Alyska has turned live video game streaming into a full-time career, broadcasting herself playing games to a combined 585,000 followers. She values sharing reactions and collective experiences with viewers. Women now comprise around half of game players in the UK, and Alyska challenges assumptions that women only play non-violent, "cosy" titles by enjoying role-playing, action and fantasy-adventure games. She shifted from disliking horror to embracing it because audiences enjoyed watching her react. Her viewers remain predominantly male, with female viewership rising to about 10%. Income comes from subscriptions, ad revenue and partnerships, requiring long streaming hours and multi-platform management.
Such is life as a video game streamer. Known online as Alyska, she has made gaming her full-time career, by broadcasting herself playing games live, to her combined 585,000 followers. The appeal, she says, is "sharing an experience together". "If you've played the game yourself then you want to see someone else's reaction," she tells the BBC's Woman's Hour. Once thought of as a male-dominated pastime, today women make up around half of the game-playing public, according to the UK Games Industry Census.
Alyce says part of her role is challenging perceptions over the types of games women enjoy. Statistics suggest women mostly play puzzle and strategy-style games. These non-violent titles, including life simulators The Sims and Animal Crossing, are often grouped under the label of "cosy gaming". But Alyce says she, like many women, also enjoys role-playing action and fantasy-adventure games. "I used to hate horror games," Alyce explains. "However, my audience loved to see me suffer, so I would play more and more, to the point I actually love them now".
Alyce earns what she describes as a "respectable" wage - even as one of the smaller names in the scene. Not that it's easy work. Gaming may be fun, but the challenge to not only grow, but maintain, an audience is relentless. "I'm always grinding," says Alyce, only recently cutting down from 12-hour days to six-hour streams, alongside morning admin, seven days a week. She needs to juggle multiple accounts streaming on popular platforms like Twitch and YouTube, to make enough income from things like paying subscribers, revenue and partnerships.
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