Streamers Who Created Games Of Their Own

Any good streamer knows a lot about video games, but not many of them have what it takes to create a game of their own. From art design to programming and from marketing to maintenance, so much more goes into video game development than most people realize. Despite the challenges that come with making a game, more than a handful of streamers have decided to throw their hat into the ring with varying degrees of success.

There are some streamers who have partnered with pre-existing development studios to get their game off the ground as quickly as possible, and there are some indie game developers who've started streaming their creation process so fans can get in on the fun. Then, there are some streamers who dove in too fast and realized they were out of their depth. The video game industry is littered with amazing success stories and informative failures, but these are the stories of streamers who got into the business for themselves.

Fans know that Dr Disrespect has a serious passion for gaming in general and first-person shooters in particular. Now the streamer is putting his years of experience and expertise to good work by creating a video game of his very own. In December 2021, Dr Disrespect officially announced the launch of his studio Midnight Society. He said he was working with Robert Bowling, former creative strategist for the "Call of Duty" franchise, and Quinn Delhoyo, former multiplayer designer for "Halo 5," to create a community driven FPS that players could see being built from the ground up. The game would right many of the wrongs seen in other battle royale titles, which the Doc knows about from his extensive time streaming. Everyone was excited to see what the Midnight Society would eventually have to offer.

Four months later, an early look at Dr Disrespect's game caused an uproar in the gaming community. Dr Disrespect wanted to make "Day Zero" gamers, or Founders, an integral part of the game by giving them ways to support the project throughout its development. Anyone who pays to be an early adopter (and is selected through a unspecified vetting process) will get exclusive digital content, including a procedurally generated profile picture that doubles as an NFT. Gamers weren't thrilled by the idea of NFT integration, even though the Midnight Society claimed that the NFTs weren't an integral part of the game. To make matters worse, the first snapshot of the game included a 32gb RAM requirement that blows a majority of PCs out of the water. Luckily there's still plenty of time for Dr Disrespect and the Midnight Society to adjust their game in response to the feedback they've received. 

Some streamers developed games that we can only hope we'll be lucky enough to get to play. Reckful's death shocked the gaming community in 2020. It was another sad event to add to the pile that year. For a long time Reckful had been a popular streamer, mostly playing games like "World of Warcraft," and as much as fans enjoyed watching him play games, they were even more excited to play a game that he'd designed himself. Prior to his death, Reckful was working on his very own MMO. Called, "Everland," the game promised to be a relaxing experience geared toward social gamers. "Everland" would be a place where friends could gather and hang out while exploring a beautiful top-down 2D environment filled with a huge variety of activities, and locations to discover.

Reckful had the help of a dedicated team while working on the game, so there's a chance that someday his fans will still be able to explore the world of "Everland." Unfortunately, the path to finishing Reckful's MMO isn't going to be straightforward. The development team announced that it still intends to finish the game, but for the moment, it's unable to continue working on it. At the time of his death, Reckful maintained full legal rights to the game, meaning that until a probate court can sort out Reckful's assets, development has to be put on hold.

Day9 is a streamer with a long history in the gaming community. He started his professional gaming career as a competitive "Starcraft" player, and he was winning tournaments as a teenager. From there, Day9 became one of Twitch's early partners. How early? He was actually the first streamer on the platform to get a "Subscribe" button back when that was still considered a new feature. With all that history in the community, Day9 caused a huge stir when he announced that he was joining Artillery Games to help them develop an in-browser RTS.

The game was called "Guardians of Atlas," but the high hopes that fans had for the project slowly diminished as no news of the game's development was released. Day9 and Artillery Games offered so few updates that years after the initial announcement, fans were on Reddit trying to find out what had happened to the game. In 2016 Day9 left the company, and Artillery Games ended development on "Guardians of Atlas." This is one of those games that will have to live on in imagination only. Maybe someday it will be resurrected, and fans can finally experience the RTS of their dreams.

Video games aren't just fun, they're also important cultural objects, and some streamers are keenly aware of how much a game can influence its fans. That's why Loriipop, one of New Zealand's top streamers, has decided to create a video game company of her very own (via Gameshub). Loriipop sees a real opportunity for change in the industry. "There's a real lack of minority groups in games, like women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ community – and that's something I really want to change," she said. Her pre-existing platform and connections from being a professional streamer put her in a unique position to really lead a charge for more inclusivity in gaming.

Loriipop's company is called Chromatic Pie and rather than chasing the next big trend, its mission is to create games that anyone can pick up and enjoy. "We're working hard to ensure our games will be as accessible as possible, within our limitations ... Games are for everyone," the company wrote. Chromatic Pie's first game will be a 2D platformer that is heavily inspired by games like "Rayman" and "Crash Bandicoot." According to the company, the game is currently scheduled to be released in early 2023.

Some of the most interesting gaming content online is coming from indie developers who are offering their followers a behind-the-scenes look at how games get made from the ground up. Goodgis has over 80 thousand subscribers on YouTube who watch him create everything from pixel art to board games to full video games running on the Godot engine. In addition to showing other aspiring developers the possibilities available to them, Goodgis also offers advice on how to get started making games and how to improve each step of the process.

Goodgis is the founder of his own company, Firith Studio. The company is made up of an eight person team that "focuses on creating family friendly experiences." Without losing sight of that main goal, Firith Studio has managed to create an impressive array of games. "Wizbirds Online" is a free-to-play, side-scrolling MMORPG where players explore a world as a bird with magical powers. "The Keeyp," on the other hand, is a board game inspired by rogue-lites that lets people explore randomly generated dungeons with printable cards. Firith Studio's entire game catalog is filled with inventive concepts that just about anyone can pick up and have a good time playing.

"Farming Simulator" may be an official esport, but it doesn't satisfy the same competitive itch as most first-person shooters. For a farming game that can also get your blood pumping, look no further than "Shotgun Farmers." Released in 2019, the game is a multiplayer shooter where all the weapons grow on the farm. Every gun fires fruits and vegetables, and every missed shot becomes a planted seed that matures into a whole new weapon. The streamer behind this inventive game is QaziTV, and his channel is a fantastic resource for would-be game developers everywhere.

QaziTV has been documenting his work as a video game developer for years. His earliest YouTube videos show his progress on a game called "Skyhook." Now that he's working on keeping "Shotgun Farmers" updated, his channel gives some insight into the post-release period of video game development, which makes it a unique place for people to learn more about the art and business of video games. In addition to keeping his YouTube channel up to date, QaziTV also does much of his development work live on Twitch, so fans can get a truly up close look at what it takes to make a hit game.

Pirate Software is both a video game studio and the screen name of its founder and game director Jason Thor Hall. The studio currently has two games available on Steam, "Heartbound" and "Champions of Breakfast." At the 2022 GameMaker Awards, "Heartbound" was named the Most Anticipated game because of its "amazing storytelling which really captured the judges' imagination, leaving them hungry for more." Pirate Software is a small studio that's led by game director Jason Thor Hall, and the company not only creates great games but also inspires creativity in its fans by showing how the sausage gets made.

On the Pirate Software Twitch channel, fans can show up to watch as the company's games come to life. Most days of the week the channel is live and working hard. Not everyone has the attention span to watch multi-hour coding sessions, but those who do get to learn firsthand how game developers approach various problems throughout their process. In the coming months fans will get to watch how an early access game like "Heartbound" makes the transition into being a fully released experience. 

There's often an imagined divide between AAA and indie developers, but the two groups actually have quite a bit of overlap. Jitspoe is a Twitch streamer who's worked on truly massive games like "Farcry 3" and "Farcry 4," but who's now gone into business for himself as an indie developer. Five days a week Jitspoe is streaming his work on his current project "Fist of the Forgotten." Fans watch him test run new features and game mechanics while pausing the game to make adjustments to its code in real time.

Jitspoe's game is a side-scrolling adventure with some surface level similarities to Playdead's classic "Limbo." Unlike that puzzle-focused game, "Fist of the Forgotten" is all about mobility and combat. Players explore a futuristic machine world populated by hostile robots. By running, jumping, and punching players can upgrade their character, unlock the world's secrets, and achieve multiple endings. The game is scheduled to release "When it's done," but until then fans can watch Jitspoe's progress on Twitch and possibly even suggest features and changes to him as he works. 

Lana_Lux is a streamer and full time game developer who's current project might hit a little close to home for some gamers. "Strain" takes place in a world where a deadly virus has made its way into human society. Players take control of a survivor struggling to get by in a quarantined city, and they need to gather resources, find friends, and make tough decisions in order to stay alive. Lana_Lux has been working on the game since March 2020, and she does much of her development live on Twitch so fans can watch the game come together piece by piece.

"Strain" isn't the only game that Lana_Lux has worked on. Her previous title was "Don't Notice Me," an adventure set in a high school. Players help Mika Kittinger to get back a mistakenly sent love letter before it's read by Mika's crush. Lana_Lux is one of the most passionate game developers on Twitch. When she's taking a break from working on "Strain," she's taking part in game jams with other developers or building a game in 24 hours on her own as a side project. Her channel is one of the best places to see 3D game development in action.

It turns out that being good at video games has very little to do with being good at making video games. The members of FaZe Clan learned that lesson the hard way when they took on a development project that crashed, burned, and caused outrage among their fans. FaZe Clan first announced that it was partnering with iCazual Entertainment on a new FPS back in January 2015 (via Kotaku). The game, called "Starnet Eclipse," was supposed to be a sci-fi shooter running on the Unreal Engine that could rival even AAA franchises like "Call of Duty." Fans were thrilled by the idea and donated $20,000 to the project.

"Starnet Eclipse" had its release scheduled for sometime in 2016, but after the alpha and then the beta test were delayed, fans started to get concerned. Though FaZe Clan and iCazual Entertainment did their best to dissuade fan concerns, by mid-2016 they were offering refunds for everyone who had contributed to the game. The game's official Twitter page is still live, but it hasn't been updated since December 2016, and the official website is down. FaZe Clan recovered from the scandal, but iCazual Entertainment never worked on another game.

100 Thieves is another professional esports group that's getting into the video game development business with its mysterious "Project X." On May 18 2022, 100 Thieves posted an announcement on Twitter telling the world that they're creating a game of their very own. The CEO and COO of 100 Thieves, Nadeshot and John Robinson, said that they've been planning the game for just over two years. They also said they planned to find "a different way of making a video game than anyone's ever made one before" by leaning on the input of game creators, professional players, and their own fans.

Of course the big question is about what kind of game "Project X" is going to be. On that front, 100 Thieves has been keeping its plan under wraps. In June the group announced that "Project X" will be made on Unreal Engine 5 because it has "become best in class for just about everything." Unfortunately 100 Thieves is right, and that means fans don't have any more clues pointing to what kind of game they can expect to see from the group. With all the work that has already gone into "Project X," it's only a matter of time before fans get some solid details.

PewDiePie has long been one of the biggest streamers in the world, so maybe it's not that surprising that he's found the time to help create a game or two. Back in 2016 "PewDiePie's Tuber Simulator" made its way onto mobile devices and received mixed reviews from fans and critics. The game features voice acting work from PewDiePie himself, and it lets players take on the role of a famous YouTuber, creating content to gain subscribers, build their channel, and trick out their bedroom.

PewDiePie also worked on a mobile game that caught some flak from Apple back in 2019. A top-down adventure game, "Poopdie" has players take control of a pooping worm, and it was almost immediately banned from the App Store for "crude imagery and sound effect which may disgust users" (via Polygon). PewDiePie and Apple eventually managed to settle their differences, and since then "Poopdie" has also made its way to the Nintendo Switch. The streamer hasn't released a game in the past several years, but he's kept plenty busy getting married and moving to Japan.