On Aug. 20, LiquidOx Tweeted that he was invited into the Twitch Partnership Program. We wanted to know how he did it, how he’s feeling, and, more importantly, where he wants to go from here.
“Partner was the huge goal I had in the back of my mind; definitely didn’t expect it. Most people I spoke to were like ‘ah, everyone gets rejected first try. Don’t feel disheartened; it takes some people five tries.’ If I get rejected first try, we just reapply; we go again. It’s probably going to be a process over the next three, four months: just applying every month and seeing when we get it. At the end of that period, maybe by Christmas, hopefully I get partnered. And then I got it first try and I’m like ‘where now?'”
Christmas did come early for LiquidOx and now he’s thinking what his next goal should be and how to obtain it. He’d like to transition his passion for streaming into a full-time job, and said a reasonable metric would be making more income streaming than the average full-time waiter.
Luckily for LiquidOx, he’s in his last year of high school in the UK, so he has at least another nine months to achieve this goal. However, he still needs to have that conversation with his parents.
“They know I stream and they’re fine with it as long as I’m keeping my studies up, [which I am]. I’m going to have that conversation when I have the numbers, when I have the stats. It’s definitely a new career and it would probably take a lot of convincing, but I think the best way to convince them would just be to put the numbers up, to say ‘I’m averaging x viewers, and I’m averaging xyz a month. This is sustainable.'”
For now, LiquidOx is thinking of another short-term goal. What’s allowed him to grow from two viewers to partnership is never being satisfied.
“When I was at two viewers, I’m like ‘you know what? I’m going to get four viewers.’ When I got four viewers, I didn’t sit there and go ‘you know what? Four viewers, I think we completed it. Let’s stop there.’ I was like ‘let’s push to eight; let’s push to 10.’ When I was at 30, I was like ‘let’s push to 50.’ I still have these goals.”
Some of LiquidOx’s passion and hunger for improvement could be attributed to him being a “young gun,” Dmoney said.
“I feel like the younger generation is the future of esports… He’s young, he has a good head on his shoulders, he knows what he’s doing, and he entertains everybody.”
Dmoney is on day 331 of streaming every day for a year. Something he and Rarran have in common is they frequently co-op with LiquidOx. For Rarran, he also occasionally highlights one of the games and puts it on his YouTube channel.
Something they also have in common is they’re both close to joining LiquidOx by getting that purple check mark.
“I know both Rarran and Dmoney will get partnership on Twitch, it’s a given to me,” VengaDragon said. “It’s one of the first goals Dmoney and I discussed when we formed the team.”
LiquidOx said VengaDragon helped him improve his stream settings. However, all he really needed was a bit of confidence from VengaDragon.
“LiquidOx and I worked on improving his stream visuals, but I felt it was more about letting him know I thought he was a great person. We just tweaked the camera, some of the overlays and he did the rest. I should add it goes a long way to tell people that you believe in them and mean it… I want LiquidOx to attain his dream of being a pro esports player. More importantly, I want him to be happy and supported. He has a great demeanor and is a top notch bloke.”
However, just like in Hearthstone, streaming is volatile and bad luck can be around the corner. Because of that, LiquidOx is staying cautious.
“Growth on Twitch is a weird thing. It’s never consistent; it’s never uniform. You can’t really predict where you’re going to be in six months, nine months. It’s hard to know where Hearthstone’s going to be. It’s hard to know if the game will do better or worse. Sometimes your hard work doesn’t pay off, but when it does, it feels super rewarding. I’m going to try and focus my energy as much as I can, even with a full seven hours of school every day… I’m not going to stop ’til I get there.”
