I began streaming Retro RPG games to Twitch in September of 2018 as a way to experience the history of iconic franchises such as Final Fantasy and to make friends with like minded individuals along the way. I eventually began streaming full-time because the joy streaming to this community of friends brought me. Over time, however, my love for gaming faded and, shortly thereafter, my love of streaming faded as well. Streaming became more and more about marketing, mass entertainment value, and numbers, all things I was not built for. What I loved and what kept me coming back every day were the interactions, experiences, and relationships I had built and continued to build. Once the aforementioned negatives began to outweigh the postives, I realized streaming games wasn't something I could continue to do any longer. This realization caused me to quit streaming in January of 2020. Though this period was a relatively short portion of my life, around 16-17 months, it remains to this day, one of my greatest experiences. As I get older, I realize more and more everyday the value of people and relationships in life. Now it is obvious that streaming games was simply an excuse for me to make friends and to socialize with a community I held dear to my heart. I also realized that it was one that was there for me at a time when I needed them the most and one that I need in my life. As of March 2024, I will begin streaming again, whenever I have time, solely as a way to socialize with friends, both old and new.

I do not have any specific plans for the format of these streams, nor do I plan to have many fancy intros, visuals, widgets, soundboards etc. The only plan I have is to make going live as easy and enjoyable for me as possible. As of now, I will be going live in more of a just chatting format while doing work/studying in the downtime. I don't feel pressure to provide entertainment value as I did in the past, nor does it matter to me if chat is active. I did have a few short lived returns in the past before I disappeared again forever, but I hope this time is different. In those past returns, I was still concerned with providing entertainment value. Whether that was through me forcing myself to game, trying an alternate style (workout stream, building a tv, working on a car, etc.), or trying a different platform. Now I am streaming solely to interact with friends and doing activities that contribute to my life, activities I would be doing anyway. I hope this alignment of personal goals and streaming allows me to stay around consistently. Only time will tell, but I am excited to try this out.

I refused to activate my affiliate status when I first began streaming, as I did not want viewers to pay or feel obligated to pay for subscriptions. My plan was to have any monetary compensation come through the popularity of the stream (ex. sponsorships, advertisments, events, etc.) or not at all. I did eventually affiliate in the second half of my streaming stint to increase the transcoding options (480p, 720p, 1080p) available to viewers, as some viewers did not have internet that could support the higher resolutions. I also considered the fact that many viewers wanted emotes and said, somewhat jokingly, that it was selfish of me not to allow them to support me. Either way, it wasn't much of a difference, but I liked this initial philosophy I had towards streaming. The second reason I am choosing not to affiliate, is that advertisements are now a thing on twitch and non-affiliate status allows ad free viewing. During my initial streaming stint, advertisements were not a thing on twitch, thus this additional reason did not exist. When I came back to Twitch and learned of the forced advertisment, it irritated me and resulted in me streaming on a different site. I ended up coming back to twitch once I realized the other site was much worse in terms of its policies and that I could avoid advertisements by cancelling my affiliate status. For these reasons, the plan as of now and in the near future is to remain a non-affiliated channel.

The Graveyard is the name of the community we formed. The name's origin is two-fold. The first reason for the name is that my streams would run after midnight (PST) and up through 6am. Essentially the streams ran during a typical "graveyard work shift". The second reason for the name is that I played mostly dead/retro games that are not popular in the modern day. The Graveyard eventually became a discord server that people from the community would use to communicate with each other or to post trolly content from the stream during/before/after the stream. There was a period when we would use the discord to voice chat and to watch movies/youtube videos. As I streamed less the server became more and more inactive. Though the server always only had a few channel names, even in its prime, I decided to delete most channels and focus any activity to one channel to maximize engagement. I don't know what the state of the discord server will be going forward, but it will still be the spot to engage with community members and myself when the stream is not live. If you are interested in joining the server you can click the "Graveyard" label above.