CEO’s Corner: Our Point of View

This is the second in an ongoing series of posts from fearless leader and CEO Michael Anderson. For the first, click here, and stay tuned every month for more updates from the man in charge.

We talk to hundreds of streamers every month, and it gives us the benefit of their tremendous amount of opinions, suggestions, and points of view. Something I have noticed along the way is that these conversations are not just about GameWisp, but more often than not, they are about the industry and the profession of streaming.

The more I get to know the broadcasters that use our platform, the more it becomes apparent to me that great care and consideration go into the holistic brand and personality that comes across in a stream. We see a deep understanding of what makes an individual stream special, and, maybe just as important, what makes streaming so special.

There are many shared threads running through these discussions, but the most important is that great streamers gather together with their fans to have a communal experience around gaming, to share the joy of community, inclusiveness, and friendship. As one of the Oscar winners said in their acceptance speech, for thousands of years we have gathered around a flickering light to share stories, from a nighttime campfire to the darkness of a theater (and I’ll add: to now the 60 fps brilliance of our monitors). Streaming is the newest medium for storytelling.

At GameWisp, we believe that these communities and experiences are important. It is imperative that not only do these communities simply survive, but that they thrive. And, if this is to be the case, the streamers that are the core driving personality at the center of these communities must have the resources to consistently build unique fires to gather around, so to speak.

These beliefs are at the center of our point of view, as a company:

• Video game live streaming is a valid, integral, and meaningful entertainment medium perfectly positioned to foster community.
• Every streamer should be able to make a living as a broadcaster because they have created something of real value and deserve, like everyone, to do something that they love.
• Every fan should be able to easily support the community that they love through reliable subscriptions, and be rewarded for their support.

Everything we do at GameWisp is driven out of these points of view. They, and other values we hold close as a company, are an external rubric by which we can judge our product development choices, what events we attend, how and to whom we market, and even who we hire to join our team. As we continue to grow, we will continue to lean on these core beliefs to guide our decisions going forward.

But this doesn’t stop with us:

• What are your core beliefs?
• What point of view do you have?
• How does that affect your stream and brand?

These are questions to ask yourself and to define early in your career as a streamer and community builder. And as you answer them, we would love to know what you come up with! Be sure to share them with us through our official Twitter account, or through my own. We want to hear from you!

Originally published at blog.gamewisp.com Mar 2, 2016.