Chapter 9
Chapter 9
This Isn’t Stream Sniping, It’s Viewer Participation
Truthfully, this wasn’t my first time streaming.
Back in the old days, when the shutdown notice for Abyss first appeared.
In other words, three years ago.
I’d streamed regularly for a short period of time.
The reason was obvious.
It was to save the dying game.
If your own house was visibly collapsing little by little, you couldn’t just sit there and watch with your eyes open.
So I streamed.
Though honestly, calling it a “stream” felt a little generous. It was more like a half-finished imitation of one.
Because I didn’t use a webcam.
And I didn’t use a microphone either.
The webcam was because I thought there was no point showing off a face that wasn’t even handsome.
And as for the microphone, the panel on my PC case happened to be broken at the time, so I couldn’t use one.
With an environment like that, there was no way the stream could succeed.
The game itself was a dead game with no new players.
People entered the stream only to see random unfamiliar characters moving around in silence with no voice at all.
It would’ve been stranger if viewers stayed instead of immediately leaving.
A small number of acquaintances from the gallery did remain in the stream like human totems, but ultimately my stream failed miserably without achieving its intended purpose.
And not long after that, the announcement came saying the game itself was shutting down too.
Looking back now, it was honestly ridiculous.
A guy claiming he wanted to save the game running some sort of promotional stream while refusing to use both webcam and microphone.
I should’ve at least turned on the webcam and played the clown.
If stopping the shutdown was the goal, my dignity shouldn’t have mattered.
Though now that things had turned out this way, I was glad I hadn’t done that.
If I had, how would things have changed?
Would my past broadcasts with a male face and voice now also have been rewritten into my current appearance?
There was no way to know.
“Hmm….”
One thing was certain though.
The fact that I’d streamed before hadn’t disappeared entirely.
-Recent streaming: 3 years ago
The streaming site still clearly displayed my old broadcasting history.
“I can just make do with the equipment I used back then for now.”
I still had an old microphone lying around somewhere.
As for the webcam, I didn’t plan on using one yet.
I didn’t want to reveal my face right from the start.
The computer was still a single-PC setup, but it should be enough to stream while running Abyss.
Abyss wasn’t a high-spec game, and its optimization was quite good, so this level of setup would be sufficient.
Which meant—
If I wanted to stream, I could start immediately.
But it was still too early.
There was something else I needed to prepare besides the streaming equipment.
How did one succeed in the streaming industry?
At first glance, it looked like an easy-mode profession.
From the outside, streamers just sat in front of a computer playing games all day—or sometimes not even playing games at all—while earning money comparable to ordinary office workers.
Ignoring all the effort required outside the broadcast itself, it absolutely looked like easy money.
And honestly, once you succeeded, the workload compared to the income really was relatively light.
So then, how did you make people watch your stream?
Three methods immediately came to mind.
The first was becoming a top-ranked player in a popular game.
Back then it would’ve been impossible, but now that Abyss had become a god-tier game, it was realistic.
However, after nearly two days of nonstop grinding, my current rank was only Diamond 4.
Far too low to be called a true ranker.
Honestly, I’d rather start streaming with a Challenger title attached to my name.
But reaching that point would take too long.
And considering how streaming income might not appear for who knew how long, starting even one day earlier was advantageous.
So naturally, this option was rejected.
The second option was making the stream thumbnail more… provocative.
For example, placing certain body parts directly in front of the camera.
A screen overflowing with exposed skin would definitely attract viewers’ attention.
And I did possess mountains large enough to rival those of other female cam streamers, so it was theoretically possible—
No no.
No matter how I thought about it, absolutely not.
That method seemed dangerous for my mental health.
If I ever became truly desperate, completely cornered beyond salvation, then maybe I’d reconsider it.
Finally, there was drawing in part of another streamer’s audience.
Collaborations with major streamers or participating in tournaments with huge audiences fell into this category.
Even receiving a small portion of that trickle-down attention could instantly boost a small streamer upward.
But…
There weren’t any tournaments happening right now.
And even if there were, there was no way someone who hadn’t properly streamed even once yet could participate.
Collaborating with major streamers was the same.
Logically speaking, no streamer would allow some complete stranger onto their broadcast.
At most, I could end up in their games by coincidence.
And if I intentionally stream sniped them, I’d probably end up with a controversy section added to my wiki page.
So stream sniping was absolutely forbidden.
Therefore, did that mean this method was impossible too?
Not exactly.
Because my plan was to appear on a major streamer’s broadcast and gather viewers that way.
And surprisingly enough, among the large streamers currently broadcasting on Twichy, there was exactly one streamer who allowed anyone onto his broadcast without demanding anything in return.
Thinking the timing was right, I opened someone’s stream on my phone.
A short advertisement played in front of me.
‘My current rank is Diamond 4, right?’
His Abyss rank was probably also Diamond 4 around now.
That was enough to satisfy the conditions.
Hm?
Why was rank suddenly important?
Ahh, there’s no need to worry.
I’m not planning to stream snipe him.
This is merely—
-Alright alright, actors please enter. Starting queue now.
A small viewer participation event.
“The actors are really hardworking again today. Look how fast the queue popped.”
[Fr popped in literally one second]
[Actors entering~]
[How do stream snipers even queue this accurately]
[Masquerade on]
[A Truman Show with a 9-to-1 ratio ]
[I wonder if there’s even a single normal player among the actors]
[Of course not]
Streamer Name Taker, real name Jang Geonhee, was fairly famous among Twichy broadcasters.
An Abyss-focused streamer averaging anywhere from three thousand to twenty thousand viewers.
And his main content.
The reason he became famous, the reason so many people watched him.
That was stream sniping.
More specifically, Geonhee getting stream sniped.
That was essentially his signature content.
Ever since long ago, Geonhee—whose rank constantly fluctuated between low Diamond and Master—had attracted an absurd number of stream snipers.
Stream snipers.
People who deliberately queued at the same timing as the streamer in order to get into their games.
Naturally, once stream snipers mixed into the game, normal gameplay became impossible.
After all, they hadn’t joined simply to play fair games together.
One day, after suffering through stream snipers like always, Geonhee suddenly had a thought after finishing a match.
What if he turned this into content?
After all, stream sniping was unavoidable.
And if you couldn’t avoid it, you might as well enjoy it.
The viewers enjoyed watching him get stream sniped too, so he decided to fully embrace the chaos.
Thus, this “filming session” was born.
The weekly “filming sessions” unexpectedly created massive waves on Twichy, bringing him fame and becoming the driving force behind his rise as a streamer.
During filming sessions, even if stream snipers appeared, he never got angry or irritated.
Instead, he subtly encouraged them to come snipe him harder.
He had transformed games with stream snipers into content itself.
Geonhee benefited because it produced entertaining moments.
The viewers benefited because it was fun.
And the stream snipers benefited because they received attention.
In conclusion, a perfect utopia where everyone was happy.
“Same familiar faces as always.”
Those were the words Geonhee muttered after briefly scanning the nicknames once the game started.
The actors appearing in filming sessions never really changed.
A few different people rotated in each game, but the overall lineup remained mostly identical.
Geonhee had been stream sniped so often that he’d reached the point of memorizing the snipers’ nicknames.
But—
“Hm?”
Today, for some reason, there was a completely new face.
-CamillaIsWeak(Camilla)
A nickname he’d never seen before, along with an unusual hero stream snipers almost never played.
The chat immediately noticed the change too and stirred in excitement, while Geonhee muttered in confusion.
“Not an actor… did a normal player get matched in here?”