Everything I'm sharing here is based on my personal experience and perspective. These views are mine alone and do not represent any current, former, or future employers.

My intention and hope in writing this is to offer a more thoughtful perspective than can fit in an unpaid short form post from somebody who has been on nearly all sides of the sponsorship conversation, including the creator side. This post is the culmination of 10 years in the creator space, more than half of it on the industry side.

The post ahead was too long for a single post, so I've split it into two parts. I recommend reading both in order. Part One covers brands and partnerships, while Part Two focuses on improving your sponsorship odds and working with talent agents:

• Part One (read me):

  • Brands – How they come to make decisions, budgets, types of ROI, and how they leverage agencies

  • Types of Partnerships – Tackling the myth that a partnership is only real if you're paid, different types of partnerships, and the benefits of each type

• Part Two: 

  • Improving Sponsorship Odds – Creating brand ready content, building out case studies, content bundling, communications, and some unfortunate realities

  • Talent Agents – What they're for, their goals, why you'd want one, the pitfalls you might experience, and an alternative that might work for some creators

There is surely something you will disagree with in this post and I want to be clear that this represents a singular perspective: mine. And if I could be so bold to offer you some instruction: simply take this post for what it is (my perspective) and leverage it against your own experience, knowledge, and opinions.

I've put up a subscribe with email to read further because I want this information to reach people who are genuinely interested in learning about the business side of creator partnerships. I don't post frequently to this blog and I'm not trying to monetize anything – feel free to unsubscribe after you read. I ask that you do not repost or repackage this content into other formats.

Improving Your Odds of Sponsorship

There are a lot of factors that determine whether or not you're picked for a campaign. There's a saying: "luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity," and the best thing you can do is prepare yourself and your business (content) for when brands go looking for creators. I hope the above context, along with the following insights, helps you make the best decisions for you and your business.

First and foremost, I think many creators don't think of their content creation as a business—and that's fine—but if you're looking to monetize your content and make more money, both from brands and in general, you should consider reframing how you think about it. The first step to building a successful anything is mindset.

With that in mind, let’s dive in.

Building a Brand Strategically

Look, I get it, calling yourself a "brand" can feel gross and corporate when you're just trying to make content you care about. But here's the thing: whether you think of yourself as a brand or not, other people already do. Brands looking for partnerships are evaluating you as a business partner, and the creators who understand this stand out (it shows in how they show up).

Thinking like a business doesn't mean losing your authenticity or turning into some soulless content machine. It means understanding that your content has value, your time has value, and that making strategic decisions about what you create and how you present yourself can open doors. The mindset shift from "I'm just making videos" or “I just play video games” to "I run a content/media business" can be the difference between creators who struggle to monetize and creators who build sustainable income streams.

Your brand is more than just your content, it's what you stand for, what your audience expects from you, and how you show up consistently over time. Are you the person who does deep dives on indie games? The one who's brutally honest about products? The comfort streamer people come to when they've had a shit day? Whatever it is, knowing your lane makes it easier for brands to understand if you're a fit for their campaigns. And more importantly, it makes it easier for you to say no to deals that don't align with who you are.

Consistency doesn't mean doing the exact same thing every day, it means your audience knows what they're getting from you and brands can predict what working with you will look like. 

Keeping Your Brand Channels Clear

If you're building a business around your content, there's real value in keeping your primary channels clear of clutter that distracts from what you do.

I'm not saying you can't share personal opinions or aspects of your life, but there's a difference between occasionally sharing something that resonates with your brand and using your platform as a diary for every thought, drama, or argument. When a brand is evaluating your channel, they're trying to understand what your content is about. If your last 10 posts are a mix of content, subtweets, personal rants, and random hot takes, it muddies the water.

Using your platform for what you believe in is absolutely part of your brand, the only consideration is how you deliver the message. There's a difference between thoughtfully addressing issues that matter to you and rage cussing up at the news. Both are taking a stance, but one feels intentional and the other feels reactive.

Some creators keep a separate personal account for the messy stuff. This isn't about hiding who you are; it's about creating a strong brand. Your channels are your portfolio.

Do all successful creators do this? No. Plenty are messy on main and do fine. But until you reach a critical mass where brands need your audience enough to overlook potential risk, it can be a hindrance. When brands are evaluating 50 creators for 10 spots, they're de-risking every decision. Two creators have similar stats, but one has a clean, focused feed while the other is half content, half drama. Who are they picking?

I'm not saying this is fair or that you should change who you are fundamentally. But if you're serious about getting brand deals, consider whether every impulse post needs to live on your main channels. The choice is yours, but it has consequences for your business. 

And unfortunately, in my experience this impacts those from historically excluded or marginalized groups the most.

Creating Brand-Ready Content

When brands are evaluating whether to work with you, they're asking themselves one question: "Can I picture our product fitting naturally into this person's content?" If they can't easily see where they'd fit, they're moving on to the next creator.

Brand-ready content isn't about selling out or making everything advertiser-friendly to the point of being bland. It's about creating natural entry points for brands to be involved. If you stream on Twitch, are you regularly clipping highlights and posting them? Do you review products even when you're not being paid to? Do you make recommendation videos for games, gear, or experiences? Do you post content hyping up a game you're playing just because you love it? Do you make unboxing videos for products you buy to get in the practice and prime your audience for the content? When a brand looks at your content, they should be able to imagine themselves fitting in somewhere without it feeling forced or completely out of left field for your audience.

Here's what I mean: if your whole channel is you playing games with friends and you never mention products or games by name, a brand can't picture how a sponsorship would work. But if you regularly do "games I've been playing this month" videos or you talk about why you love certain indie titles or you show off your setup, suddenly brands can see exactly where they'd slot in. You've already created the template, they're just filling in the blank with their product instead of whatever you organically talked about. 

Remember, you're competing against ads. Brands are constantly deciding whether to spend money on traditional advertising or influencer marketing. How you talk about products, even when you're not paid, can help or hurt how brands picture working with you. If you're thoughtful in your own way when discussing games or products you love, brands think "okay, they could do that for us too." 

Pro-tip: The best strategy if you stream is to find natural conversation points to bring these topics and clip it. Post those clips to your channels.

Content Types

Not all content is created equal when it comes to sponsorships, and understanding the difference can help you make strategic choices about what you create.

Evergreen content (stuff that stays relevant for months or years) is gold for brands. A video about "best indie games for cozy gaming" from six months ago can still drive value today. Timely content like "reacting to today's drama" might get great views right now, but it has a short shelf life. Most brands prefer evergreen because they're paying for content that continues to work for them long after you've posted it.

VOD (video on demand) content almost always performs better for sponsorships than live content, and I know that's going to sting for a lot of streamers to hear. Here's why: VOD is searchable, it's discoverable months later, and brands can see exactly what they're getting. A YouTube video titled "I tested 10 gaming chairs so you don't have to" will get searched for and watched repeatedly. A live stream where you mention a gaming chair once gets buried in your VOD library and is hard to find. This doesn't mean you can't get sponsored streams, you absolutely can, but understand that VOD content is typically going to command higher rates because the ROI is better.

This is exactly why it's important to build out your content business across platforms: short form, VOD, and live streaming. When you have an audience on multiple platforms, you can leverage each platform's qualities and offer brands different types of packages depending on what they're trying to achieve. If you only exist on one platform, you're limiting the types of deals you can offer.

Priming Your Content to Be Discovered by Brands

Brands aren't finding you the same way your viewers do. They're using massive databases that index a ton of information to narrow down what they're looking for, they can sort by audience size, past games played, hashtags, topics, audience demographics, and more. Your job is to make sure the data these tools are scraping reflects what you do.

Twitch does the best job of indexing gaming-related content, but that's basically it. If you're a variety streamer, make sure you're playing the types of games you'd like to be discovered for playing similar ones. If you want strategy game sponsorships, stream strategy games. If you want cozy game sponsorships, stream cozy games. Twitch's category system works in your favor here, use it intentionally.

For TikTok, YouTube, and other platforms, the difference is that Twitch requires you to index your content by selecting a category, whereas other platforms don't let you neatly label what game your video is about, with the exception of YouTube. For YouTube, always select the game in the video details if it's related to one. For platforms like TikTok where there's no game tagging system, say the name of the game in your post text somewhere. A video titled "this game made me cry" with no game name in the description or caption means brands searching for creators who cover emotional narrative games won't find you. You don't need to be robotic about it, but "this game made me cry [Game Name]" or mentioning it in your caption makes you discoverable.

For non-gaming content, if you talk about products, gear, travel, food, or anything else on stream, create clips and post them to other platforms. Brands aren't watching your six-hour VODs hoping you mentioned their product category. They're searching TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter for creators who talk about what they sell. If you spent 20 minutes on stream talking about your favorite keyboards, clip that, post it, and make sure "mechanical keyboard" or "gaming keyboard" is somewhere in the text.

Talk about the things you want to be sponsored by, not just specific companies, but product types. If you want audio sponsorships, talk about microphones, headphones, and audio interfaces. If you want food and beverage sponsorships, talk about your coffee setup or the snacks you're eating. Brands are searching for creators who already create content in their category because it means a sponsorship will feel natural to your audience.

Building Out ROI Proof

Here's the hard truth: brands care about your numbers more than they care about how great your content is. I know, I know, "creators are more than their numbers", but when a brand is deciding where to spend their budget, they need proof that working with you will deliver results. Your job is to make that case as easy as possible.

The good news is you can build proof of your value even if you've never had a sponsorship. You just need to get creative about demonstrating that you can move your audience to take action.

Building Proof Without Sponsorships

Charity streams are one of the easier ways to showcase you can move your audience to action, but most creators don't track any data. Create a Bitly link for your charity donation link and track how many unique viewers you had that stream, how many unique link clicks you got, and how many unique donators contributed. That alone gives you an opportunity to showcase CTR (click-through rate) and conversions. This is real data brands care about.

Playing a new game on stream? Create a Bitly link and track how many unique viewers watched that stream compared to how many unique link clicks you got while actively promoting the game. Use a chat command like !game or set up a timed message so people know where to go (Steam, Epic Game Store etc). Now you've got CTR data for a game recommendation, which is exactly what game studios want to see.

You can do the same with a single short form content post. Create a new Bitly for a game, post a clip of you recommending it, and encourage people to click your link. That's more CTR data. Also track how well that content performed after 30 days because brands want to know if your content has legs or if it dies after the first 48 hours.

To prove that content syndicated across all of your channels performs well and that brands should buy a content bundle, promote the same Bitly link across your stream, YouTube, short form, and posts. Track each post's performance individually and calculate your final CTR across all platforms combined. This shows brands what they could get when they invest in a multi-platform package from you.

Steam Next Fests are an excellent opportunity to build out data and potentially do your own outreach to developers to pitch them.

Are you doing a Steam Next Fest stream or YouTube video? Create a unique Bitly link for each game you play. Promote the links while you're playing on stream and include them in your YouTube video description. This gives you individual performance data for each game instead of one generic link that doesn't tell you anything useful.

After the stream and YouTube video have been up for a bit, reach out to the developers. Share the number of clicks you got, share any excitement you saw from your community about the game (screenshot comments, chat reactions, whatever you've got), and say that you'd love to find a way to partner together. Don’t immediately just offer your rates, start a conversation with the developer.

Understand that a lot of the devs you'll be emailing are indies, so think about how you might build out indie packages or if you'd be open to something more unique like a developer interview, a giveaway, or an ongoing series as the game develops. Some of these relationships won't turn into paid deals immediately, but they can turn into long-term partnerships as the developer's budget grows. Plus, you're building your portfolio of case studies either way.

For products you've bought but love, make an unboxing or recommendation video, use a Bitly link, and encourage people to click it. Track the content performance after 30 days. Same process, same valuable data.

The goal is to understand how good you are at moving your audience to action and save all of that information. Create a spreadsheet where you track every time you do this. Get an average CTR for your audience based on platform (or if you syndicate the link across all platforms, track that too). Include other data like views and engagement rate.

This type of information is something nearly no creators, even with talent agents, are try to provide. And if you do sign a contract for a sponsorship deal, always include in the contract that you want relevant data for yourself to understand how well the campaign performed. Not all brands will volunteer this, but if it's in the contract, they have to share it. That data becomes your next case study.

PS: Don’t tell your community in private to help you over inflate your numbers, honesty is the best policy in proving your ROI.

Track Your Performance in a Spreadsheet

If you're not tracking your performance in a spreadsheet, start now. You don't need anything fancy, just something that captures the basics.

For every piece of content where you're testing your ability to drive action, track: date, platform, content type (stream, video, TikTok, etc.), unique viewers/views, Bitly link clicks, CTR percentage, conversions if applicable (purchases, donations, wishlists), and engagement rate. If you did this for sponsored content, also track the deliverables, rate, and any overperformance.

Over time, you'll be able to say things like "my average CTR on Twitch is 8% when I recommend games" or "my YouTube videos average a 12% CTR with an average of 50K views over 30 days." That's the kind of data that makes brands sit up and pay attention because most creators can't, don’t, or won’t provide it.

Media Kits

Media kits are a nice thing to post on social media and a brand might see it, but they're usually missing the best data. Most media kits just show your follower counts, platforms, and maybe some logos of brands you've worked with. The problem is brands can already find your follower counts and platform stats through the discovery tools they're using, and logos don't tell them much about what working with you actually accomplished. The logos of brands you've worked with in the past aren't as helpful as showcasing the sponsored content with content and results.

The other issue with traditional media kits is the format. A static PDF isn't easy for brands to pull information from when they're working in spreadsheets and tech tools to build the internal case for why they should work with you. My recommendation is to use your media kit more as a simple introduction, but consider sharing the data that brands are most interested in. 

If you want to stand out: share your engagement rate, your average CTR, and impact data. If you've worked with game developers, Steam now has more real-time data available, so you can work with devs to understand how you impacted their wishlists. After working with 5 or 6 developers on wishlist campaigns, you might be able to say "I help devs grow their wishlists by an average of 500." That's specific, outcome-based data that most creators aren't providing.

Consider creating a free Google Site to showcase your case studies. When you email a brand, you can link them to your case studies site. If you do this, each case study needs the content embedded, summary of the results, and a short blurb about the goals of the campaigns. Marketing agencies do this when they pitch brands, and there's no reason you can't do the same. It's more work upfront but having a live site you can update with new case studies is more useful in the long run.

Pricing

Pricing is one of the most asked questions in the creator space and unfortunately there's no magic formula. What I can tell you is that pricing is part art, part science, and part "what can the market bear."

Industry Standards

Before we can talk about industry standards, let's define some terms you'll see thrown around:

Cost Per Viewer Hour (CPVH) – This is commonly used for Twitch streamers and calculates the rate based on how many hours your viewers watched. For example, if you streamed for 4 hours with an average of 100 concurrent viewers, that's 400 viewer hours. If you're charging $1 CPVH, that stream would cost $400.

CPM (Cost Per Mille) – Cost per thousand impressions or views. If your video gets 50,000 views and the brand is paying a $25 CPM, that's $1,250. This is common for YouTube and short form content pricing.

CPA (Cost Per Action/Acquisition) – You get paid when someone takes a specific action like making a purchase, signing up, or downloading something. This is performance-based, not a flat fee.

CPC (Cost Per Click) – You get paid for each click on a link. Similar to CPA but the action required is just clicking, not converting.

Flat Rate (or cost per content deliverable) – A set fee for the deliverable regardless of historical performance or upcoming performance. This is the most common structure for sponsored content deals.

A lot of people like to say that the industry standard for live streams is $1-2 per viewer hour, but in reality it ranges from $0.50 to $3. It also isn't a hard and fast rule because (one) you might consider indie rates or seasonal rates and (two) the brand may need to hit a specific metric . And remember how I said I'd come back to knowing most budgets are locked up in launch? You can do multi-beat contracts for the demo, some social posts, and bundle it with launch (though keep in mind you might not get paid until the final deliverable is done, so negotiate 50% now and 50% later).

For YouTube it really depends on the niche, but brands usually want to aim for somewhere around $25-50 CPM. You can always push that up if your engagement rate is way above average or you have past campaigns that show you can do really well for a brand.

Short form content often has much lower CPMs because the conversion rate from viewing content to action is lower (unless you can prove otherwise).

A creator with 50K subscribers who gets 100K views per video is going to command different rates than a creator with 500K subscribers who gets 20K views per video. Engagement matters. How well your audience converts matters.

Want to get better at pricing your content to brands? Start with $1.50 CPVH and $35 CPM and see how brands react. Keep a spreadsheet and track the deals you close, deals you turn away, and deals that were negotiated up or down. This will help you build real data points around your pricing. Make sure to track the dates and deliverables.

Content Bundles and Package Deals

Bundling content makes sense for everyone involved. Brands get more touchpoints with your audience at a better overall rate, and you get a bigger check for work that often has overlapping effort.

Remember earlier when we talked about evergreen VOD content having better long-term ROI for brands? This is where that knowledge becomes useful for pricing. If you're primarily a streamer, bundling your stream with clips or highlights posted to YouTube can help you close deals because you're offering brands that evergreen searchable content they're looking for alongside the live community engagement.

A bundle might look like: 1 sponsored stream + 1 highlight clips posted syndicated across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts + a social post from the stream for $X instead of pricing each piece individually. The bundle rate should be less than buying everything à la carte (maybe 15-20% discount), but you're making more overall and the brand feels like they got a deal.

Remember how I said earlier that most game studio budgets are tied up for the launch? You can leverage that knowledge by offering a multi-beat package that includes coverage during demo phase (at a lower rate since there's often no budget there), social posts leading up to launch, and then a dedicated stream or video at launch when they have budget unlocked. I recommend structure the payment as 50% upfront and 50% on completion of final deliverables so you're not waiting months to get paid.

Create packages that are easy to say yes to. Give them names if it helps you—"The Indie Package" includes X, Y, Z deliverables focused on reach and costs $X. "The Wishlist Package" includes different deliverables focused on driving action and costs $Y. When brands can just pick a package instead of negotiating every detail, deals close faster.

Pro-tip: Stream teams or close groups of friends can also offer group rates for content to help close a deal.

The key is understanding what brands want (evergreen content, proof of ROI, multi-platform reach) and structuring your bundles to deliver that while making it worth your time.

Price Per Client

This is tricky and I have no hard and fast rules to give you a clear roadmap, but the thing to remember is being flexible lets you earn more money over time. Not all clients can pay the same rates, and understanding this can help you make decisions about what work you take. Please do not fall for the people on the internet telling you to ghost brands, be rude, or to just send your rates and no conversation. That is not how you build relationships.

Remember that not all agencies were given a big budget (I promise, lol). Sometimes big brands have their teams do influencer stuff without dedicated budgets, and sometimes there is a lot of budget to spend. The reality is you often can't tell just by looking at who's reaching out.

The key is to be flexible, build relationships (because people move around in this industry), and never be afraid to negotiate. 

Hint: Talent agents do this.

Communication

How you communicate can be the difference between getting deals or being remembered poorly. Responsiveness and professionalism matter but remember you’re building relationships. You want to be remembered the next time that person works on a campaign. 

Responding To Outreach

You don't need to respond to brand emails within an hour, but you should respond within 24-48 hours if you're interested. Brands are often working on tight timelines and if you take a week to respond, they might have already moved on to someone else.

This is your first professional touchpoint. How you respond sets the tone for the entire potential partnership. Respond in complete sentences with complete thoughts. Don't just fire back "My rates are $X" with nothing else—that's not a conversation, it's a transaction, and it makes you look either inexperienced or difficult to work with. 

Be ready to engage in a conversation and potentially a negotiation. What brands care about in your replies: that you read their email (don't ask questions they already answered), that you're interested and professional, that you can clearly communicate your rates and what they get for that rate, and that you're willing to discuss details.

If the brand isn't a fit, say so. Don't leave people on read. A simple "Thanks for thinking of me, but this brand/product isn't a fit for my audience" or "These deliverable asks don't align with what I'm currently offering" or "I'm not taking on new deals right now, but I appreciate you reaching out" goes a long way. I still remember creators who took the time to respond with a thoughtful no, it left a good impression and I thought of them for future opportunities that were better fits.

Ask questions, especially with game developers and smaller companies. If you're getting an email from a game studio or indie developer, don't just send your rates and wait. Ask about their budget, their timeline, what success looks like for them. If they don't have budget now, ask if they'll have budget in the future or if there are other ways to work together. Some of the best long-term partnerships start with "we don't have budget right now, but here's what we're planning for Q3." Being collaborative and curious makes you memorable.

Cold Pitching Brands

Cold pitching can work, but it's not about mass emailing brands asking if they want to sponsor you. It's about finding the right person at the company and reaching out to build a relationship.

Finding the right contact matters. You can use sales cold outreach tools to find people's emails at companies. There are plenty of free trial options that'll help you track down emails for marketing managers, community leads, or whoever runs influencer campaigns. Look for titles like Marketing Manager, Community Manager, Influencer Marketing Lead, or Brand Partnerships. Sometimes smaller companies don't have dedicated roles, so you might be reaching out to a founder or a general marketing email.

What to include in a cold email:

• Who you are (briefly)

• Why you're reaching out to them specifically

• What you're proposing (content deliverables or ideas)

• What value you'd bring to them (with numbers if possible)

• A link to your media kit and case studies (if you have them)

• A clear call to action

Understand that sometimes there isn't an active campaign or budget right now. That doesn't mean the outreach was pointless. If a brand responds with "we don't have budget at the moment" or "we're not running campaigns right now," ask if they'd be willing to send product for coverage and to keep you in mind for future paid opportunities. Getting product in your hands gives you something to create content around now, and staying on their radar means you might be top of mind when the budget does open up.

Unfortunate Realities

I wish I could tell you that if you just make great content and work hard, the brand deals will come. That's partially true, but there are some structural realities that are going to affect your opportunities regardless of how good your content is.

Macro-Economics and Seasonal Timing 

Marketing budgets are tied to the economy, and when the economy is struggling, marketing is one of the first things companies cut. If we're in a recession or companies are tightening their belts, there are fewer brand deals for everyone.

Q4 (October-December) is typically feast time because brands are spending the rest of their annual budgets and pushing for holiday campaigns. Q1 (January-March) is typically famine because budgets reset and companies are being conservative with spending until they see how the year is shaping up. Knowing this won't change it, but you can change how you price your content based on the season.

Why Brands and Agencies Default to the Same Creators

Brands and agencies work with the same creators over and over because it's lower risk (and less work). They already know what that creator's audience looks like, they know the creator will deliver on time, they know the content quality will be good, and they know the creator won't say something wild that gets the brand in trouble.

Breaking into that rotation is hard because you're asking brands to take a chance on an unknown. This is why case studies and proof matter so much—you're reducing the perceived risk of working with you.

Relationships compound over time. A creator who's done five successful campaigns with an agency is going to get thought of first when that agency has a new client with a similar campaign. It's not fair, but it's human nature. The good news is that once you're in, it gets easier to get more work. The first deal is always the hardest to land.

Why Brands and Agencies Typically Go For Larger Creators

Larger creators get more opportunities because the math is simple: if a brand has $20,000 to spend, they can either hire 20 micro-creators at $1,000 each or 2 larger creators at $10,000 each. The second option is way less work to manage and they're hitting their goals faster.

Discovery Tools

Brands are using influencer discovery platforms (SaaS, 🥲) to find creators. These tools scrape public data and use algorithms to match creators with campaigns based on keywords, demographics, and performance metrics.

The problem is these tools are only as good as the data they can access and the parameters brands set. If your content isn't properly tagged, titled, and described, these tools might not surface you even if you'd be perfect for a campaign. 

Talent Agents: Wards of Sponsorship Dollars (maybe)

Do you need a talent agent to make money as a creator? No. Can they make it easier for you? Yes. In fact, in the first section I've already shown how they might make it easier for you.

Before we go any further, here's the most important thing to understand: talent agents are a service to you and they are paid based on how well they perform this service for you (get and close deals).. You should still be driving the car. They work for you, not the other way around. If you're handing over complete control of your business decisions to someone else, you're setting yourself up for problems.

The core goal of a talent agent is to negotiate the highest possible rate for any deal that comes through the door. That's it. That's what they're optimized for because they get paid on the deals they close.

There are a few reasons why you might want a talent agent:

• You're getting a lot of inbound offers and you'd prefer someone else handle negotiations, contract review, and deliverable tracking

• You want an agent to actively pitch you to brands because your content is brand ready

• The agency represents top tier talent and you'd like to be considered alongside them when brands come looking

And honestly, that's really it. (Again, in my opinion)

In the gaming creator space, a lot of creators conflate agents with managers and they're not the same thing. A manager should be invested in your long term success, not just deal by deal campaigns. They'll help you analyze your content, spot trends, give you feedback, and look for opportunities to expand your brand. They should bring real value and help you grow your whole business, not just manage your inbox. Creators of a certain size probably need both an agent and a manager.

I'm not anti-talent agency. There are agents I really like working with because we can have frank conversations and work out deals where everyone wins. This is one reason some brands prefer working with talent that has agents. I've gotten on calls with agents and been honest in ways I wouldn't be with a creator directly because I don't have to worry about it ending up as content later. I know it's considered pro-creator to "out" brands on social channels, but one unintended side effect is that brands are more cautious about what they share, even when their intentions are good.

So it sounds great, right? Someone whose whole job is to bring you money? Well, yes, but since that's their only job, it can sometimes work against you.

Talent Bundle Requirements

Some talent agencies require brands to book a minimum number of creators for any deal or pay a premium to work with just the one they want. I've always wondered, do creators agree to pass on money if other creators at the agency aren't also picked? I have no idea, but it's always felt like the creator who was the right fit gets screwed because the brand doesn't want to book additional creators they don't need. This likely negatively impacts women and historically marginalized groups the most. 

Note: Talent bundling often works in your favor when it's optional and the brand can decide if they'd like to go that route. I'm specifically talking about agencies that require it as a condition of working with the creator the brand wants.

Having a Roster TOO Big to Effectively Represent

In an ideal world you want your talent agent to have a good grasp on your goals, types of things you'll do for money, your creative hopes (with brands), and who you don't want to work with. If a talent agent or company's roster is massive, they're not digging into you and your content in a way that really helps sell you to brands. And the last thing you want is to be a line item on a massive spreadsheet that the agent shares with the brand and no notes on who's the best fit for an activation.

Free Stuff Getting Missed 

Some talent agencies delete free stuff that comes your way that you might be interested in. If the only email brands can reach you at is managed by your agent and the only thing that matters to them is paid deals (that’s how they get paid), you're probably missing opportunities to build relationships that could lead to paid collaborations later. Some creators specifically ask their agents to filter this stuff out and that's fine, but I know from experience that things don't always make it to creators even when they might want to see them.

You're probably wondering why influencer marketing managers don't talk more openly about their experiences with talent agencies. The reality is that people move jobs all the time and relationships are the most important thing for success in this field.

There are incredible talent agencies out there, but they're not all great. The best way to protect yourself is to seek transparency and review your inbox regularly. Ask for a regular report that shows how many deals came in, the rates offered, free products or game keys, and how many closed or were passed on. You should see the whole picture of what's coming your way and what you're turning down.

You Really Only Need Inbox Management 

If what you're looking for is just inbox management, consider hiring a virtual assistant for a few hours a week to organize your inbox, draft email responses, and help you track deliverables. It'll cost you less and you'll maintain full control over your business decisions.

Thank You

If you made it all the way through, thank you. I know this was long. This has been on my mind for a while and I hope it helps you have a deeper understanding of the industry and how to navigate it for your own business.

Everything I'm sharing here is based on my personal experience and perspective. These views are mine alone and do not represent any current, former, or future employers.

My intention and hope in writing this is to offer a more thoughtful perspective than can fit in an unpaid short form post from somebody who has been on nearly all sides of the sponsorship conversation, including the creator side. This post is the culmination of 10 years in the creator space, more than half of it on the industry side.

The post ahead was too long for a single post (over 10,000 words), so I've split it into two parts. I recommend reading both in order. Part One covers brands and partnerships, while Part Two focuses on improving your sponsorship odds and working with talent agents:

• Part One:

  • Brands – How they come to make decisions, budgets, types of ROI, and how they leverage agencies

  • Types of Partnerships – Tackling the myth that a partnership is only real if you're paid, different types of partnerships, and the benefits of each type

• Part Two: 

  • Improving Sponsorship Odds – Creating brand ready content, building out case studies, content bundling, communications, and some unfortunate realities

  • Talent Agents – What they're for, their goals, why you'd want one, the pitfalls you might experience, and an alternative that might work for some creators

There is surely something you will disagree with in this post and I want to be clear that this represents a singular perspective: mine. And if I could be so bold to offer you some instruction: simply take this post for what it is (my perspective) and leverage it against your own experience, knowledge, and opinions.

I've put up a subscribe with email to read further because I want this information to reach people who are genuinely interested in learning about the business side of creator partnerships. I don't post frequently to this blog and I'm not trying to monetize anything – feel free to unsubscribe after you read. I ask that you do not repost or repackage this content into other formats.

Note: All examples are made up and are fictional, but are representative of many instances over the years.

Big Bad Brands

They're just out here to screw you over and get you to do free work—well no, but kinda yes. Every marketing department is told to do as much as they possibly can to hit outrageous goals with as little budget as possible. Marketing has gone through a bit of a reckoning with an overreliance on Big Data to make decisions that caused a shift from storytelling to performance-driven marketing tactics. I have faith that non-marketers will come back around to understanding that marketing is both science and art, realizing that it cannot be distilled down to singular performance-driven tactics. Nike already has, they were a powerhouse of marketing for years, the platonic ideal of a marketing team. They hired a CMO that was all about Big Data and their sales went down... they're making a u-turn back to storytelling but it'll be a while before they recover (you can learn more on the interwebs, smarter folks than I have analyzed it). Though, much to my and others' chagrin, marketing is still likely to continue to have to fight for a seat at the table earlier in planning to achieve success.

Unfortunately for creators, most influencer marketing is all about Big Data. This means all of the conversations about "creators are more than their numbers" are hurting you because at the end of the day it is all about the numbers and ROI. Even if the person you're working with on the brand or agency side thinks you are a perfect fit and your content would go well with the campaign, if the numbers don't work they won't be able to move forward in partnering with you. We'll come back to this in more depth shortly.

Budget Decisions

When a brand (e.g., consumer product, game studio, etc.) decides they'd like to do an influencer marketing campaign (organic or paid), they're looking at the importance of that particular moment, the overall budget they have for the year, and the targets they need to hit. To keep it simple and most relevant to the audience I believe will be reading this, let's use games.

A game has many beats over the course of the campaign (hopefully, lol) leading up to launch and a fixed limited budget. A lot of truly independent (no publishers or investors) game studios with small teams are run on limited budgets (unless they've had a breakout success before) and set aside as little as $5,000-$10,000 total for all of their marketing. These games rely heavily on organic influencer marketing, creators covering their game because they want to or they find it interesting, not because they're paid to. Some of these studios may decide that if they can get one unicorn of an influencer that is good at moving their audience (a few large creators get cited A LOT) that it will be enough to drive success.

What about game studios with publishers? There are a lot of different models for how publishers support games, including doing the marketing for them in-house, but for the sake of this post let's focus on publishers who let the game studio handle their own marketing and instead give them a budget. That budget is often unlocked over time and connected to specific milestones that the studio has to hit. This means when they launch a game demo it is very likely there is no budget tied to that marketing beat, which is why you get a lot of emails asking you to check out the demo with your community. It's a milestone where they can collect feedback and get market validation. If the demo doesn't perform as well as the publisher expects it to, it can impact how much more investment (budget) the publisher puts into that game.

Not to mention the most important marketing moment for many game studios is launch, and so many (if not most) spend most of their budgets around launch because that's the only time they'll be able to start recouping some of their expenses and making money. In the section on improving your odds of sponsorship, I'll explain later on how you might leverage this knowledge into being sponsored.

So when it comes to deciding when to lean into influencer marketing and when to spend budget, it's often tied to a lot more complicated metrics unrelated to you, and the idea that if a game studio really wanted to work with you they'd be able to unlock more budget is narrowly true in some cases. Most of the time there is a set amount of budget for marketing for the whole year and every dollar spent in one place is a dollar not spent in another.

For non-gaming brands, it depends on if the product is a high margin product (low cost to make and sell), whether it's considered "upscale" or luxury, if the brand has a notable reputation (i.e., they're highly desired), and where in the marketing cycle that product is at.

Budget Allocation and ROI

Now that you've got a high-level understanding of how decisions are made, let's dive into budget allocation and ROI. When an influencer marketing budget is set aside it usually comes with a set of goals. To illustrate the point, here are two fictional influencer campaign overviews that might exist for a game's marketing beat:

Example Campaign Overview One 

• Budget: $20,000 

• Number of influencers: 25 

• Minimum of two with the following languages: English, Spanish, German, French 

• Minimum CCV or Avg Views: 100 CCV or 1,000 views

Example Campaign Overview Two 

• Budget: $20,000 

• Views/Impressions: 2 Million across Twitch, TikTok, YouTube 

• Minimum of two with the following languages: English, Spanish, German, French

What is the target goal they're explicitly tracking based on those campaign overviews?

• Campaign One: Number of influencers with a minimum viewership

• Campaign Two: Total number of views/impressions

While those are clear goals they're trying to reach for those campaigns, what KPIs (key performance indicators) will they use to determine if they will get an ROI (return on investment)?

• Number of clicks to store page

• Number of wishlists

• Number of purchases

• New players

• New demo downloads

What's a good number for each of those KPIs based on the budget? Well that's a little bit of a complex answer because you also need to take into consideration the TAM (total addressable market) aka how wide of an appeal the game has.

• Is it free to play?

• What platforms is it on?

• Is the game fast-paced and/or shooting?

• Can it be played with friends?

• Does it require more than one person to play the game?

• What does the game look like?

• What genre or genres is it hitting?

With a well-optimized ad on the right platform you could be able to get the cost per wishlist down to 25 cents. That's what you are ultimately competing against when we're discussing ROI, optimized ads. If the same amount of money could be spent in other places, would it perform better or worse? Don't worry, I don't think we should throw influencer marketing out with the baby and bath water, we'll talk about how to prove you have ROI down below.

Breaking Up the Budget

Now that you have all of that context for those two campaigns, how would you break up that budget? How would you determine what to pay each creator? How would you decide on an upper limit for a single creator? All of those are great questions and have many different answers that all start with "it depends," so instead I'm going to outline a few possible scenarios.

Scenario One 

Given that creators are notorious about responding to emails timely and being communicative enough, that means you have to research MORE creators than you need and email them all because you know not everyone will say yes, read your email, or even respond. So you email 100 creators in hope of locking in the number of creators you need to hit your goals within the budget and you ask them what their rates are and you begin the fun game of budget tetris in spreadsheets.

Scenario Two 

Talent Agency A has a good amount of creators who could be a fit for the campaign so you reach out, share a campaign brief, and ask Talent Agency A to suggest the creators they think would be a great fit, within budget, and would help you reach your goals.

Scenario Three 

Brand hires an agency, either a talent agency with a brand marketing entity or a brand-only influencer marketing firm. The same budget is available but now the agency needs to be paid for their work, so the brand can decide to pay the agency fee on top of the spend or they may say that's the whole budget and your fee needs to come out of the total budget. And then the agency they've hired goes back to consider scenario one or two.

Now to be fair, influencer marketing budgets range and are sometimes higher for some brands and games, but those Barbenheimer budgets are not as plentiful as you might think. I'm using Barbenheimer as an example to pick on because I saw the perfect tweet from a marketer when it happened: "Was their marketing plan amazing or did they just have a massive budget?" I know, I know... a big budget and a bad marketing plan is still a bad marketing plan, but the best marketing plans are hindered by their budgets (or lack thereof).

Pro-tip: The best ROI comes from evergreen searchable VOD content (long or short form).

Why Brands Work with Agencies

Once a brand has set aside a budget they're likely to engage a marketing agency, even if they have an in-house individual who manages their influencer programs, and the reason for this is because influencer marketing takes A LOT of time. When you engage an agency they usually have a dedicated team for your account, existing relationships, understand success metrics and systems in their workflow to reduce time where it's possible. As well as, they're doing this work every day—they're watching trends, looking at new creators on the rise, and also know which creators might have a brand risk. Honestly, it's deep internet culture shit.

The amount of time influencer marketing takes is also why you are getting emails that are relevant to you but not uniquely written specifically for you. If you email 100 creators you have to set parameters, research potential creators, look at each individual channel for brand risk, fit, etc., narrow it down to 100, and then you have to email them. Before you even get to writing an email you might spend hours even with tools, and that's because tools only get you so far before a human review is needed.

Some tools try to help with this by using AI to determine something that happened recently in your content, which is why you'll get "I loved when xyz-thing happened during your stream" and it's only partially accurate. I prefer to go the route of sharing how I selected creators. For example, I might include a line in my email that says, "We looked for creators who have played x, y, and z and have not played a."

I don't have a strong opinion on if a brand decides to manage in-house or leverage an agency. I've done campaigns in-house and have worked at an agency—in the spirit of transparency I'm at an agency now.

MYTH: A brand working with an agency has a big budget.

REALITY: Agencies also have to work with the budgets they're given and often take work below their standard rates because not every client is going to have the budget or be in a market where their currency goes further.

Ultimately the brand should do what works best for them to achieve the results they're looking for, but from my perspective a creator getting a deal through a marketing agency creates an opportunity to build a relationship with an agency that does deals all the time, and might remember you for future deals.

So ultimately, yes, brands (and their agencies) are trying to do everything they can to meet their goals within budget, but no they aren't specifically looking to take advantage of anybody. In fact, most influencer marketing managers I know feel the best about their work when it's a win-win situation.

Types of Partnerships

A common rhetoric on social media is that the only type of partnership is the one where you’re paid – I would counter that if that is the only consideration then that is just contract work. Now to be fair, most influencer marketing campaigns are simple contract work with very straight forward deliverables with very little collaboration for a fee. However, that is not the only type of partnership that exists and you can leverage different types of partnerships to build your portfolio and business.

Gift in kind or product 

What it is: A brand sends you their product for free in exchange for coverage, whether that's a post, review, or mention. This includes game keys, unboxing kits, and customized items just for you.

Why you might benefit from participating: If you're just starting out, this gets products in your hands to create content around without upfront costs and it helps build your portfolio. It's also useful when you genuinely want to try something and share your honest take with your audience without the pressure of a paid contract.

Red flags: Brands expecting extensive deliverables for just products. If they want multiple posts, stories, reels, and full production value for a $30 item or even an item that’s more expensive that’s not a fair collaboration. Also watch for brands that get pushy about what you say or demand approval rights like you're being paid.

Content for Experiences

What it is: Instead of monetary payment, a brand provides you with an experience – a trip, event access, a meal at a restaurant, tickets to something, a spa day – in exchange for content coverage. The experience itself is the compensation.

Why you might benefit from participating: If it's something you'd genuinely want to do and it aligns with your content, you're getting real value while creating authentic material for your audience. It can open doors to experiences you couldn't access otherwise or wouldn't prioritize spending money on. When the experience is substantial and relevant to your niche, the content practically creates itself and feels natural rather than forced. And not to mention, exclusive experience content performs well. 

Red flags: Brands that expect extensive deliverables for a mediocre experience that's not worth your time. Companies that oversell what they're offering – promising luxury but delivering basic. Experiences that come with a lot of strenuous strings attached(specific posting schedules, excessive approval processes, mandatory talking points). And watch for situations where you're expected to cover your own travel, lodging, or other costs to access the "free" experience.

Affiliate  

What it is: You share a unique link or code, and you earn a commission when someone makes a purchase through it. Payment is performance-based, not upfront. 

Why you might benefit from participating: This works well for products you already use and recommend. There's potential for passive income if you're talking about these products anyway, and it can be more lucrative than flat-fee posts if your audience converts well. It is also good practice in learning how to convert your audience which helps you build out provable ROI (especially if you have a smaller audience). 

Red flags: Terrible commission structures (like 2% on low-ticket items), brands that want you to commit to posting minimums without guaranteed compensation, or companies with shady tracking that "loses" your conversions. Also be wary of promoting products solely because the commission is high rather than because you believe in them.

Note: Hybrid based fee + performance based programs exist where you get a minimum lower fee for a minimum number of posts but you’re also paid out on performance. 

Performance-based Partnerships (Not Affiliate)

What it is: Your compensation is tied to business results like sales growth, new customer acquisition, or revenue targets – but isn't just clicking an affiliate link. You're being measured on real campaign performance, market impact, or business outcomes that go beyond simple link tracking. They may not include an initial upfront fee but instead a MG (minimum guarantee paid out at a future date).

Why you might benefit from participating: When you know you can move the needle, this structure lets you earn based on the real value you're bringing rather than just content. It aligns incentives properly – the brand is motivated to give you what you need to succeed, and you're rewarded for impact. If you're confident in your ability to drive results, the upside can be significantly higher than flat fees.

Red flags: Performance metrics that are unrealistic, poorly defined, or that you have no real ability to influence. Brands that aren't transparent about how they're tracking results. Deals where all the risk is on you (low or no base payment) but they maintain all the control over factors that affect performance like pricing, inventory, or marketing support. Companies that move goalposts mid-campaign or don't provide you with real-time data to optimize your approach.

Co-branded Content

What it is: You and a brand create content together where both of your names/brands are prominently featured. Think joint campaigns, collaborative content series, or co-hosted events where it's clear you're working together as partners rather than just being hired talent. These can be a paid or unpaid collaboration.

Why you might benefit from participating: This positions you more as a peer to the brand rather than just a contractor. It can elevate your credibility, expose you to their audience while they tap into yours, and often involves more creative collaboration than standard sponsored posts. Plus, it looks better on your media kit than a one-off sponsored post.

Red flags: Brands that want equal billing but expect you to do all the heavy lifting on content creation. Partnerships where they get to use your name and association but you have no say in the final output. Deals that give them all the upside (like owning all the content) while you're just getting "exposure" in return.

Licensing / Co-branded Products

What it is: A brand uses your name, likeness, or intellectual property to create and sell products – think your own product line, a collection with your name on it, or limited edition items. This goes beyond content creation into product development and sales.

Why you might benefit from participating: This is real business building. You're creating tangible assets that can generate ongoing revenue through royalties or profit-sharing. It adds legitimate credentials to your portfolio, gives you something concrete to point to beyond social posts, and can open doors to bigger opportunities. When done right, you're building equity in something, not just trading time for money.

Red flags: Brands that want your name and audience but give you zero creative control over what's being made or how it's marketed. Contracts that don't include fair royalties or profit-sharing – if they're making money off your name, you should be too. Companies that are clearly just slapping your name on existing inventory with no collaboration. Deals that give them all the rights to use your likeness in perpetuity across any product they want without additional compensation. And watch for brands that want to lock you into exclusivity across entire product categories while keeping all the upside for themselves.

Sponsored Content 

What it is: A brand pays you a flat fee to create content featuring their product or service. This is the standard influencer campaign with clear deliverables, timelines, and talking points.

Why you might benefit from participating: Direct payment for your work, plain and simple. When the rates are right and the brand aligns with your content, it's a solid income stream that values your audience and creative skills.

Red flags: Brands that won't let you redline the contract or negotiate terms, campaigns that require you to make claims you can't verify, or rates that are insultingly low for highly complex creative work they're requesting.

Note: Many contracts are boilerplate and include a clause about likeness rights in perpetuity; the red flag is if the brand refuses to budge. In my experience, many legal teams push for this to be included as a CYA and marketers are not specifically looking to use your content in perpetuity so just redline the agreement when you get it. That isn’t to say there are not shady individuals and companies out there so definitely redline it. 

Brand Ambassador / Partner Programs

What it is: An ongoing relationship where you regularly represent a brand over an extended period, usually several months to a year. This typically includes multiple posts, exclusive partnership terms, and sometimes events or other appearances.

Why you might benefit from participating: The value exchange should feel balanced – your sustained advocacy and audience access in return for their sustained investment in you, whether that's through payment, product, exclusive access, or other meaningful support. When it's a brand you love, you get to build a genuine narrative with your audience over time rather than one-off posts. 

Red flags: Programs where the value exchange is completely lopsided – exclusivity clauses that block you from working with entire categories of brands while they're barely compensating you, ambassador programs that are really just affiliate schemes dressed up with a fancy title, or brands that want ongoing access to you and your audience but offer no real value to you.

Equity-based Partnerships

What it is: You receive ownership stake in a company or product line in exchange for your involvement, whether that's promotion, creative direction, or ongoing representation. This means you own a piece of what you're building.

Why you might benefit from participating: This is wealth building, not just income. If the company or product line grows, you grow with them. You have skin in the game and a seat at the table, which often means more creative control and strategic input. For the right opportunity, this can be life-changing money and set you up long-term in ways that paid posts never will.

Red flags: Equity that's so diluted it's essentially worthless, or ownership in an LLC with no real path to liquidity. Vesting schedules designed to make it nearly impossible to realize value. Deals where you take on significant risk and work but have zero control over business decisions that directly affect your equity value. Companies that aren't transparent about their cap table, valuation, or financial health. 

Ultimately what types of partnerships you choose to accept is up to you and only you. Be wary of individuals telling you what you should or shouldn’t do for your business who do not have to live with the consequences.

Congratulations you’re 40% of the way there, continue to part two!

I've never felt particularly comfortable in my clothes. I hate shopping. I get overwhelmed in department stores, but I desperately needed to update my wardrobe. Determined to find my confidence, I looked into what resources (aside from YouTube) might be helpful. I considered outright paying for a stylist and I almost did until I recalled from a job interview that Nordstrom offers in-house stylists. Nordstrom is quite expensive and outside of my personal tastes, so I looked up other department stores to see if they offered similar services, and it turns out most of them do!

Here's my experience working with a stylist from Macy's!

Note: I put my content behind email access to limit potential harassment and internet scrapers. I send at most one email a month with an outline of all of my content I've recently posted and anything of note and timely for the month. I do not sell or share your email address.

I don’t have a photo from trying this outfit on in the store but I had the hem adjusted at the dry cleaners. This outfit is actually a dream come true. I’ve always wanted a pinstripe set.

If you're on the internet, then you've likely heard or seen Derek Guy (@dieworkwear) discussing fashion and the role of clothes (e.g., what they communicate) within our society. Between my own desire to level up my professional wardrobe, Derek's enlightening content, and wisdom from a handful of women CEOs, I was determined to invest in myself and up my wardrobe.

This top is wildly outside my comfort zone. It’s a nontraditional pattern and has pink.

I didn't grow up with particularly feminine role models, much less ones that put stock into dressing fashionably, and as a result, I was bullied for my lack of style, homemade clothes, and body shape. Looking back, it feels that this particular bullying was pervasive for all young women, but at the time, I felt singled out, and so my confidence in my body and style was so low you could trip on it. It didn't help that until my early 20s, I was so thin everyone I met assumed I had an eating disorder.

Look how hot I am!

I've had moments where I understood myself, the message I wanted to convey, and felt confident in my wardrobe, but the times I have felt insecure far outweigh them. Determined to find my confidence, I looked into what resources (aside from YouTube) might be helpful. I considered outright paying for a stylist and I almost did until I recalled from a job interview that Nordstrom offers in-house stylists. Nordstrom is quite expensive and outside of my personal tastes, so I looked up other department stores to see if they offered similar services, and it turns out most of them do!

These pants fit so well.

Macy’s appeared to be the best fit based on stock and price point so I filled out their online form - https://www.macys.com/s/personal-stylist/. Unfortunately, due to the chaos that is the holidays, I did not get a response back. I didn't want to lose the holiday sale opportunity, so I just went to the store and hoped I could ask for a stylist without an appointment.

I was in luck! As we entered Macy’s there was a sign that mentioned we could ask anybody in the store about working with a stylist. Thankfully, there was a stylist in store and she was available to work with me.

This is where I wish I had documented the process better to share with you, but the stylists have their own office with private dressing rooms. So we could take as many trips around the store as we needed, and my boyfriend could sit on a couch and contribute feedback as I tried things on.

I met with my stylist Rhonda and I told her what I was looking for: a complete wardrobe overhaul. I told her that I worked in the video games industry so I wanted to strike a balance that illustrated who I was, where I am in my career, and the casualness of the video game industry.

I told her that I am easily overheated, preferred not scratchy and breathable fabric, and that I wanted to get out of the habit of wearing so much black.

I didn’t end up getting the jacket but I did the pants and blouse. Bright colors have always been harder for me to wear — harder to blend in.

We took a walk around the store, jumping from designer to designer section. She knew exactly what to pull from each section, quickly gathered my sizes, pulled out things I'd found on the Macy's website, and her own suggestions. Honestly, I was amazed. Every time I'm in a department store, I am immediately overwhelmed, and everything seems to blend together, but not Rhonda.

If I tried something on but needed it in another size she was off in a flash to grab a the right size and was often back within moments.

These pants might be my favorite purchase of all.

The part that is hardest to write about is how I felt during this whole process. I felt vulnerable, ashamed, and all around insecure. I was vulnerable because I was admitting that I didn't know how to properly dress myself for success. I was ashamed that I'd waited this long to do something about it. And I felt insecure and raw while trying on the new outfits. I was seeing myself in a whole new light. I physically felt more confident, and it was a new feeling. And to top it all off, I was doing this in front of a stranger and my boyfriend.

I didn’t love everything I tried on and I loved some things that looked awful on but I’m glad I spent the better part of a Saturday with Rhonda.

I didn’t end up with this top but you can see the emotional struggle just from my eyes here.

After four trips around the store and about four hours of trying on a metric fuckton of clothes, I had a whole new wardrobe.

I also learned that:

• Calvin Klein pants fit me the best

• Jeans that fit well are comfortable

• INC, DKNY, and Donna Karan are my preferred shirt styles

• Even though I looked amazing in the pink blazer, I wasn’t going to put it out of the closet.

• It’s okay to ask for help

My haul

• 10 blouses (1 was a vest and 2 of them are the lacy tops that ended up being on sale for $4.93 a piece)

• 5 pairs of slacks

• 1 skirt

• 1 sweater

• 2 pairs of jeans

• 2 belts

• 1 purse

In total, I spent about $1300 (on a credit card) and I’m glad I didn’t put this experience off because I only paid full price for 4 items (the pinstripe set, purse, and the two belts). The purse was the most expensive thing I bought ($258 + taxes) and it’s my first ever “nice” purse. I plan to keep this purse until I die and I’ll be installing a tracker on it shortly.

I can’t believe I picked out such an expensive purse. I already ordered leather care materials.

This top got a “Wow” out of my boyfriend and I almost burst into tears.

After this experience, I’m not sure that I’ll go back to shopping like a “normie" if for no other reason I didn’t have to deal with being overwhelmed by the store itself. I’ll go back to Rhonda later this year once I’ve paid this off to identify a few new dresses. And once I’ve updated my formal wear, my wardrobe will be set for years to come (as long as I take care of the clothes). Sigh. The laundry boss just got a whole lot harder.

If you're on the fence about working with a stylist, I encourage you to start with a stylist at Macy's. You can shop for a single item, an outfit for an occasion, or a whole new wardrobe with a stylist—at no cost to you. It really changed my experience and made updating my wardrobe a lot less stressful because I promise you that if left to my own devices, I'd have bought two or maybe three items that didn't match and left flustered.

We need to retire the phrases “it’s just the internet” and “the internet isn’t real life.”

Not everyone values the time they spend online in the same way, and some do not value it at all. But the fact is, online life is real life.

People gather online to connect and find community they often cannot find in person or find leverage online connections to find local community.

People find best friends, romantic partners, and are exposed to cultures, people, and perspectives they would not otherwise encounter.

People, especially young people, bully each other online to the point of sometimes catastrophic results.

If you haven’t watched the “Feels Good Man” documentary, I recommend giving it a watch. It outlines how an online forum changed the trajectory of a presidential election.

Pepe the Frog Documentary

The book “Meme Wars” covers how online memes impacted real life and helped bring about a terrifying historical event.

The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending Democracy in America

And yet people will say, “don’t worry about it, the internet isn’t real life,” but it is and it is deeply connected to “real life.”

Whether people connect on Twitch, Reddit, TikTok, Discord, in a game, or somewhere else, the connections people make are real.

Besides, if the internet were not real life, why do we spend so much money to be seen on the internet?

Without the internet and online community, I do not know who or where I would be. It is why I am so incredibly passionate about online communities.

Tired of Streamer Twitter & Discourse? Me too! That’s why I wrote this comprehensive guide so everyone can shhhhhhhhhhh and move on to bigger and better things like supporting each other — and ya know, making cool ass content!

Twitter tweet

Table of Contents

• Is your email in your bio?

• Is Pepe the frog a hate symbol?

• Should you have a starting soon screen?

• Is using your own or another streamer’s emotes in …

• Are Partner Badges Self Promotion?

• Are Sexually Provocative Streamers Stealing All th …

• Should you raid when you’re done with your stream?

• Should you call out lurkers?

• Do I have to stream with a facecam?

• Should I pay a stream coach?

• Why aren’t I growing?

Is your email in your bio?

Go check and then add it.

Is Pepe the frog a hate symbol?

Yes, watch the documentary and learn something. Just because you don’t want it to mean something doesn’t mean that it hasn’t become a symbol for what you don’t stand for.

Should you have a starting soon screen?

Who cares? It’s up to you — it’s your stream. Though there is something to be said for letting your viewers trickle into the stream.

Is using your own or another streamer’s emotes in chat promotion?

No, it’s self expression.

Are Partner Badges Self Promotion?

No… don’t be weird. Celebrate that you’ve got folks chatting during your stream.

Are Sexually Provocative Streamers Stealing All the Viewers?

No, if they wanted to watch your content then they would. Nobody owns viewers…. that’s weird behavior STOP IT.

Should you raid when you’re done with your stream?

Again, it’s up to you…. if you do don’t be a dick and use it as an opportunity to connect with other streamers and their communities.

Should you call out lurkers?

No, they’re lurking. Let them vibe — chat isn’t there to entertain you.

Do I have to stream with a facecam?

No, many creators have grown to have successful careers without them.

Should I pay a stream coach?

If you want to but in my opinion all of the information you need to succeed exists for free — nobody has the secret sauce.

Why aren’t I growing?

I don’t know but are you doing all of the things you need to do to increase your chance of success? Have you watched your VODs to see what could be improved?

When you play video games don’t you maximized critical damage chance by using certain gear or skills— yes, of course you do — same thing with content creation.

Increase your luck chance.

😄 Thanks for subscribing, subscribing helps me know that folks like my stuff and you’ll get an occasional email from me with a digest (or recap).

Table of Contents

• Incentives

  • Automated Incentives

    • Overlay / Alert Based

  • Streamer Controlled Incentives

    • Randomizers

    • Food Incentives

    • Donor Appreciation

    • Clothing Incentives

    • Talent / Performance

    • Exercise

    • Silly Things

    • Game Based

• Milestones

Incentives

Streamers can offer a variety of incentives to engage their audience: automated rewards, streamer-controlled perks, or tangible items (physical or digital).

Automated Incentives

While I'm no tech wizard, two primary automated incentive types stand out: overlay/alert-based triggers and Crowd Control.

Overlay / Alert Based

Keep your viewers on their toes with amusing and unexpected alerts that activate based on specific donation amounts. The element of surprise will keep your community guessing and eager to contribute.

Crowd Control

Crowd Control is an interactive tool that lets your viewers directly influence your gameplay in real time by donating to your Tiltify charity campaign. The interactive nature of Crowd Control can significantly increase donations.

Streamer Controlled Incentives

Randomizers

• Pop balloons

• Dice - https://g.co/kgs/crPNn4t

• Wheel - https://spinthewheel.app/

• Randomizer - https://www.random.org/lists/

• Draw a Card - https://generator.ninja/games/random-cards/

Food Incentives

• Chubby Bunny

• Hot Peppers

• Beanboozled

• Spicy Chips

• Sour Candy

• The One Chip Challenge

• Shots of Olive or Pickle juice

• Chat picks smoothie ingredients

• Food that you kinda don’t like but won’t hurt you

Donor Appreciation

• Personalized video message or live shout out

• Sticky note or sticker on a donor wall or tree

• Doodle

Clothing Incentives

• Put on a hat 

• Put on a pair of sunglasses 

• Write a donor name on a T-Shirt 

• Put on another shirt

• Put on a unique cosplay or costume

• Wear potholders for a period of time

Talent / Performance

• Read something in ASMR

• Sing a song

• Do a dance move

• Doodle something

• Blindfold for X period of time

• Impressions

• Voices

Exercise

• Do x amount of push-ups, jumping jacks, sit-ups per amount donated

• Hula Hoop

• Basketball throws

Silly Things

• Juggle

• Pop balloons filled with something fun

• Party poppers

• Face painting

• Let donors craft a social post

• Create a poem with the donor name

• Do a headstand or handstand

Game Based

• Invert controls

• Ban certain skills, weapons, powers etc

• Play with one hand

• Play with a blindfold

• Change the game

Milestones

Milestones are smaller, achievable goals that break down a larger objective into manageable steps. Think of them as checkpoints on your journey to your overall fundraising goal.

• Specific donation amounts:

  • Reach $500, $1,000, $5,000, etc.

  • Every $100 donated unlocks a reward

• Donation goals:

  • Raise $1,000 in one stream

  • Reach a total of $5,000 for the year

• Donation challenges:

  • Raise $500 in one hour

😄 Thanks for subscribing, subscribing helps me know that folks like my stuff and you’ll get an occasional email from me with a digest (or recap).

During the first week of July, I participated in my first ever game jam: Only One of Any Asset. The constraints are pretty obvious only one of any type of asset and a maximum of 1,000 words.

You can use at most:

• one sprite / one character / one pose (multiple expressions without change in pose are okay)

• one background / one place / one time of day

• one illustration (in place of the one sprite and one background)

• one thousand words

• one background sound file (either one music track or one ambient background noise)

• one sound effect

• one voice actor

• one piece of menu background art

• one main project (submit only one entry where you are the creative lead/director or owner of an account. You may participate in other teams as a different role)

I submitted two projects

but one had to be removed because the looping background was technically multiple background images. Even so, I am extremely proud of both projects.

The first project: Hello Friend was inspired by by the fact I know very well sometimes we want to hear encouraging words but we are not ready to talk to anybody.

It's dedicated to myself and everyone who needs a friend most... and maybe it'll inspire somebody to be a friend to a stranger one day.

Hello Friend

A meaningful message when you're feeling overwhelmed by life.

ideationforge.itch.io/hello-friend

The second project: Interview With The Moth was really fun take on my friend’s VTuber lore story.

Interview With The Moth

You've received a strange note to meet someone (or something) outside the park, under the brightest streetlamp.

ideationforge.itch.io/moffy

Of the two projects, "Interview With The Moth" was undoubtedly more enjoyable to code. I had a blast "hand animating" - essentially coding a series of image transformations - to bring Moffy to life. Moffy's flight in and out of the screen, as well as his wing flaps, were particularly rewarding to code. I didn’t even have look up how to do it!

I learned a few things along the way

ONE

Animating a splash screen is MUCH harder than you think it is. I discovered and used this free tool — https://pikimov.com/. It allows you to animated within your browser.

Here’s my rection to a very small success in animating a splash screen.

TWO

You can batch edit audio files in Audacity but it’s worth double checking the edits because if the tempo isn’t the same for every file then some will be distorted.

THREE

How to loop audio, thanks Jimorian for the explanation:

FOUR

It's undeniably easier to work on passion projects when you're not working every day. This game jam kicked off over a long weekend was significantly more fun on the days I didn’t have to work (go figure). I strongly believe more game developers should consider making games a hobby because it seems to be a mostly unsustainable business model BUT unholy hell is it hard to focus on hobbies after work.

It’s the best part of the each day. The sky shifts from bright blues to hues of orange, pink, red, and violet as everyone makes their way round the plume of smoke. After dinner, the young ones are starting to crowd around one of the elders to hear the evening’s tale.

…

That’s how we’d connect, learn about each other, and tell our stories. Today the stories we tell are predominately through electronic means moving pictures, social media, and video games.

Stories are still important to our humanity, maybe more so with our lack of in-person connection. It’s part of the reason why I seek out emotional video games… it’s not the same as connecting like we did hundreds of years ago but it is how we can connect with each other today.

Liyla and the Shadows of War

When you live in a war zone and death is hunting everyone, things will look different and choices become harder. Face your fate in an unjust war to survive with your family from the shadows of war. 

Time is running against you, your family is in danger and there is nowhere to hide or to do but to get them out of the home through a hero journey to a safer place. 

Shooting and bombing everywhere and it will hunt you unless you make fast decisions as you progress through different events. These events are real and they will make you choose the hard way. Live or die!

Venba

Venba is a short narrative cooking game, where you play as an Indian mom who immigrates to Canada with her family in the 1980s. Cook various dishes and restore lost recipes, hold branching conversations, and explore South Indian food in this story about family, love, and loss.

Robot Therapy

Play Time - 1 hour

An emotional dark comedy about robots doing therapy. In Robotherapy, you're a robot therapist in a dystopian society that killed all the humans, but is still not happy. Treat patients, meet weird robots and enter their minds. If killing all humans doesn't bring happiness, then what does?

Milky Way Prince: The Vampire Star

A visual novel about an abusive relationship, idealization, and intimacy. Live a summer of dysfunctional love through branching storylines, twists, sudden changes, and an innovative mechanic where you choose which senses to use with your boyfriend.

Play Time - 2 hours

This game contains representation of psychological abuse and borderline personality disorder that some may find distressing or disturbing, including those who themselves may have had similar experiences.

A Mortician’s Tale

A Mortician's Tale is a story-driven death positive video game where you play as a mortician tasked with running a funeral home. Take on the role of recent funeral direction graduate Charlie as she learns the ropes of the business and industry. Prepare the bodies of the deceased (via embalming or cremation), attend their funerals and listen to their loved ones' stories, and interact with Charlie's coworkers, clients, and bosses.

A Mortician's Tale is an informative, honest, and sometimes humorous look at the current state of and the future of the western death industry.

Play Time - 1 hours

GRIS

Gris is a hopeful young girl lost in her own world, dealing with a painful experience in her life. Her journey through sorrow is manifested in her dress, which grants new abilities to better navigate her faded reality. As the story unfolds, Gris will grow emotionally and see her world in a different way, revealing new paths to explore using her new abilities.

Play Time - 3.5 hours

Introduction & Disclaimer

Hello there!

I go by Alykkat on the internet and recently I’ve begun my journey as a game developer in my spare time.

Shameless ask to please follow my game development social channels:

• https://ideationforge.itch.io

• https://x.com/IdeationForge

• https://www.threads.net/@ideationforge

• https://www.instagram.com/ideationforge

• https://bsky.app/profile/ideationforge.bsky.social

Okay, moving on…

This past weekend I began my participation in my first ever game jam! This game jam focuses on using only one of any asset type with a 1,000 word limit.

I wanted to include voice acting and recalled a Twitch streamer tweeting about wanting to get into VA, so I asked. They said yes! (Yay.) This ultimately led to the accidental viral tweet about doing VA for game jams to gain VA experience.

Twitter tweet

This post is meant to serve as thoughts on my personal perspective and I offer the following disclaimers:

1. I am not a full time game developer

2. I am not a voice actor

3. I have not done open casting calls for voice acting

4. This is meant to be food for thought based on a specific thing that I have done

5. I don’t know anything about VA unions — I recommend doing a search on those.

6. Always be mindful of who you share your likeness with and ensure that you have a clear agreed upon understanding of what you’re signing up for.

7. Please read to the end of this blog post for resources and other recommendations

Resource: I Want To Be A Voice Actor!

What is a game jam?

Participants come together make a game from scratch in line with the theme of the jam and within a specified time frame. They can last for as little as 12 hours, or as long as a month or more. Game jams can help you make new connections, gain experience, and test your development skills or existing indie game ideas. (source)

A game jam is an event (online or in-person) where people get together and make small games in a limited amount of time (usually over the course of a weekend). Generally, the jam is based around a certain theme or keyword for example home, automation or mystery. Once the theme has been revealed each team (usually 1-8 people per team) brainstorms ideas and starts working away at their game. (source)

How do you find game jams?

First, and foremost Google is a really great resource for finding niche jams that might not be listed on Itch.io but many are listed on Itch.

Game jams

itch.io/jams

Global Game Jam

globalgamejam.org

Ludum Dare

ludumdare.com

How do you find game jam teams?

Honestly, this one is a little less straight forward. There are a few ways to find people who are participating in game jams:

• Search on Twitter (seriously)

• Post on socials that you’d love to VA for XYZ jam

• Join a jam’s official Discord server

• Join indie and solo game dev Discord servers

• Find your local game development communities

How much do game jams pay?

Usually game jams focus on prototyping, demos, or short projects that are noncommercial. In short, game jams are not likely to be a paid gig for you.

Is there a form I can fill out?

Yes there is! I have created a form that goes to a public Amateur Voice Actor Directory that I’ll continuously share with other game developers.

Add yourself to the amateur voice actor directory — HERE

Amateur Voice Actor Directory (form responses)

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gDeYVmpsOUv9mCGbhys1BsPZQQVSTkBMiZCjULJnt9g/edit?resourcekey=&gid=1611773271#gid=1611773271

Other than game jams, how might I start doing VA for games?

Showcase your skills doing voices and character readings on social media.

Sign up for one of the many voice acting sourcing websites. To get you started, here is a public spreadsheet with a bunch of them listed — I do not own this spreadsheet.

Offer pre-recorded character barks and sounds on Itch.io for game developers to purchase. Please make sure to include your licensing requirements.

Here are some examples:

500+ Character Voice Audio Files! by Dillon Becker

Male & Female Voices - RPG, Action, RTS, Adventure, and more!

dillonbecker.itch.io/sdap

Orc Voice Pack by John

94 lines and vocal inflections meant for an orc character.

johncarroll.itch.io/orc-voice-pack

Gameboy Heroine Voice .wav SFX Asset Pack by beatscribe

[wav] Action and Gaming Phrases in Playable .wav SFX Gameboy Format

beatscribe.itch.io/heroine-voice-wav-sfx-asset-pack

List of Example Character Barks

Since May 2020, there has been a rise in demand for influencers and creators with platforms to speak up about current events and human rights. And certainly, there has been no shortage of coverage — effectively, opinion pieces— from publications on the topic over the last four years.

These last few days have been an absolute frenzy of influencers and creators trying to beat journalists to cover an incredibly difficult and nuanced topic because it involved another influencer — inappropriate misconduct with a minor.

Over the last five days, I watched as influencers played both sides of the story so that if “enough evidence” didn’t come to life they could pick the side their audience would be most satisfied with.

Other creators created rushed YouTube videos spreading incredible and obvious misinformation jumping to the least likely conclusions at every turn.

The situation involves at least one known victim, who was (and may still be) a  minor. I wasn’t old enough to watch what happened to Monica Lewinsky, herself a famous victim, but I did have an opportunity to meet her (after many years hearing her name as the butt of a joke).

I’ve seen how Lewinsky has been treated by people and how they still treat her today. The most powerful man in the world abused his position of power to his ends. He was a 49 year old President of the United States and she was a 22 year old intern. That is an abuse of power on numerous levels. She was a victim and was openly treated without dignity, and since then many publications and outlets have acknowledged how damaging the coverage was to her.

Yet today, despite the benefit of hindsight with analogous situations like Lewinsky’s, there are people calling for the private and openly admitted “inappropriate” Twitch Whispers between a 35 year old man and a minor of unknown age. If the mob found the identity of this victim it would change the victim’s life even more so than it already has. Much of this fervor for the release of the Twitch Whispers centers around figuring out “how much of a minor” the victim was - were they nearly 18, or were they younger?

But does it matter how much of a minor this person was?

This situation truly couldn’t be much more complex and nuanced — and yet, creators who have balked at speaking up against any of the current genocides felt comfortable and qualified enough to speak up and spread misinformation with their whole chest.

It seems that when its sexual assault or violence against women, everyone seems to be educated enough to weigh in, have an opinion, and trumpet it from the rooftops. Yet these same people deem themselves not educated enough to speak on any one of the humanitarian crises caused by other humans going on around the world.

As a woman, I am so heartbroken at the ease at which those with platforms and outlets acted so carelessly and callously by spreading misinformation and speculation, all while ignoring the victim. As a human, I am disappointed - because it is clear as day to anyone with a pulse that what these individuals cared about was scandal, clout-farming, and engagement over anything else.

There are innumerable reasons why victims do not immediately report their experiences, or, later on, choose not to testify. Even if you don’t understand these reasons, most people in the United States have watched procedurals like Law & Order SVU, where almost every episode includes a victim struggling to testify. When they do, they are vilified, attacked, and denigrated on the stand. 

On today’s internet, these victims now have even more to fear - the clout-farming influencer who wants to break a story, regardless of the social impact or effect on another individual’s life. I hope that as a community we learn to be better to the victims of tomorrow, even if this story continues to unfold, and we try to support the alleged victims of today. 

Some facts & Information on Sexual Crimes

• From RAINN

  • Every 68 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted.

  • And every 9 minutes, that victim is a child.

  • Only 25 out of every 1,000 perpetrators will end up in prison.

• Why Society Goes Easy on Rapists

• Reasons Victims Choose to Report—or Not

• Why Don’t They Tell?

• The Underreporting and Dismissal of Sexual Assault Cases Against Women in the United States

• People Are Sharing What "To Catch A Predator" Men Were Like Before They Were Caught On The Show, And It's Pretty Scary

One of the greatest things about getting into anything is that there are so many incredible resources to help you get started and the single greatest frustration is not understanding enough to use them.

I found two resources on Itch.io and today’s struggle is trying to understand enough to take what I want from each of them to get them to work together.

• Pre-made templates credit screens from Gaming V Potato

• Fully Complete GUI Ren’Py kit from NovelKit

I want to take some of the code templated from the credit screen and insert it into the GUI template.

And it’s going great!

Everything is going super great!

I’m sure in time I will solve this problem but I am incredible frustrated and will probably return to this problem in a week or so after my trip (with a renewed patience).

It has NEVER been a better time to be a gamer. There is truly something for everyone — and as somebody who views games as a way to explore stories from around the world I am really stoked to see the diversity of cultural stories in video games.

Twitter tweet

And if you’ve been following along on my social media journey you know that I’ve been (very slowly) learning Chinese — though I will admit I’ve fallen off for a few months — ANYWAYS, here are some games showcasing Chinese stories that have caught my eye.

Games are listed by release date (if it’s known)

Immortal Life

Embark on a magical journey in this captivating life simulation game. Escape to a welcoming valley, farm with spells, and master skills like fishing, crafting, and cooking. Engage in epic battles, strengthen the bonds with your companions, and build your dream home to achieve Immortal Life!

store.steampowered.com/app/1201230/Immortal_Life

The Lost Village

Once there was a prosperous village of Martials, now none of it remains. As the son of the former Master, you will lead your followers to rebuild this village. Recruit followers and enter the mysterious illusional domain, acquire lost wonders. Will you see the rebirth of ancestors’ glory again?

store.steampowered.com/app/1963040/The_Lost_Village

The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty

Trek across ancient China in a dark, boundary-pushing visual novel inspired by traditional Chinese art with modern animation. Escort four girls to the prosperous city of Luoyang in a branching narrative with themes of revenge, cannibalism, involuntary servitude, and more on a redemptive journey.

store.steampowered.com/app/2593370/The_Hungry_Lamb_Traveling_in_the_Late_Ming_Dynasty

Thriving City: Song

In 960 A.D., the Zhao Song Dynasty was established. As the mayor, you'll need to help the townspeople settle down, cultivate the land and expand. However, when the emperor issues a national mandate, conflicts between factions threaten city development—what strategy will you adopt?

store.steampowered.com/app/1956800/Thriving_City_Song

Black Myth: Wukong

Black Myth: Wukong is an action RPG rooted in Chinese mythology. You shall set out as the Destined One to venture into the challenges and marvels ahead, to uncover the obscured truth beneath the veil of a glorious legend from the past.

store.steampowered.com/app/2358720/Black_Myth_Wukong

Realm of Ink

Realm of Ink is an Ink-style action Roguelite game. While pursuing the Fox Demon, the swordswoman Red, unexpectedly finds that her life is dictated by the 'destiny' within the world of the book. Only by breaking free can she unveil the truth of her existence and challenge the constraints of fate.

store.steampowered.com/app/2597080/Realm_of_Ink

Ten Thousand Coins: The Golden Merchant

Trade goods, earn coins, and unravel a riveting tale spanning two timelines as a forsaken fox merchant searches for a way home.

store.steampowered.com/app/1157900/Ten_Thousand_Coins_The_Golden_Merchan

The Bustling World

The Bustling World is an open-world RPG set in ancient China. Delight in boundless freedom as you explore various features such as survival, cultivation, management, crafting, building, and exploration. Recruit your own army, establish a regime, and engage in diplomacy for an immersive experience.

store.steampowered.com/app/2724650/The_Bustling_World

House of Legacy

Early autumn, as rebel forces breached the city walls, you found yourself at the helm of your surviving kin, embarking on an arduous journey. Seeking refuge in the last bastion of unyielding hope, a county seat untarnished by the chaos, you ignited the flames of a nascent dynasty.

store.steampowered.com/app/2503770/House_of_Legacy

Teatopia

Immerse in Teatopia's enchanting world, a farming game steeped in Chinese culture. Clear fields, cultivate crops, and raise livestock. Master cooking and tea crafting. Experience rural life, forge bonds with pets, and unravel secrets in this captivating journey.

store.steampowered.com/app/1879250/Teatopia

Learning a new skill in your 30s is daunting but HOLY HELL do other people make it worse sometimes. As indicated by the title of this blog post I’ve been learning to code (specifically Ren’Py) because I want to make a visual novel game.

If you read my last post on learning game development I mentioned I am participating in my first game jam. It’s for creating a micro-visual novel game and you can only use one of any type of asset. And not only am I submitting one on my behalf but another for a friend.

This friend previously has gone to school for game development and when I was telling him to, “look at Ren’Py G - U - I on itchio” he quickly said, “Stop saying G-U-I it’s gooey!”

I, of course, BURST into laughter because surely that could not be true! So I took to the internet asking “DOES ANYBODY SAY “GOOEY” FOR GUI?” AND oh boy did the internet come out of the wood work.

Since I started writing this post about an hour ago (in-between) other things the Tweet now has over 740 comments, over 2k likes, over 140k impressions and climbing.

At first, it was funny to watch everyone’s reactions… and to learn some other words but there have been a handful of people who have now jumped to saying kinda mean things (not too bad considering it is Twitter). Truly, most people are being silly or kind… honestly, expected to wake up to much worse with the Tweet out overnight.

The worst comment came from YouTube that implied I should get back to taking care of my kids (I don’t have any) instead of trying to Duolingo a culture…. that one made me laugh (then I reported it).

Not a single person seems to come to the conversation from a place that might indicate they understand that learning is not universal and that much language is learned through your environment.

This very much reminds me when I first started working at Twitch and I had to ask several times a day what various initialisms meant because I had never been exposed to FWIW, TIL, NWR, COB etc.

Learning happens through all kinds of avenues and at all stages of life — this is a fact we all know and yet we still collectively shame or embarrass people who are learning.

Anyways, I now know that programmers call it “gooey” and I’ll just stick to GUI or UI because that just feels weird to me. And sounds 1000% weird in this clip from an old show.

The best responses were —

Twitter tweet

Twitter tweet

Twitter tweet

June 20, 2024 Update

Twitter tweet

Around September of 2023, my friends shared with me the first few hours of the game they’d been working on… and honestly, wow. I had no idea they’d been working on a game, and they started sharing their journey in my DMs.

So you can thank (or blame) RnR Interactive.

After about a month of this, I started having ideas… an ADHD person’s worst nightmare. I did what any seasoned person with ADHD does—procrastinated until my idea turned into the urge to talk about it.

I started telling my friends about this idea for a story that (let’s be honest sucked), but after roping in my friend and partner’s coworker, we are now making a visual novel game. (And also started a hobbyist game dev studio - ideationforge.com).

And since I’ve started working on this game, I am cursed with new ideas all the time, with simply not enough time (or money) to do them all.

When I first started learning Ren’Py with no prior coding skills outside of Myspace HTML and I came across my first problem my immediate reaction was determined rage.

In case you’re curious the problem was: I wanted the output from a player’s response to return an item from a list randomly.

I must have spent two hours on it before caving and asking my friend, who spent another two hours with me, successfully solving it. And that was the first time I felt the high of programming. Don’t worry, I quickly realized it was short-lived and that I’d never want to do it for my full-time job.

Now I have a spreadsheet with eight game ideas, and I’m doing my first game jam next month. It will certainly be interesting—I’m traveling the last two days of the jam, so I only have eight days instead of ten. That’ll be fun.

Here are my stand outs based on the game demos I played from the 2024 Cozy & Family Friendly Games Celebration

For the Chill Builders:

• Tiny Glade: If you love building cozy hamlets and sprawling castles without the pressure, Tiny Glade lets you lose yourself in a charming medieval world.

• Gourdlets: This adorable city builder lets you zoom in and decorate individual buildings, making it perfect for those who love the finer details. Plus, the new idle mode lets you keep your city humming while you tackle other tasks. I hope that they release a mobile version.

For the Story Seekers:

• Tavern Talk: Play as an innkeeper in this D&D inspired visual novel mixed with the cozy vibes of Coffee Talk.

• A Perfect Day: This mind-bending visual novel offers a deep narrative with a Groundhog Day-esque twist. It's been out since 2022, but if you haven't played it yet, check it out!

For the Chore & Farming Fanatics:

• SunnySide: SunnySide offers a familiar farming experience with a unique twist: a Sims-like third-person perspective and innovative use of a cellphone in-game. Bonus points for the inclusive character customization!

• Trash Goblin: A delightful blend of puzzle, shopkeeper management and storytelling. Uncover hidden trinkets, clean them up, and maybe even give them a new life through upcycling. This is the perfect game to relax and unwind with.

For the Strategists:

• Of Life & Land: This challenging city builder throws you a curveball – you can't micromanage your citizens' jobs. It's a refreshing change of pace for seasoned colony builders.

• Baladins: Fans of For the King rejoice! Baladins offers a similar turn-based strategy experience with a dash of silliness.

Games I Already Own:

The Wandering Village

The Wandering Village is a city-building simulation game on the back of a giant, wandering creature. Build your settlement and form a symbiotic relationship with the colossus. Will you survive together in this hostile, yet beautiful post-apocalyptic world, contaminated by poisonous plants?

store.steampowered.com/app/1121640/The_Wandering_Village

Carto

Carto is a charming adventure game wrapped around a unique, world-altering puzzle mechanic. Use this power to explore mysterious lands, help a quirky cast of characters, and guide Carto on her journey back to her family.

store.steampowered.com/app/1172450/Carto

Travellers Rest

Craft, farm, build and cook! In Travellers Rest you will have to use all the available tools to become the best tavern keeper in the realm. Create unique dishes and drinks to please your customers as you discover the world and its colorful characters.

store.steampowered.com/app/1139980/Travellers_Rest

shapez

shapez is a game about building factories to automate the creation and processing of increasingly complex shapes across an infinitely expanding map.

store.steampowered.com/app/1318690/shapez

Wingspan

Wingspan is a relaxing, award-winning strategy card game about birds for 1 to 5 players. Each bird you play extends a chain of powerful combinations in one of your three habitats. Your goal is to discover and attract the best birds to your network of wildlife preserves.

store.steampowered.com/app/1054490/Wingspan

Smushi Come Home

Play as a tiny lil' mushroom who's lost in the forest and can't find its way home. Explore unique areas freely at your own pace, chat with friendly inhabitants, and take on different adventures to get back home!

store.steampowered.com/app/1740300/Smushi_Come_Home

Merchant of the Skies

Become the captain of a flying ship! Sell items, gather resources and build your own trade company in the clouds!

store.steampowered.com/app/1040070/Merchant_of_the_Skies

House Flipper

House Flipper is a unique chance to become a one-man renovation crew. Buy, repair and remodel devastated houses. Give them a second life and sell them at a profit!

store.steampowered.com/app/613100/House_Flipper

Operation: Tango

It takes two to save the world in this cooperative spy adventure. Pair up with a friend as Agent or Hacker—with only your voices to connect you—and work together to bring a hi-tech global menace to its knees. Now with a FREE CONTENT UPDATE!

store.steampowered.com/app/1335790/Operation_Tango

Omno

A single-player journey of discovery through an ancient world of wonders, created by solo developer Jonas Manke.

store.steampowered.com/app/969760/Omno

Virtual Cottage

Virtual Cottage gives you a comfy place to rest and be productive without any distractions. Open the game, set yourself a goal and enjoy the atmosphere.

store.steampowered.com/app/1369320/Virtual_Cottage

Mail Time

It's Mail Time! As a newly trained Mail Scout, put on your pack, grab those letters, and deliver them across Grumblewood Grove! The forest animals eagerly await the sight of your mushroom hat in this cozy, cottagecore light-platformer adventure!

store.steampowered.com/app/1607240/Mail_Time

Retimed

Dash and dodge bullet clusters in nerve-wracking slow motion moments and challenge your friends online or offline to awesome and fast paced battles with up to 4 players!

store.steampowered.com/app/760810/Retimed

Cozy & Family Friendly Games Celebration

Join us in celebrating a diverse selection of cozy and family-friendly games on Steam. Discover top-sellers and hidden gems!

store.steampowered.com/sale/CozyFamilyFriendlyGamesCelebration

Is it just me or are there a lot of “cozy” games lately and a lot of them just aren’t very fun? Hi, hello, I’m Alyssa, and before we get started I want to state:

This is just my opinion and criticisms stated in this video about what you like or enjoy do not constitute an attack on you, the people you care about, or the game developers who made them. Making games is incredibly hard and the fact these developers poured themselves into a game and put it into the world for people like you and me to enjoy and have opinions over should be celebrated. 

Now I’ve been playing games since I was a few years old at arcades, the sega game gear, sega saturn, sega CD and the first PlayStation. Of all of my hobbies, video games probably get the most amount of my attention – next to reading. 

Over the last few years, I’ve seen an exponential increase in the number of cozy games that exist and as such “cozy gamer” influencers. Their content tends to just showcase the mere existence of the cozy game but rarely provides a review. As one TikTok creator pointed it – it feels frustrating to try many of these cozy games to realize they’re “cute” looking but rarely fun. 

I love that there are influencers focused on showcasing a specific genre of games especially since tens of thousands of games are released each year — making discovery hard for games… but after watching “why cozy games suck” by Koramora several months ago.. I’ve been mulling over what the fuck even is a cozy game.

Is a game cozy because of its aesthetic, its mechanics, its pacing, or has the term “cozy game” become a catch-all for games that mean cute and targeted at women? 

In 2013, Polygon published an incredible feature about the history of video game marketing and the impact it had on creating the stereotype that video games were for boys. And we have been living the negative effects of those decisions ever since… this stereotype still plagues the games industry… you can see this in who gets funding and the commentary around “what a real game is”

I do believe that all video games are games — and that shitting on another person’s choice of video game is beta behavior with that being said… what the fuck is a cozy game?

Nintendo defines cozy games as games you’d play when you’re curled up under a comfy blanket or sipping your favorite hot beverage but I don’t know about you… that’s all of them. Every game, I want to be in a blanket with my favorite hot beverage – even when I’m yelling “oh come on” and “what in the actual fuck” or even “fuck this game”

A Reddit thread on r/cozygamers has a wide range of definitions, some of the broad common ones are:

• Farming or life sim

• Warm colors

• Easy to play – is laid back

• No combat

• Exploration

• Customization

The best definition, I’ve seen and mostly agree with is that cozy games are games that allow you to get lost in them without feeling stressed or pressured. They invoke a feeling of relaxation, happiness, or curiosity. 

One Redditor described how they play Skyrim as an alchemist and role-play with themselves traveling to sell their wares and another one described the atmosphere in Silent Hill. For me, I’m not sure Silent Hill could ever be considered cozy but maybe Dredge.

In November 2022, Games Industry Biz published “What are cozy games, and what makes them cozy?”

Though the subheadline, mentions “wholesome games” and I’m not 100% on board with the idea that something needs to be wholesome for it to be Cozy. Mainly because I have an idea for a cozy game that I’m working on that by no means would be considered wholesome.

The qualities listed for cozy games in this article… kinda make me feel like it’s a little infantilizing:

1. Socialization with humans, always in an agreeable way – unless it is for comedy

2. Aesthetics are usually colorful or pastel

3. Jolly and nursery-ish music

4. No peril

Not that long ago, I recall a twitter mutual lamenting that the 3D style of some of the upcoming games reminded her of the children’s bubble ish 3D style and it felt like a turn off… and I have to agree. If your game has the same 3D style as the kids youtube channels popping off, it’s not for me. Though – if you enjoy that animation style, please by all means… I just can’t get past the animation style to see if the game itself is any good. 

I’m not on board at all with the idea that cozy games need to be like any of the above. And that really has me coming back to the idea that the term cozy is a catch-all for a category of games that are targeting women. And to be clear, before anybody goes off in the comments – I think marketing games to women is great and we should do it more but are we boiling down what we think women like or enjoy by framing games in this way?

In my mind, it’s not dissimilar to Booktok reducing books to their tropes when they talk about them versus the qualities of the story that make it unique or interesting. 

And much like the rise in trad wife content and content obsessing with perfection in the home… I don’t think it’s a mistake that somehow we’re back to stereotypes for games and who plays what. While it’s been proven time and time again that all types of people play all types of games it feels clear that these games are trying to capture a market they believe isn’t catered to… but maybe it isn’t that the audience hasn’t been catered to… rather that it’s been catered to mostly by people who think they know what these segment of gamers want – and those gamers are making do – like they always have, with what’s available.

One of the best talks I sat in on was with, I believe, the President of That Game Company discussing attracting diverse players to their games… and how the importance of telling emotionally enriching stories was a core ingredient to that. 

And I think that is ultimately what a lot of “cozy” games are missing. An emotionally enriching story or environment— many of them feel like a chore simulator in pretty youthful colors and some of those are done really well but I can only play a chore simulator for so long before it feels too repetitive. But I have ADHD so that could just be me. 

If you stuck around to the end, thank you for hanging out and listening. Let me know in the comments – what does “cozy game” mean to you? And if you had to recommend just ONE cozy game what would it be?

Disclosing

Disclose if you are paid, received items to give away, or have been provided anything outside of brand assets. If you’ve been told you do not have disclose, double check that because chances are that is incorrect. Like I said, I’m not a lawyer so you’ll want to dive deeper into this yourself or engage with a lawyer. (Probably best to only action on legal advice from your lawyer; a lawyer that is not your own or is representing another party in the discussion is not representing your best interests)

Why charities pay talent

Firstly let’s go over some reasons that a charity might pay talent (influencer or content creator) to fundraise for them:

• Not all messages resonate with people equally. A charity may be struggling to find talent that connects with their message or mission and paying talent may be their way to break into the space.

• A corporate partner is underwriting the experience and a charity needs talent to do specific things to satisfy the corporate partner from an influencer marketing standpoint.

• They’re asking for more of a commitment than, “will you fundraise for my organization?”

• Social posts, change content type, travel, join a larger event with a bunch of other talent.

• They are doing a marketing campaign themselves and need the talent to be locked into specific terms while also being vetted.

• The charity is struggling to get their leadership or board to okay an influencer fundraising program so a splashy paid activation could help them build a case study. With a successful showcase they can show off ROI for investing in the influencer fundraising space.

Why might talent want to get paid

Each person is different and has unique reasons for why they may be interested in doing paid charity fundraising activations. It’s a personal choice and while I’d love to see everybody do something out of altruism, we do live in a capitalist society that requires charities to help solve society’s problems in the first place — but what can we do?

• The talent may find that when they fundraise they take a substantial hit to their income and they’re unable to reasonably fundraise without the cushion.

• Telling charities they only fundraise when they’re paid to do so could limit the number of asks a talent receives. Influencer fundraising is public and open so if you’ve had a successful fundraiser you may get hit up a lot by charities. However, this does likely mean that if a charity agrees to their rate they will accept and fundraise.

• They plan to utilize the money for their fundraising plans by buying incentives, having custom work built, or something else!

• They simply do not feel as passionate about doing charity fundraising. (Research on altruism is pretty cool, recommend reading up on that)

When should talent get paid

In my opinion, there are some cases when talent should be paid by a charity for their work. The charity industry has huge issues with reasonable and fair pay for work but that’s a topic for another time.

Anyways back to the message – charities should pay talent:

• When talent is traveling to fundraise, host, do a workshop, speak at the charity’s headquarters.

• The talent is asked to create content that is not part of their normal content strategy (e.g. talent streams shooters exclusively and charity asks talent to not stream shooters)

• There is an expectation or requirement of work:

  • Hours streamed or VOD hours produced

  • Social posts

  • Specific game to be played

  • For-profit logos required to be displayed on content

  • Produce a big event like a tournament or other heavy effort show

  • The charity has asked the talent to promote a for-profit brand as part of the fundraising. There is a clear distinction between XYZ brand giving headsets as incentives versus “Fundraising event for LMNPO Charity brought to you by ABC company”.

Every charity has their own strategy to achieve their mission and this includes fundraising strategies. Some charities have a strict policy to never pay talent and they may stick to this policy regardless of their ask. Some charities pay only but only under specific conditions. And some charities pay based on the fundraising they may see. Unfortunately, charities need consistent and generous fundraising to be effective in achieving their mission and what works for one charity does not always work for another.

How can getting paid to fundraise impact your experience:

If you do decide to do paid charity fundraising here are some things to keep in mind that could impact your experience.

• Your fundraising may not be as effective and that could hamper the vibes. Yes, I said vibes but a lot of the fun with charity fundraising is celebrating your impact and if your impact is not as high then it may not be the best experience all the way around. There’s a lot of nuance in effective fundraising and the willingness to give.

• You may be seen as disingenuous by your peers and/or your community/fans

• You may have a hard time communicating the message and revert to comments like “come on guys it’s for charity”

• The stigma around it could negatively impact your brand

• You may get an influx of these activations and your community may start to feel like an ATM if you take them all the time.

How can paying talent impact a charity’s experience:

For most people there is a huge difference in doing something because you’re being paid to versus when you are doing something out of passion or labor of love. Paying talent definitely has an impact and these are just some to consider:

• They may only get the bare minimum — exactly what’s contracted (Yes, there is many people who will go above and beyond but do not expect it)

• You may not see an effective telling of your mission and why it’s important

• You may find talent will only fundraise for your organization if they are paid because there is a huge inequity in who gets paid in the talent industry (well all industries) or it’s just what’s now expected of your organization.

• This could teach newer talent coming up in the industry to only accept paid fundraising.

• Some talent may consider you disingenuous in your desire to work within the industry and it may slow organic growth.

The most effective way to grow fundraising in the influencer fundraising space is through consistent engagement with those who are enthusiastic about your mission. It is definitely a long game but the potential is limitless – seriously, as talent grows so does their efforts for your organization.

Additional things you should know (as talent):

• Getting into Influencer Fundraising is scary for charities. They’re entering a world they have no experience in and they are listening to all types of advice. Some of the people giving this advice profit from charities paying talent. They’re looking to increase their revenue so they tell charities that the most effective and best way to break into the space is a paid activity and others tell charities it’s the only way. It’s all a learning experience for charities.

• Some charities assume that the successful charities working with talent pay them. They believe that if they don’t pay talent they may not be able to convert fundraisers.

• Charities target known charity fundraisers first – this may also contribute to an uptick in paid charity fundraising (my hypothesis).

• Not all charities are going to be able to dedicate resources to a single industry and it may be more cost effective for the charity to pay talent from time to time over hiring and building out a strategy.

• Sometimes paying talent opens the door to a longer conversation and deeper unpaid relationship. Sometimes talent gets in the room and says never mind, I don’t need payment I love your work — remember strategy. The hardest part for a charity is getting somebody to listen.

In Closing

We are going to see an increase in paid charity activations in the influencer fundraising space. Especially as more charities are entering the space – more charities means it’s going to get competitive. But like most things it should be met with a healthy dose of nuance and balanced discussion. There are some ways you can help shape when charities pay and how often.

• Tell a charity you would not like to be paid

• Offer alternative payment solutions (instead of money, you want to come to an event they have)

• Ask charities why they are offering payment – this could be a learning moment

• Point the charity in the direction of people and resources you trust

• Be open and understanding to the different strategies charities are working through.

Charities often have low response rates from influencers. I’ve heard influencers say it’s because they feel bad for saying no or they just did an event. That’s okay, I get it but it’s really helpful for the charity for you to respond with some information. Here are some data points that could help them understand the industry and other talent like you better:

• this organization doesn’t align with my values

• I just did a fundraiser I won’t be looking to do one until X time again (mention if you will reach out or if they should)

• The mission of your organization isn’t something I feel confident in communicating with my community or network

• I only fundraise for X organizations

• I fundraise for organizations X times a year and this year I’ve already made my commitments (mention if you will reach out or if they should)

• I only fundraise for organizations that do X type of work.

As with most topics, it’s important to address the conversation with nuance and empathy for all those involved. Influencer fundraising is the future and we are all learning as we go!

The live recording and written talk have some minor differences due to ad-lib remarks but bulk and spirit are the same.

Get in the Game - LIVE @ GivePanel's Social Fundraising Summit #SFS2022

open.spotify.com/episode/0F5nLV4H0sQHrt48n7L7bc?si=BpQTfYgARBaJrMNuUjZ9LQ

Hello and welcome to my session on how to get in the game; video games that is! My name is Alyssa Sweetman and I’ll be your guide for this historical journey of gaming for good. Up until Feb of this year, I was the Director of Social Impact at Twitch. Currently, I’m the Director of Strategy and Social Impact at a marketing services agency called Player 2 and the founder of a social impact resource called Influencing Good. I started my journey with video games basically in the womb. My father was really excited about technology so for as long as I can remember I was playing arcade games, the sega game gear, sega CD and so on. 

My personal journey into gaming for good started when I was in college. A friend introduced me to Twitch and thought I could be a successful influencer… you know… given my charming and bubbly personality. Joke’s on them though, after 3 months of fumbling around to learn Twitch I discovered a gaming group that was using gaming to create a safe space for veterans and civilians to game together. Help veterans get integrated into online communities. They also were live streaming together to raise funds for charity. I was intrigued… you were telling me that I could sit on my bum, play video games, and raise money for causes I cared about? SOLD! 

When I get excited about things, I really get excited about them. Like really excited. From that moment on I became an expert on all things live streaming, gaming and how they intersected with charity. I poured hours into learning everything I could about it… which wasn’t much at the time. Not too long after I got excited I took over the charitable operations for that gaming community. And about a year and half later I went off to start my own gaming community.

During this time, I graduated college and went on to become a second grade teacher. Now every Monday myself and the other second grade teachers would huddle to discuss what we did over the weekend. And most weekends, I’d share about time spent gaming and fundraising for charity. Nobody “got it” — when I was recruited by Twitch in 2017 to join and help level up their charitable work – our lead teacher shared her confusion around why I’d leave to go do things in video games. All she had in her mind’s eye was a very static stereotype of who a gamer was.

I think that’s a great place to start our journey today. We’re going to kick this off with a little game I like to call, everybody is secretly a gamer. Now, raise your hand if you think that you’re a gamer.

Okay okay, now put your hands down. Now I’m going to list off some video games and if you’ve ever played the game just once raise your hand.. Okay ready? 

Pacman, Tetris, galaga, Space Invaders, Pong, Sonic the hedgehog, Mario, snake, candy crush, farmville, clash of clans, fortnite, pokemon go or wordle. 

Great! Take a look around… now wave to your fellow gamers and then you can put your hands down! 

Twitter tweet

There are almost 3 billion gamers around the world or roughly 40 percent of the world’s population. 

When folks think of the word gamer, they usually think of a really specific idea. Somebody who plays shooters on consoles or maybe somebody that spends several hours a day playing video games. You might also think of gamers as younger people with little to no spending power – but you would certainly be surprised. 

2.2 trillion dollars 

That’s the revenue of the global entertainment and media industry in 2021. Which includes tv, video, film, books publishing, music, and of course, video games. Now the video game industry itself had a 14.4 percent increase in revenue last year ending the year with $178.7 billion. Ten years ago the revenue from the video game industry was only $70.6 billion. That’s just over a 100 billion increase in 10 years. And who knows where we could end up with the metaverse, web3, and cloud gaming services. 

Some of the earliest examples of charity live streaming pre-date the existence of Twitch and started on a service called Ustream. 

In 2007, Desert Bus kicked off their first live stream fundraising events and raised just over $22 thousand dollars for Child’s Play to date they have raised over $7 million for Child’s Play. 

In 2009, Zeldathon kicked off their event series raising $301 dollars for Child’s Play and to date has raised over $3 million for charity.. 

In 2010, Games Done Quick had their first event raising just over $10 thousand dollars for CARE. Games Done Quick is one of the most notable charity live stream events having raised over $34 million for charity to date. 

And each year more live streaming charity events kick off and as their audience grows so does their fundraising power. 

In Europe, we have the European Speedrunner Assembly or ESA which raised just over 2,500 euros in 2012 and has gone on to raise over 650 thousand euros to date. 

In December 2011, Yogscast, a UK month-long gaming fundraiser kicked off on YouTube VOD, later grew to include livestreaming on Twitch. It’s first fundraiser raised just over $100,000 and has raised over $25 million for charity to date. 

In 2016, a French Twitch partner launched an event called The Z Event. It raised just over 150 thousand euros and has gone on to raise over 21 million euros to date for charity and is the largest gaming focused fundraising event led by gaming influencers.

If you’re feeling excited about the possibility of gamers, do me a favor and clap twice! These are just a handful of events that focus on gamers that also create content. One thing these events all have in common is that they are built as a community event. 

Many charities dive into the gaming community and immediately target one of the events I’ve mentioned or one of the mega gaming influencers who have been mentioned in the press. Since each charity diving into this space starts there they often find themselves at a loss of how to get started.

But you should know the average individual gaming influencer raises about $2500 dollars or just over 2 thousand euros. To understand the potential here, multiply that by the eight million unique influencers that go live on Twitch each month or the forty million active gaming channels on YouTube. Note Twitch doesn’t share how many of the 8 million influencers that go live are gaming influencers but I’d bet it’s over 70 percent.

During my nearly five years at Twitch, I saw the community raise over $300 million for charities globally.

Working with gaming influencers does come with some considerations. Your relationship is with the fundraiser and not the donor. This will certainly take some time to shift the mindset here… but the really exciting part is that as an influencer grows so does their fundraising power. So relationships with influencers of all sizes have value for your organization. 

It’s important to sign-up and have your organization available on a service that gaming influencers use such as Justgiving in the UK, betterplace in Germany or the more specific gaming influencer focused services such as Streamlabs Charity and Tiltify; both of which are global. 

And as many of you are thinking how you might convince your leadership or board of directors to get involved, consider this — when somebody fundraises for your organization on Facebook or Instagram you don’t worry about the potential of a person having posted things that do not align with your organization's values… gaming influencers should be looked at in the same vein. 

Only officially partner with or market influencers that align with your organization.

Gaming influencers are just one avenue into the gaming market. If you’ve followed any of Fortnite’s journey you’ve seen other popular culture IPs join take their place in the game.

In 2018, Blizzard and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation partnered together at the height of Overwatch’s popularity to do a commercial co-venture agreement with an in-game item sold with proceeds going to BCRF. It raised over $12 million in just two weeks. From what I understand nobody expected it to do more than a million at best. That was a bit of a shock wasn’t it?

In 2020 Riot raised $6 million and in 2021 over $7 million for charity with a League of Legends Skin for their corporate impact fund. The vast majority of League of Legends players are men between the ages of 18 - 24. Fun fact gamers between the ages of 18 to 24 make the most in-game purchases. In 2019, Fortnite users spent an average of $82 in micro-transactions.

They targeted a fandom of dedicated gamers broadly, not just gaming influencers. 

Now, I do want to take a moment to temper expectations around how much of a lighting in a bottle moment the blizzard fundraiser was. Blizzard is a very popular game maker with huge fanfare for everything they do and Blizzard collectibles are a big thing for that fan group – and Overwatch was only two years old and was extremely popular for a few years. 

League of Legends is one of the most played games in the world with over 110 million players and has a hardcore dedicated fan base. There’s a global popular esports event and now even an animated tv series on Netflix. If you haven’t watched it – highly recommend it, it’s quite good.  

One important thing to consider before reaching out to a developer to do a commercial co-venture with an in-game item is that it will take at least 6 months and up to a year from initial conversation to going live. 

Now in some rare cases world events cause everybody including those part of the gaming industry to mobilize to support those in need. And the reason I say “rare” is because there are events every single day that need support but most do not garner the attention or support of those that can. 

In 2017, there was a tsunami, two earthquakes, and a gaggle of hurricanes — the Twitch community came together to raise just over $2 million USD in disaster relief effort. 

In 2020, the gaming community globally raised money for Australian wildfires, Covid and Black Lives Matter — those three combined raised around $30 million USD. 

This year we are watching the desecration of a people and the world has not stood by — the gaming community is no different having raised over $64 million USD through various game bundles, game developer donations, and gaming focused live-streams. This includes the bundles from on Itch dot eye oh, humble bundle, and the recent $36 million raised through Fortnite in 24 hours.

Each and every time disaster strikes gaming influencers scramble the best way to support charities responding. So it’s best to dive into gaming now before your organization is inundated and responding to a crisis. 

Now so far we have really only discussed games that are primarily popular on desktop computers. However, 51 percent of games are played on smartphones or tablets, 28 percent on consoles, and 22 percent on desktop computers. And it’s worth noting that 85 percent of the industry revenue came from free to play games and micro-transactions. 

Let's talk about the misconception that video games are for men. Women gamers make up 45 percent of the world's gaming population. There was a great expose on how gaming became perceived as for young boys by Polygon that came out in 2013. It’s a long but fantastic read, it’s called “No Girls Allowed”.

Shifting gears a little here, let’s look at esports. Which is not the official name of gaming as the DailyMail indicated. The esports market was valued at a little over a billion dollars in 2021. So just a small portion of the $178.7 billion of the total video game industry.  

Esports events are not effective fundraising drivers.

I’m going to say that again, esports events are not effective fundraising drivers. Fundraising during an esports event is the equivalent of having an announcer during a futbol game trying to convince fans to donate during the game. It’s not going to work. The fans are focused on the competitive back and forth. Their emotional connection is tied up in what happens in the game. 

You may have seen esports events with a charitable component but those events have a sponsor that’s underwriting the event and donating a predetermined amount. 

Esports events are costly to put on and anybody can put one on. Unless you have popular players and teams participating the likelihood of seeing high viewership is low.

We’ve covered gaming influencers, game makers and publishers, and esports. There are two more avenues into the gaming industry.

The first is to build partnerships with gaming adjacent brands and be a part of their social impact strategy or through your existing corporate partners that have an interest in getting into the gaming industry. As web3 and NFTs expand you can expect to see web3 games become an avenue to connect with potential new donors. 

Some key takeaways are: 

• Gamers makeup nearly 40 percent of the world's population

• It’s a massive industry that grows exponentially each year

• Gamers are men, women, old, young, parents, college students, kids and nearly all gamers have spending power. 

Gaming is a viable and growing avenue to connect with new younger donors. The last report I read on average donor age said that the average global donor age is over 65. It’s time for organizations to become more flexible in how they approach fundraising or risk losing market awareness and struggle to raise funds. 

Today we talked about why it’s important to consider how your organization might enter the gaming industry. To get started you will need to do these three things:

1. Get your organization on a fundraising service that gamers and influencers are using.

2. Create an influencer kit - same time of information you’d provide your brand partners but more succinct and easier to reference. 

3. Let your current supporters know that influencers can fundraise for you on XYZ fundraising services. Chances are among your current supporters there are already influencers or somebody who knows one. 

Originally posted on May 16, 2023 on a former blog site.

A Note to the reader

Over the last six years I have attended more than ten nonprofit focused conferences, and none left me with the impact or feeling that the Gates Foundation Greater Giving Summit did this year. The Greater Giving Summit is an intimate, invite-only event hosted every other year by the Gates Foundation. It started in 2017 to discuss trends within philanthropy and where it needs to go. The summit has under 200 attendees and the majority of the attendees are from platforms, research institutions, and those with a unique perspective on philanthropy.

Due to the intimate and vulnerable nature of the event you might notice I am erring on the side of reverence towards open, difficult conversations by sharing complex topics in a way that may seem vague at times. Nearly every session over the course of the two days was emotional, vulnerable, and pushed us to introspection – rarely was there a dry eye. Unlike larger conventions, this summit focused on a single shared track as a larger group, with only two sessions broken out into smaller concentrated conversations.

Before I dive into my learnings and feelings from this gathering I want to share with you the lens from which I think about philanthropy and “doing good”. 

I started my journey into the nonprofit or “doing good” world by accident. In 2015, I was in my final year of college and a friend suggested that when I play video games I should stream on Twitch. While I’ve been on the internet since before I went to kindergarten, I rarely found myself in online gaming circles, so I had never heard of Twitch. Shortly after discovering Twitch, I found myself in several online gaming groups focused on “doing good”. One group that stood out to me was a group of gamers dedicated to creating a safe space for military veterans to enjoy gaming with civilians who understood how veterans could be and they raised money for nonprofit organizations through Twitch. At this time the broader understanding of gaming, creators, and nonprofit fundraising wasn’t widely known, but it had been slowly gaining ground since before Twitch. After joining this gaming group, “doing good” through gaming became my special interest, and to this day remains my special interest. After college, I taught second grade for a year before being recruited by Andrew Reyes-Schroeder to Twitch. I was at Twitch from June 2017 to January 2022, and since April 2015 when I started getting into online gaming communities I have helped nonprofits around the world raise over $310 million (though I would never consider myself a fundraiser), launched some of Twitch’s first diversity programming, and personally grew immensely. While I may no longer be at Twitch, my passion for the power that video games and creators have in shaping culture and “doing good” has never been stronger. In short, my passion and experience has me bridging two very different industries to (do my best to) fuel change within the world. 

Table of Contents

• Defining & Measuring Success for Nonprofits

  • Ratios

  • Fiscal Sponsors

  • Proximate Organizations

• What is philanthropy?

• Inequity in philanthropy

• The future of Philanthropy

• Conclusion

This year’s overarching theme for the Greater Giving Summit seemed to heavily focus on equity and challenging the way we think about the systems that exist within the philanthropic space from defining what success means to requiring a tax status to be able to do good. There was even a delegation of individuals representing Chinese companies such as Tencent Foundation, BiliBili, AliPay, YeePay Charity, and Byte Dance — this was exciting because much of the philanthropic industry is exported from the United States, so being able to connect to chat about the different types of giving in another culture was valuable.

How we define and measure success of nonprofits is harmful, especially to those most in need of access to funding.

This is a topic that I am incredibly passionate about because systems of oppression are so deeply rooted that recognizing them is near impossible. Communities have been doing philanthropic work and organizing for years without the bureaucratic language and rigid systems we use today. There are a lot of different points that could be covered but I’m going to try and keep it to these three: ratios, fiscal sponsors, and proximate organizations. 

This might be the hardest theme to empathize with, and I can understand why. For a very long time, we have been told that nonprofits spending more than 15% on “overhead” is bad, but the truth is it’s a made up standard that has no basis in fact that a nonprofit that spends less than 15% on overhead is more effective or efficient.

Ratios

At some point in time organizations like Charity Navigator and Guidestar (now Candid) gained traction as the arbiters of deciding what makes an efficient and effective nonprofit. The solution these organizations came up with was to separate things like “administrative costs” from “program costs,” and declare nonprofits with the “right” ratio on their tax forms were better than others. Yet this approach makes a bold, awkward statement that paying for talent, infrastructure, and resources isn’t part of the cost of the program. Nonprofits have responded in turn by limiting headcount, paying low salaries, and relying on those who care more than others to get work done (both employees & volunteers). 

In an era of “getting the bag” and “knowing your worth,” how can we expect our best and brightest minds to do some of the most challenging, exhausting work solving the myriad of problems in the world when we refuse to pay a living wage, much less a competitive salary? I know, personally, that I would not sacrifice my family’s economic stability to work for a nonprofit. 

A very common “whataboutism” is pointing to a handful of Executive Directors or CEOs at nonprofits that make a very good salary; but those EDs/CEOs are managing nonprofits that are handling hundreds of millions of dollars and leading strategy for very large organizations. A 2021 report from the Economic Research Institute (ERI) found that the average annual CEO pay in most nonprofit industries was between $100,000 and $200,000 in 2018.

Nearly every person I know who works at a for-profit company feels like they are asked to do more with less every year, or do more with the same amount of resources. Now imagine you’re working at a nonprofit and your CEO makes $165,000 which means you are obviously making much less than that and asked to tackle some of the hardest problems for people while struggling yourself to pay your bills. And then to top it all off you’re unable to secure new resources or technology to help enable you to do your job more effectively. 

“Nonprofits that spend more on information technology, facilities, equipment, staff training, program development, and fundraising tend to be more successful than those that skimp on these “overhead expenses.” But many donors are reluctant to support groups that spend heavily on those priorities because they associate high overhead costs with wasted money and bad management.” - The Chronicle of Philanthropy 

“We found that when arts nonprofits devoted 35% of their budget to overhead, they fared best in terms of attendance. Attendance declined, by contrast, for organizations that spent extremely low and high amounts of their budget on overhead. Groups that spent far too little saw their attendance decline by 9%. Attendance for arts groups that spent way too much on overhead fell by 30%.” - The Conversation

The Starvation Cycle. Source: Ann Goggins Gregory and Don Howard/Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Fiscal Sponsors

There is an overwhelming lack of funding for organizations that are founded by people of color and when you combine this with the approach of rating nonprofit success based on ratios many organizations would be rated poorly. This is where fiscal sponsors come into play. A fiscal sponsor is a nonprofit organization that provides fiduciary oversight, financial management, and other administrative services to help build the capacity of charitable projects. 

This sounds like a good resource for short-term or proximate organizations, but by and large the majority of organizations that are fiscally sponsored are founded by people of color. Now, your first reaction might be to say that these organizations must not be good at what they say they want to do– and if it was — check your bias. Black founders of nonprofits, especially Black women have been openly calling out the way their organizations are scrutinized by grant issuing foundations for years. One example shared during the summit highlighted a foundation in Atlanta, Georgia (for context, the speaker called it “the Black Mecca” in America) had managed to not issue a single grant to a Black founded organization. 

During the racial reckoning of 2020, I came across an issue with onboarding organizations to StreamLabs Charity and Tiltify so that Twitch creators and game developers could mobilize and support. These organizations were not only busy on the front lines of the movement they had to spend time convincing their fiscal sponsors to sign-up for Tiltify so that the people who wanted to fundraise for them could. There were two issues with this: neither StreamLabs Charity or Tiltify were designed with fiscal sponsors in mind. Why was this an issue for these organizations? A fiscal sponsor only has one EIN (tax number) to the often 100+ organizations they support and fundraising platforms are designed, so there is one cause account per EIN. To my knowledge and understanding, this is a persistent issue with both fundraising platforms in the gaming + creator space. 

This is an issue for nonprofit rating organizations where only the organization with the EIN is rated — so if you’re a donor looking to support a fiscally sponsored organization you likely won’t even be able to find it because it isn’t its own organization.

You might think that a simple solution is that all of these organizations should file for their own EIN, but the idea of rating organizations based on their ratios is so ingrained within our minds when it comes to nonprofits that it would do more harm than good as long as these rating organizations exist or spend the time + money to re-educate everyone. 

In the games industry, the IGDA Foundation has acted as a fiscal sponsor for demographic focused groups… notably Latinx in Gaming started as a sub-organization under the IGDA Foundation. 

Proximate Organizations

This term is new to me and I admit that I have historically engaged in commentary that might have harmed proximate organizations. Proximate organizations are on-the-ground, front line organizations that are often spun up in a moment of need but do not desire to become a long standing legacy organization. Due to both the idea that we should only give to “tax registered” organizations and ratings organizations, these movements and proximate organizations are harmed. One thing that comes to the forefront of my mind (and this was a discussion point) is how people will be flexible and mobilize in a time of crisis* but more rigid in other times. 

*time of crisis as decided by the donor or people in power

In the games industry this might look like supporting unionization and struggling to financially support the organizations (think back to the beginning of the Activision-Blizzard unionization efforts).

I do want to acknowledge that nonprofits as we see them today were largely considered hobby work by the wealthy, usually women, and so there may have been a time when this approach made sense, but my educated assumption is that is likely still harmed the communities who needed the most support and centered those with power and privilege. 

A final thought on this topic: a comment from the CEO of Candid stood out to me: “technology when left to its own devices will amplify existing capacity and biases.” It begs the question: who is responsible for educating donors and helping to reshape the narrative?

What is philanthropy?

Admittedly, this question could be theme number one, but I believe that we define “philanthropy” through the lens of how “doing good” can be judged through the current bureaucratic system. The reality is that most of us have a far away idea of what philanthropy is, and what makes a philanthropist. Oxford Dictionary defines philanthropist as a person who seeks to promote the welfare of others, especially by the generous donation of money to good causes. The definition of philanthropist immediately tells us that it must be somebody with extraordinary means. We’ll come back to this, but ask yourself: would you consider yourself a philanthropist?

During the keynote “Expanding Generosity — Power, Imagination, and Community,” Desiree Adaway guides us through a journey of “what generosity is and where it comes from”. Something she said stood out, “We learn who to look up to and by that we learn who to look down upon” and who is deserving enough to receive our generosity. 

We’ve all assumed things about other people, “if only that person had taken my advice,” “they’re lazy/mentally ill/an addict and that’s why they’re homeless.” Even in conversations regarding the crisis around the number of people unhoused in the United States many resort to the same type of statement: Most are mentally-ill or an addict that has declined the help of those who care. This assertion relieves the speaker and the systems they participate in of responsibility. In the United States the idea of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps or rugged individualism reigns supreme — if only that person had worked hard they’d have had a different outcome for their lives. 

The argument against a universal basic income is rooted in two things: (1) what if somebody undeserving receives support, and (2) I worked hard to get where I am today. Why should I support those that didn’t? 

Language is always changing, but the etymology of the words we use can give us an understanding of the biases passed down through the generations from times we think have long since passed and have no impact today. For example, the modern English word “generosity” is derived from the Latin word generōsus, which means “of noble birth,” which itself was passed down to English through the Old French word genereux. 

Now thinking back to the definition and undertones of who is a philanthropist combined with the history of the word generous, I can’t help but sit in this revelation, more aware of my own movements within the philanthropic sector. I would be lying if a version of my younger self didn’t subscribe to some of the very things I push against today. 

We have all been trained to think of philanthropy or charitable effort through our religious centers or through government ordained organizations and their effectiveness judged by a system that lacks the ability to make nuanced declarations, yet we listen and align ourselves with these declarations as if they are the eternal truth. 

One private conversation I had was around the rise of Effective Altruism, and in the end the consensus was that so many people are afraid of doing the wrong thing that the idea of a coded algorithm or super computer could decide the best course of action to solve the world’s toughest problems is a relief. It’s a vulnerable place to be — working on the toughest problems touching people’s lives. Yet still less vulnerable than being on the receiving end of those solutions… it would seem that one of our most basic human functions* would drive us to a place where we would feel less responsible for the outcome of our proposed solutions. 

*Avoiding discomfort

When I think back to the theme: “what is philanthropy?” and the discussions that were held over the two days I find myself feeling somewhat helpless. We’ve constructed a complex and intertangled society where the fear to pull even on one thread has us believing that everything would crumble around us with the wrong tug. 

I’ve come to believe that the most effective ways to support others are the ways that don’t make us feel good. They leave us wanting, dissatisfied, and with few stories to tell others. 

In today’s hyper-surveilled and commodified world, I worry about future generations trending towards only helping others for views… I know that there will always be communities of people who come together to help each other and we will likely never hear about them. In part, that’s why it is easy to worry about a trend of “doing good for views”.

So, “what is philanthropy?” In my mind, philanthropy is the act of an individual or community stepping in to provide necessary support of an individual or community with no expectation of a thank you, no restriction of the support, and the commitment to the privacy of those they supported. But perhaps that definition isn’t expansive enough– because it’s helping your neighbor get groceries during the pandemic, it’s keeping a lookout for each other, it’s risking your privilege to stand up for others, it’s building houses, stocking shelves at the food bank, and it’s financially giving to charities, movements, and the leaders of those movements. 

There isn’t a limit to what philanthropy is or who a philanthropist — though, I would remind you that how you help matters, and so does where the money being donated originated. 

Inequity in philanthropy

Thinking back to my conversation with the individual of Effective Altruism; the “why” behind our over emphasis on charity rating systems; and the etymology of generosity it is no surprise in the incredible inequities within the philanthropic sector and what organizations are funded. 

At this point, we’ve discussed that many organizations founded by people of color end up going the route of a fiscal sponsor due to the systemic issues with rating organizations and how we judge their success.

Would it shock you to know that in 2021, one year after the murder of George Floyd, only 6% of funding in the United States went to organizations addressing racial equity and only 1% went to racial justice? 

Or that only 2% of funding in the United States went to organizations specifically focused on women’s issues or health? I’ll admit this one did shock me, but as it turns out many broader organizations raise funds and fold women’s related matters into their list of things they’re addressing. 

An example that comes to mind is the number of Twitch creators fundraising for American Cancer Society during October instead of an organization solely focused on breast cancer. And yes, men do get breast cancer, and the American Cancer Society does fund breast cancer research, but in my opinion the support given to ACS over breast cancer focused organizations showcases our bias in preferring funding organizations directly not focused on women. 

What’s worse is 0.5% of funding in the United States went to organizations founded by women of color.

Large institutions are likely to receive funding over the organizations on the frontlines or to the people who look like those the organization is hoping to help. 

On the second day of the summit, a woman speaker shared her experience where she was asked to see budget plans and additional documentation to receive a donation from a group of high networth individuals — whereas none of her white male industry colleagues had been asked the same questions.

In my experience, which isn’t unique, many people give to what will make them feel the best… sick children, animal shelters, or an organization related to a personal experience. We’re human, we're built to avoid discomfort and seek out pleasure. It’s much more pleasant to discuss helping children live longer than it is to face the injustices within our society. These “less attractive” causes are the ones most in need of your support and recognition. 

Another attendee and I discussed the tragic epidemic of human trafficking and how this issue rarely sees media attention and the support needed to address this horrific industry.

Aside from compassion fatigue, many of us rationalize away our compassion for different reasons and those harmed by this practice are those who have always been harmed by our privilege to disengage. 

Often inequity is a direct result of those (people & systems) in power, as part of the keynote on generosity we reviewed different ways people and systems can hold power: 

wealth

violence

numbers

state action (or structural power)

social norms

ability to disengage (or make decisions)

time

One solution to unpacking and changing our behaviors is to deeply examine for ourselves how we grade a nonprofit; think about what is philanthropy to us; and who is deserving of our compassion. 

Note: I did not cover the biases against high networth individuals of color because this is an area I need to better understand. What I did learn during the summit is that many people, including the people with similar backgrounds to high networth individuals of color, often overlook them — either because they might not be “that successful” or an internal bias that “they wouldn’t give anyways”. 

The future of Philanthropy: Gen Z, influencers, and video games

While I have your attention, I’d like to dive into potentially my favorite topic ,the future of philanthropy. On the second day of the summit, I (by accident) ended up leading the lunch discussion with a little over 20 people on the topic of reaching Gen Z. The conversation quickly turned to the discussion of the responsibility of older generations and the state of the world today. This might have been one of the hardest discussions I participated in the entire summit. There is a clear desire by all generations to connect but there is a clear struggle for everybody. 

At the end of the discussion, we concluded that Gen Z’s philanthropy is different, and agreed that older generations– especially those from historically marginalized groups– paved the way for the generations of today; but that while the broader issues each generation faced are similar, they are vastly different in the context and technology of today. 

Honestly, I didn’t leave feeling satisfied with how we addressed “how do we (philanthropic institutions) reach Gen Z”. There isn’t a single right answer, but pulling from that discussion and my personal experiences reaching future generations will look a lot less performative. 

I saw a TikTok about the loss of performative social actions with each generation in-part because etiquette school is no longer a standard part of society. As an example, the “performance” of offering something to drink and the other party being expected to decline before accepting — we’re losing that. 

Each generation has demanded more straightforward answers, communicated differently, and prioritized different aspects of the social contract. Millennials (like myself) grew up with the internet, but not the internet we see today — not the one where we were scared of screwing up and having it posted to Twitter to have it go viral on Instagram or TikTok. 

In addition to Gen Z seeking a less performative social contract, they are more aware than any generation before about the atrocities of the world and the impending doom that is climate change if we do nothing. 

Humans grapple with the big unknown by seeking control over what they can and pushing for change where they can… I believe Gen Z feels both more empowered to drive change, and are more fearful of what happens if they don’t (plus the extreme commodification of our lives AKA late stage capitalism).

There was a discussion about cancel culture and the pressures in the workplace managing younger generations who are quick to call out injustices (perceived or real)… nearly everybody in the room could agree that nobody felt like there was much space, if any, to make a mistake. 

One person shared an article with the group about losing progressive momentum due to the in-fighting within the groups looking to push forward change. You can read it on The Intercept (heads up– it is a long read). [After this was published, another individual on LinkedIn shared Building Resilient Organizations.]

We’re often told that “things just are the way they are,” and we can’t change them as if there is some invisible force pushing things along– and maybe before the ability to mobilize at the speed we are today, there was. But today’s younger generations are hyper aware of the systems, how they were built, and realize that people built them — that’s why I believe Gen Z has less tolerance for platitudes about the way the world is or how “there are no bad guys, just people trying to make it through life.”

Gen Z, in a lot of ways, is taking philanthropy into their own hands. They are mobilizing protests faster, challenging politicians to raise millions of dollars for the issues they care about, and they are refusing to sit down and shut up. 

Organizations looking to reach younger audiences will have to challenge the way they communicate — one look at 99% of all nonprofit social channels, and it’s not hard to see why they aren’t cutting through the noise.

Only one speaker mentioned influencers during the whole summit, and it was brought up as a passing comment in a larger discussion about storytelling. I hope that those I spoke with in regards to working with influencers to tell bigger, more authentic stories, raise funds, or incorporate as cause ambassadors did not mistake my passion for the power influencers and a federated storytelling approach for lack of appreciation of how far philanthropy has come. 

Nonprofits and long term institutions have long developed and controlled very manicured brand images, and now they’re grappling with how to communicate to younger audiences.

The average donor age is over 65

It’s not that younger people are not philanthropic, don’t volunteer, or don’t care; but that organizations do not represent their values honestly. 

Take a moment and check out Olivia Julianna, the trans TikTok-A-Thon or Hasan Piker.

Over the eight years I’ve advised nonprofits on working with influencers (gaming influencers specifically) I have repeated the same talking points:

• No, you can’t ask a fundraiser to go through training before fundraising. Often I connect it back to birthday fundraisers on Facebook— not a single nonprofit reviews people’s timelines before allowing them to fundraise. 

• No, your standard corporate talking points do not speak to this audience.

• No, playing video games does not cause violence but yes, online gaming has become a recruiting ground for groups including extremist groups.  

• No, gaming isn’t just for children… globally 3.7 billion people play video games. 

• Influencers and gaming specific influencers all prefer, require even, that they build a direct relationship with the organization they’re supporting. 

  • This ties back to a point said in our Gen Z discussion: people want to be included as partners not talked at or extracted from.

Pragmatically speaking, examining the video game industry is necessary for the future of philanthropy; no other industry drives culture the way video games do. Video games have the power to change how people (not just kids) see themselves and others. 
Video games can teach empathy, creatively expose people to serious issues without the serious pressure, and connect people from around the world. 

In a future article, I’ll dive a little deeper into the power of influencers and video games. 

Conclusion

I didn’t cover everything the summit touched on but I hope that I conveyed the spirit of the summit and the vulnerability that we all committed to over the two days. If you’ve stuck with me to the end, thank you for your time and consideration. I’ll leave you with the same question to you that was posed to those that attended. 

Who would you be if you had: 

• Universal health care

• Universal sick-leave benefits

• Universal childcare and elder care

• Universal parental leave

• Thriving wage not just living wage

• Universal basic income

• National housing programs

• Federally funded higher education

• Expansion of workers rights

• Expanded environmental protections

• Excellent public transit

I can’t say for sure who I’d be or what I’d do, but I know that I’d be a lot less worried about it.

Jump To ➡️

1. CAMP LAYOUT

   1. TENT

   2. SHADE STRUCTURES

   3. OTHER INFRASTRUCTURE

   4. TOOLS

   5. LIVING ROOM

   6. KITCHEN

   7. COOKING GEAR

   8. INSIDE THE TENT

   9. NEXT-LEVEL COMFORT

   10. UPGRADES

First things first – to me, "Glamping" is when you pay to camp at a prebuilt campsite or one that is set up for you. Yes, I know – I'm splitting hairs, but I'm very proud of the camping experience I've curated.

Secondly, if you're looking for another backpacking, minimalist camping guide, this is not it. I'm a comfort maximalist and proud of it.

To help you contextualize the massive information dump you are about to receive, here is a pretty standard layout of our campsite and a timelapse of use setting it up.

Our base camp structures include your tent, shade structures, and your vehicle.

TENT

The tent we use the most is a Coleman 8-person camping tent in the style of a "cabin" with a built-in closet (link), and we have considered upgrading to the newer version (link), but haven't yet. Note, this tent is not ideal for Burning Man – for the Burn, we use two instant weatherproof Coleman tents (link) with rainflies (link). The smaller tent is also the tent I'd use if I were camping alone.

SHADE STRUCTURES

We have one 10x10 Coleman instant Canopy (link) with two sun walls (link) and one 13x13 Coleman Pop-Up Canopy (link).

OTHER INFRASTRUCTURE

The stakes provided with your tent and easy-ups are very flimsy. I highly recommend getting 10-inch nails (link) with washers (link) for staking everything down. We got ours at Home Depot, along with a mallet (link) to hammer them into the ground.

TOOLS

You can never have enough tarps. You want at least two heavy-duty 10x10 tarps (outside) and one 10x10 medium-duty tarp (inside the tent). We keep a plastic bin with quite a few tarps and always keep extras on hand. In addition to the mallet, you'll want to keep the following tools on hand:

• Scissors

• Multi-tool (link)

• Camping multi-tool (or small hatchet)

• Silicone cable ties (link) – they're reusable and have solved so many problems

• Duct tape

• Spring clamps

• Carabiners

• Work Gloves

• Long handle lighter – seriously, don't fuck yourself with just a regular cigarette lighter.

LIVING ROOM

Our living room boasts a two-seater (link) and three-seater (link) quick collapsible Kelty camping couches and an easy-to-pack-up coffee table. I cannot express how much this coffee table (link) improved our camping experience. When camping, you are always, and I mean always, looking for a usable surface.

We have an array of lighting from string lights, cable lights, personal carry lights, and this rechargeable work light (link) – this work light is a crowd favorite since you can point the panels up at the easy-up, illuminating the whole camping setup.

KITCHEN

My favorite time of day when camping is early morning before the rest of the group is up – I start by making myself a fresh cup of coffee and preparing to make breakfast. Our kitchen setup is what our friends look forward to most when we organize camping trips.

There are so many options for a portable refrigerator, and we started with an entry-level one from Setpower (link) but have since upgraded to an ECOFLOW GLACIER (link) and an ECOFLOW portable power station (link). For extended camping trips, I recommend getting solar panels (link) to charge it up during the day if you're going to keep a fridge running – especially in hot heat. Thankfully, electricity management is handled by my partner; this is an area that he is very precise about.

There isn't much need to write a verbose story to go along with the rest of our cooking gear, so without much fuss –

• Coleman 2-burner propane stove top (link)

• Braided hose adapter for a regular-size propane tank (link)

• Propane tank – found at your local hardware stores

• Cookware storage (link) – we changed from a plastic bin to this hanging bag that fits everything but cups and bowls.

• A small plastic storage bin houses cups, bowls, and our single-cup drip coffee maker (link)

• Biodegradable dish soap (link)

• Collapsible buckets (link)

• Kitchen table/counter (link)

• Water storage (link)

• Electric water spout (link) – it doesn't fit directly; we haven't found a reasonably priced one that fits, but you can DIY it with the provided water spout from the water containers -- we use tape.

• Utensil sets (link) – It, unfortunately, comes with the travel boxes for each set. I put all of the sets in the cookware storage zip pouch and used these for various other projects.

INSIDE THE TENT

On top of the tarp, we put an 8x10 living room rug as the next layer. This incredible layer completely changes the experience inside the tent, making it incredibly homey and comfortable even on rocky terrain.

Since the two-person cots have an annoying metal bar down the center, we push two Coleman cots (link) next to each other. For bedding, the first layer is two two-inch foam cushions, a queen-sized flat sheet, and our desired number of blankets and pillows.

We store most of our tools, camping lights (headlamps, flashlights, etc.), sunscreen, bug spray, wet wipes, & other miscellaneous items we need quick access to in an organizer box (link).

And one of the more silly comfort improvements that has been great for hanging coats, hats, headlamps, and keeping things off the floor – a coat rack (link).

NEXT-LEVEL COMFORT

• Electric shower head (link) – our friends laughed hard when I pulled this out of my box of tricks, but they certainly enjoyed using it. Pro-tip, save water and use the smaller attachment.

• For winter, get a Buddy Heater (link) – they are safe to use inside the tent and have a tip-over safety feature.

• FANS

  • Rechargeable Camping Fan - Battery Operated Fan with Light & Remote, Auto Oscillating, 4 Timer, 60 Hrs Work Cordless Tent Fan for Travel Outdoor RV Garage Power Outage Emergency

  • Portable Misting Fan - 9L Bucket, 10-inch Outdoor Fans for Patios/Camping, 20000mAh USB Rechargeable Battery Powered Floor Cooling Fan with 9L Water Tank, 3 Strong Winds, 3 Spray Mister

• House shoes – this should be self-explanatory, but being able to slip them on and move around the camp is just chef's kiss.

If I were a solo camper, I'd still have a lot of the same gear, but with a smaller tent. I'd make do with one shade structure and one couch, along with the coffee table. Don’t forget your standard items like extra batteries, trash bags, tent dust brush & broom, etc.

UPGRADES

EcoFlow GLACIER Portable Refrigerator

MESA CANVAS TENT (12×14) by TETON

EcoFlow DELTA 2 Max Solar Generator (PV220W)