One of the prominent faces emerging from the ANZ Twitch scene, Shaggy_Steve delivers one of the most engaging and entertaining streams you can find on the platform. WellPlayed were lucky enough to have a chat with the man behind that glorious stache about balancing streaming, family and a full-time work schedule, sponsorships, Diablo and why not wearing pants is any streamer’s best friend.
Ch-ch-check it below!
WP: Hi Steve, thanks for taking the time out of your hectic schedule to give us the lowdown on the always entertaining world of Shaggy_Steve! I have got to start off by asking, what must one do to grow a moustache like that? Because it is truly one glorious beast.
Shaggy_Steve: Hey there. Firstly I’d like to say thank you for this opportunity to give you a behind the stream opportunity. Regarding the moustache, late 2017 I grew out quite a long beard but realised that the maintenance behind having a well groomed beard was a bit more than I could handle. Having a freshly shaven face, quite a few people mentioned how young I looked especially on Stream. So I decided to grow a small moustache to have some sort of facial hair on my face.
What you see today has been in the making for a little over 7 months now, and it’s only the beginning.
WP: You have one hell of an entertaining stream, involving some great hats and hilarious little videos that play when a viewer follows, subs, hosts and raids etc. to your stream. Where did the idea for all this come from to really stand out from the crowd?
Shaggy_Steve: Ha-Ha thank you so much for the kind words, it’s rather humbling when people watch my content and give such positive feedback. I still haven’t fully adjusted to it as of yet.
My alerts stemmed from my love of music. I’ve never been great at singing and also forget the words to very famous songs which my fan base are always willing to point out at the drop of a hat (see what I did there?). So early on in my stream development I looked at other massive streamers to see what they did to stand out from the crowd. Upon my research I noticed that the Twitch community was flooded with so many content creators so I thought to myself, wow I really need to do something to try and keep the viewer base who followed, subbed, donated bits or money something exciting so that they thought to themselves, “Wow, this guy has really put the effort in, I might stick around here for a little bit.”
Originally I just had a song for when somebody followed, but with such positive responses from that alert alone. I took it to the next level developing songs for every alert as well as my own personalized GIFs for when they were activated. Unfortunately due to my hectic schedule I don’t have too much spare time to develop too much content. So it’s a slow process that has developed over time. My most recent development was my song for when Bits are donated. I would have to say it’s had the best response so far!
WP: Outside of streaming, you also have a busy schedule just, y’know, casually managing a bank as well as family duties, yet you still find the time to stream for hours in the evening. Has this been a tough process to adapt to with so much going on? Do you ever get burnt out? I know I would!
Shaggy_Steve: This is a fantastic question, as a lot of people that support my channel and community at first aren’t aware that I have a full time job and a family outside of the Twitch world. I’m a fairly driven person, so when I find something I really enjoy doing I try to give it my 100% focus, so me being burnt out will never happen. As long as I continue to love what I’m doing with my channel and content creation.
On September 15th 2017 I decided to construct a schedule and stick to it as much as humanly possible. Once I sat down with my partner (Natalie aka Funpolice) and discussed with her what I wanted to do and how much of an impact it would have on our lives, I don’t think either one of us were prepared for actually how much time and effort would be involved!
I gave myself mini achievement goals, for example reach (x) amount of followers, get affiliated, average (x) amount of viewers.
5 months into streaming I had roughly 200 followers, 15 subscribers and averaged less than 10 viewers on a nightly basis.
I sat back and thought to myself is this really worth the time and effort I put in?
Luckily, I persevered through this self doubt and have achieved more success than I could ever have envisioned.
To have a partner that supports me 100%, a community made up of amazing people from all over the world, that genuinely want to see Shaggy_Steve & Shaggy Nation grow into one of the best active communities on Twitch.
I feel as if I have way too many people to let down now to ever consider giving up again.
WP: You are sponsored by Logitech G ANZ and Inc. Gaming, how did this partnership come about?
Shaggy_Steve: I have been absolutely blessed to have been able to achieve any sponsors to date.
Inc. Gaming is run by a close friend of mine who jumped on board early on to assist with giveaways and promotional things on Facebook when my channel just started to grow.
Logitech G ANZ is actually an interesting story. I’m a huge advocate for anything Logitech G, so much so that when they put a post on Facebook about asking anyone to put a photo of their PC set up, I couldn’t upload a photo quick enough to show off all my Logitech G gear I use every day.
One of my friends replied to my picture with my Twitch channel saying Logitech G should jump on board. Without my knowledge I actually had a few staff members from Logitech G ANZ follow my channel and watch the content for a few weeks before offering me a sponsorship.
WP: You are a seasoned Diablo player, what is your class and build of choice right now?
Shaggy_Steve: I have played Diablo since the original title was released in 1996.
I decided to stream the new season launch with my favourite class the Barbarian. Currently I am running the Immortal King / Raekor Charge Barbarian and currently sitting quite comfortably in the Solo Top 1000 leader boards having cleared up to Greater Rift 101.
WP: How do you find the Diablo scene at the moment? We have big streamers like Quin69 helping push D3 back into the top 10 on Twitch and getting new players interested, yet it still feels a little like Diablo III is nearing the end of its lifespan. Do you reckon we’ll be seeing a new title in the series soon? Possibly even BlizzCon?
Shaggy_Steve: I’m relatively new to the Diablo scene on Twitch specifically. For the month I streamed it my channel saw very little growth.
With that being said, Diablo 3 has been out for a little over 6 years now, so I think anyone that is a Diablo fan is absolutely dying for a Diablo 4 release. With other game titles like Path of Exile popping up on the Dungeon Crawler scene, not a lot of people are willing to pay money for a game that is 6 years old with very minimal content updates.
Doesn’t stop me from loving the title any less though!
WP: What brought on the handle Shaggy_Steve? Just a big fan of the musician Shaggy (he does have some bangers) or…?
Shaggy_Steve: 18 years ago Diablo 2 was released.
As a young 13-year-old aspiring gamer, my friend’s older brother decided to give me a shot of Diablo 2 on his PC. As I sat there, with my long curly hair, acne infested face and LYNX deodorant sprayed over every inch of my body. The song ‘It Wasn’t Me’ by Shaggy came up on the television. Thus creating the name Shaggysteve.
Ever since then I have carried this gamertag through the next 18 years of gaming and even onto Twitch.
WP: You have been lucky enough to break into the Twitch scene, with a passionate and loyal fanbase. Was this a long process to really shine or did everything kind of just happen quickly and effortlessly?
Shaggy_Steve: Anyone that streams on any social platform will tell you it’s a marathon not a sprint.
As I mentioned above, about 5 months into streaming I had a very small follower base and Twitch is FLOODED with content creators!
Luckily for me I have come across some amazing people on my journey that have stuck around and supported me. As each week passes there’s more and more people coming back every night and enjoying the entertainment.
With all that said there is a lot of people who have come and gone, but this is the norm on these kind of platforms with so many streamers to choose from it’s hard to keep everyone engaged 5-6 days/nights a week.
I wouldn’t say I have made it on the Twitch scene just yet, but I feel as if we aren’t too far away from being noticed and hopefully breaking out on the Twitch ANZ scene.
WP: In my previous Behind the Streams interview with KidKerrigan, she gave us some great insight for those looking to make Twitch streaming a full blown career. What advice do you have for gamers, IRL streamers and anybody with an interest in entertaining to get into the scene and maintain it as a full time gig?
Shaggy_Steve: It’s a bit cliche, but just have fun with it. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to succeed straight away, spend some time developing your channel’s theme and try and find a niche that will make you stand out.
Consistency is the key, make sure you make a schedule and stick by it. Most human beings love routine, so being there the same time every day or night and you might find yourself becoming part of other people’s routines.
Another thing is don’t compare yourself with other streamers. Look at your own statistics and find out what works best for your personality and stream style.
The beautiful thing with Twitch is there is a market for anything, so everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed.
My last point I would make is make sure that if you do work, make sure you keep working. Having a steady income can assist in purchasing things towards your stream and also give you the financial stability to keep your channel going whilst it grows.
Every business requires initial out-of-pocket expenses to get going. I can’t imagine how I would have grown my channel/community to date if I were unemployed.
So I would say this is the most important part, just have fun with it and see where it takes you.
WP: Any plans in the pipeline for future stream shenanigans?
Shaggy_Steve: I have so many ideas and plans for the stream. But so very little time to implement them. Currently I have two boxes in the back ground of my stream labelled ‘Secret Stuff’ which will bring a whole new angle to Shaggy_Steve. I look forward to being able to continue adding unique content to the channel whilst it keeps getting bigger and bigger
WP: And finally, the biggest burning question! As we all know you never seem to wear pants. What is the best brand of underwear or pyjamas a seasoned streamer can buy for max comfort during long Twitch sessions?
Shaggy_Steve: Ha-ha! How funny, this is very true. In my honest opinion pants should only be worn on very specific occasions. But personally I just feel more comfortable in shorts. I wear pants in my 9 to 5 job and would hate to sit there 5 nights a week wearing pants as well.
Plus I love it when people come into the stream and see me dressed up in a jacket, shirt, bowtie and stream hat. But when I stand up I’m just wearing a casual pair of shorts. It’s just one of my many quirks!
You can join in on all the glorious banter with Shaggy_Steve over on Twitch and Discord.
