Getting paid to play SB

[RedWardancer]

Stop me if someone brought this up before despite my search to find otherwise.  I'm hearing a number of people talk about gaming where people send contributions to people for streaming or recording on places such as Twitch.  I'm sure this doesn't happen for everyone who has tried this.  Has anyone in the SB community formed a group to where this was successful or failure?  If not, could this be possible if a number of us really formed a tight group and played enough to make $$$ for a living?  I'm not very knowledgeable about this so forgive me.  However, I have seen about eight or nine channels devoted to gaming, hosting tournaments where people actually make darn good money.  

 

OR...

 

We talk to military departments such as NATO where we get paid to "train" units as OPFOR or other blue/red against them?  

 

Maybe this is not such a bright ideal after all...

 

In any case, let's hear your thoughts on this.  

[Mirzayev]

Making money from playing video games is very dependent on the popularity of said game itself. To put it bluntly, Steel Beasts is not a game that is popular with the normal YouTube/Twitch/Streaming community. 

 

To give a very poignant example:

 

The most watched Steel Beasts video is from 5 years ago, and was published by the Devildog Gamer. It has 401k views.

 

I took a random video published by Monto, a well-known Dead By Daylight streamer. It has 147k views and was published... 2 days ago. 

 

From my own channel, which is devoted almost entirely to Steel Beasts, my most popular Steel Beasts video has 10k views. Two other videos, both concerning African Brush Wars, beat that with more than four times the number of views. 

 

Even Matsimus, who is the most popular YouTuber to have featured Steel Beasts videos regularly before he decided that he didn't like eSim, had his Steel Beasts videos vastly underperform his "regular" programs. 

 

Unless the general public suddenly decides that Steel Beasts, a quite slow and deliberate game compared to most "competitive" titles, is somehow more exciting to watch than everything else out there, I don't see making money from it as being viable. 

[Ssnake]

As far as a professional Opfor team is concerned, most armies aren't interested in putting up a "real fight" against OpFor ... and for good reason, some say. When OpFor plays to win, there is the danger that the exercise itself is ruined. Say, you want to perform an assault with 30km depth which has a forced river crossing early in the session, and OpFor manages to kill the bridging/ferrying/pontoon assets early on (a stroke of luck with a speculative artillery strike, say). From that point on the whole exercise cannot be run as planned because phase 2, the river crossing, can't be completed. So you have to restart the exercise, because you think that phase 3, establishing the bridgehead, is at the heart of what you want the students to train. And then Opfor manages to prevent another attempt at crossing.

 

Now, you could say that Blue's plan is too fragile. But maybe the point of the exercise isn't a stupid plan, but that you need a string of set pieces in order to train certain aspects even if the exercise as a whole might not be the most realistic. Arguably, as an instructor you should stop an exercise as soon as any side is winning because when it's all about mopping up you're wasting precious training time. You're merely executing a plan that has already been proven successful.

Another question that might arise is whether OpFor should play to replicate a certain doctrine, and if the professional OpFor team has rehearsed the application of that doctrine well enough to be credible actors.

[Grenny]

3 hours ago, Mirzayev said:

Making money from playing video games is very dependent on the popularity of said game itself. To put it bluntly, Steel Beasts is not a game that is popular with the normal YouTube/Twitch/Streaming community. 

 

To give a very poignant example:

 

The most watched Steel Beasts video is from 5 years ago, and was published by the Devildog Gamer. It has 401k views.

 

I took a random video published by Monto, a well-known Dead By Daylight streamer. It has 147k views and was published... 2 days ago. 

 

From my own channel, which is devoted almost entirely to Steel Beasts, my most popular Steel Beasts video has 10k views. Two other videos, both concerning African Brush Wars, beat that with more than four times the number of views. 

 

Even Matsimus, who is the most popular YouTuber to have featured Steel Beasts videos regularly before he decided that he didn't like eSim, had his Steel Beasts videos vastly underperform his "regular" programs. 

 

Unless the general public suddenly decides that Steel Beasts, a quite slow and deliberate game compared to most "competitive" titles, is somehow more exciting to watch than everything else out there, I don't see making money from it as being viable. 

By then, movies that show realistic armoured combat will also be very popular 8-)

[Apocalypse 31]

2 hours ago, Ssnake said:

As far as a professional Opfor team is concerned, most armies aren't interested in putting up a "real fight" against OpFor ... and for good reason, some say. When OpFor plays to win, there is the danger that the exercise itself is ruined

This.

 

1. The OPFOR is there to assist the training audience meet their Training Objectives. OPFOR is never there to play to win, nor would I ever imagine any military organization being comfortable with allowing a bunch of civilians to fight against a military unit. In most of the exercises that I've run, you will have a single person running the OPFOR cell, with several 'pucksters' (people who just move units when told to do so) controlling the fight and closely tied into the Exercise Control Group (ECG) to ensure that the training audience is meeting their training objectives. For larger scenarios (multi-day/week), daily synchronization is required and the OPFOR will tailor its plan to ensure that the exercise training objectives are being met. 

 

2. Simulations. VBS is the more popular simulation platform where I work, and VBS-4 is the way of the future: a 'one-sized-fits-all' platform that can be used to meet Platoon training objectives all the way through Corps training objectives. If we were to use SB as our platform then we would have an even smaller market to sell our 'OPFOR Group' to.

 

And for shits and giggles:

My most popular Youtube Video has 26,463 views, and its a freaking video of DCS tank combat (and I really dislike this video)

 

[Major duck]

and lets not forget that some in this community all ready have this as their fulltime day job.

 

And to be successful you would need access and security clearance and have a Network with the generals that would require this

 

MD

[thewood]

If you want to make money playing a tank game, its World of Tanks or maybe War Thunder.

 

 

1.5M views over two years.  I bet a million of them were in the first month.  That number of views is worth thousands of US dollars.  For a video on the Hetzer.

[Apocalypse 31]

39 minutes ago, thewood said:

If you want to make money playing a tank game, its World of Tanks or maybe War Thunder.

 

 

1.5M views over two years.  I bet a million of them were in the first month.  That number of views is worth thousands of US dollars.  For a video on the Hetzer.

Humans have a maximum capacity for absorbing information, and it has [de]evolved recently due to social media. 

 

My Masters Degree program made this very clear in its writing requirements - students no longer write a few 10+ page papers. Instead, write several smaller 3-page papers that forces students to express their views more frequently, but make their point quicker. 

 

Related to YT:  I think the sweet spot is between 5 and 10 minutes, and ironically enough - WoT and WT matches generally match that same duration. What a coincidence! But not really. 

 

Edited December 16, 2020 by Apocalypse 31

[Grenny]

12 minutes ago, Apocalypse 31 said:

Humans have a maximum capacity for absorbing information, and it has [de]evolved recently due to social media. 

 

My Masters Degree program made this very clear in its writing requirements - students no longer write a few 10+ page papers. Instead, write several smaller 3-page papers that forces students to express their views more frequently, but make their point quicker. 

 

Related to YT:  I think the sweet spot is between 5 and 10 minutes, and ironically enough - WoT and WT matches generally match that same duration. What a coincidence! But not really. 

 

Well,  and here I am, thinking I'm to strikt when telling people: "I'll read no masters-thesis thats longer then 150 pages... plus scource registry"

[DK-DDAM]

also world of tanks and war thunder has nothing to do with tanks... all it is, is arcade..

[RedWardancer]

Ah well, it was an idea.  I probably shouldn't come up with idea at 0130 after work.    

 

I'm more than content with SB being such a small community.  We Treadheads are a special bunch after what?  Twenty years?  

[Grenny]

6 minutes ago, DK-DDAM said:

also world of tanks and war thunder has nothing to do with tanks... all it is, is arcade..

For all that matters, could be yellow elefant shooting each other with purple water melons...that wouldn't change the gameplay in 'em...

Its just the sexappeal of tank shaped avatars is signifantcly bigger...

Edited December 16, 2020 by Grenny

[Grenny]

7 minutes ago, RedWardancer said:

Ah well, it was an idea.  I probably shouldn't come up with idea at 0130 after work.    

 

I'm more than content with SB being such a small community.  We Treadheads are a special bunch after what?  Twenty years?  

#post No.2 ff are presented to you by dream-crusher 2000  😉

[ChrisWerb]

5 hours ago, DK-DDAM said:

also world of tanks and war thunder has nothing to do with tanks... all it is, is arcade..

A friend described it as "Super Mario with tanks"   I have to fess up to 15 kills with a German TD, but the Stug III rather than the Hetzer (this was quite a few years ago - I haven't been near WoT since I got SB).