New to streaming: tips please, especially on privacy

[Quartz]

I'd like to dip my toe into streaming. I've set up an account on Twitch, set up OBS Studio, and successfully done a test stream. So far so good. But I want to hide my Steam / Epic / Origin / etc details (which are sometimes my real name) and they sometimes appear in-game. Obviously I'd like them to match the name of my stream when they do appear.

Other basic dos and don'ts would be most welcome.

 

[azazl187]

Easiest thing to do would be to change all those account names to an alias rather than your real name.

Streaming is a pretty populated past time these days and getting anymore than a coupe of viewers or followers is pretty hard work.

Will you be playing single player or multiplayer games? If you are playing games online with others the best way forward is to get in a popular clan that has established steamers and ask for their help gaining followers with raids etc

 

[Teaf]

When it comes to Steam, what about setting up a new account just for your streaming stuff and family share your library to the new account? Then everything will be separate and you'd have your own streamer-specific Steam account that's independent from your personal one.

 

[Tombstone]

I'd like to dip my toe into streaming. I've set up an account on Twitch, set up OBS Studio, and successfully done a test stream. So far so good. But I want to hide my Steam / Epic / Origin / etc details (which are sometimes my real name) and they sometimes appear in-game. Obviously I'd like them to match the name of my stream when they do appear.

Other basic dos and don'ts would be most welcome.

The only "dont" that I would give is dont expect major success anytime soon. There are sizeable streamers out there (some of course who make vast amounts of money) but they've spent literally 10's of thousands of hours streaming, producing and editing in order to get to that point. Many of them have had to take a big risk , for example, Cohhcarnage (a very big and highly successful streamer) had to roll the dice and take a gamble by resigning from his job and devoting 12 hours a day to streaming purely on the off chance that it would work out. So that would be my only dont advice. Ultimately it depends upon your reasons for streaming, many people stream a few hours a week and only have a handful of viewers/subscribers and are happy with that but there are also many people out there who see how much money some streamers make or think it would be great to just spend time gaming and making money from it and dont realise just how much hard work it is to get to that point.

The only "do" that I would give, is just be yourself, dont force your presentation or go OTT, theres nothing worse in my book than a streamer who seems fake or insincere.

 

[Raumarik]

Got a few friends who stream on youtube/twitch, most only have a handful of people watching live but they do it because it's fun. Hell one of my mates literally doesn't play any game without streaming it, it's just his default way to play.

Quartz - I'd suggest an alt account when you can afford to so you don't accidentally screw up although in reality it's unlikely anyone is going to do much anyway or be able to if you have MFA etc enabled. One tip I did get from a mate was to have a second monitor which is never streamed from and a different size/res so you can instantly tell if you screw up. Thought that was a good idea. He uses a tiny monitor, it's purely to check his chat and he keeps his steam app etc on there.

 

[Quartz]

Fame and fortune would be nice but I'm looking to do it for fun. I'm retired and have no wish to spend umpteen hours a day working. Good tip on the family thing.

 

[throwaway4372]

every account you have must use a different username, email address, and password, use 2fa everywhere.
the point of this is so if someone sees one they can't google it and find all your others.
and if an account is compromised, you bin it and make a new one.
never use real life information anywhere - you don't want people messing with you irl.
don't do personal stuff on the same windows install as your streaming so you can't accidentally leak it.
if your personal info is already out there and discoverable in any way whatsoever, make a serious effort to get it removed. e.g. these forums are very well indexed by search engines, if someone finds one of your posts they'll find all your other posts, and you will have posted more personal stuff than you'd want to share with those people.

 

[Quartz]

if your personal info is already out there and discoverable in any way whatsoever,

It's far too late for that. I was online in the innocent days when people used their real names and I'm on Quora under my real name. I've always been careful about what I've said, though. That's a big reason why I want to keep my streaming separate.

don't do personal stuff on the same windows install as your streaming so you can't accidentally leak it.

I'm only looking to do this casually, not professionally!

 

[Quartz]

One tip I did get from a mate was to have a second monitor which is never streamed from and a different size/res so you can instantly tell if you screw up.

Yup. I've had three monitors for many years. I intend to game on one, with OBS on another and chat on the third.

 

[danoliver1]

Do you own a hot tub.

 

[throwaway4372]

It's far too late for that. I was online in the innocent days when people used their real names and I'm on Quora under my real name. I've always been careful about what I've said, though. That's a big reason why I want to keep my streaming separate.

The thing is - some people are way more obsessive than you'd think. You'll get a small number of people googling you, trying to find out everything possible. Imagine they're working for the CIA or something, they'll find everything, if you leave it out there it will be found, they'll spend days on the wayback machine. Then they'll start toying with you, starting with letting you know what they've found so you worry about it. This is from my experience as a well known gamer in an obscure game nobody cares about. If you're on Twitch and for a popular game it would be much worse I'm certain, you'd attract a lot more crazies and it only takes one to really impact your life to the point where you wish you'd never bothered streaming. This is why all female streamers seem to have stalkers, there are plenty of crazies out there and it's not just e-girls who have stalkers, it's something that happens consistently. I've spent months scrubbing old stuff from the 'innocent days' off the web, it's hard to get 100%, but you can get 90%ish removed. You can get stuff unlisted from google for privacy violations, you can contact webmasters, delete/rename accounts, remove your websites from the wayback machine, etc. Most sites are reasonable if you explain you're requesting it for your own safety.

I realise this seems like overkill for something you're planning on doing casually, I'm just making sure you understand the risks. IMO streaming casually isn't worth the risk. There's a lot of risk and usually no upside.

 

[Nevakonaza]

Do you own a hot tub.

Also asking for a friend

As for streaming,Id start off with a game thats not massive,if you stream one of the big AAA games for example Warzone you'll be among a ton of other big well known streamers and it will be quite hard to get viewers Rome wasn't built in a day though as they say..good luck with the stream

 

[Raumarik]

Stream what you like to play, doesn't matter how old.

I love watching someone discover old games. I think it's part of why Josh Strife Hayes is so popular, he's game for anything*

*probably.