How to become a streamer on Twitch, YouTube, etc.

Twitch, YouTube, etc.: Streaming is growing from year to year and has become an in­creas­ing trend. More and more people around the world start their own channel on one of the streaming platforms every day. Many digital platforms offer the pos­si­bil­i­ty of sharing your hobby with others via streaming.

First things first though: Via streaming platforms like Twitch or YouTube, basically anyone can become a content creator. Depending on what you're in­ter­est­ed in, there are different genres of streaming - from video podcasts to games, music or fitness. Once you've decided on a par­tic­u­lar platform, you might ask yourself how does streaming work at home and what are the re­quire­ments?

Once you've created an account with one of the streaming platforms, you're ready to go. To share content live with an audience, you need the right equipment. In addition to a stable Internet con­nec­tion, computing power is es­pe­cial­ly important. For example, Twitch rec­om­mends at least an Intel Core i5-4670 or a com­pa­ra­ble AMD processor as well as eight gigabytes of RAM for good results. A powerful PC is suf­fi­cient for the start. At some point in the future, you can think about possibly upgrading the hardware or getting a second streaming computer on which you can follow the live chat, for example.

But in addition to the right hardware, the right software is also crucial. Besides XSplit and Twitch Studio, the best-known and most popular ap­pli­ca­tions include the streaming software OBS. The free open-source program works under both Windows and macOS.

To com­mu­ni­cate with viewers si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, it is rec­om­mend­ed to have your own team chat. Both Teamspeak and Discord are well suited for talking to several people at the same time. Teamspeak is one of the pioneers in terms of team chats and is now con­sid­ered the great classic among team chat ap­pli­ca­tions, which focuses on pure talking and chatting. However, the operation is a bit more com­pli­cat­ed, since a dedicated server has to be set up in advance.

In 2015, Teamspeak found itself with a com­peti­tor - the chat and voice program Discord. This program comes with a clear user interface and, compared to Teamspeak, offers the option to com­mu­ni­cate via video chat. In addition, the free software can be used directly in the browser.

Besides the choice of platform, you still have to make an important decision: PC or gaming console? Although a lot depends on your gaming pref­er­ences, a gaming PC offers some ad­van­tages. On the one hand, team chat ap­pli­ca­tions like Teamspeak or Discord can be used for chatting. On the other hand, the flex­i­bil­i­ty of the hardware is also an important criterion for deciding for a PC. This is because you always have the option of upgrading or updating it further.

To get noticed and comment live on the stream, a webcam and mi­cro­phone are essential. You can use the mi­cro­phone on your headset to start with, but in the long run, we recommend a high-quality streaming mi­cro­phone that picks up less back­ground noise and re­ver­ber­a­tion.

It's also hard to imagine streaming without a webcam - after all, it puts you in the limelight. Here, too, a not-so-expensive be­gin­ner's model is enough to get you started. Good webcams that deliver images in HD quality can be found for under $100.

The two dominant streaming platforms differ in many respects. The main dif­fer­ence is that Twitch clearly focuses on the live broad­cast­ing of video games and is primarily of interest to gamers. But the platform has long since also offered videos from other areas - such as music, sports, and fashion.

While Twitch spe­cial­izes in live streams, YouTube relies on the on-demand principle with permanent content - that is, in­di­vid­ual videos can be uploaded and viewed at any time. YouTube, which registers around one billion users per month, is ahead of the game, es­pe­cial­ly when it comes to diversity. Some of the world's best-known in­flu­encers can be found here. On various channels, users can choose from a wide range of videos from a wide variety of areas. But Twitch also has an enormous reach and around 100 million monthly users. Live chats during a live stream are possible on both platforms.

Although Twitch is primarily known as a streaming platform for live video games worldwide, it has continued to expand its range of topics in recent years and is much more than the “YouTube for gamers”. One of the most popular Twitch sections is Just Chatting. As the name suggests, the streamers chat live with their followers about all kinds of topics and questions.

Al­ter­na­tive­ly, you can watch TV series and movies from Amazon Prime Video together and discuss them in the chat. Twitch has launched a feature called Watch Party for this purpose. Cat­e­gories such as music & per­form­ing arts, talk shows, and podcasts, as well as the Twitch trend ASMR (Au­tonomous Sensory Meridian Response) already have a large fan base that continues to grow.

Whether it's YouTube or Twitch, if you stream content that is age-re­strict­ed, you need to enable age re­stric­tion. This sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduces access to your videos for audiences who are too young. Copyright is also an important issue for anyone who wants to upload a recorded video or start live streaming. YouTubers can learn how to protect them­selves at the YouTube Creator Academy, for example. Twitch also rec­om­mends that its users inform them­selves about copyright law and only use music from its own Sound­track by Twitch tool.

Streaming and com­mu­ni­cat­ing with followers at the same time - this can get ex­haust­ing in the long run. To con­cen­trate fully on the stream, it makes sense to hire mod­er­a­tors. They can take care of your chat by, for example, excluding certain viewers and deleting in­ap­pro­pri­ate comments. This gives you full control over the streaming and can improve the quality of your stream.

Whether Minecraft server, Valheim server or Global Offensive, in short CS:GO server – if you want to play in mul­ti­play­er mode, you should look for your own game world. At IONOS, you can choose between three different server models. How much per­for­mance and resources you need will influence which one is best suited to you.

The overview shows three typical game sit­u­a­tions and the matching server models:

To make your choice easier, we will briefly introduce the three game servers.

The budget option: If you are primarily looking for a cheap game server, a virtual server is the right choice. Although there are fewer con­fig­u­ra­tion options for a vServer than for the other models, you can still ex­ten­sive­ly customize your game server according to your in­di­vid­ual wishes thanks to root access.

A vServer is not enough? Then how about a cloud server? Depending on the plan, it can be con­fig­ured according to your needs. You can adjust server resources such as CPU, RAM, etc. at any time according to the number of players and capacity. With this model, you rent vir­tu­al­ized server resources that are billed by the minute.

Unlike virtual servers, with a dedicated server you don't have to share system resources with other users - this means that the complete per­for­mance and server hardware are available only to you at all times. Thanks to full root access, you can configure the entire system according to your needs. Dedicated game servers are also billed on a per-use and per-minute basis.

If you would like to have a pro­fes­sion­al presence online, you can do this with your own website. First, check whether your desired address is still available – you can do this with the help of our domain check. If it is, you can order it and select the ap­pro­pri­ate plan.