If you want to find different games to stream on Twitch, this website called Twitch Strike is a very valuable resource. One of the things a lot of streamers struggle with is finding a game they enjoy that's also business minded, in the sense that it's viewership friendly. That means it's going to have people who actually want to watch it, and ideally it's going to bring in new followers. I'm going to explain how to use Twitch Strike and what about it is actually useful.
What you want to start off with is put your average viewers in. Mine's about 10, but let's start with a smaller channel, even smaller than that, let's say two. You update your average viewers and generate a new report. The main thing Twitch Strike does is aggregate the data of what games are being streamed, how many people are watching, and how many people are streaming those games. The basic thing it tries to do is show you where there's an imbalance between viewership and streaming.
If you want to find games you enjoy that are also good for viewership, the smaller your channel is, the less of an issue it is in terms of your viewers. For example, the more followers you have, you might need to just play games sometimes that your existing viewers already want to watch, because they won't watch you play other stuff. However, the smaller your channel is, the more flexibility you've got. This is where Twitch Strike can be really handy. What it's showing you is which games should give you an ability to more easily get viewers and followers. That's the basic thing. You put your average viewers in, and it gives you an idea of games that are in demand to stream on Twitch. You can go through this list and view more results. If there are games on this list, this may be an opportunity for you to stream.
Getting Discovered Where There's No Competition
Now, these don't necessarily all mean you're going to stream it and instantly blow up. If you think of this in a bigger picture, think about Twitch. Twitch is this platform where there are all these games, and most people are streaming a relatively small amount of games. There are viewers that are looking around to watch certain games, and there's literally nobody else live, or hardly anybody else live, on that game. If you stream that game, you're going to get discovered just because there's no competition. This list gives you an idea of where you might be able to find games that viewers are looking for where there's not much competition.
For example, if you play Marvel's Spider-Man Miles Morales, there are 20 viewers, and if you had two viewers on your channel, you would be the first channel. What's cool is Twitch Strike actually generates this report every hour based on what's happening on Twitch, so this changes from hour to hour. Right this second, if you were to jump on and play Spider-Man Miles Morales with two viewers, you would be the first channel somebody would find. That's what you're looking for to get discovered. If you can pop up and be the very first channel, or if you play Batman Arkham Knight, then you'd be third in this particular category, which gives you a pretty good chance to get discovered. This is basically showing you what games you probably have the best chance to get discovered on based on your current viewership.
Now, the bigger your viewership is, the bigger games you'll be able to take on, but you don't have to worry about that, because you are right where you're at. For example, it shows that on Call of Duty Vanguard you'd be 70th on the recommended page. But if you play Yakuza: Like a Dragon, you'd be seventh. There are more people watching Call of Duty Vanguard, and this is where you've got to balance it out with what does your audience want to watch, what do you want to play, and where can you show up in a way that's useful to the Twitch community?
In my experience, if you put on a good show and you show up on a game that the Twitch community collectively needs more streamers on, it's going to be very easy to get new followers. This is why I suggest, if you can, testing a different game every single day. This list is just kind of a list of ideas. I personally look at it, but I also trust whatever I'm excited to play. I've found a viewer will stick around if you're playing a game they're interested in, but also if you interact with the chat and make a connection. If you have any questions about Twitch streaming, I'd love to hear those, and one of the best places to bring them is inside my community, where we go deep on this stuff together: join the Jerry Banfield Family.
For example, if you played Saints Row with two viewers, you'd be 49th position, which means if you have some thumbnail like I do with a big camera angle, it'll help you stand out. You might actually get discovered at 49th position. Twitch Strike gives you a basic idea of what games you might want to try.
Games Twitch Strike Sleeps On
Now, some games that Twitch Strike is sleeping on: for example, I played this crypto game called Gods Unchained, and I kept getting new followers the whole time I played it. I played for like two hours, and people just kept following me over and over again. That's because Gods Unchained on their website features Twitch streamers, kind of like how you see on Twitch Strike here. On the front page, if you pay $5 a month, it rotates through streamers on Twitch and features them on the front page of Twitch Strike. I might even give this a try and see if it works.
Another thing you can do on Twitch Strike is look at trends. There are three different things on here. There are good trends: for example, right now Super People seems to be way up. A lot of times these are new games, like Madden NFL 23. Some of these, actually, like 7 Days to Die, The Forest, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and Elder Scrolls, are mostly older games, and some of them are just making a comeback. But these are games where the viewer numbers are going up a lot. Here's an interesting stat: when you find a game where the channels aren't going up that much, but the viewership's going up a lot, that can be a great opportunity too. The key is to match what you want to do, because if you play some game and hate it, that's not going to make that great of an experience probably. So just test. Try playing lots of different games.
If you have Xbox Game Pass and the PlayStation membership, you can even get Gamefly and rent games. I play a different game every single day, and I don't spend that much. A lot of these, like World of Tanks, the viewership is up significantly while the channels are not up that much, and this is a free-to-play game. I think Sea of Thieves is on Game Pass.
The second category is games that are trending downwards. If you're playing these, the viewership is probably dropping a lot, and sometimes the channels aren't dropping that much. Lots of these are newer games where a new game just came out. A new Madden came out, and as you can imagine, people aren't watching the old Madden as much. Two Point Campus is pretty new too. So these are games that, if you're playing them, are on a bit of a downswing.
The last column of games here, which is really interesting, is games that are early, smaller games that are picking up speed. These could be really good opportunities too, and I plan to get in and test most of these different games out. Because if you can find a game you enjoy that there's a demand for on Twitch, that's where you can just really consistently get new followers. Sometimes being number one on Madden NFL 22 might be a lot better than being much further down on a newer game.
Letting the Magic Come In
What I find is that when I set the intention that I love streaming on Twitch, that I want to grow on Twitch, and that I want to play games with the Twitch community, and that on YouTube in terms of recordings I want to play games where it's really healthy and helpful for me to show up and play that game, this is where life being magical comes into play. I find I'm naturally attracted to play games that are in demand. I naturally want to try a game like World of Tanks, or Vampire Survivors, which I just played the other day. I find I'm naturally attracted to play games where they're also in demand. So let that magical part of your life come in for you.
To wrap this up, look at what happens if you change this over and put a different number. I'm grateful my average viewership on Twitch is about 10. So if you update, it'll give you different games and update the positions. With 10 viewers, now that puts me up a lot higher on Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. You've got Horizon Forbidden West, which I played once, and I'd be first if I played it right now. Days Gone, I'd be first on that. Horizon Zero Dawn, first. Call of Duty Black Ops 3, I could rock some zombies and be third up on there. The games are updated, like Fallout 4. I got a good number of followers playing Fallout 4, and you can see this is a game people are watching and there are lots of smaller channels playing it, so I'd be fourth on Fallout 4. Fortnite, meanwhile, I'd be 294th on. Realistically, if you're not in the top 10 on a lot of games, you're not even going to get seen.
There's one more thing on Twitch Strike that I found was really helpful last night. It had a little thing on it that showed the average viewership numbers, showing you how many people. This is a really helpful stat: with 10 average viewers, it says my channel's doing better than 80. I don't actually look at the viewer numbers while I'm streaming either.
Putting your viewership in perspective
One thing I like about Twitch is that you have the option to hide your viewer numbers if you want to. You just go up to the top panel, click the viewers at the very top, and it will hide the viewer count for you. I tend to look at my views after I play a game, going back over my streams overall to see how they did.
What really surprised me was a stat showing that with 10 average viewers, out of 53,000 channels live, I was doing better than 82% of channels. Really? That was hard to believe, so I clicked "learn more" to get some additional insights, because getting perspective on your viewership is genuinely challenging. Twitch Strike has a really nice page for this. You put in your average viewers and it shows you where you stand.
What is really cool is that it shows you, out of all the channels streaming right now, only 17% of Twitch channels actually have more people than 10 watching at that moment. Isn't that crazy? This is so helpful for getting an idea of where you're at. Forty percent of Twitch channels have one person watching. Thirteen percent have two, and 8% have three. So if you just have one person watching, and if you have three viewers on Twitch, you are already in the top 50% of channels. Having three viewers can be difficult when you're getting started, but in my experience that's very achievable.
What struck me, in my perspective, is that I didn't realize I was in the top one fifth of Twitch streamers already, having just switched over to Twitch. This gives you a good idea of what it's like to stream there. When you look at the chart, the viewer count is on the left and the number of channels is on the right. There are only 11,000 channels on Twitch that have more people watching than 10 at any given time. It shows you that almost everybody streaming on Twitch, the majority, has one or two viewers. So if you have three viewers, that's enough to be number one in some games.
The tools I lean on, and where to find me
This website, Twitch Strike, has been really helpful for me. I'm going to try dropping them $5 a month. If you pay them $5 a month and then you go live, you can get featured right on their page. I don't know for certain whether that's worth it or not, but for $5 a month, what can you lose? So if you want to figure out the best games to play on Twitch, go to Twitch Strike. It's always updated, and you can see what it looks like for you.
If this is your first time coming across my work, I would love to spend time with you. We talk a lot about streaming, a lot about Twitch, and also a lot about sobriety, health, and living a great life. The best way to do that today is to join my community, the Jerry Banfield Family, where I share everything I'm learning about streaming and building an online life.
If you want to go deeper on the coaching side of all this, I've pulled together a lot of what I've learned into my YouTube Coaching playlist, and I appreciate every one of you who spends this time with me.