I’ve made like half of a career out of experiencing, talking about, and writing about my niche interests and hobbies. After checking out Alex Zandra’s largely Mega Man focused channel, I’ve gotta say; game respects game! A big part of why I’m drawn to independent media is because creators in that space are genuinely more authentic and creating what they’d like to see in the world, rather than chasing popular trends. Alex’s streams feel like something she’s making for herself, and it’s both encouraging and inspiring to see so many appreciate her work.
What’s the elevator pitch for you and your channel?
I’m a light novel author who likes to stream… and so do my characters, who become VTubers to take over my channel! I start my day with Good! Morning! Mega Man! where I continue to play through every Mega Man title ever made (including the hundreds of fan games), and the rest of the time, I stream anything that catches my eye. I love to experience new games, share their highs & lows with my audience, and discuss their design; since I’ve been making games for most of my life, I’ve got a lot to say! ^_^
Where did your appreciation for Mega Man start? Also, the Battle Network games made up a big part of my childhood and I’m wondering if you can recommend any similar games that will scratch that itch?
Mega Man 2 was one of the first games I ever owned as a kid! I played it so much that the way it looks and feels influenced a lot of what I like about video games to this day, not to mention art. Mega Man was the first character I remember drawing when I was little! I would hide in a corner at recess and draw him, eventually making up my own robots in that style. I played the games in that series on and off, but stopped at Mega Man X4. Then, years and years later, I had the idea while hanging out with friends at Awesome Games Done Quick that I could do a special stream where I just play through all the Mega Man games and catch up on those I’d missed… and there’s so many that six years later, I’m still at it!
Funnily enough, I never played the Battle Network games at the time! I didn’t have a GBA when they came out, so I missed out on them entirely. It took the encouragement of the people in my life to finally give them a chance, and now I can totally see what makes them so endearing—my robot daughter Zandrabot’s entire visual style was based on the Battle Network aesthetic, after all!
I haven’t played a lot of Battle Network-likes yet, but I’m always hearing people recommend One Step From Eden, so I think that’d be a great one to check out first.
Why’d you get into VTubing? What makes VTubing preferable to traditional streaming or “fleshtubing” for you?
Sometimes you just don’t want to be perceived, you know?
I’m a part-time VTuber so I do my share of streams with a facecam, but even when I’m “being myself” and none of my characters are running the show, it can be a big relief to turn off the webcam and let the 3DTuber version of me take the spotlight. How you look affects how you feel, and as a bit of a theater kid, playing a character gives me a lot of energy—even when that character is me!
I actually got into VTubing almost by accident, as I had created Zandrabot (my robot daughter who lives in space) to be the face of various tools I used and commissioned, such as a social media markov bot that remixed my past posts into strange and silly greetings, a chatbot to handle funny quotes and shoutouts during my streams, and even the live captioning at the bottom of my stream layout. Eventually I commissioned a VTuber avatar for Zandrabot because I thought it’d be really cute to have her mimic my facial movements as she “read out” my words like a live interpreter… And before I knew it, she’d grown into her own character so much that she could stream in my place!
The same thing repeated with some of my other characters, such as Zandrabit (Zandrabot’s little orbiting UFO mascot) for nonverbal streams and Bakooka Bilbapot (my Caves of Qud mutant bumpkin) for crafting/survival game collabs. That’s a lot of people sharing one channel, but we make it work! I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way.
How does VTubing fit into your life and broader career? Is it something you are trying to do full-time or is it closer to a side-hustle that bolsters your other pursuits?
VTubing is definitely a side thing for me. My main career used to be game design, but one fateful day Nintendo deleted a fake light novel cover I had drawn in Splatoon 2 (thinking it was a real advertisement) and I got so angry that I decided to write that fictional book and self-publish it out of spite. And it was a hit! So much so that I wrote another, and another… and now I’m working on my eighth book!
Since much of my day is spent writing and doing the million little tasks that being an independent author requires, I don’t have enough energy or room in my schedule to stream full time. That said, while it doesn’t pay all the bills, it does pay some of them, and it’s one of the pillars keeping a roof over my head. And it’s really fun! As far as part-time jobs go, it’s one I’m really glad to have, and I continue to approach it seriously like a secondary career that I want to keep developing and making better.
What are the biggest issues in the VTubing space right now and, subsequently, how can the VTubing space improve?
Ever since the big VTuber boom a few years ago, becoming a VTuber has never been more accessible. There’s so many tools at people’s disposal, and I’ve seen many streamers begin with free options and then move up to personalized commissioned models once they had the means and momentum to do so. The rest is the same pile of challenges facing all streamers: finding an audience, keeping it, and making enough to keep going.
Honestly, in my opinion that last one is still the biggest hurdle: it’s really, really hard to make a living doing this. It’s frankly shocking how little of our supporters’ money makes it to us! Streamers and VTubers are independent performers, but we’re rarely treated as such, and we tend to be at the mercy of the platform we’re on (and there aren’t that many). The VTubing space would improve greatly if we had better protection and representation, but until that happens, we gotta stick together.
Do you have any advice for people looking to start Vtubing?
Find a version of you that you’d like to become, and then make it as extra as you possibly can. Then pick up some free tools and that Logitech webcam everyone has, and give it a shot to see how you like it! Then, TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW. That audience you have is the one that’s going to grow with you, so be sure to foster one that makes it easy to show up every week. That last bit is probably the most important: you don’t need to stream all the time, you just need to stream at the same time. Best of luck! Let’s keep making wonderful things together. <3
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