EpicDan22, a FPS Streamer, Shares His 6+ Year Journey as a Content Creator

Tell us your history with video games

I started playing video games way back on the NES. Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt being the first games I remember ever playing. I played with my family and I enjoyed that family time greatly. As I grew older I continued keeping up with every new console release until this day. At a young age I gravitated to the gaming world and being able to experience all these fascinating places with amazing characters.

My gaming name is a mixture of my name “Daniel” my sports number “22” and just the word Epic to set myself apart on Xbox Live. I remember working at Blockbuster and the game “EpicMickey” came out on the Wii. I started using “EpicDanny” just in passing online then changed my gamertag to Epicdanny then dropped the Danny to replace it with Dan and added my sports number. Thus Epicdan22 was created.

What’s your backstory and how did you get into streaming?

I wouldn’t have streamed if weren’t for a few friends who wanted to watch me play through Five Nights of Freddy. I had a barely manageable laptop to play it on but I streamed it so they could watch. Before I knew it, it wasn’t just the 3 of us. I ended up with 20 viewers on my first stream. It was only like 3 hours but it sparked in me a new desire to try to stream again and before I knew it I was streaming weekly. I was working as a car salesman and spent my Christmas bonus on getting a decent PC to actually stream on.

Tell us about your channel and community

My community is the absolute best. Every new viewer that stops by is met with multiple people welcoming them into our home and answer any questions they may have. If not for them I’d not be where I am as a content creator.

Generally, I stream Destiny 2. However, that wasn't the original game that gave me my initial boost in followers. That goes to Borderlands 2. I'm a huge fan of RPGs and looter shooters. Anything that I sink my time into for thousands of hours I truly love.

If I didn’t stream I’d still play these types of games all the time. It makes it easy to get lost in the streaming hours playing them. Only difference is having an audience constantly there. Viewer games are daily. We’re always looking for viewers to play with. The Epic Community isn’t called that for nothing.

Tell us about your brand and how you’ve been able to obtain success

I’ve never been a brand. I am me. At one point I tried to “brand” myself but at the end of day I am going to be Daniel through and through. What you see is what you get on and off stream. Makes it easy for me to just do me no matter what.

I’ve been streaming 6 and a half years, so I became an affiliate as soon as the program started. However, it took some time for me to reach Partner. This could be due to at times being inconsistent with streaming and losing the passion and desire for content creation. Due to COVID, and some other life changes, I chose to just focus on content creation and stream full-time as a way to lose myself mentally throughout it. Through consist streaming, and a little bit of luck, it’s all panned out as far as growth and financial success. But we’ve still got a long way to go.

How do you balance streaming and life?

My schedule is streaming. I think if we were not in a pandemic, and COVID wasn’t a thing, my schedule would be much different. For now I stream until I’m done. It could be for 6 hours, it could be for 15 hours.

Outside of streaming, I work on YouTube content or create content for other platforms to help grow my viewerbase and followers. My days off are normally just catching up with family or anime. I used to get anxious about being inside all the time but nowadays since everyone is inside I’m cool with it. As long as Twitch is around I’ll probably be streaming. I love it.

Tell us what tools you use for your stream

The more things you add the more chances things can crash and I try to keep things simple.

OBS Studio and Streamlabs chatbot handle all alerts and notifications. I use Discord for calls. I try to keep overlays to a minimal. I like using the Streamlabs Event List and some alerts I made myself. That’s it. Although I’ll probably be going for a bit more robust alert style soon.

Analytics is a key factor to the success of a channel, however it should not hover over a creator like a dark cloud. If you aren’t enjoying a game, the numbers shouldn’t matter. But you should do a deep dive in your channel's performance so you can find patterns in what works and what doesn't. Once you have that figured out, you don't have to keep checking analytics or worry about it.

What are your top 3 streaming tools? 

1. OBS Studio
2. Streamdeck
3. GoXLR Mini
   

What advice would you give to small channels trying to reach Partner? 

If you’re looking to get Partnered do not force it. Don’t go for a Partner push just to try to reach Twitch Partner. Just do your thing. Pushing for Partner will stress you out and have a negative effect. Just focus on building and creating a positive and amazing community and Partner will come. Trust me.

If you could change one thing about Twitch, what would it be? 

Discoverability for new up and coming women and people of color content creators.