While you’re streaming, you may want to consider playing some games with your audience. Gaming with your audience is a great way to get to know your audience, all while building a community and increasing your views or subs.

There exists an abundance of options for gaming with your audience. Mafia-Style games like Among Us and Unfortunate Spacemen have recently taken the internet by storm. Name-dropping one of these games in your description is a surefire way to catch stray eyes.

But, you may ask, what other games are ideal to play with your viewers? After all, broadcasting a game in which you’re lying to the people you’re broadcasting to, may not be the brightest idea. Phasmophobia, a more cooperative example, released on September 18th and has already climbed to the ninth most streamed game on Twitch. It plays out like a horrifying, free-flowing, Ghostbusters: The Video Game. You and a team of three other ghost hunters go location scouting for a later ghost hunt, all in an immersive first player.

Player count

There are a few barriers you’ll have to consider for your audience. First is accessibility. Does your audience have the setup required to play? How much does a copy of the game cost?

Secondly, think about your player count. Even without a dedicated server space, Minecraft lobbies can hold 11-24 players. Dedicated RAM is the only barrier between you and adding more players, a problem with an easy fix.

Fall Guys offers sixty-player lobbies. Although, it may be embarrassing being knocked out of your own stream in the first round. The Mario Party-esque minigame format lends itself uniquely to streaming. There are private matches in Fortnite, though filling a hundred-player lobby is a daunting task. It’s a great option if you have the audience for it and if you can think of a workaround for stream sniping.

Furthermore, that brings us to the third thing you’ll have to consider.

Timing

When gaming with your audience, engaging with your subs is difficult without a consistent stream schedule. At best, consistency helps you reach as many viewers as possible, and works for you. At worst, it bars some viewers from watching you live. Consistency is necessary when you’re playing with your audience. If there’s an exception, communicate it. It helps to establish a direct line to your fans, like a Discord server or Subreddit. Only then can you host community events.

The giants

Wilbur Soot, a Minecraft streamer, is one of the founders of SMPEarth, a server built by streamers, for streamers. It is a scale 1:1 creation of the Earth, ruled by streamers and roamed by viewers. It is as chaotic as it sounds, with crusades, raids, and community uprisings. Hypixel is another highly successful server, created in 2013 by the pioneers of Minecraft Hunger Games. They are such fans, in fact, that they’ve created an MMORPG-driven competitor set for release in 2021, at the time of writing.

2b2t, short for 2 Builders, 2 Tools, is the oldest anarchy server in Minecraft, a fact FitMc won’t have you forget. Other than being a chaotic wasteland where it takes days to find food, it’s a richly historical landmark for subs and a safe space for established players. The experience Fit broadcasts could not be more different than those of the average player, but these differences are engaging.

Power imbalance with your audience clearly keeps things interesting, so it helps to build a reputation. If you’re entertaining enough, you don’t even have to be good at the game.

Competitive play

Battle Royale, while immensely entertaining, isn’t the most accessible genre of play. Every genre has players face trial and error, but error is just the name of the game.

In the midst of a PUBG or Spellbreak—the latter of which, by the way, still looks like it’s in early access—it can all come down to luck. Were you just lucky enough to grab a high-ranked weapon, fortunate to lobby with players of your own skill level?

Regardless, if you value your pride above all else, you could always spectate the lobby you’re hosting. Your audience will be entertained by your commentary and engaged in the gameplay. Plus, you’d be hard-pressed to find a battle royale game without a spectator mode. Irish streamer RTGame definitively proves any game with a tournament mode is fun to watch, with the right streamer to spectate.

1v1 Me

If you’re still growing your audience and only have a handful of viewers each stream, you’re not in a yet in a position to fill a player lobby, and that’s okay. Get a friend or two in a discord call, and go nuts. There are limitless possibilities. Collaborate in goal-oriented games like Rocket League or the soulfully cooperative story of A Way Out. Fight to the death in For Honor or have a home run contest in Super Smash Bros Ultimate.

Gaming with your audience is most entertaining when you’re having fun. Or suffering. Mostly suffering, but all in good faith.