Twitch streaming is a way to share our experiences online. Local Palm Desert business owner, Dajana Menjivar, co-founder of Conflux Gaming, dives into her thoughts on Twitch streaming, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and her popular gaming tournament held in Rancho Mirage.
Conflux Gaming is visited by many Palm Desert CSUSB students and locals alike. It’s a weekly held in-person tournament where players compete for first place by playing many popular fighting games.
Q: What made you want to Twitch stream?
A: It was something I wanted to do for a while, due to past experiences. Back then, I couldn’t stream because I lacked the time to do so and I did not have the adequate equipment amongst other things, but now I’m excited to say I’m glad to be doing it, and I am enjoying it fully.
Q: What are some challenges towards streaming?
A: Currently, while streaming on my own and on my company’s Twitch channel, “Conflux Gaming,” I would say the common challenges include keeping the energy up, reading chats, and I would also add trying to get hit with a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act). With the current situation on Twitch, sadly any audio from the game or from my soundboard and background music can get me banned. Thankfully, an artist like Harris Heller has an amazing copyright free playlist called “Stream Beats” to use, since even Twitch’s own music can still get DMCA’ed.
Q: How is the business running with the pandemic over our heads and its relation to Twitch?
A: While the abrupt and sudden change of the global market has shifted away from public events to online events, Conflux Gaming adapted with it. Initially, we saw great success in Twitch with fast-growing numbers on an established platform. However, in recent weeks, our faith in Twitch’s platform has diminished greatly. From constant DMCA changes to the admitted incompetence of Twitch’s staff, Conflux Gaming will soon be looking for stronger streaming platforms.
Q: Do you have any future plans?
A: I’m currently focusing on how I can stream on my own channel, first trying out how Twitch will do. If not, I might even try YouTube and Facebook, seeing that they have more protections for the streamer/content creator, and seeing that I will soon be a v-tuber (virtual YouTuber – people with a virtual character), I’ll be more comfortable streaming cause I personally don’t like showing my face due to having anxiety of what people will think of my appearances.
Q: Thoughts on the current climate of Twitch streaming?
A: Well, to be blunt, it’s very upsetting that the Twitch staff feels as if they don’t really care about anyone, even though they showed it with the other top streamers with gifts and such, but everyone else is dropping out like flies due to their ignorance of having a public server that hardly anyone knows about until a Twitch streamer/ Youtuber, “Devin Nash,” brought it up to light, showing that current and banned streamers are on that server with the supposedly “deleted clips/videos” that I believe are scanning all public servers. So, in short, even if you deleted your videos and clips, you will get a strike no matter what. They failed in protecting their content creators/streamers from the time they started and let everyone abuse the copyright content until now; they are just going to up and ban streamers from their streaming service. It does not feel right at all.
Q: Closing and final thoughts?
A: I feel like streaming is the most amazing hobby to get into and not to have high expectations for, unless you are working your butt off to try to make it, but I would suggest looking into Twitch, but don’t get on to be an affiliate status just yet. I would say compare your experiences from other streaming services to see where you want to build your content/community from highly recommend platforms such as Facebook or YouTube to see where it leads to, which I’m soon gonna go try out.
Leave a Reply