Twitch and *SCAPE collaborate on new esports programme for aspiring streamers in Singapore

With literally no activities held outdoors during the circuit breaker, youths in Singapore turned to Twitch, a live-streaming platform.

Twitch reported that its viewer traffic increased by 57 per cent in the first week of the circuit breaker alone. The company also realised there is an emerging interest in streaming among youths in Singapore.

In order to provide opportunities to the youth and prepare them for the future, *SCAPE and Twitch launched a partnership during a virtual press conference on Sep 22.

“We’re looking forward to working with *SCAPE in order to spark creativity in Singapore’s youths, and provide them with a service to find communities and form lasting bonds with like-minded people,” said Sunita Kaur, the senior vice president of Asia Pacific at Twitch, in a media release.

Supporting aspiring streamers in Singapore

To kick off the partnership, Twitch and *SCAPE launched Pathway, a platform that aims to support local aspiring streamers.

On Pathway, youths in Singapore will learn everything about live streaming – from the basics, such as lighting and audio, to more advanced tips and tricks on analytics and monetisation.

The first programme in the initiative is Gateway, a one-day workshop session on Sep 26, from 2pm to 6pm.

As live streaming can be confusing to beginners, Gateway aims to introduce the basics of streaming to youths who are new and aspiring content creators.

The session will be led by Andrew Philippou, a Singapore-based streamer known by the username Sombrero on Twitch, and Gareth Reynolds, product manager at XSplit.

Even if you have never been on Twitch before, do not worry.

Kenneth Teo, the senior executive of *SCAPEesports, assured, “[We will] guide them through and hand-hold them, on everything from what Twitch is to hardware and software.”

You can watch the complimentary crash course on the SCAPEesports Twitch channel here.

Mentorships with local streamers

According to Twitch, about 1.3 billion people across the Asia Pacific identify as gamers, which is a whopping 63 per cent of the entire online population. Last year alone, the number of Twitch broadcasters from Asia doubled in size.

To help youths kickstart their streaming careers, *SCAPE is planning to run a Talent Development Programme.

The programme will consist of networking opportunities and dedicated mentoring sessions with established local streamers.

Some mentors include Andrew ‘sombrero’ Philippou and Deborah Sim, known as Wolfsbanee on Twitch. They were also present at the conference, teasing some advice they would give aspiring streamers.

“It has to do with all the back-end work that you have to do as a streamer as well,” Deborah said, “If you’re doing it for the long run, it’s very important to have a year plan to know what kind of goals you want to achieve.”

“I like how you’re already conducting the workshop,” joked moderator Wenceslaus Tan.

“Don’t be upset or discouraged if you don’t hit [your goals], because content creation is always ever-flowing,” Deborah added in response to a question.

“You never know when you’ll reach a certain point where you complete your goals.

“The most important thing is to work hard for yourself and your goals.”