Here’s how I accidentally became a TikTok Streamer.
I'm reasonably charming but certainly median-looking. I’m a middle-aged father of two & husband of one. My locks of glory have long gone, and I’m nasally gifted (...I’m not talking about my ability to smell). In short: I’m hardly your average profile of what you expect when you ask Midjourney to /imagine a “Youtuber.”
Yet, here I am sitting in front of my green screen. I now stream every day with a growing audience of players on our game that we pioneered on TikTok Live. How did all this happen?!
Here’s a free hug…
Firstly, just a bit of context in case we don’t know each other. For over a decade I was a pretty key player at Miniclip. You’ll know it from its popular game 8 Ball Pool… but it has not-so-secretly-anymore become one of the largest names in digital games publishing. I joined a team of 15 and left it a massive 800-person, 13-studio behemoth. It was a privilege of epic proportions.
After Miniclip, I kicked off Half Moon Studios in early 2023. We were the first game studio that fully embraced AI. Watch more about our organisational thesis in my interview on Deconstructor of Fun here… but it boils down to everyone using AI co-pilots to massively scale our collective output.
From a product perspective, Half Moon Studios has been pioneering Interactive Live Gaming on TikTok. We had our first sniff of this opportunity in October ‘23 when one of our early prototypes ramped up over a million plays on TikTok in two weeks. Our second title (and first real hit), Word Quiz Live had a reach of over 3m MAU in June ‘24, and our growing following becomes ever-more dedicated.
What is TikTok Live?
TikTok Live is an absolutely incredible but nascent platform. The concept is simple: as a Viewer, you watch someone playing a game, DJ-ing, working in a coffee shop, walking through a museum - it could be anything. Hosts / Creators like myself communicate with viewers through the camera. Viewers write comments, tap the screen to ‘like’ & give gifts in support.
Our game Word Quiz Live reads those comments and turns these inputs into the game controller. In doing so, we’ve built what may well be the largest co-op game in the world. All viewers together operate as a team to keep the streak alive by at least one person answering the word quiz question correctly. An example would be a round of “Wordle”, but it’s played by hundreds of people at the same time - all frantically guessing the correct word within the 30-second limit. It’s huge fun.
We launched Word Quiz Live in April ‘23, having demoed it at GDC in San Francisco. Throughout the summer it was playable 24/7. As part of the experience we developed our slightly grumpy AI Host, Nigel, who dynamically comments on gameplay.
This summer, TikTok Live made a number of policy changes. They are doing their best to create a positive, safe and healthy Live ecosystem. For them this is a massive challenge, and their moderation teams and AI systems struggle to keep up. One of the changes they made was that, at least for the moment, they require a human to be actively operating the Live. And so… we built a fully fledged streaming studio and I started hosting our Lives as a Streamer alongside my colleague Chloe.
When I grow up…
I suspect ‘Streamer’ tops the ‘what I want to be when I grow up’ lists at the moment. But my goodness, it is challenging. Engaging a group of players for an hour or two or three is a real feat and it certainly took a few sessions for me to find my Streamer voice. I’m getting better every session, and will eventually do a post about do’s and don’ts.
Some users share that they prefer playing with our AI host, Nigel. It never offends me and I understand. After all, we’ve significantly changed the dynamic of the original experience. Others say that they prefer myself and Chloe as human hosts. Above all, it’s really humbling as a product person to be sharing and playing your product Live with a real audience. The ultimate QA, if you will (product people, take note!)
The problem… and solution.
The problem that many Streamers have is that they can only be Live for up to four hours in the day; it’s that exhausting. At Half Moon Studios and with our first hit Word Quiz Live, we’ve already found the solution: a hybrid model whereby you have a human host for a few hours of the day and an AI-host for the remainder. It allows your channel to be “always on”, yet enables you to build personal relationships with your fans. We continue to work with TikTok (and other platforms!) on this pioneering new concept and are excited about what it may bring.
Anyway, “thanks for the follow” - and should you want to come and hang out let us pop in your stream, add Word Quiz Live on TikTok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@wordquizlive
Pieter