Thank you again Conti for putting the work into the post, the numbers and fact checking as always. I know there are plenty of people who don't like me, my stream, my content, or anything surrounding it. Honestly I would rarely watch my own stream, I prefer Mingun, Polt, Innovation, etc. I do enjoy streaming and talking with people who enjoy my stream, which is why I've done it for almost 3 years.
I don't deserve viewers more than Polt or Innovation, I don't have a higher level or skill or better content. Honestly all I have is brute force and an ability to talk for hours on end. Conti pointed out earlier some major viewer jumps in both December and April of these past few months.
December(jump from about 200 avg viewers to 500): I finished school for the semester about a week into December. From that point I streamed 233 hours that month(about 10 hours a day after the first week), only taking a day off for Christmas. This was a time when there were very few tournaments and no WCS, so a lot of the time I was able to be on the front page of starcraft twitch, and I was lucky enough to pick up a twitch partnership and also a subscriber button.
April(jump from about 600 to 1300 viewers): I went back to school for Winter semester, so I could not stream as much, as consistently or for the length of time that I did over December break. WCS, many tournaments and other things started back up again for the year, so I wasn't able to see any real growth besides subscribers/followers throughout.
2 things lined up again after. First, I finished school in mid April, and second I fixed my ISP issues. For over a year I had an issue with my ISP where it would go offline for 5-15 seconds at a time every 1-2 hours, taking the stream offline and usually 25-40% of my viewers with it. I finally was able to work out settings that would avoid most of these reconnects and instead of continually dropping and gaining viewers throughout the night I was able to build. Since I was off school again I streamed for 25 days in a row between mid april and early May, once again not with a huge display of skill or a tournament win, just lucky enough to be near the top of twitch and pick up some viewers that might for one reason or another be interested in other streams. On top of that I was featured on teamliquid near the very end of the month which helped a bit more as well.
This is what happened to increase my viewers. I stream in a way that allows me to stream for long periods of time, which is usually smurfing. I don't have the skill or stamina to play at my top level and commentate for the 8+ hours that I stream at, and I don't pretend to be competitive or an authority on strategy or the game. I have content that some people like to watch, and I like interacting with those people. There is a base out there of people just looking for someone to talk about the game, without a regard to being a top pro, which is what makes people like Totalbiscuit so entertaining. I listened to WCRadio shows about lore and dungeons even though I was exclusively a competitive PvP player back in World of Warcraft because people talking is entertaining.
As for social media metrics which has been pointed out before, I just recently became anywhere close to active. My facebook only has 1700likes, my twitter only 1600. Another point here, I lost access to my previous twitter account(email issues) @WinterStarcraft last year when I had around 500 followers. That twitter account now has almost 450 more followers(with 0 tweets since September), while the twitter account I created in December to replace it @StarcraftWinter has 1600. My youtube channel has gained over 2500 subscibers in the past 2 months while being under 2000 for almost 2 years. I probably could do more with social media but honestly I've never really been involved.
As for the claims of viewbots, yes they have happened on my stream just like other streams all across twitch. I stream for more than most streamers as I'm able to commit so much time, so I am stuck with them proportionally more often. As for on a regular basis, I have doubled my subscriber count from 250-500 in the past 6-8 weeks along with a nearly equal increase in donations and follows as well. If all of these things are botted that would be extremely demoralizing, just like being repeatedly accused of it.
I don't feel entitled to viewers, I don't even really find my own content particularly entertaining or educational. All I do is produce enough of that content on a regular basis that enough people seemed to be interested in to allow me to comfortably make it a full time career. Viewbots don't pay my bills, I dont run ads on my stream. If you don't enjoy my content, I understand. If you don't like me, I definitely understand that as well. Please don't feel obligated to defend me if you enjoy the stream, constructive criticism is always preferred. Thanks for reading. Also sorry Conti for hijacking your thread.
TL;DR: I just sit at home and talk at internet people a lot.
This is a quote from the May thread of the exact same context being accused by Totalbiscuit for similar reasons. The reason for the spike in recent viewers has been a premium partnership with Twitch(the first sc2 streamer in over a year to get one, after being questioned and cleared for viewbots), as well as front page twitch.tv featuring which I use to promote the game and much better players than me. Accuse me all you'd like, but I love this game and I would love for more people to play it, that is all I want.
I stream more than you. I have played this game LONGER than you, and you are telling me that twich has given you a " premium partnership? "
Provide the proof.
lol someone's oblivious... you need close to 1million viewer hour to get twitch premium, at least above 500k so according to your stats in august you just have to stream 2 740 hours in a month and they'll give you a premium partnership RIP in pieces
Why should either of those factors matter if his stream has proven to be more popular than yours? The fact that people are streaming the same game doesn't mean their respective content has to be identical. Seems pretty well documented in the thread that Winter has a particular style that gets viewers.
Heaps of things in the entertainment world seems disproportionately popular to some people - that's down to personal preference. Winter being successful with his streaming doesn't mean other streams aren't entertaining etc, they just might be more niche when it comes down to overall appeal.
Thank you again Conti for putting the work into the post, the numbers and fact checking as always. I know there are plenty of people who don't like me, my stream, my content, or anything surrounding it. Honestly I would rarely watch my own stream, I prefer Mingun, Polt, Innovation, etc. I do enjoy streaming and talking with people who enjoy my stream, which is why I've done it for almost 3 years.
I don't deserve viewers more than Polt or Innovation, I don't have a higher level or skill or better content. Honestly all I have is brute force and an ability to talk for hours on end. Conti pointed out earlier some major viewer jumps in both December and April of these past few months.
December(jump from about 200 avg viewers to 500): I finished school for the semester about a week into December. From that point I streamed 233 hours that month(about 10 hours a day after the first week), only taking a day off for Christmas. This was a time when there were very few tournaments and no WCS, so a lot of the time I was able to be on the front page of starcraft twitch, and I was lucky enough to pick up a twitch partnership and also a subscriber button.
April(jump from about 600 to 1300 viewers): I went back to school for Winter semester, so I could not stream as much, as consistently or for the length of time that I did over December break. WCS, many tournaments and other things started back up again for the year, so I wasn't able to see any real growth besides subscribers/followers throughout.
2 things lined up again after. First, I finished school in mid April, and second I fixed my ISP issues. For over a year I had an issue with my ISP where it would go offline for 5-15 seconds at a time every 1-2 hours, taking the stream offline and usually 25-40% of my viewers with it. I finally was able to work out settings that would avoid most of these reconnects and instead of continually dropping and gaining viewers throughout the night I was able to build. Since I was off school again I streamed for 25 days in a row between mid april and early May, once again not with a huge display of skill or a tournament win, just lucky enough to be near the top of twitch and pick up some viewers that might for one reason or another be interested in other streams. On top of that I was featured on teamliquid near the very end of the month which helped a bit more as well.
This is what happened to increase my viewers. I stream in a way that allows me to stream for long periods of time, which is usually smurfing. I don't have the skill or stamina to play at my top level and commentate for the 8+ hours that I stream at, and I don't pretend to be competitive or an authority on strategy or the game. I have content that some people like to watch, and I like interacting with those people. There is a base out there of people just looking for someone to talk about the game, without a regard to being a top pro, which is what makes people like Totalbiscuit so entertaining. I listened to WCRadio shows about lore and dungeons even though I was exclusively a competitive PvP player back in World of Warcraft because people talking is entertaining.
As for social media metrics which has been pointed out before, I just recently became anywhere close to active. My facebook only has 1700likes, my twitter only 1600. Another point here, I lost access to my previous twitter account(email issues) @WinterStarcraft last year when I had around 500 followers. That twitter account now has almost 450 more followers(with 0 tweets since September), while the twitter account I created in December to replace it @StarcraftWinter has 1600. My youtube channel has gained over 2500 subscibers in the past 2 months while being under 2000 for almost 2 years. I probably could do more with social media but honestly I've never really been involved.
As for the claims of viewbots, yes they have happened on my stream just like other streams all across twitch. I stream for more than most streamers as I'm able to commit so much time, so I am stuck with them proportionally more often. As for on a regular basis, I have doubled my subscriber count from 250-500 in the past 6-8 weeks along with a nearly equal increase in donations and follows as well. If all of these things are botted that would be extremely demoralizing, just like being repeatedly accused of it.
I don't feel entitled to viewers, I don't even really find my own content particularly entertaining or educational. All I do is produce enough of that content on a regular basis that enough people seemed to be interested in to allow me to comfortably make it a full time career. Viewbots don't pay my bills, I dont run ads on my stream. If you don't enjoy my content, I understand. If you don't like me, I definitely understand that as well. Please don't feel obligated to defend me if you enjoy the stream, constructive criticism is always preferred. Thanks for reading. Also sorry Conti for hijacking your thread.
TL;DR: I just sit at home and talk at internet people a lot.
This is a quote from the May thread of the exact same context being accused by Totalbiscuit for similar reasons. The reason for the spike in recent viewers has been a premium partnership with Twitch(the first sc2 streamer in over a year to get one, after being questioned and cleared for viewbots), as well as front page twitch.tv featuring which I use to promote the game and much better players than me. Accuse me all you'd like, but I love this game and I would love for more people to play it, that is all I want.
It's not surprising that TL would be hating on you so much considering this site is what it is. Probably means you're doing something right! Keep up the good work!!
Something doesn't smell right, too good to be true category.
in 3 months period (march-may) the viewers number suddenly got ~4x while all the other prominent streamers viewers numbers remained pretty much the same also the chat, recent first hand experience: very lowly populated ghost town so, what the hell is going on ?!
On September 11 2014 21:39 WinterStarcraft wrote: EDIT: For reference, I currently have almost 10K people banned in my stream chat.
Could you prove this? I mean, it wouldn't make any sense whatsoever to ban 10k people in your chat if you're viewbotting. So, strangely enough, this seems like one of the strongest arguments against the accusations so far.
It was an approximation sadly, on twitch you can only see the last 100 people who were banned. These last 100 people banned in the channel were done so between the night of September 5th (starting 6pm) and the night of September 10th (7pm). I can provide screenshots/documentation if it is required, and I would love a full ban list if there is a way to do so on twitch . So about 5 days. In the last 5 days I have streamed about 25 hours(courtesy of fuzic.nl). That is 4 bans/hr (we don't make a habit of permabanning, usually nonspam offenders are timeouted for 8 hours or even several days, permaban is mostly an antispam defense).
In the last 5-6 months since I began averaging 1500+ viewers I have streamed ~1000 hours(not all sc2, but around 90-95%). At 4 bans/hr that would be about 4000 bans. Before that for about 6 months I was averaging around 500 viewers, and while I don't know if the ban rate held true for that timing (honestly it probably didn't but I don't have the stats). That would make another 1125 bans proportionally . Add on the 2500 hours I streamed between 0 average viewers and 500 average and you would have another several thousand bans as well throughout the last few years. Looking at it this way (since I have never done the math before, interesting to look at) I actually have somewhere between 6 and 8000 banned chatters, probably around 7000 in estimation. Once again, if anyone knows how to get a full list I'd be interested.
Overall a lot of people talk about how chat activity is lower than most channels (while mine has proven to be comprable to others, like Stephano), and it is because of such strict moderation. Take away Kappa spam, copypasta, useless arguements about inflammatory topics and see how much is left in ANY twitch chat, and ironically you will find more productive activity in a channel with 300 people than one with 3000. Conti I can provide you with whatever stats on my channel you'd like from my dashboard and such because I respect the work you do every month, but I have already been cleared by Twitch who did a similar look into my channel, my viewers and my history before featuring me on the front page of twitch.tv(which resulted in such a high peak viewer count last month) as well as upgrading my partnership with them.
On September 12 2014 04:49 ProTech wrote: I stream more than you. I have played this game LONGER than you, and you are telling me that twich has given you a " premium partnership? " Provide the proof.
lol, you also have waaaaaaay fewer viewers and are a giant douche, that might be why you didn't get a partnership
On September 11 2014 04:54 Nirel wrote: Who is winter? I keep seeing his stream high in the ranking but I have no idea who it is.
For me this is a mystery. This guy isn't highly ranked (I think he is plat or gold ?), he isn't that much entertaining neither (Grubby for instance is better), he isn't someone who was notorious before (as it would be the case for a caster for instance). So why does he have so many viewers ? Just wondering...
EDIT: didn't see this thread was already talking about that. Nothing against u Winter, just surprised as much as many others here who know the players and the tournaments. It's more than 30% viewers who prefer your stream to PL for instance.
the top streamer of any blizzard game gets viewbotted (by who? it is a mystery...) but it's most obvious with SC2 and Heroes because they're the least popular.
the Heroes equivalent of Winter is iceboxd, he has 1k+ viewers and a very empty chat, constant viewer interaction for the non-bots as well.
Thank you again Conti for putting the work into the post, the numbers and fact checking as always. I know there are plenty of people who don't like me, my stream, my content, or anything surrounding it. Honestly I would rarely watch my own stream, I prefer Mingun, Polt, Innovation, etc. I do enjoy streaming and talking with people who enjoy my stream, which is why I've done it for almost 3 years.
I don't deserve viewers more than Polt or Innovation, I don't have a higher level or skill or better content. Honestly all I have is brute force and an ability to talk for hours on end. Conti pointed out earlier some major viewer jumps in both December and April of these past few months.
December(jump from about 200 avg viewers to 500): I finished school for the semester about a week into December. From that point I streamed 233 hours that month(about 10 hours a day after the first week), only taking a day off for Christmas. This was a time when there were very few tournaments and no WCS, so a lot of the time I was able to be on the front page of starcraft twitch, and I was lucky enough to pick up a twitch partnership and also a subscriber button.
April(jump from about 600 to 1300 viewers): I went back to school for Winter semester, so I could not stream as much, as consistently or for the length of time that I did over December break. WCS, many tournaments and other things started back up again for the year, so I wasn't able to see any real growth besides subscribers/followers throughout.
2 things lined up again after. First, I finished school in mid April, and second I fixed my ISP issues. For over a year I had an issue with my ISP where it would go offline for 5-15 seconds at a time every 1-2 hours, taking the stream offline and usually 25-40% of my viewers with it. I finally was able to work out settings that would avoid most of these reconnects and instead of continually dropping and gaining viewers throughout the night I was able to build. Since I was off school again I streamed for 25 days in a row between mid april and early May, once again not with a huge display of skill or a tournament win, just lucky enough to be near the top of twitch and pick up some viewers that might for one reason or another be interested in other streams. On top of that I was featured on teamliquid near the very end of the month which helped a bit more as well.
This is what happened to increase my viewers. I stream in a way that allows me to stream for long periods of time, which is usually smurfing. I don't have the skill or stamina to play at my top level and commentate for the 8+ hours that I stream at, and I don't pretend to be competitive or an authority on strategy or the game. I have content that some people like to watch, and I like interacting with those people. There is a base out there of people just looking for someone to talk about the game, without a regard to being a top pro, which is what makes people like Totalbiscuit so entertaining. I listened to WCRadio shows about lore and dungeons even though I was exclusively a competitive PvP player back in World of Warcraft because people talking is entertaining.
As for social media metrics which has been pointed out before, I just recently became anywhere close to active. My facebook only has 1700likes, my twitter only 1600. Another point here, I lost access to my previous twitter account(email issues) @WinterStarcraft last year when I had around 500 followers. That twitter account now has almost 450 more followers(with 0 tweets since September), while the twitter account I created in December to replace it @StarcraftWinter has 1600. My youtube channel has gained over 2500 subscibers in the past 2 months while being under 2000 for almost 2 years. I probably could do more with social media but honestly I've never really been involved.
As for the claims of viewbots, yes they have happened on my stream just like other streams all across twitch. I stream for more than most streamers as I'm able to commit so much time, so I am stuck with them proportionally more often. As for on a regular basis, I have doubled my subscriber count from 250-500 in the past 6-8 weeks along with a nearly equal increase in donations and follows as well. If all of these things are botted that would be extremely demoralizing, just like being repeatedly accused of it.
I don't feel entitled to viewers, I don't even really find my own content particularly entertaining or educational. All I do is produce enough of that content on a regular basis that enough people seemed to be interested in to allow me to comfortably make it a full time career. Viewbots don't pay my bills, I dont run ads on my stream. If you don't enjoy my content, I understand. If you don't like me, I definitely understand that as well. Please don't feel obligated to defend me if you enjoy the stream, constructive criticism is always preferred. Thanks for reading. Also sorry Conti for hijacking your thread.
TL;DR: I just sit at home and talk at internet people a lot.
This is a quote from the May thread of the exact same context being accused by Totalbiscuit for similar reasons. The reason for the spike in recent viewers has been a premium partnership with Twitch(the first sc2 streamer in over a year to get one, after being questioned and cleared for viewbots), as well as front page twitch.tv featuring which I use to promote the game and much better players than me. Accuse me all you'd like, but I love this game and I would love for more people to play it, that is all I want.
I stream more than you. I have played this game LONGER than you, and you are telling me that twich has given you a " premium partnership? "
What makes you think that playing the game longer or streaming more frequently automatically earns you a better partnership? Don't you think what should really count is the number of viewers that you bring to Twitch, and whatever else Twitch cares about?
I'd think Twitch would be more interested (financially) in partnering with someone who's extremely popular, rather than someone who's just been chugging along for a long time with far fewer viewers (on average).
And besides, I'm pretty sure Winter has been streaming for over a year, and has been playing since the beginning of WoL (admittedly, [citation needed], although I thought I've heard him say that on stream), so it's not like he's completely brand new when it comes to Twitch or StarCraft.
I still can't quite figure out Winter. I've watched his stream, but there are always better people. Maybe because he spells everything out for the short bus? In 2014, there are better streams to learn.
On September 12 2014 19:44 OveRtheStarS wrote: I still can't quite figure out Winter. I've watched his stream, but there are always better people. Maybe because he spells everything out for the short bus? In 2014, there are better streams to learn.
He (and other posters) explained his situation quite extensively, I think, in this thread. The discussions on previous pages (along with videos and data posted earlier here, e.g., iNcontroL/ Destiny conversation) should make things more clear.
On September 11 2014 12:12 The_Red_Viper wrote: [quote] If that would happen on a daily basis i am pretty sure he would get banned, so again: Why didn't he? People literally think he has now viewers whatsoever, how can he make over 4k on donations pretty much every month then? I guess this is also only fake? Absolutely ridiculous and i don't even watch him that often, but this bs has to stop (when i read things like this i am not surprised people don't stream into the sc2 scene)
[quote] The only reason this rumor is still in the room is cause people think he doesn't deserve it. Whenever he is brought up anywhere his "haters" will keep spreading this lie and new people will pick it up as a fact. Obama could say he doesn't bot and people still would think he does.
i'm not saying anything bad just speaking what i understand from the situation
Yeah i see, the problem is that people keep refering to "he said it himself". AFAIK he said it happened at the beginning a few times. These "few times" are the source for pretty much all the haters out there, without any context. To be fair, maybe he chanmaned his way into the scene, i don't know and nobody else does i guess. But at this point i just don't see how he could do it without twitch reacting to it. Incontrol said on the last unfiltered episode that his "connections" at twitch said they don't see anything wrong with winter and he seems to be legit.
On September 11 2014 12:25 Apollo_Shards wrote:
On September 11 2014 12:01 The_Red_Viper wrote: [quote] One question: Why didn't he get banned from twitch? He has to do this like a year now if you would believe the gossip people keep spreading. Also you make statement without any proof whatsover, i could basically say the total opposite and it would be worth just as much: nothing.
Well it woudnt be true.
Yeah i am sure everything you say is automatically true, if someone denys your authority for any specific topic he has to be wrong. Nice to know random user on the internet.
Ok what part did I say was wrong.
I don't have to prove you are wrong, you first have to prove your "points". But i already see there is no way someone can argue with you, you are one of those fanatics who will keep hating no matter what. Read my comment you quoted and try to go from there if you really want though...
Point 2 http://imgur.com/uVkJHk9 - inactive chat, look at someone with half the viewers and see how active it is. I tried doing the same thing for a CS guy who had 1700 viewers but I lost my time marks because the chat was so active.
You realize literally every major twitch stream has this same occurence. I challenge you to go to Destiny, Grubby, Demuslim, Lirik, Sodapoppin etc, and tell me that twitch viewer numbers are always consistent and reliable and useful for a good photoshop. If that is your evidence than you might want to try a somalian court.
That is a fair point and I concede that. However that was definitely the weakest of my three and the other two have had no explanations.
As for your response to TB, I dont really care how you get viewers or why they stay which that was addressing I believe (more time to stream, being featured, etc). Social media,I dont care about that either or think that can be used as an argument. The only thing Im "concerned" about is that when you do stream, it seems really odd the numbers you get seem contrary to what every other streamer gets and in chat it feels like Im in a ghost town.
I am going against every principle I've held for the past two year replying to this, but this is TeamLiquid, not reddit, so I have to respect that. I hold the people who watch my stream to my principles. Kappa spam is banned(sorry nathanias). Avilo is a banned word, (not sorry avilo), you cannot debate futle balance complaints, you cannot debate irrelevant political issues or you will be timeouted/banned by my trusted mods of several years. I want a chat where someone with a legitimate question about sc2 can ask that question without being either drowned out or strangled by your average twitch chatter, and i am HAPPY that the average twitch chatter is angry about everything surrounding my stream, because that means it is effective.
EDIT: For reference, I currently have almost 10K people banned in my stream chat.
EPT
<3
