Have you ever been curious about how well-known streamers began their game streaming careers? Whether you're an occasional gamer or a full-time gaming enthusiast, maybe you're wondering what is needed to get started.
This article will guide you through the essential equipment and help you choose the best microphone for live streaming setup.
Understanding Game Streaming
Game streaming is the live broadcasting of video game play on the Internet for others to watch. Viewers can see the game as it's being played in real-time and often hear the streamer talk about what they're doing, respond to viewer comments, and show of their gaming skills. This can be done via platforms like Twitch, Kick.com, YouTube Gaming, Discord Gaming, and Facebook Gaming.
Game streaming can be a real career that provides many ways to make money and grow personally. However, it demands a lot of hard work, consistency, dedication, and skill improvement. With the right strategy and some luck, streamers can turn their love for gaming into a lasting career.
Main Platforms for Live Streaming
Different platforms cater to various audiences. Here are five main platforms for live streaming:
The most widely used platform is recognized for its large, diverse audience and strong community features.
This platform is perfect for individuals who are already established on YouTube and seek to engage with their subscriber audience.
An excellent platform for connecting with an audience already actively involved with your content on Facebook.
It's a dynamic platform designed for live streaming, offering a user-friendly interface and functional features to engage audiences.
It's a versatile gaming platform that not only facilitates communication among gamers through voice, video, and text channels but also offers a feature called "Go Live" for streaming games directly to friends and communities within Discord servers.
Software to Use for Game Streaming
Software options offer different tools for live streaming games, recording videos, adding cool graphics, adjusting sound, and communicating with viewers. Here are six options to choose from depending on what features you want and what will work on your computer:
OBS Studio is a free software known as Open Broadcaster Software that is widely used by gamers, YouTubers, and professionals for live streaming and video recording. With its user-friendly features, it allows customization of video scenes, addition of elements, and sound control, making it compatible with various platforms like Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook Gaming, and suitable for creating impressive streams with ease.
- Streamlabs OBS (SLOBS)
It’s a popular software designed for live streaming and content creation, offering an all-in-one solution with various features tailored for streamers. With seamless integration with platforms like Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook Gaming, SLOBS provides an easy-to-use interface for setting up streams, adding backgrounds, and alerts, and engaging with viewers through chat features and widgets, ultimately enhancing the streaming experience for both streamers and viewers.
XSplit is software designed to help people stream live videos and create content, offering features like gameplay recording and editing tools. It seamlessly integrates with popular streaming platforms like Twitch and YouTube, making it easy to start streaming quickly, and its user-friendly design makes it suitable for both beginners and experienced streamers. Additionally, XSplit provides a variety of templates and extras to enhance the appearance of streams and keep viewers engaged, making it a top choice for streaming games.
NVIDIA GeForce Experience is a software designed for users of NVIDIA graphics cards, primarily known for optimizing game performance and updating graphics card drivers. Additionally, it includes features like "NVIDIA Share" or "NVIDIA ShadowPlay," allowing users to record gameplay videos and stream live to platforms like Twitch and YouTube directly from their computers. GeForce Experience simplifies the process of recording gaming moments, taking screenshots, and streaming to preferred platforms, all while ensuring minimal impact on computer performance, making it a convenient tool for NVIDIA graphics card users to create content and stream games.
It’s a set of programs designed for AMD graphics card users, primarily aimed at improving gaming performance and ensuring graphics card functionality. It also offers features for streaming games and creating videos, allowing users to easily record gameplay videos or stream live to platforms like Twitch and YouTube directly from their computers. Radeon Software is user-friendly and minimally impacts computer performance, making it an excellent choice for AMD graphics card users looking to stream games and create videos.
Arena serves as a middleman between your different audio sources and your stream, managing all audio routing. With each source having its own channel and volume control within UNIFY, you can independently adjust their volumes. This ensures a balanced audio mix, simplifying the setup for streaming without the need for reconfigurations in your streaming software.
Steps to Becoming a Successful Game Streamer
Now that you know the different software options to help with your streaming, let's explore some simple steps to becoming a successful game streamer:
1. Build your brand and Community
Begin by creating your special style and connecting with your audience. Keep a regular schedule for your streams, chat with your viewers, and build a friendly community around your channel.
2. Develop your gaming skills and Improve Your Content
Focus on getting better at playing games and making awesome videos. Play games you love, talk about them in fun ways and share helpful tips or exciting moments with your viewers.
3. Promote your Channel and Network
Use social media, gaming websites, and teaming up with other streamers to tell more people about your channel and get more viewers. Making friends with other streamers and joining in on community events can also help more people find and watch your streams.
4. Essential Equipment for Starting Game Live Streaming
To start a game live stream, you'll need a computer or gaming console, a good microphone for gaming, and a webcam for Facecam (if you prefer). Don't forget to grab a headset or speakers for sound and, if you're streaming from a console, a capture card is essential. Also, ensure you have a stable and fast Internet connection with a recommended upload speed suitable for streaming to provide a smooth viewing experience for your audience.
Best USB Microphone for Streaming
If you want to invest in the best streaming mic under $100, consider a Maono USB microphone for your live broadcast. Beginners often choose the DM30RGB or the DGM20 GamerWave microphone. The PD200X microphone is slightly more expensive than the other two because it has more features. It comes with a USB-C/XLR socket, which offers flexibility without needing multiple microphones, and it has built-in blowout foam for noise reduction. All of these USB microphones have a cardioid polar pattern, a one-tap mute function, controllable RGB light modes, gain adjustment, a noise-canceling feature, and compatibility with a boom arm accessory.
Factors to Consider for Starting Live Streaming
Hopefully, this article helps you get started with game streaming by covering the basics you need to know, such as understanding game streaming, picking the right platforms, and choosing the best software. Pay attention to creating a unique brand, interacting with your audience, improving your gaming skills, promoting your channel, and connecting with other streamers. It's important to invest in the right equipment, like a computer or console, microphone, webcam, headset or speakers, a capture card for console streaming, and a stable Internet connection, to ensure a smooth streaming experience.
