By: Zachary Fingerle
7/16/21
With the way the world has changed in the last few years and especially with the COVID-19 pandemic, a term that has been born is ‘The Creator Economy”. Referring to the various businesses, entrepreneurship opportunities, and innovations in the space of content creation. During the pandemic viewership of streaming (not just gaming content) spiked as it would be expected of people being stuck in their houses.
Although not only did it spike in viewership but also creators. An article from The Verge, speaks on the statistics regarding viewership during the pandemic. They reference StreamElements and Rainmaker.gg for where they received the numbers! Both Twitch and Facebook Gaming are up 80% year over year in hours watched! While this is an incredible milestone that not only helps those platforms but the industry of streaming as a whole! This also paves a new path forward for people who have always wanted to start streaming or were smaller streamers at the beginning of the pandemic. This select group of new streamers and small streamers birthed a new “industry” by enlarging the amount of content to consume regarding the growth and evolution of your channel. Personally the amount of Tik Tok content and creators that are providing tips and tricks to small or growing streamers!
Among this industry is a company called Pipeline, which just raised a $2M seed round for their company that helps content creators turn their passion into a career! Founded by ‘Snoopeh’ a retired League of Legends professional turned content creator and ‘StoneMountain64’ a YouTube creator with over 2M subscribers who wanted to dip his toe into streaming and fell in love! The company focuses on creating and investing in content, tools, and partnership to help the next generation of streamers!
What does this industry mean for the future? We will simply have to wait and see it pan out. Is this an “inflated” creator market where there are too many creators and not enough watchers that stray from the most popular streamers? Will live streaming inevitably die? There are so many questions to be asked about this space as a whole, what is your question?