One of the first major streaming platforms for Video Gamers was YouTube Gaming. It was a great way for gamers to connect with their audience when playing live for fans became a prevalent thing in the industry. The current four biggest streaming platforms for gamers is YouTube Gaming, Hitbox.tv, Mirrativ, and the most popular Twitch. Personally, I rely on Twitch when I choose to stream my long gaming times. It is the most reliable because it was made solely for the streaming of games and not for just general live recordings (but people still use it for that). Companies like Amazon and Microsoft have been dipping into the industry of streaming because it is looking to be a multi million dollar industry if it continues to grow as projected. The platforms allow for you to portray the game you playing and allow you to include audio from both the game and commentary from you if you choose to do so. Most even allow for video recordings of yourself playing as a way for fans to be able to connect with the gamer a bit easier than before.
While this has advanced a lot in the past few years as streaming becomes more popular and more lucrative. It has brought a unexpected issue to those who choose to stream their game play. Copyright is a large issue for the streamers because they are not entirely sure what is considered copyright when streaming because if they screw up and accidentally include something that they aren’t allowed to then their stream gets demonetized and taken down from the streaming platforms website. As well as the issue of currency exchanging, most streamers add a link to their donation drive which is essentially a way to make money from their playing video games. It was discovered that some streaming platforms take a small percentage of their fan’s donations while that may not be to large when it comes to one or two donations. If you have thousands of children donating to your drive then the companies could essentially be taking hundreds of dollars that were intended to further your content. This has brought up a weird precedent between streaming platforms and gamers who are trying to find a healthy balance where they both don’t get cheated. A great example of this would be how Ninja, one of the most popular streamers, switched from YouTube gaming to Twitch recently.