When People Start Getting Real: IRL Live Streaming

By Jim Bask 0 Comment September 24, 2018  liveu, LiveU Solo

From Linkedin.com

This is the true story, of people playing games on Twitch, & sharing it all live.

When writing this article, I was reminded of the first time I heard the MTV Real World title sequence. That show ushered in the wave unscripted reality television that was recorded and edited for our viewing pleasure. But In Real Life (or IRL) takes this unscripted approach to the next level. These content creators are live streaming their daily lives and adventures for global audiences, any time, from anywhere. Many of these streamers were born out of Twitch, originally creating channels focused on video and tabletop gaming. But when Pokémon GO exploded in 2016 and players like aDrive, started to implement outdoor live streaming to engage with fans they go on the hunt, the IRL streaming movement was born.

Recently, I spent some time with Justin “TheGunrun” Ignacio, the Broadcast Success Engineer (and second employee) at Twitch and the visionary behind the IRL live streaming revolution, to learn all about how streamers are going beyond games going outdoors and getting real!

Where did the name Gunrun come from?

I’ve been using the “Gunrun” name since I was 13. I made the name up when I was playing the game Neopets and just maintained it throughout the years. My first job was at Justin.TV and things got really confusing since the founder of the company was Justin also so I just told everyone to call me Gunrun and it just stuck.

So, what is IRL?

IRL, also known as “In Real Life” is this new crazy, exploding thing on Twitch, which was traditionally a video game platform. It turns out the guys who have been playing games all day want to be able to share their lives too. So “In Real Life” takes Twitch users outside the studio and shows off real-life situations, every day adventures, vacations, and so much more, beyond gaming…read more