I had source quality initially for subs only, but I turned this off to try and give a better viewer experience.
After contacting twitch, there is basically nothing I could have done from my end to stop this. Which is SO annoying as I want to create the best experience for the viewers
Bad observing
I take full responsibility for this. As always, I was doing the obs, casting and managing the stream on my own. Normally, this just about works out - but due to a lot of my attention being on the "lag" problem and trying to work that out, the quality of the obs slipping. Frankly, it wasn't acceptable and I am really sorry that it took away from the broadcast quality.
Possible solutions:
1) Get a dedicated observer for in game. This would be ideal, but unfortunately I am casting these show matches for free - any sub / donations I receive are going into putting on more content. Obviously, this is my choice - but I would need to find an observer willing to do it for free as well. Long term, if I am able to make these show matches / other content profitable it would be a different situation.
2) Spend less of my attention on stream "issues". I knew straight away that there was NOTHING on my side that was causing some peoples lag problems. Therefore, the time and attention I spent trying to resolve it during games was just wasted. Ultimately, I should have had more confidence in what I knew from the start - it was out of my control.
Ideally, i will be looking for another observer next show match.
Sustainability / Revenue
This was the 3rd showmatch I have organised / cast. Everything has been going pretty damn well actually on the whole and viewership has been fantastic! I've been really focused on avoiding clashes which has really helped.
The downside though, if it weren't for the generosity of individuals who sponsor the matches, frankly there would not have been any more.
Duo to partner agreements, I cannot say how much money I make from twitch - but it doesn't even come close to covering the prize pool, even with respectable viewership. Subscriptions and donations always make up a LOT more of the revenue than ads, but they have been low (aside from the individuals).
From these show matches, I have gained 4 new subscribers to the channel. Donations (other than the sponsorship) in total for the last 2 months I have been the showmatches (including non-showmatch content) is around $100-150. That is with $800 worth of show matches. For me this is a real shame, because while I know not everyone can afford to support content or subscribe, I would hope a handful would. It could be people just don't like it, but the viewership doesn't reflect that.
Last night I put source quality (1080/60) behind the sub wall, didn't help. I have on all overlays it stated that all sub / donations goes 100% into more events and matches, again, doesn't seem to help. Do you guys have any thoughts?
Ultimately, the sustainability is huge for me. I am incredibly grateful for the individuals who have supported and especially the people who sponsor the matches. But if for whatever reason they were unable or unwilling to continue support, these show matches would likely stop. Not to mention my hope of running invitational tournaments etc.
All is not lost however, as I am in talks with a couple of companies with regard to a formal sponsorship agreement. So hopefully that will work out!
Let me know all your thoughts though
