Discord reaches a completely different audience than Clubhouse, and its estimated 6.7 million active servers are really starting to move past gaming into other topics of discussion. It launched Discord Stages this spring, and I joined a few important conversations to learn about how video game streamers run their businesses.

It’s important for social audio creators to understand this business, as Twitch streamers (and game streamers in general) pioneered the livestreaming industry and have a lot of information on what brands are looking for.

We covered earlier in the week how popular techtuber MKBHD and his friends at Standard Agency ported their Clubhouse presence to Discord. The $7 billion platform has great integration with both YouTube and Twitch, so streamers can easily port their members and subscribers into tiers to create a personalized back channel.

The company generated $130 million in revenue last year off its 140 million active monthly users and 300 mllion registered accounts. Nearly all this revenue comes from Discord Nitro, the company’s in-game currency and premium subscription service.

I’m more familiar with the writing business than Twitch and YouTube, but I knew I could find the right people on Discord. They’re all the people discussing the topics I could never find genuine conversations about on Clubhouse.

Let’s dive into the discourse on Discord’s Stages this weekend about the streaming business to determine if either Twitter Spaces or Clubhouse can spark a Discord cutter movement.

Let’s Talk Streaming

I still haven’t fully figured out Discord’s Stage scheduling (which is all happening off platform at the moment), so I started my morning digging through all the kids with their talent shows to find the dsicussions from professionals.

That’s when I stumbled on this Stage about the streaming business from IAmBPala, Bird, and JoeyMetalman. Each of them explained how difficult it was to build a following, but they also mentioned how they did everything for the love.

Building a following as a streamer isn’t easy, and not every professional gamer is a competitive esports player. Some simply bring their personalities to a game or dig deep into one specific game that builds a fandom.

With over 10,000 hours under my belt in Smite and World of Warcraft, I’m an OG gamer. But I had to listen to them discuss their streaming businesses to understand how it all works.

They also focus on teamwork, and the entire discussion was being held by creators for Pipeline. Pipeline is a creator community in the streaming world that’s helping creators reach audiences across Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, and more.

Think of Pipeline the same way you do unions like Clubhouse’s Audio Collective, the Creator First class, or an eSports team. It was great getting to know these creators and how they work together for their collective.

Much like on Clubhouse and YouTube, everyone in the Twitch and Discord community refers to themselves as creators. Unlike Clubhouse, they don’t just mean the creators of the rooms nor apps.

In the gaming world – it’s the content creators who are king, but it wasn’t until my next Stage this afternoon that I understood the exact price it pays to be royalty.

Streamer Panel – Come Learn About Content Creation

By far the most informative panel discussion I heard outside of a podcast this week came from this streamer panel. MTGNerdGirl, GarbageAndy, and CovertGo Blue are seasoned streamers in the Magic: The Gathering world.

This is the first trading card game in the world, created in 1993 by Richard Garfield and published by Wizards of the Coast. You’re not going to jump into MTG easily, and I haven’t played the game myself in over 20 years.

However, they were talking the exact number I wanted to know for creators. According to these streamers, you can expect sponsorship interest at around 75-100 concurrent streamers. That means if you can reach that level in Clubhouse, you have something.

They also clarified that their subscribers also mattered. At around 10,000 subscribers, you should be able to put about 100 people. This seems pretty accurate, because Leah Lamarr’s 200,000 followers on Clubhouse pulls about 300-400 concurrent listeners into her Hot on the Mic club.

Listening time (in minutes) matters, and you’ll need a full pitch deck with all your numbers to showcase your full value. For example, 50 people in a one-hour stream are as valuable as 100 people in a 30-minute stream.

This should hopefully give everyone on Clubhouse, Discord, and Twitter Spaces an idea of how to present their streams to brands. Keep in mind that audio streams will likely make less money than video streams, and all six of these creators stressed the same important point in both rooms.

If you’re in this for the money, it’s not as much as you think you’ll get. You need to do affiliate programs, sponsorships, crowdfunding, merch, and ticket sales to survive. This is all discussed in the business of podcasting.

The most important advice they gave was to stay true to yourself, as you can never regain lost audience trust.

Clubhouse Convos on Discord: https://discord.gg/BREn7dVVr9
Clubhouse Convos on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ClubhouseConvos/
Clubhouse Convos Newsletter: https://clubhouseconversations.substack.com/
Clubhouse Convos on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/clubhouseconvos
Clubhouse Convos on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/clubhouseconvos
Clubhouse Convos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC22qD5bH9tPOnWIaxR5k-Ug/join