Streaming 1st Time, for Fun and (in an Extremely Unlikely Scenario) Profit

CrankyCarrot on 30/12/2017 - 16:25
Last edited 30/12/2017 - 16:25

With some spare time over the holidays I thought I might mess around with game streaming (Mixer, Twitch, Youtube Gaming) for the first time.

I've got an XBox One S, a Thinkpad e470 laptop (both courtesy of OzB) as well as a PC rig that was pretty decent when I assembled it 2013 (still going alright now almost 5 years later too - I did my bang for buck research extensively at the time.)

From what I can tell I need a special headset with mic and a webcam that isn't the absolute cheapest $20 Officeworks job to get going and have any hope of getting noticed in a market that's beyond saturated (who doesn't want to make money from sitting on their backside gaming?).

So… recommendations?

My desktop doesn't have a webcam and the mic I use with it cost about eight bucks and is on the way out, so I can kind of justify blowing maybe $120-$150 on a webcam and headset/mic purchase, total. I already tried using my phone earbud/mic (the not too shabby Shure se 215m+) with the XBox One Controller and the sound was great but the mic didn't work. Does the XB intentionally not support 3rd party headset mics?

I have HD202 Sennheiser headphones ($50 from JB about 5 years ago) that sound pretty good to me, so something as good/bassy as those with a built-in mic with good recording quality for purposes of making Youtube vids/streaming is what I'm after. Seems like I might need a long one of those blue or yellow cables to mainline data straight into the XB or PC for less dropped connections also.

WEBCAM: JB has the Logitech C615 HD for $69.30 (Officeworks is more convenient for me and price match would knock another 5% off). JB sale finishes Dec 31. It seems like it broadcasts natively at 15 FPS, which seems terrible, unless you disable some kind of light gain setting which I don't see how you could even do on an XBox.

HEADSET: I really have no idea. Looks like Bluetooth would be cool but pump up the price 3x+ and there can be connection dropout issues. There was something on OxB for about $89 before, I think through MSY called the… something or other #2. Damn. Well, I wouldn't want to drop much more cash than that at any rate. Seems like Plantronics have the market share just to look at the common store sites.

JB's current sale says it ends at the end of the year - am I wrong in thinking there will be electronics sales as good or better for the New Year?

I'd want both items to be fully functional on both PC and XBox.

TLDR:

Recommendations for a webcam and headset/mic combo for game streaming on XBox and PC with a total budget of around $150 (meaning I might be arm twisted into upping it to $200 if the quality/deal was worth it)?

Gaming

Comments

  • Savas on 30/12/2017 - 16:26
    +8

    great, just what the world needs.

    • CrankyCarrot on 30/12/2017 - 16:30
      +5

      Ha ha ha. Yeah. TBH I can barely stand watching other people do this, but I want to try it anyway so I can fail and move on to some other ridiculous side-money making idea.

  • [Deactivated] on 30/12/2017 - 16:29
    +8

    Just live stream JV commenting on ozb.

    • CrankyCarrot on 30/12/2017 - 16:37
      +3

      As much as I like my OzBargaining, I had no idea who that was 'til a search just now. Seems pretty notorious.

    • pegaxs on 30/12/2017 - 16:50
      +5

      I would Patreon support the schizznit out of that channel! :D

      • CrankyCarrot on 30/12/2017 - 16:59
        +1

        Well, I've got some forum posts to catch up on searching 'JV' on the next interminable bus ride.

    • sss333 on 30/12/2017 - 18:38
      +4

      I want a live stream of his 50,000th comment

  • pegaxs on 30/12/2017 - 16:42
    +7

    “Yo yo yo! It’s ya boi crankycarrot, coming at yah wiff anuva daily dose of deaths and mayhem. Don’t forget to hammer that like button and hit up that subscribe button for a chance at these sweet XA3000RT gaming headphones. Leave a comment and don’t forget to click on my sponsors, I’ll link them in the description. And head over to my Patreon page and support me so I can keep bringing you all this great content…”

    You will need this, it’s the standard YouTube/Twitch video intro. And make sure it’s 8 mins of intro, lots of loud Dubsteb, 1 min. of gaming footage and the last few minutes selling your Patreon support page… make the content as low quality as possible and complain about what meta the latest game is to complain about…

    Oh, and you’ll need a sweet gamer tag wit something like “snipes/sn1pez” or “420” in it.

    • CrankyCarrot on 30/12/2017 - 16:56
      +3

      Haaa!

      Yeah all that stuff is nauseating. I was going to try being the opposite of that, like not as annoyingly over the top and phoney as possible. Hell, maybe do it with a Bobcat Goldthwait level of enthusiasm, just for a change of pace?

      OR… Can I just read your quote above verbatim from a cue card? Makes me laugh.

      RE Gamername: How's FloatedClock815? That's the retarded name Microsoft XB saddled me with, but it's growing on me. I was just going to be Cranky Carrot but - you have to frickin' (we can't swear properly on here, right?) PAY to create your own username. As a thrifty OzB type, doing that would cause me physical pain. And it's like fourteen bucks or something. I mean, really!

  • dcep on 30/12/2017 - 16:44
    +6

    are you a girl ?

    if not, don't bother.

    • CrankyCarrot on 30/12/2017 - 16:48
      +1

      I could expand the budget a bit and go transgender? How's that trending on Twitch these days?

    • CrankyCarrot on 30/12/2017 - 16:49
      +1

      Or… maybe force girlfriend to do it. I can whisper my witty comments to her from off cam or in an ear piece or something?

      • pegaxs on 30/12/2017 - 16:51
        +2

        Hot tip: she won’t need to do any talking…

        • CrankyCarrot on 30/12/2017 - 17:02
          +1

          We already discussed it and I there was a red flag on all talk of "Chaturbating," or even signing up for one of those sugardaddy websites. I told you, I'm exhausting all aspects of making that easy cash (legally).

      • dcep on 30/12/2017 - 16:56

        Nah, she doesn't even need to comment/say anything.

        Just pick a game for her and you stay under the desk, do your thing.

        • CrankyCarrot on 30/12/2017 - 16:58

          "pick a game for her and you stay under the desk, do your thing."

          That can be interpreted in various ways.

        • pegaxs on 30/12/2017 - 17:01
          +1

          @crankycarrot: one way will get you a shit load more subscribers than the other… ;)

        • CrankyCarrot on 30/12/2017 - 17:03

          @pegaxs:

          Hmmm… I wonder what they say in the fine print about censorship stuff when the rude stuff happens off cam.

  • airal3rt on 30/12/2017 - 16:51
    +2

    Don't listen to the negativity, but you need to take a realistic approach. As you mentioned the streaming market is absurdly saturated and becoming more so by the day, so taking a halfway approach is suicide. You need to either look at streaming as a purely recreational activity where you play some video games and talk to the two or three people watching your stream, in which case you're obviously buying cheaper gear that's in line with what you would spend for a recreational activity. Or if you really want to take a shot at making it against all the odds, you need to drop serious cash on high level tech to provide the best audiovisual experience, relentlessly promote your stream across various mediums and platforms, and most importantly develop a strict streaming schedule whereby you're on at the same times and days consistently. Nobody will ever tune in regularly if you stream when you feel like it, or 6 hours one night and 1.5 hours the next night, or if you only stream one or two days per week.

    You need to choose if this is going to be recreational or business, if you walk in with some half-baked idea of having fun and the stream magically growing into a money-making endeavour, 12 months from now you're going to be sitting there in front of maybe a dozen viewers wondering why you dropped all this cash and invested all this time and still aren't even close to a sub button.

    • CrankyCarrot on 30/12/2017 - 17:14

      Fair enough.

      I looked at it more like buying a lottery ticket than magic. Somehow, like 1 in 100,000 people just so happens to have a personality that resonates with enough bored people on the other end of a modem that they can make some dough doing something fun.

      Assuming shameless self promotion, Troy McClure-style, ends up being fun.

      Who'd have thought that screeching "PewDiePie!" repeatedly would be anything someone would want to watch? Not me, that's for sure. Maybe he's more talented than my cursory viewings suggest, but damned if you'd know it from the early stuff. It just seemed like some cosmic random fluke that his stuff became phenomenally popular. Obviously being early to the game helped enormously. Then I see that guys like JonTron have legions of fans - and… yeesh.

      I have zero expectations of anything other than crossing it off a list of goofy ideas for a lark, hence the lower budget.

      • airal3rt on 30/12/2017 - 17:27

        I looked at it more like buying a lottery ticket than magic

        Well sure, but the point is you have to bust your arse building up the stream and promoting yourself everywhere relentlessly to have that one-in-a-million chance.

        To roll with your analogy, walking in with some half-baked idea of having fun and the stream growing into a money-making endeavour is like buying a lottery ticket and then never checking the numbers. That consistent stream schedule, that countless hours poured into the stream, that relentless promotion and advertising everywhere is the actually checking your lottery numbers part of the equation. The investing heavily in your stream setup and treating it as a business is the scratching off your scratch card part of the equation.

        I know that's not what you wanted to hear because it'd be nice to think that even half-arsing it there's still the one-in-a-million chance, but good luck with however you end up approaching it.

        • CrankyCarrot on 30/12/2017 - 17:40

          Well there's nothing like hashing out a half-baked idea with a little online pow-wow.

          Are you speaking from experience by chance? Do you know someone who threw into it? Did anyone on here take a crack? We all like holding onto (and presumably making) our money - this sure seems like a great way to do it for an insanely "lucky" few.

          The way you describe it, which I'm sure is scarily accurate, makes it sound way more like work though. Work where you can still put in piles of effort for months on end and have a fantastic chance of coming away with nothing but a tech debt.

          I wanted to try it for fun anyway, so I'm still looking for some basic equipment in my price range. I'm sure it'll stop being fun long before it starts being profitable, but what the hell. Maybe I'll at least finally see what all the fuss is about with online gaming.

  • fsmonk on 31/12/2017 - 08:06
    +1

    Man people are ruthless! I'm sure you already know it'll be hard but I'm sure you'll learn a lot from the whole experience. Plus there are so many ways to waste holidays and I'm sure millions of people sit back and think of doing that same thing but don't take action so props for getting the ball rolling!

    Back to the topic though - have you checked out the instore MSY deal on Kraken? $39 USB surround sound gaming headset. Not sure if it works on Xbox but might be worth looking into for the price. (btw sale ends today instore!!)

    https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/352360

    Hope you find the gear to get started but try not to let it get too much in the way of your starting.

    Let me know when you get the channel up and running, from your comments you seem like you've put a bit of thought and passion behind this. And more importantly looks like you have the wit to deal with the 'internet' :P

    • CrankyCarrot on 31/12/2017 - 19:06

      I really wish I'd read this before 7pm. $39 is perfect but a 4pm closing time at Ultimo MSY, not so much. Bring on the New Year Sales!!

  • Birchy on 31/12/2017 - 10:26
    +1

    Crank it out Carrot, if you suck so what, at least you had the balls to give it a go. So just crank it out carrot style.

    • CrankyCarrot on 31/12/2017 - 19:07

      Hells yeah. That's "ya boi, CrankyCarrot!"

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