Pro Gamer Profile: AverageMatty

What made you get into streaming?

“The January before the pandemic hit I was working at a steakhouse.  I live in LA and I had a buddy down in San Diego, we used to game together a lot, but because of certain circumstances we haven’t been able to game as much.  So I was like, you know what? I kinda want to get into streaming.  I know it’s a hard thing to do…so I ended up just going in and getting a PC, one monitor at first, and a little webcam…and he would be my only viewer for a very long time.  Over the next few months I started to get more and more into it, started getting more people into chat, and it kind of grew from there.  But, it all started with me trying to play games for my buddy, more or less.” He still follows Matty and watches his streams to this day, timing and circumstances permitting of course.

What is your favorite thing about streaming?

“I didn’t realize it at first, but it’s seeing the community that started to grow.  It started with 5 people in chat to 6, 7, 10, then to 15 and 20…it just keeps rising.  This tight knit community…they’re not only here for the stream, but they’re also here for each other.  Building a lovely community is really, really satisfying to see.” (He touches his heart.)  Matty is genuine when he says this.  It’s easy to tell that he’s doing this for the friends he’s made along the way as much, or even more, than he’s doing it for himself.

What is the most important thing when building your community?

“Be very interactive with your chats.  When people come in, even if it’s someone you’ve never seen, or if they come in for a very short time, have a genuine conversation with them.  Remember them.  Remember what they told you last time. Because there are so many times that I see, maybe sometimes…maybe newer streamers, they treat their viewers just as a number.  They don’t get to know them.  If you don’t get to know them they don’t really want to come back.  The more you get to know your chats and the people in your chats, spending time with you, I think the higher chance is that they’re going to want to come back and hang out again.” In one year Matty took his audience from 1 friend to about 3K followers on Twitch with an average of 50-60 viewers per stream.

What is the best piece of equipment you use and why?

“I think about this a lot from time to time because it comes down to what is more important to you.  Is it the camera, the mic.?  The audio, the video?  I think the best piece of equipment I have is probably the mic.”

He pulls up his Shure SM7B.

“Sometimes I check out newer streamers or just regular streamers in general, and sometimes if their audio is scuffed…maybe their voice is too loud, it’s peaking, maybe they’re using a headset that has a mic, or someone else’s audio isn’t balanced, like over Discord…it kind of turns you off of the stream.  The mic and the mixer kind of go hand in hand.”  He talks about the GOXLR and gazes off into the distance as he says, “There’s some effects, you know? You can make yourself echo (echo…echo…echo).”  We both laugh.

What streaming platform do you prefer and why?

“First thing…I know if you’re an affiliate on Twitch you can’t stream on other platforms.  They can actually ban you for it.  More or less I picked Twitch because it was the first platform you could stream on. The Twitch culture is very unique.  There’s a lot of stuff in chat that’s inherent to the culture.  There’s also the gifting that’s a part of Twitch that you don’t really see on other platforms.  Twitch has the best streaming culture, although it’s harder to get discovered on Twitch. I picked Twitch because it was the main one.  The biggest dog.  If anything were to happen to Twitch I’d probably go to YouTube, and then lastly to Facebook…if I was going to rate it.”

How do you pick what game to stream?

“When I first started I streamed Valorant.  [I thought] I’m gonna take off with Valorant like Ninja did with Fortnite!  …but what I didn’t realize was that Valorant is very similar to CS:GO…so a lot of other streamers were already big on Valorant before it even came out.  So, we gotta move on…Overwatch?  The community is kind of on the decline.  I did that a little bit and I decided that wasn’t for me.  Then I remembered I played a lot of Destiny 1 and 2 on console, so I decided to get it on PC.  I was like, okay, let’s try Destiny. The first week I played Destiny the viewership went from 5 to 10.  I was like, ‘wow, people are coming to my chat and they’re very sweet, they’re very welcoming’.  I was like, okay, this is really fun.  I’m having a lot of fun, I’m making friends. Then I was like this is it, this is the game we’re playing.”

“I actually quit Destiny for 2 months and I had a giant dip in my viewership when I went variety.”

Matty eventually came back to Destiny 2 and his viewership went back up.  That’s when he started creating Destiny related content for YouTube.  “As long as you’re putting out content, eventually you’ll figure out what you want to do and eventually the community will like it, and that’s how you figure out what you’re going to go off on.”

“Having TTV in the name (gamertag) helps though…just saying.  It brought in a lot of good, and a lot of bad, into the stream.”

How do you handle negativity in the stream?

“It used to happen when I was smaller.  I used to have people who would creep the stream and then come in and bag a lot.  I don’t really care about getting bagged, to be honest, it was funny.   As long as you have a very lighthearted attitude about stuff, know it’s just a game, know they’re trying to get a rise out of you, it never made me mad.  So they’d come in [to chat] and say, ‘you’re not mad? Wow.  You’re pretty cool.’ I’d be like yeah, how are your games going, man?  You’re here, you’re in my chat, how are your games going?  What’s going on with you? Then we’d start talking and they’d become part of the community.”

Matty takes this approach to people who aren’t the most polite up front.  He interacts with them positively, shows interest in their gaming, makes friends with them.  Then they tend to stick around and be part of the community.  “The difference is that now I have more trolls coming in instead of lighthearted baggers.  I think the most important thing is to stay [positive], because it’s never fun getting angry, especially in front of an audience. You don’t really know each other, so don’t let them get a rise out of you.”

What would you invest in first: Scenery for camera feed (background), stream quality of the game, lighting, or graphic overlays?

“I’d probably say gaming first.  I’ve seen streamers that don’t have a face cam.  You can just have the game quality that would look really, really nice, then I would start doing a face cam with lighting, then eventually get into overlays, then the background.  I have a friend who’s a streamer, T00Hardcore, and he has a webcam overlay, but he doesn’t have a background.  I think my background is a little scuffed, to be honest.”  He points to his couch and his drapes .  “I’d probably say if someone comes into your stream, I think the one thing they’re going to want to see is your gameplay looking clean.  If it’s looking stuttered, they might not stay.”

How much does Instagram help you to grow your stream?

“I’ve had about 5 or 6 people come from Instagram.  I wouldn’t say Instagram is too great at discoverability.  I’d say TikTok is huge for some streamers.  I’ve seen people go from 20 viewers to 100 and get partnered in a couple months, just because of some TikTok videos…which is really, really wild.  I’d say the best discoverability for you as far as growing on Twitch, is YouTube.  If you can grow your YouTube you WILL grow on Twitch.  If you stick to making content that your community will relate to, it will help you grow.”

Tell me about Average Aim

When I ask Matty about AverageAim we both smile and laugh.  You can see he’s proud of it, and he should be.

“So Average Aim is a meme I made to kind of poke fun at Destiny about the cheater problem we’re having.  I think because that video did really well within the Destiny community, more people ended up coming into the stream. I was like, that’s interesting, so I gotta start making more Destiny related content and more people will see it.”

You can apply for sponsorship with AverageAim.  Matty says the idea was to keep the meme alive by having a cheat company openly giving out “sponsorships,” and giving out discount codes.  These sponsorships are meant to invoke a reaction.  Imagine a gamer advertising that they are sponsored by an aim assist cheating company!  Then, when gamers click through to the website, they “become even more flustered,” as Matty puts it.

“I think it’s really important to know that you gotta put 100% into a lot of your ideas and a lot of them will just drop like a sack of potatoes. But if one, kinda takes off, it will help you out tremendously over and over again.  So it’s just like, keep trying really hard at everything until something sticks.”

How long did it take to invest in your overlays?

“I did something that may not be smart for everyone.  It’s funny that I always thought if someone interviewed me or asked me about this, I’d be terrified what to say because what I did WASN’T smart.  When I first started I invested a LOT into the quality of the stream.  My very first overlays were on StreamElements, they have free overlays, and I only used those for the first couple months. Then I went on Fiverr and paid a guy like $300 to make me some static overlays.  Then I went to Harris Heller’s alerts with Pokémon and I used that for a long, long time.  Then I met a guy from Monster Lagoon, and he did a friend’s overlays, they looked great.  He was just starting the company, so he gave me a great deal on the price. So, I said let’s do it.”

“I’m a big believer in trying to make people believe when they come into your stream that you’re not a new streamer.  Which is dangerous advice.  Some people might not be as invested into streaming. They might spend a lot of money on overlays and gear, but when it finally comes time to turn off the stream and start doing edits and creating content, they may not want to do it.  So, months will go by, and they’ll feel like they wasted money.  I think what’s important is when you start streaming, if this is something you think that you want to do, put a lot of effort into getting some nice-looking overlays or learn how to use editing software to make your own.  Coming across as if you’re not new is something I wanted to do right in the beginning…and it kinda did work.”

Tell me about your logo, where did the owl come from?

“When I first needed a logo, I found Travis from Creative Grenade.  He made TimTheTatman’s logo.  Really talented guy.  I messaged him on Twitter.  He was very nice and sent me a message back and said of course, do you have anything in mind?  I said, ‘No.  All I know is that your artwork is amazing and I want something designed by you. We can talk it over.’  During the six weeks at the beginning of the pandemic we went back and forth on ideas like…do you want a mascot?  Do you want a name?  Then we were messaging each other back and forth at like 4 in the morning and he’s like, ‘What animal do you kind of relate to?’ and I joke, well I’m kind of a night owl.  I go to bed at like 4-5 in the morning.  He was like, ‘Cool man, let me play with that.’  We went back and forth a couple of times and I said I just want something simple, not cartoony, just a clean design.  I’m happy I got the owl.  I’ve actually got it right behind me I think.”  He points over his shoulder to the vigilante style owl head on his wall, framed by a string of multicolor LEDs.

Do you prefer to stream on PC or Console?

“I never streamed on console.  I played console before. I was a big Xbox guy, playing with friends.  Once I got on PC I kinda just stuck with MNK (Mouse and Keyboard), and I hate to say it, but I haven’t played Xbox in a long time. I’ve just been very addicted to playing PC.  I think it’s a whole other level of gaming…not to sound like a PC snob!” he jokes.  “I think it’s just a lot more fun, in my opinion, to play competitively.  I think if you’re just sitting back with your friends it’s a lot of fun to play console, but I do miss console a lot, don’t get me wrong.”

What OBS do you run?

“I use StreamElements OBS.   Apparently the difference between StreamElements and StreamLabs (I know sometimes there’s some back and forth [on which is better]), is StreamElements takes a lot less CPU because all of your alerts and everything else are all cloud based.  So when an alert pops up it doesn’t stress out the CPU, vs Streamlabs, I think, they’re all computer based.  So, if have a lot of alerts popping up, not only are you trying to stream, but it’s trying to work out the alerts and the scenes and the animated overlays and everything else.”

Where do you get your music from?

“For the intro for the stream…there’s a website called artlist.io.  It’s a site where they have all this DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) free music that you can download and have a specific license for you.  I use that for YouTube for background music so I don’t get striked or copyrighted.  I use it for the intro to the stream.  As far as in-stream music it gets so complicated because of the DMCA, I know a lot of streamers are feeling it.  There’s StreamBeats, by Harris Heller.  He came out with a lot of really chill background music you could play on stream…the only problem is that everyone was using it.  You’d hear the same song from stream to stream.  I like Josh A, Jake Hill, Aries, they have music on Spotify that’s DMCA free, as far as Twitch, that you can play and it sounds great for that type of genre, and I won’t get striked.  Although, if you get a clip, and you post it on YouTube…you’re still gonna get a copyright [violation] on YouTube, because although it’s free to play on Twitch, you can’t play it on YouTube. I had a video get flagged for a song by Aries. Finding artists that are taking advantage of the DMCA thing and saying, ‘Hey guys, you can play my music on Twitch, don’t worry about it’ is like gold to find.”

PvP or PvE?

“That’s too hard.  My community knows me as PvP cuz I’ve been streaming a lot of Trials and Trials help, but I’m a huge fan of PvE as long as there’s content to play. I love PvE, it’s a lot of fun, but when it comes to streaming I think I have more luck in PvP.”

What’s the longest stream that you’ve ever done?

“Longest stream? Probably around twelve and a half hours.”  I raise my eyebrows at this number.  Four and a half hours is the longest I’ve personally streamed at this point and I remember how sore my butt was by the time I got up. Matty’s determination is impressive.

“I noticed that when I first started to stream I’d stream about 3 hours, then went to 4, then 5 and 6.  I talked to a buddy and we had this weird sort of recipe that if we stream 8-9 hours of just grinding and helping people through Trials and going into the late night, 1 or 2 in the morning, your viewership will increase.  You’re lengthening the time in which people can find you.  Sometimes in the late, late hours, or gremlin hours (as I call them) some people are going to want to watch Destiny and not a lot of people are on.  There’s a higher chance of people coming in.”

So how much work is it actually to be a professional gamer?

“It’s every day.  It’s funny because I actually had someone ask me that not that long ago…how do you grow on Twitch?  How much work are you actually doing? It’s every day.  I stream Monday, Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday. We’re streaming from 4pm to 1 or 2 in the morning (Pacific Time Zone). From 2am to 5am I’m going through clips and everything else.  Downloading clips and editing them for Instagram and Twitter…funny little things that you think wouldn’t take a lot of time, but they do.  Then we have off days like Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday, and I use those days to work on YouTube content.  So, I wake up, have breakfast, kiss my fiancée good morning and I sit right here, and we just start editing or filming content for the YouTube channel.  Brainstorming for other things.  So, basically, for the last year there really hasn’t been an off day.  You have to keep working constantly on how to not only better your stream, you gotta look back weekly at your stats.  I go on TwitchTracker once or twice a month and I see my averages.  I see what clips people like a lot.  I see where there’s dips in the community.  How can I make my stream better for people that come in and enjoy themselves?  How can I make YouTube, Instagram, Twitter better? It’s just constantly working at it, trying to make content to get bigger and bigger.”

Do you have a day job?

“I got really, really lucky.  I worked at a steakhouse in Beverly Hills, before the pandemic happened, for about a year. Which allowed me to save some money as well.  What happened when the pandemic hit, was that I got put on furlough.  So, the restaurant closed down for many months and then they opened it up with a skeleton staff.  So instead of about 30-40 regular servers, it dropped to 2 or 3.  So they haven’t really been calling back a lot of people, so I’ve been sitting on unemployment for about a year.  So I’ve been on furlough this entire time, which has allowed me the opportunity to focus 100% of my time on this.  The plan now is that when they call me back and tell me to come back to work…I won’t have to.”

What is your best advice to someone who is starting out streaming?

“Probably…work very hard.  Work probably harder than you’d ever thought you’d have to work on something like this. Take it a day at a time.  It’s very easy to start streaming and go really hard for 3 months and not see anything happen and then get burnt out and get very frustrated.  Keep it light, work hard, and keep making great content.”

Great advice from a great guy who is setting the example of what a streamer should be.  If you want to watch Matty stream firsthand (trust me, you do) you can go check him out on Twitch.  Watch his YouTube for some funny content.  Follow him on Instagram for sick PvP clips and Destiny 2 news.  Thanks again to Matty for taking the time to chat with me.  One last thing:

Shout out one of your followers that you really appreciate!

“It’s gonna have to be one of my friends that’s watched for a long time.  I mean, I’ve got these amazing mods that I have, that I’m very, very lucky to have…Qrow, MaybeLuxz. But KingEarlz is a really great guy and he helped me get started with this.  Helped me out in the beginning watching all my streams, so, it would have to be him.”