How to Choose the Right Streaming Platform

Streaming has become so popular in recent years that the sheer number of platforms can confuse a newbie and lead them in the wrong direction. After all, you can stream not only games but also music, films, conferences, and seminars — anything. How to choose a platform for streaming games with an interested audience? Is it worth going to sites with a small user reach or selecting only industry giants?

How to Start Choosing a Streaming Platform?

Before you create many accounts at once on all the available sites, start by defining your goals. Then it will be easy to discard services that are not suitable simply because they do not have such functions. Ask yourself a series of questions:

• What is the ultimate goal of streaming — to share the process of the game with friends and a narrow circle of subscribers, or to try to collect the maximum audience?
• How important is it to make money from advertising and donations? Alternatively, will streaming be done more for the pleasure of sharing the game?
• How willing are you to tolerate ads?
• Do you agree to give part of the earnings to the platform?
• Should the platform be popular among gamers?
• Which option is preferable — a simple and intuitive interface with easy setup or a lot of advanced features that other platforms do not have?

The result should be a list where each question will have an answer. For example, advertising – no, the complexity of the functionality – no, more viewers – yes. It remains only to find the platform with which there will be the maximum number of matches.

Check the Platform's Reputation Among the Gamer Community

Once you have decided on the right streaming platforms, it is necessary to check its reputation in the gaming community. Many gamers regularly stream and leave their feedback on the advantages and disadvantages of platforms, and discuss them on their forums. They even rank streaming services and update those ratings regularly. Here are a few criteria that are important for them:

the platform should provide statistics on viewers

be open to collaboration with analysts so that trends both in gaming in general and more specifically in esports could be explored

Be Sure to Check out the Following Platforms

Among the most suitable platforms for streaming games, the gamer community highlights the following:

• Twitch — holds the largest market share and supports the maximum number of devices compared to all other platforms
• YouTube is the most promoted video hosting with a maximum of useful features
• Facebook is also a very popular resource for streaming, but qualitatively differs from the two previous ones in that it does not support either Playstation or Xbox
• AfreecaTV — stands out from many sites as an authority in the gaming community due to the fact that it sponsors eSports tournaments
• SteamTV is a specialized platform for gamers, created for streaming by the well-known computer game developer Valve

On any platform, you'll find an amazing community of gamers willing to share their ideas and experiences. Even if you do not have any skills in streaming, with their support your project will be promoted very quickly.