video game culture

How to Keep the Conversation Going on Your Stream

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As a streamer, your voice and the words you say with it are your most important assets. Every game you could ever play will be covered by thousands of others, but viewers will have to come to you for your particular spin on the action.

Easier said than done, of course. Talking while gaming isn’t a skill that players develop naturally. Add in the fact that you might not be comfortable partaking in conversations in real life, and the thought of carrying the conversation for the duration of a multi-hour stream becomes incredibly daunting.

If you routinely find yourself drawing a blank, here are some pointers for how to keep the conversation going!

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Video Game Characters Who Wear Masks

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During these uncertain times, one of the best things we can do to protect ourselves and others is to wear a mask. There’s no shortage of evidence out there that show how effective they are. I’ve been wearing a mask for months now and I agree with my government’s laws around masks in public spaces.

But don’t just follow my lead. You can be just like these star video game characters who also wear masks!

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From Celeste to Overwatch 2, Let’s Talk About Canada in Video Games

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Late last year as part of the Overwatch 2 reveal, Blizzard showcased a new level based on the city of Toronto. Truthfully, this tidbit of info was more exciting to me than anything else shown that day. As a T-Dot native, seeing the city brought to life in one of the world’s most popular games was a nod that felt incredibly overdue.

Maybe my bias is showing, but Canada has always felt underrepresented in the world of gaming. Even so, Canadian locales and characters have found ways of making an impact on the greater landscape. Ron’t be a hoser and come with me on a tour through Canada in video games!

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It’s been 20+ years since I played Video Games on a PC. Where do I start?

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I still vividly remember the day when my attitude towards PC gaming took a turn for the worst. With a Ziploc bag full of 3.5-inch disks, I placed each one into my computer. Had my computer worked its way through the 20-something disks, I would have played Doom on our family computer that day. Instead, I got prompted by DOS that my hardware didn’t have the power to run the game at all.

Though it wouldn’t be the last time I would attempt to play games on PC, it was the watershed moment that made me realize that I had zero tolerance for the hassle inherent to the platform at the time. I didn’t want to get left behind because I didn’t spend thousands of dollars on a high-end rig. Or fumble through DOS in order to fix some weird quirks in a game’s installation that prevent it from working as intended. Even at the cost of raw power, I don’t regret opting for the convenience of consoles ever since. The last game I remember spending any meaningful time with on PC was Descent in the mid-to-late 90s.

Fast forward to today. I’ve got a neon monolith under my desk. Though I bought it to be a dedicated streaming machine, I get the sense that it has the horsepower to run most modern games. Furthermore, thanks to a broader effort to standardize gaming on PC, it feels like the platform is a bit more plug-and-play than it used to be. Having missed out on decades of PC gaming, where do I start?

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The Experience of Building a Gaming and Streaming PC From Scratch

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Do you like to…do-it-yourself?

With a host of new parts and my old rig sitting on the dining table, I was about to embark on a PC project larger than anything I’d taken on before: build my own PC from the ground up.

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The Art of Repurposing Stream Highlights for Social Media

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Sharing highlights from your stream can be a great way to attract new viewers or keep your existing fanbase engaged with content they might have missed. For a number of my social media followers, they’ve never gone to my stream but regularly engage with my highlights. If that’s the way they want to connect, that’s cool too!

The process could be as simple as taking a snippet from your stream and uploading it to your social media platforms. However, you’re likely to be leaving money on the table if you don’t go the extra mile. Here are a few tips to get the most out of your streaming highlights when you share them on other platforms!

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Watch the Throne! I Got a New DXRacer RW106 Racing Series Gaming Chair!

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My past chair was in a bad spot. After years of faithful service, it broke down. The derriere cushion had worn out, which I tried to augment with a memory foam cushion on top. Then the back of the chair gave out. It hurt to sit, which is not a good thing to experience when I sit at my desk for 50+ hours per week.

For this go-around, I decided to treat myself. Went over to Staples and treated myself to a DXRacer chair. Check it out!

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Catherine: Full Body and Revisiting Old Games

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Originally released in 2011 and remastered for modern consoles in 2019, Catherine: Full Body makes its presence felt on the Nintendo Switch today. It’s an opportunity for new players try one of gaming’s most unique titles while also having a bit of new material for experienced players.

My strong affinity for the game will probably be enough motivation I need to purchase it. However, carving out the time to actually play through it is a much more difficult challenge.

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I Finally Bought a New Streaming and Gaming PC

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“and with that…i think this build is…done?”

After many months of planning, saving, and countless messages exchanged with my PC sherpa fakeghostpiraterobot, I’d arrived at a place I never thought I’d reach. The money was ready. The parts were picked. All I had to do now was go shopping.

A few pickups and deliveries later, I finally was in possession of everything I needed to build a new PC.

“that’s going to be an awesome computer for a long time.”

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