Wow!!! I only had time to watch a few minutes of the stream, but your integration of the pin’s sound with commentary audio is superb. So much better than having zero pin audio.
We have a Lost World on location whose sound goes in and out all the time, and the other players I’ve played games with on that pin unanimously agree that we have no desire to play it anymore without its sound. And that’s for the boops and beeps of Lost World – having one of the best sound/soundtrack packages of all time in Tron really showcases how cool pinball sounds when you play it on the stream.
I think what I’d eventually like to see is one consolidated Pinball channel. Get everyone together that streams events, come up with agreed upon graphic standards, work to build a standardized flow of how a stream would go and make things more consistent. Everyone in the group would have access to the same assets, username/password, etc…
Basically, stream all of the events through say, twitch.tv/Pinball and have the Buffalo Pinball folks present their stream, or the BCPO “brought to you by BCPL”. Does that’s make sense? My thoughts are that a shift from a “me” to “we” with a standardized way of doing things would help reach out to a larger audience and improve the overall quality of Pinball streams. That is definitely not to say that the “me’s” are being selfish or self-righteous or however else someone might negativley perceive that suggestion.
Tips like the Tron audio and how they got that to work so well would be phenomenal information to share within a dedicated group like that, and it would only have a positive impact on everyones stream. We’re all stakeholders who wanna see this grow, so why not do it together?
This also isn’t a suggestion that would limit people from streaming their own local events on their own channels. If nothing else is going on, the primary channel could host the “smaller” channels. The idea pertains mainly to majors.
Assets are easily shareable and can be passed around with relative ease, so that’s a good idea - especially to help people starting out with templates.
For “one account,” I really can’t see that working out well on multiple levels. How would you handle the weekend with 2 major events? How would you handle negative/abuse cases (unauthorized broadcasting, stream controversies, etc)? What if say, IEPinball wants to seek a Twitch partnership but is handcuffed into having some of their larger broadcasts be off-stream?
Other than asset shares, the onus for broadcast quality still falls on the team working the booth - PAPA got a quality surge when production and personality talent was upgraded. How would one account help with that?
IE would still be welcome to stream whatever events they want to from their channel. When it comes to majors however, if they say they’re willing to be a part of the consolidated group, then they would stream from the single channel. Nothing limits them from hosting the main stream from their channel either.
If you form a “board” per se, made up of pinballs best streaming channels that come together, they come to a consensus on what events are being streamed (hopefully based on objective data), similar to how circuit events are chosen. This motivates TDs to run quality events that will be chosen for a stream. “3 majors this weekend? We’re picking x because of (Insert objective data here).” The other two majors are still free to stream on their own channels should they choose to do so.
Abuse/Negative cases are easy to handle; you know where the stream is. You know who’s in charge. Take it up with them. If it’s a serious enough offense or they can’t resolve the issue, they’re no longer welcome to stream from that channel.
In the case of putting together a case for partnership, hosting a channel = 0 activity. You’re putting out all the work for no gain.
Now let’s say someone gets a partnership and wants to use their subscriptions + bits as a driving force for advancing their setup for better broadcasting or to set up a system where a portion of subscriptions + bits goes directly into a pot bonus for a tournament (versions of this are seen sometimes in FGC weeklies). They are asked to broadcast on “Pinball,” which handcuffs them from using this in a useful manner since hosting is a terribly inefficient way of going about their ideas. How would questions of that nature be handled?
What if pinball hits it big and “Pinball” gets partnership? How would a group organize the funds raised to make sure every dollar is going to the right stream? That’s a ton of paperwork that really isn’t necessary.
Again in the “large group” case, that means that everyone who is involved needs to be sent the new stream key in order to continue functionality, which means that there needs to be some coordinated effort for an email chain/private key bank. I assume someone would be down to organize on that front.
Also as a thought - why isn’t the current functionality good enough? Stream under a team, lump pinball into one place using the current system.
Covering the “PAPA Case,” what about organizations who refuse to broadcast through Twitch on principle? That’s a fair chunk of tournament broadcasts right there.
And your proposition is definitely thought out and well-done; I work in research and sometimes I think a ton of the edge cases. Maybe it’s a bit to early to do that and I apologize if so.
Edit: for one, it definitely creates a solid outlet for smaller productions, pinball regions, and groups to get their broadcasting out there - I would love to watch Pincrossing or Eugene, OR stuff (among other small venues) and this could motivate them and put them on a pedestal!
I think this will happen at some point, but it’s going to be a question of who is going to set this up. It’s a huge financial and time obligation to do this properly. You would have to have contracts with individual streamers and you’d want to really have someone who could push this into twitch frontpage & beyond to make it worthwhile. Right now I’m not sure how just a collective of streamers who have varying incentives to join this can work without a HUGE investment.
I mean… I’d be willing to do it. I’d invest a ton of time into trying to make this work if we could come to a consensus to get there, because I believe if it’s done correctly, we could really expand pinball’s viewer base. This model is really no different than how the IFPA came to be what it is today. They took the best of the best, the number of players and events grew, the quality improved (sure, this is subjective) and so on.
Tim, as a streamer, what would you want to gain from being a part of something like that? What would make it worth your time? Money? Followers? Gold? More lactose-free challenges?
If we want to model it like current Esports, PAPA or IFPA will probably take the helm at some point - most games have their own dedicated official stream(s) for official competition broadcasts like Capcom (for SFV), Tekken, Hearthstone, R6, etc.
I think PAPA clearly has the higher likelihood of taking charge of it should it ever come to be. IFPA generally cons @kdeangelo into doing their bigger events.
Hard to answer this because it’s like… drawing the line between working for myself and working for someone/something else. Right now I work without a contract and I do it all on my own budget and time. I control the content and I can stream/post whatever I want.
If you look at what my revenue is from streaming, even if i’m only online about ~10 hours/month since May when my channel was eligible for revenue, it’s far below the total amount of $ I’ve put into it, and far below what I could make as a wage flipping burgers. It’s pretty much the same thing as playing pinball. You’re putting money into your travel and hotels and stuff knowing you’re not gonna get that back at the tournament a lot of the time. I rationalize both of these in the same way: these are hobbies for me that I can choose to do or not to do whenever I want.
I think you’re basically looking at 2 options here.
A collective/partnership where everyone still controls their own assets and production, but they have some sort of apparatus to help market and set quality standards and other guidelines for the streams? We have these impromptu agreements all the time. Sanctum asks if I can stream Pintastic and I say sure and get a few followers and bits out of it.
You can also look at what Joe was working on with his MLPinball stuff to see an example of this.
A full pinball production company. This is where the company controls all the assets and content and marketing and broadcast contracts/agreements would hire people to do the production for them (through temporary contracts or something like that.) This is something where you really need to have a good selling point to get people on board. High risk!
If I had a similar amount of money that these guys who are setting up pinball companies (Dutch, Heighway, etc.) I’d definitely be doing this instead of opening factories and going into manufacturing pinball machines. You’re talking about much less overhead, but you could really be struggling with revenues because you’re making a big bet on pinball as a spectator sport. But I would do it as a business with the business owning all the equipment and paying all wages and contracts and stuff. It would be a heavy investment & a full time job with probably not a lot to show for it up front, like everything else in this dang hobby
With regard to the suggested “Official” pinball channel.
Could there not be a ‘go to’ Twitch channel which can then host other peoples channels to stream the main shows that are happening right then.
They wouldn’t need to stream any of their own content, but it would basically be hosting others peoples content, as it happens.
As well as meaning people could go to a single channel to see what’s happening across the Twitchosphere (?) but it would introduce them to other pinball channels.
Ideally it would have a few ‘administrators’ across different worldwide time zones so there would always be someone who could switch to a live event.
There could also be a short promo vid, listing all of the pinball streamers so people can visit them at will and look for their archived material.
I don’t know a great deal about Twitch, other than watching it, but does this seem feasible (if not necessarily a great idea).
Pinball_Live isn’t on here, so won’t have seen any of the comments regarding his streams, but I’ll try and get him to sign up and give some of his tips. The most well received comments seem to be about the live sound and ‘bob cam’.
