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). 

[Desadas]

Guys, have you ever seen the number of views under the video in which schoolchildren record the process of playing Minecraft? That's who really understood something about life and about making money. And in order to attract an audience, it is enough to take a different Skyblock Minecraft Server. I believe that any content can be monetized. But you have to really try to present it correctly. Especially if you know that your audience is initially small. You have to offer them something so that every second person will be your loyal viewer. So the problem turns out. You can make money, but only if you are a genius.

Edited November 29, 2021 by Desadas

[Maj.Hans]

On 12/16/2020 at 7:32 AM, DK-DDAM said:

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

 

It's been probably two years since I tried one of those, I think "War Thunder", and it's so pathetic it's almost funny.

[Poofydoodle]

Im sure you could find an audience of some kind but i doubt enough to make a steady living out of it. Your best bet would to already be an established personality then start streaming.

 

Sub brief does streams of the sub sim cold waters and he is a former submariner and they seem to be quite popular, im sure there are people who would like to watch someone with actual tank experience play tank sims and share their insight but it could take months or years to establish some kind of audience. That or be someone who is funny or entertaining and can make even failing horribly entertaining to watch.

 

I tried to do streams of my custom campaigns in strike fighters 2 and even getting people to sit down and watch gameplay involving ai pilots that were named after them or even just getting someone anyone to see my stream on twitch was very difficult.

 

Playing a popular multiplayer game like war thunder is much easier because people are already online looking up videos of gameplay tips, new unit reviews etc. 

 

Your best bet would be to try to get a following as a general tank youtuber and once you have a following advertise scheduled stream times where you play sims.

[Mirzayev]

I stream Steel Beasts on (most) Sundays. It has followers, but it isn't going to get you rich. Or even paid. 

 

Steel Beasts is niche. Even when certain popular YouTubers made regular videos about Steel Beasts, they significantly underperformed in views compared to their "regular" content. 

 

I won't mention names, for obvious reasons based on past poor experiences with some of them. 

 

Even on my channel where the vast majority of videos are Steel Beasts related, DCS and GHPC regularly outperform them. 

[Ssnake]

...and that shouldn't really surprise.

I mean, you really have to be interested in armored vehicles and ground combat on a rather deep level. There is little instant gratification; rather, the potential for player frustration especially early on is significant.

 

It is, I suppose, a consequence of eSim Games putting training and education first and entertainment second. At the same time, I don't think we ever had a realistic chance to make Steel Beasts a mass market game title that would sustain our development for an extended time, so the decision to go down the training route was only the choice to keep working, or to quit early.

Steel Beasts these days it more complicated than I ever wished it to be. But the level of detail is necessary to meet training requirements. All things considered however I'm convinced that Steel Beasts would be much worse if we had given up on the Personal Edition. It's a necessary corrective and sanity check for a number of areas, and much better at finding bugs than the rather sparse feedback that we get from our other customers.

[Apocalypse 31]

Not starting yet another Infantry "discussion" here...but once we see some more features for infantry / a playable infantry model then SB is going to grow very rapidly for the PE version...Dare I say, but my opinion is that it's going to blow up.

 

I imagine a SB where you have a single player managing a vehicle and another managing a fire team/squad. And with SB you also have the versatility to lead a Battalion, Company, and all the way down to leading the charge as a Rifle team leader. 

 

SB already has much better in-game performance than ARMA. 

 

ArmA might have better / a more thinking AI but it's also a double edged sword and they literally have a mind of their own/ can be unpredictable - not awesome for scenario design. Whereas SB Ai does what you tell it to do / goes where you tell it to go. 

 

 

The waypoint and force management tools of SB are are the best out there.... definitely beats the hell out of ARMA and DCS. I can set detailed routes (that the AI will actually follow) and not it's uncommon to manage a company or more of units comfortably. Not something you do in ARMA.

 

The map and mission editors are simple and easy to use. Scenario design isnt nearly as complicated as ARMA.

 

Sound / Texture modding is simple. 

 

AAR system. ArmA has none and DCS hardly works. 

 

Most of the people who contact me via my YT channel or Discord are afraid to try SB because they think it's going to be super complicated like DCS. They don't realize that in reality an M1 is NOT an FA-18, and is designed for the average 18 year old to operate.

Edited November 26, 2021 by Apocalypse 31

[Ssnake]

Yeah, the individual tank isn't that hard to learn (well, there's always the CV90/35 for you...). But it's the multitude of different systems that, eventually, gets the better of you. Not that they couldn't be learned and mastered. After all, each fire control system has to solve more or less the same problem, getting a ballistic round from a moving platform to another moving platform. But each system has it's own way of doing so, reflecting the different ways that people think about the problem and come to different conclusions. But I don't think that there's anyone who is equally proficient of every single weapon system that is being modelled in SB Pro. You have to make your selection, ideally across time so you can play online in a wide spectrum of games.

[SippyCup]

YouTube success obviously relies on exposure and the size of your target audience (which is dependent on content) but the most crucial factor for longevity is probably personality. It's a high risk thing, and I think a lot of people who try it end up learning a lot about themselves... such as their inability to handle criticism or even positivity. Several YouTuber meltdowns come to mind, just from dealing with the community alone.

 

I'm also a firm believer in not making the thing you truly love your primary income even if it's a success unless you can handle it changing, because it will. It adds many other factors (too obvious to state) and I can think of at least a dozen YouTubers I've been subscribed to who have suffered burnout from this over the years.

 

For me, it is wildlife photography. Here's a tiny sample of my portfolio. It's what I spend the vast majority of my time doing. While I do sell prints regularly, I don't do social media or promote because it's not about money or other people, it's about me doing what I want. I've turned down several pay / exposure "opportunities" (I don't see them as such) and have never regretted it as I've seen where it leads. I much prefer slaving at something I enjoy (but don't love) then sprinting out that door to pursue the things I love on my own time, no strings attached.

 

That said, I don't "love" playing games enough to be put off making money at it. I'd do it in a second! Watch this:

 

"Hi guys! Today's video is sponsored by League of Legends... something something smash that like button and ring the notification bell! Something something (massive overreaction and digital camera shake) now watch me feign excitement for this game I'm tired of playing! I hate this and I hate you, but you keep giving me money!"

 

I don't watch any SB content on YouTube but should have a look at what people are putting out there.

 

[Koen]

1 hour ago, SippyCup said:

…

 

Great pics

and lot’s of foxes where you live ?
 

(and interesting comments all, thx)

[Apocalypse 31]

2 hours ago, SippyCup said:

Here's a tiny sample of my portfolio

Wow. Those are awesome. 

[Lumituisku]

4 hours ago, Apocalypse 31 said:

Not starting yet another Infantry "discussion" here...but once we see some more features for infantry / a playable infantry model then SB is going to grow very rapidly for the PE version...Dare I say, but my opinion is that it's going to blow up.

 

I imagine a SB where you have a single player managing a vehicle and another managing a fire team/squad. And with SB you also have the versatility to lead a Battalion, Company, and all the way down to leading the charge as a Rifle team leader. 

 

SB already has much better in-game performance than ARMA. 

 

ArmA might have better / a more thinking AI but it's also a double edged sword and they literally have a mind of their own/ can be unpredictable - not awesome for scenario design. Whereas SB Ai does what you tell it to do / goes where you tell it to go. 

 

 

The waypoint and force management tools of SB are are the best out there.... definitely beats the hell out of ARMA and DCS. I can set detailed routes (that the AI will actually follow) and not it's uncommon to manage a company or more of units comfortably. Not something you do in ARMA.

 

The map and mission editors are simple and easy to use. Scenario design isnt nearly as complicated as ARMA.

 

Sound / Texture modding is simple. 

 

AAR system. ArmA has none and DCS hardly works. 

 

Most of the people who contact me via my YT channel or Discord are afraid to try SB because they think it's going to be super complicated like DCS. They don't realize that in reality an M1 is NOT an FA-18, and is designed for the average 18 year old to operate.

Chees this reply... Couldn't say it better myself!!! This is what we community members should much more often advertise and highlight to all others It is what makes SB so great and everlasting thing! 

 

Also what really matters is that SB is not about fancy and pretty graphics but what works! This game is made ground up! Like heck quite literally. It feels and looks real if not highly detailed.