Ultra.
Twitch Streamer Captain Richard took the skills he learned working in public access television and turned his passion for streaming into a business Now he live streams full-time to an audience of over 25,000 people each day. This is his story.
CaptainRichard: My name is CaptainRichard. I’m a Twitch partner. I’ve been broadcasting on the Twitch platform for five years coming September 1st, and I’ve been a partner for a little over four of those years.
Streamlabs: Where did the name CaptainRichard come from?
CaptainRichard: So a part of it, at least originally, is that I play a lot of space sims, and Sci-fi games and I always kind of wanted to be the whole ship captain thing, you know Star Trek and your Star Wars and some such, but also the other part of it is my father was actually a pilot in the army and we have the same first name. And he actually was a captain at one point in his career. So I’ve kind of taken after him a little bit as well with the whole captain Richard Motif.
Streamlabs: What type of content do you usually stream?
CaptainRichard: I stream primarily space and sci-fi Games, a few a narrative-driven FPS games as well. But yeah, primarily I stream space games. Games like Star Citizen,Elite Dangerous, even No Man’s Sky and a few alpha titles thrown in the mix as well.
Streamlabs: How did you first get into live streaming?
CaptainRichard: So I got into live streaming because of, well my roommate actually, he’s a guy I have known for over 20 years now. He actually originally streamed Planetside 2 and a few other games here and there. But he just encouraged me to try it out. And so I kinda jumped in as a game called Star Citizen was starting to go into a playable Alpha state and that was almost five years ago. So I really have Star Citizen and my roommate to thank.
Streamlabs: What was the most difficult part about streaming when you first started?
CaptainRichard: Well, when I was first starting out, I may have had a little bit of a leg up because I worked part-time doing public access television. So I kind of saw what worked and a lot of what didn’t work. And I tried to use some of those other things I’ve learned working in public access to apply to the channel. But I think it was getting over the nervousness of actually broadcasting to a live audience, you know, just to strangers on the Internet. But yeah, you get over it kind of quickly when you realize there are gamers out there just kind of interested in what you’re playing, what you’re streaming, and then yeah, you build a rapport with your audience and that really kind of helps you to kind of chill out a little bit. So if I can recommend anything for new streamers is just understand that these folks that may be looking for entertainment, are, you know, gamers just like you that are looking for someone to hang out with while you’re gaming.
Streamlabs: How did working in public access television prepare you for streaming?
CaptainRichard: I did a few different things. I was a camera operator, I was a floor director. I was a rigger, putting cables in, lighting up. So I kind of applied some of that experience to move over to twitch. I was that guy who watched Wayne’s world and saw them broadcasting from their parent’s basement and said, I want to do that. I want to have my own public access show. And so I tried setting that up. I did the same thing in my parents’ basement, set up a little home studio. Never went anywhere, really. And then years and years later, as I said, my roommate was streaming on twitch. It seemed to be a lot of fun and he encouraged me to try it out. And again, here I am five years later.
Streamlabs Did you ever think you’d be creating content full-time?
CaptainRichard: Uh, no. As far as considering streaming full time, it was always a hobby for a very long time. You know, I had a day gig. I work in IT. And yeah, it got to the point where I, you know, had an opportunity to move into a quote-unquote gamer house. And now that’s where I broadcast from. And that is pretty much what I’m doing now is streaming on twitch.
Streamlabs: What goals or aspirations would you like to achieve this year and in the future?
CaptainRichard: Well, I have to be very, very, very thankful for, Twitch in general because they’ve been actually very, very supportive of me. I’ve been added to the rotation for the front page of Twitch. So, other than having a Twitch partner spotlight and a couple of other guest spots on the front, they’re very kind to put me in the rotation. Every now and again, sometimes I’ll see I’ll have a much larger audience and it turns out that people will say hi from the front page of Twitch. So again, it’s really remarkable and I’m very thankful that Twitch is able to be supportive of just a random space streamer.
As far as goals are concerned, you know, they call it the stream dream and I kind of feel like I’m living it a little bit right now. So, yeah, I’m feeling pretty good about the whole thing.
Streamlabs: What are some things that you enjoy doing in your free time?
CaptainRichard: That’s a good question. I like to travel. I mean it’s kind of related to the whole streaming thing, but going to gaming conventions or other fandom conventions. Those are things that I like to do. I like camping a little bit, getting out, you know, completely the opposite of streaming is getting out there where there are no computers. When there’s just no wifi access or anything. And just enjoying nature and quiet for just a little bit.
Streamlabs: Has streaming opened up any surprising doors or opportunities
CaptainRichard: Yeah, absolutely. Many opportunities that I haven’t been expecting at all over the past few years have just kind of come up. I can give you a very recent example. I went to E3 for the first time. That was actually courtesy of Logitech. Logitech brought me out as an affiliate. I’m actually, rocking some of their new headphones right now. I’ve always wanted to go, but you know it’s mostly still an industry event. They do sell tickets here and there to the public. But it is primarily a professional industry event and I’ve always wanted to go and through streaming and through having a relationship with the sponsor, I was able to go for the first time so that, that is like a huge bucket list item for me as a Gamer. It’s a dream come true kind of thing for me and getting to meet lots of people that I wouldn’t have been able to meet otherwise if it hadn’t been for streaming. So actually very thankful for the whole life experience that I’ve had since I started.
Streamlabs: Is there a specific tool or feature from Streamlabs that you couldn’t live without?
CaptainRichard: I know this is probably what a lot of people give you but the thing that I rely on most heavily is, of course, the alert system for Streamlabs. Very early on in my streaming career, I was using another service but it just wasn’t up to par. So I switched over to Streamlabs and it’s been fantastic. The one key thing that I liked that you guys do and keep up to date is all of the different options for subs or subscribers on Twitch. You know, Twitch is constantly coming up with new ideas, trying to be innovative as far as subs are concerned. So you know, whether it’s someone you know, just subbing outright, a Twitch prime sub or a gifted sub or you know, the sub-bombs, you guys have been really good about keeping up with that stuff. It makes it really interactive when people are trying to help you out as a streamer and they get nice alerts and animations. So, yeah, that’s probably the Streamlabs feature that I rely on the most.
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