Being online vs being Online aka twitter dying made me touch grass

It’s been liberating to be quite honest. Instead of reading endless crap I’ve been doing things like getting my twitch channel to affiliate, and actually finishing Andor, and changing my sheets. It’s been great to sit down at my computer, open twitter and immediately go “nah fuck this, I’m going for a walk”, which literally actually happened this week.

I may never come back. That’s a lie, I’ll probably be back next time I’m bored, but I really hope not.

Anyway! What’s new with me?

• I’m now affiliate on twitch! Thanks to everyone who shot me a follow and got me to this point. I’ve been having a blast, and I’m looking forward to continuing to build myself up on there.

  • at some point I want to get some more ttrpg content on stream, but I’m not quite sure what to do. Watch this space.

• Communion by Candlelight is now a paid game, as of the most recent Itch Creator day. If you’re a patron, you’ll have access to a download key, and I’ll add as many community copies as I get sales.

• I finished Mass Effect one! (the full game VOD is available on youtube)

• I’m still struggling with my chronic pain and medicationn levels, and struggling to get appropriate medical care. Wahoo. That’s slowing me down a lot more than I would like, but I have another appointment in a couple of days, so here’s hoping.

Other than that, it’s all pretty much business as usual.

Speaking of Itch creator days though, I just want to comment on something I’ve noticed about them -

I never sell any work on Creator Day. What does happen though, is I get a spike of downloads. This time around I got around 13 more downloads than on the next best day in this 30 day period. It’s not much. But it’s something.

As itch is a site where creators can control itch’s share (even set it to 0%) on any day of the year or month, it’s worth noting that Creator Days aren’t a particularly magnanimous gesture from the company to begin with.

I see the day as a marketing opportunity - people are going to look at my page, people are going to be talking about what they pick up if they pick anything up. And at the end of the day, downloads now increase my recognisability as a designer, and that’s what’s crucial.

I try not to be cynical about numbers in public, and I hate the phrase brand recognition, but as someone trying to build an income off my online presence and creative work, here’s how I see my income developing.

Watching other people start working in games full time, then two years later go back to a day job has been rough on my hope, to be honest. Coupled with the cost of living crisis, housing being what it is, and my disability, I struggle to be optimistic about income.

Right now, I probably pull in about $150 nzd a month, optimistically. It’s not nothing, but it’s certainly sweet fuck all. I want to be making enough to live on. This April I left a job where I earned about $3400 nzd a month because I was suffering from burnout and a physical health crisis.

Realistically, if I want to make my way back up to that comfortable income, I will need to either take another office job (unlikely to work out long term) or take this time I am privileged to have to build myself up enough of a foundation that I can grow a big enough audience to survive on my creative income alone.

Games, I have learned, are boom and bust. A kickstarter might give me a few month’s pay all at once, and it also might not get me anything at all if it doesn’t work out. Based on a few things I’ve heard listening to podcasts like Draw Your Dice and Yes Indie’d, I’ve chosen to make my patreon a PWYC access to all of my games, because the reality is, in this space, you either churn out extremely marketable content for D&D, or you survive on goodwill, parasocial relationships, and your personal brand.

And that’s a hell of a thing, isn’t it?

At no point growing up did I think “when I grow up I want to be an internet personality”. Like sure, my personality was internet based, but influencers didn’t exist as they do now when I was a kid, or a teenager for that matter, and the idea that someone could build enough of an audience that they could build an income on being a likeable guy was basically hilarious.

And yet, as I sat in bed this wednesday streaming minecraft for a handful of people with my camera off because it’s raining and sitting at my desk hurt too bad, it increasingly felt like the thing I need to do. You can’t call off a day job because it’s raining outside. Not realistically. I couldn’t have answered emails all day, or organised a spreadsheet, or cold called 100 people. But I could turn my camera off and run around in minecraft, and still be fun to watch.

And here’s the thing that makes it weird. Logic tells me that I shouldn’t mention any of this in my newsletter. It shatters the parasocial illusion to say “hey, I’m curating my personality so that you all like me and want to pay me the money i need to survive”. But at the same time, it’s very #relatable of me to be scared about money. Also I’m a shit liar and this is the thing most on my mind to write about this week, so I’m writing about it.

So here’s the point of all of that. Itch creator day? Shit for making money, unless the thing you’re really making money off is people knowing who you are. Which is a weird job, but it’s one I can do from bed. So here we are.

As a thanks for sitting through all that, here’s a picture of my dog.

See you next time I write one of these. Next week? Perhaps. Perhaps not. We’ll see.

-Jack