James - Descent of a streamer

"Damn! That was a tough match," James said, looking into the camera. His eyes flicked to the viewer count. Sitting solidly at 57. Not horrible, but... it was the same 57 that he usually saw. 20 of them were active at any given time, and the rest were silent. Probably bouncing in and out as they wanted. "Well guys, I think that's about it for me for tonight. I'll catch you all next time." He sent his viewers off on a raid of one of his streaming buddies and sighed as he pulled off his headset.

He had been at this for almost a year now and pretty much stagnated. He had a little bump when the latest shooter came out and he had gone all in on it, but now that it was falling a bit in popularity...?

He left his room and went to the kitchen, passing his roommate who was watching TV.

"How was the stream?" Mike asked, glancing over his shoulder. He wasn't much of a gamer, more into sports. He had a shaved head and a beard and was wearing a t-shirt and gym shorts.

"Ehhh," James said. "Fine. Same as usual. No real growth still."

"If you wanna grow, you need to do something. It's like... like wrestling, right? Those guys do crazy shit and people talk about it. It puts them in the public eye.

"Yeah, yeah..." James said, waving his roommate off as he grabbed a couple of slices of pizza from the fridge. He heated them up and returned to his room. When he sat at his desk, he saw that his preview screen was still up, showing him sitting there.

He looked miserable. Messy brown hair that was a bit shaggy, a bit of stubble on his face, and the shirt he had received for preordering an old strategy game. He started going through social media, seeing what the latest was. He scrolled for a few minutes until he saw an ad for X-Change, and that clicked with what Mike had said. He had heard of some other streamers using it on occasion, and it had pumped up their numbers. He ate and considered that...