This is meant to supplement the already fantastic How To Market A Game guide by Chris Zukowski! If you haven’t done so, please be sure to read that first.
Here’s some additional ideas that may help you with you Steam Stream. As you can see from the volume of technical details, I highly recommend that you set this up at least a day in advance of the stream day, especially if it’s your first time streaming to Steam!
OBS: Studio Mode
Studio Mode allows you to cue up your next transition. It’s great!
To turn it on, select Studio Mode at the lower right corner.
Now, in the middle of two screens, you have a transition column. You can even add different types of transitions as a button that you can click on! The toggle bar at the bottom of this column allows you to control the transition timing between the Preview and Program screens.
OBS: Livestream and make a recording simultanously
Let’s say you want to go live with exclusive show content, and have this looping at a later time. Here are some ways to do so!
- Go to File > Settings
Go down to Output > Automatically record when streaming - You can also manually start either Start Steaming or Start Recording in the main controls window if you so desire
- To loop this footage afterwards, just go to Source > Media Source and find the local file.
- Make sure to select Loop if you want it to loop continuously. I highly recommend also including a Text that says replay on the OBS for the Steam stream.
How to livestream to multiple platforms
…with some caveats!
You can livestream to multiple platforms at once using services like Restream:
- Works with OBS
- Works with platforms like Twitch*, Steam, Youtube, Facebook
- Great if you want to test out your audience reach on different platforms
- Steam doesn’t show if you’re streaming right away; Restream at least lets you know if you’re live much quicker
- You just need to set up OBS once, and then toggle on Restream’s end for different platforms. Helpful if you switch between streaming to different platforms regularly.
- This setting below is the only one that you need to change on OBS if you want multi-streaming. Go to File > Settings, then change the Service, server, and Stream Key here. Restream’s site has very clear directions as to how to set that up.
Some caveats:
- *Twitch Partner and Affiliate doesn’t allow multistreaming – you may have your Affiliate and Partner status revoked (see: Twitch Affiliate Agreement: Live Content Exclusivity)
- Other platforms may have other rules and restrictions about multistreaming. Please read each of their TOS before trying this!
- If you’re doing simultaneous streams, might be splitting your audience rather than funnel them to the Point-Of-Purchase and the festival page
If you have issues logging into Restream, you may need to turn off some extensions and plugins on your browser, or try with a different browser.
OBS: Check your audio sources
Check these ahead of time! What our team usually does is check mics in a non-streamed local recording to check how everyone is for volume about 30 min ahead of time.
In the case of a basic setup (without a whole sound board), you may have the following audio sources:
- Any media source like .mp4s that are looping
- Mic
- Desktop audio, including music and your teammates’ audio if they’re remote
- Video capture devices
You may or may not want these playing simultaneously!
Right-clicking on any audio track or clicking on the gear will bring up the menu:
- Properties allows you to find the source. If anything is not recording, this is the first place to check. Mic might be going to the wrong source.
- Advanced Audio Properties allows you to set your microphone to higher volume if you find that your volume is much lower than everyone else’s, or the desktop audio. You can change it by decibel or by %. Some things which may also help is sync offset if you’re noticing a delay from audio to the capture of some of the speakers on screen.
Steam: Create a News Hub to announce your livestream to followers
This is great to create a community of announcements to folks who are interested in your game. It will also appear for people who are following your game!
- Log onto both steam partners and steam community
- Select your game App, go to Community & Moderation > Post/Manage Events & Annoucements
- Select Create new Event or Announcement
- Then select Live-stream / Broadcast in the following page
- The specific art assets and descriptions will be up to you to fill out, just make sure that you leave time for the Cover Image because it has specific requirements of 800×450 and is required
- What’s really important is setting the event start date, time, and visibility of the announcement as visible once the event is published
- It won’t be published until you complete all of the required elements AND press publish on the published tab!
Hope that is helpful to you! Happy streaming!