Maleok here, back again with a new interview with four juggernauts of the League of Legends community, Sky Williams, Falconshield, Keyori, and Nicki Taylor for a look at what it is like to make a living off of League of Legends internet content.

Could you briefly and in your own words describe exactly what your job is?

Sky: I am a League of Legends stand up comedian.

Josef: I am a songwriter, and I write fan music for video games.

Keyori: I am a League of Legends content creator on YouTube.

Nicki: I am a singer and a League of Legends Twitch streamer.

Normally jobs are salaried or paid hourly, how does it work with you guys?

Sky: My job is more like one big contract job. We have several sources of income. There is Twitch, YouTube, and conventions/contracts. An example would be that Twitch pays monthly, which is non-taxable. There is YouTube which pays monthly as well through PayPal. That payment is relative to Ad revenue, views, subscribers and things like that. Now a contract depends on what you are doing. For example I am going to a convention, Fanime, and they are paying me $4,000 just to show up.

Josef: For me basically every month I get a check from Google. I send a percentage of that to my network and the rest I keep.

Keyori: Okay this might get a little complex. Basically Google sells Ad space to my channel. They then give your channel a percentage value or CPM where you get paid X amount for every 1,000 views. The money you make per 1,000 is judged by other factors like consistency of content and viewer retention. Google takes about 55% of what is made, I send XX% more as a thank you to my network for giving me the highest value Ads and I keep the remainder. The long and short of it is that lots of viewers equal lots of money, only a few viewers equal little money.

Nicki: Basically what Keyori said but in pennies. I am on Twitch primarily and the way that works is you get half of the money from monthly subscriptions and you can receive donations.

Would you say working for yourself is easier or harder than for a company/business?

Sky: It's harder. It could be seen as easier because I get to set my own schedule. You hear about that and think oh ya I get to wake up whenever, wake up at 4 stay up late whatever. Also you have to be responsible for your money, in terms of putting some away for taxes. I know that sounds like 'Duh obvious' but it's actually not. It's not easy, it's not fun, it's none of those things. So I feel like having to manage your own money, mixed in with that self discipline, you are your work. So if you don't make videos or don't stream you aren't getting money.

Josef: I would say it depends on who you are working with. Personally I work with a group of people who I work very well with and who compliment my skill set. And it works very well for me.

Keyori: It is definitely easier working for myself because I do not like being told what to do. That is just me as a person. I hate it especially if it's tasks that I know that I can handle myself. For instance I used to work at a bar and I was fully aware of what my duties were. So I hated it when the manager would come and tell me what to do, I just think "Excuse me I know, I work here." I don't need someone telling me how to do my job. So working for myself I don't have the pressure of other people telling me what it do, it's all my time. And that all fits in perfectly with my personality quirk I guess. I sleep when I want, play video games when I want, edit when I want, and as long as I meet my deadlines that is no problem for me.

Nicki: It is basically the same for me. When you work at a normal job you basically get paid pennies to be yelled at for doing the best you can. Whereas in this situation it's like, "Do I feel like doing the thing today, do I need the money?", and you basically do what you need to do to make it all work out. It's nice being your own boss.

Having a job in the gaming world sounds like a dream to some people, but obviously it can't be perfect. What are some of the more difficult aspects that people in the gaming world need to face, and what to you has been your biggest challenge?

Sky: What I learned very quickly, is that we are not born ready for the spotlight. The only way I can describe it is this: Remember in high school, you might have ten friends and then that one person who just does not like you and you just don't know why? And it is just one person, and you have ten other people who love you. So you don't even care, you will learn to live with the fact that there may be eleven people in your life and one of them can't stand you. Fast forward to what I do, or any content creator does. I might have 100,000 people who like me, and that makes me feel great, but when there are then 1,000 people who don't and it's just like bruh. You wrap yourself up in trying to find out why, how, and all this stuff. That definitely takes it's toll. Honestly another difficulty in this job is beating your best. For example you will make a video and you will hear, "Oh my God Sky this is your best video yet!", then you make another one and you hear, "This is pretty good, but I liked your last video more.".

Josef: I think for me it was getting enough money to continue doing what I do. That was the initial bump that I struggled with for some time. Also my kind of content takes a long time to make and doesn't generate a lot of views compared to other more frequent League of Legends fan content.

Keyori: Sometimes I feel I have created a monster *laughs* because people hound you for content. I have a schedule of two videos a week, and so many of the interactions I get aren't people praising you. For me it's usually, "Man f**k you make more content!". Or let's say I am in a game of league right, the first thing I will see in all chat is, "Keyori go make videos." The sense of entitlement that some people have is just overbearing. It makes you feel like other people think they are in control of my life. It brings us back to the point that I don't appreciate being told what it do, it's like you CHOOSE to watch me, I don't do it for you, I do it because I enjoy it and you watch it. Then you have some people who are genuinely abusive. Obviously there are the 'ragers' but I can't go onto a friend's video and comment without being accused of being a self promoting **** **** Kill yourself blah blah blah. It's so weird how they are willing to put their name next to an abusive comment on someone else's channel. And it's like that person is gonna read that comment with you trashing their friend, and this is someone you look up to.

Nicki: I think...Well yeah there might be challenges but let's be real here we are kind of doing the coolest thing ever. It's hard to be like, "Ah, the struggle, I am so privileged it hurts." *All laugh* I know this is my fault, because I made one of my sub perks adding people on League, but sometimes I will want to play a game by myself with the stream off and people will just be like 'play with me'. And if I am not streaming sometimes I will not respond because this is MY time that is why the stream is not on, and if I want to dedicate time to you I will turn the stream on.

At one point you probably started relying on your internet content to pay the bills. How did you cope with the insecurity that comes with this work in the beginning?

Sky: I actually never worried about that, is that weird? It was less from personal confidence, and more of understanding just how the internet worked. Unless I posted a video like, 'here's a good video', and then posted another one saying, "I just hate everybody and you all suck!!!". I am pretty sure I am gonna get views. I can see why some people might get scared because like if you don't show up and put stuff out you don't get paid. Honestly though I made it very clear that if I am not wanting to make a video, I am not gonna make that video. It's not because I am lazy, it's because I don't want to force feed you something that is shitty. The only stuff I want up is something that I would give to a company, which would be something that I am really confident with.

Josef: That applies to me big time. About a year ago I decided to do the YouTube thing and the company thing where I write music for video games. And I had been on parental leave for a year and a half, so I really had nothing to go back to. I was really out of the loop job-wise. I took a big risk and I made practically no money for the first months and that is a BIG no-no when you have a wife and kids. However things picked up, especially with "This is War" and that has been a major source of our income. Now I can make a living off of what I do and I couldn't be happier.

Keyori: I never actually had any insecurity. For me, when I started doing it, it made sense that this is what I was gonna be doing for the next few years of my life. I don't know why I had that feeling and it might have been naive youthful delusion, but when I looked at what content was out there, I felt that I might have hit something special that was in its own way unique. So maybe it was a little delusional or arrogant but after the first real paycheck came through I quit my job instantly, like, I'm gone bye. So to sum up I never really had insecurities, and I have been smart with my money. So if worst comes to worst I would be good for some time before I would need to move on to the next thing.

Nicki: I have to say I am far less comfortable than these two in that respect. I'm still living at home, I'm the youngest one. I'm still saving up trying to move out of the house. Obviously this all started with "Here Comes Vi" and I have just always been worried about when is that Vi train was gonna stop rolling you know? Now I found a way to make my personality the main thing through Twitch, and not have it be just the song. And now most of the people who watch me on Twitch don't even know that I did the Vi song. Which is comforting in it's own way, now that it is more about my personality, at least for Twitch. But I am a little insecure because I am afraid that one day I am gonna look at the partnership page on Twitch and it is gonna say "You have 2 subscribers". I mean there is no real reason for that fear, I am just a paranoid person. It feels a little more reliant on other people than I regular job I guess.

Did you actively choose to push a certain content medium like Youtube or Twitch and grow it out into a business or did it just happen?

Sky: For me it was not planned out like that at all. I really just made one video, it went viral, they wanted more, so I just gave them more. I started doing videos every Friday for a long while. What ended up happening was I did a video every Friday, and about eight months in I missed a Friday. When that happened the world stopped for me, and everybody in the fanbase was losing their mind like, "Oh my God he's dead he is never making a video again!!!". That's when it finally hit me like there are a bunch of people out there that really care about me. I am not gonna lie it made me cry.

Josef: I did not expect to be living off of YouTube. I always strive to make the best music content for the community. When I made "This is War II" and it became sort of a big thing I started to realize that maybe this could be something. Then I started to exploit the interest that people have in that sort of content. Unfortunately most of the projects, especially "This is War", take a long time to make.

Keyori: Well before Twitch was even a thing, the idea of YouTube had been kind of glamorous to me for some years. When I found League of Legends and decided I wanted to make content for it I spent the better part of a year on a channel, that no longer exists anymore, playing with video formats. Basically I was trying to figure out how I was gonna make content for this game. Finally I came to the conclusion of a format which is now kinda the style that I do. It worked out because I spent that first year playing with those formats. Once I saw that the people watching liked that particular format is when I started uploading it for real and it was successful almost instantaneously. The same goes for when Twitch came around, I tried streaming different things to find out what people wanted to see me doing. I wouldn't say my Twitch is anywhere as successful as it could be because Keyori is a character that I play, and I could not keep the character up for long periods of time. It's basically an exaggerated, younger, eccentric version of myself and It is exhausting to keep up. So if I do a "Chill stream," which is me out of character just playing games, people don't want to see that as much so the stream is usually less viewed then my videos on YouTube. But I have found that my magic number is two videos a week at a very specific time of the day. One on Monday for when people need a pick-me-up when they get back from work or from school, and one on Friday so I can give people something more to look forward to once they come back from school or work and the weekend is here.

Nicki: I really like the idea of YouTube. I love YouTube and there are so many people that I watch on a daily basis. I have spent so much time learning what they do, how it works, and why it works. Honestly though I do not know the thing for me that I would do on YouTube. Because I feel that if I am not doing music, which I can't do because I don't play any instruments so I couldn't be self sufficient, I would need to do something else. So it couldn't be me playing music and it's not gonna be me playing League because I am only Gold. So I don't have anything to do with it usually. On the other hand the great thing about Twitch is that I can literally throw out content every day. It's just like an every day personality piece. I feel like that wouldn't really work for YouTube unless I was doing something else also. It is just easier for me. I don't really have the attention span to script and I don't even know what I would do on YouTube. Twitch is what made sense.

One of Keyori's most successful videos.

What kind of platform choices or complications did you have to face in order to grow your audience?"

Sky: I mean there was a lot of "controversy" around me and Reddit. I'm not sure if controversy is the right word, but basically when I first started out my YouTube channel blew up. I got like 200,000 subscribers in two months, it was crazy. And I suppose the controversy was that I would always get on the front page of Reddit and there were several other content creators that did not like that at all. I think that is the only difficulty that I faced. They didn't like that I was getting Reddit attention and I don't know what to say, Reddit liked me at the time. Also you have to remember that my tier of content is pretty low. What I mean is if you look at Instalok or Falconshield obviously they are really talented and make great songs. However with a song you can translate it into any other language and someone from China or Korea could listen to one of their songs and go 'Oh my God that is so cool' ya know? Where as my content can't be translated if that makes sense, I don't have that luxury with my videos.

Josef: Well I have never really had a strategy. I just try to do the best content that I can. My focus is production value. When it comes to growth, usually it's 50/50 between "This is War" and all the other stuff. So I always try to have one of these big projects going at any given time because they are vital to our growth and income. For me though production value also serves as a complication. This sort of content takes a really really long time. Especially the "This is War" series. I simply cannot do two videos a week like Keyori does, I would struggle with one song a week even. The release schedule now is two songs a month which is what we can manage. So that is probably the biggest conflict for me, the fact that we cannot release content frequently enough.

Keyori: I actually had to move house. My parents decided to move to this big house in the country and wanted to start a business. This house in the countryside had a huge kitchen and my mom wanted to get into catering. The internet out there was truly awful, we are talking naught-point-naught up or naught-point-naught one down. I remember it was always thirteen past five till thirteen past midnight the internet was unusable. I'm talking like you couldn't load a page, it would take you a half hour to load a page. It was like being back in the 90's. I still don't know to this day how I managed to do videos because on top of all that I played on NA. I have been playing so long that there only was one server which became NA, so I was constantly at 210 PING making comedic videos. So after I got that first big paycheck to my parents I just said, "we need to move, I hate to say it but your business is not happening and mine is.". They said, "ok yes we'll support this, it's obvious something is happening", they saw it and we went back to the house from before which we just rented out at the time. So that was really the only hurdle for me other than the really cliché stuff.

Nicki: I never really had many complications honestly. Other than my computer not being the best for this and I can't really buy another computer at the moment. I mean the only continuing.

Do you feel a lot of pressure about needing to get your content out?

All: *laugh* YES

Sky: Yeah, recently especially I have seen my last few videos do really well. I feel very pressured to get content now especially. It is very hard for me where I live right now to get in a position to record quality content. But I do feel like I need to got something out. So at this point I just need to keep up with consistency, and make it like a little tv show.

Josef: Yes! Definitely. "When is this is war coming out!?!" I can't tell you how many times I have heard that question. I understand that people get restless when it has been several months, but I can't post anything at all without people asking when the next "This is War" is coming out. I kind of stopped caring about people not liking the other things I do, purely because it was not "This is War". Especially after "This is War III v.2" because people were really upset and disapointed. So yes there is a lot of pressure. I can't comment, I can't make a regular song, I can't do anything without people saying, "Why the f**k are you doing this and not "This is war"???". I have had to reprogram the way I think about comments like that. Now I take them as almost a compliment, and it is really someone expressing how much they like my content.

Keyori: Oh ya, for sure. For me it is even worse because I have anxiety as it is. If I miss a video for whatever reason the backlash is absolutely horrible. So I posted on Facebook that there wouldn't be a video and let me read some of the comments: "Dude what the F**k?", "You need some discipline, you have one of the easiest f***ing jobs in the world. You piece of f***ing sh** what the heck? We are your boss, we are the reason you make money, you can't even make two videos a week?". This is just me scrolling through Facebook right now. But ya I can't force myself to do it, because if I am not in the mood it will be reflected in the video. I have caved in before and just posted something where I think, "This video sucks." and the people share the opinion. That is just what happens when I am pressured. I am very good at keeping my schedule but if for whatever reason I can't I will not force it. Because honestly it's the same as missing a day of work, I didn't make that video, which means 1/8th of my pay for the month is just gone.

Nicki: I feel immense pressure to get content out. The community is really impatient, if I don't stream for two days I will lose like ten subscribers which is a lot to me. I just think whoa guys I was just a little sleepy today and wasn't up to stream. Honestly though the stream is a happy and fun place, everyone makes friends with each other there. So if I don't stream for literally a day I will have people will tweet me like, "I had a really hard day at work, and I just wanted to watch your stream." I just think, I'm sorry? Because I do wanna make you happy and do the thing but I can't always do the thing. But it's not nearly as bad as some of Keyori's fans, like oh my God. My followers are usually sad saying they miss me. I mean I call my subscribers Cuddlebugs, these are all men who enjoy being called Cuddlebugs. These are squishy people *laughs*. My fans are really sweet, I just get tired sometimes and feel bad about it.

Behind the scenes look at the work that goes into Falconshield music.

Would you recommend that people give it a try if they are interested? If so, do you have any tips for someone trying to begin doing what you do?

Sky: Yes I would. I feel like the biggest thing I could say is don't lose yourself in what you are doing. Don't make content for money, don't make content for fame, don't make content because you think it will pay the bills. Make content because you like doing it, and as a means to improve your craft as a comic, or a vlogger, or an editor or whatever it is. And then if you are good enough, everything else that you see; The fans, the money, and the fame will all be a by product of following your passion. The main thing is that if you go in with expectations, you are probably gonna be disapointed. Do it because you want to.

Josef: Do parodies *All Laugh* Keyori: Oh god it's so true. Josef: Do parodies and covers. It's low hanging fruit, it works. Keyori: It really does though. If you take something like, "I've got the moves like Jagger" and turn it into, "I've got that Gold ELO." boom, a billion views right there. *laughs*

Keyori: Honestly just be prepared for people to hate you, and be ready for heavy backlash towards what you are doing. Be ready for the abuse that comes with it. If you just expect the absolute worst then there is nothing that will surprise you.

Nicki: If you don't want to do that (parodies) then I would say go for it, whatever it is. The major thing I would say is be consistent and always try to beat your best and keep doing better. But really consistency is key.

Finally, do you feel you can continue working through the internet in the future?

Sky: I think so. Ideally I would like to pick up the mic and doing stand up again, that would be fun. But I think I could do this for the next 5 years almost definitely. I love what I do, I love the art of making videos and having it on YouTube and seeing myself grow. I can see myself doing it for some time.

Josef: Yes, I rely on it. It's not only because I upload my videos to YouTube, it's also because I love collaborating with people. That is all thanks to the internet. I make things with Nicki and Keyori and there is no way we could do that without good connections and the internet. I think I will be doing collaborations for a long time to come. That is my thing, I make people sound good.

Keyori: Absolutely, it's not a question. This is a new medium and it is very exciting to be one of the first to do this kind of thing. And nobody can predict where this is gonna go but it's clear that this is where the money is right now and it is clear it's gonna stay that way. It's almost like the new television, it's huge. I feel like once our parents' generation is gone, I feel like television as it is now will be gone. Right now we are in the On-Demand generation because we want everything when we want it. So why would I put on the tv, watch something on a schedule and sit through forced commercials when I can go on Twitch or on YouTube. I want to take advantage of this opportunity for as long as I can in my time. If YouTube was to die tomorrow and I woke up and it was erased and gone, the experience I have is rare. The experience of building a brand in this generation through this medium.

Nicki: Yes for sure. There are endless possibilities to where you can branch out through the internet. You can take your popularity from one platform to another. You can turn this into almost anything that you want it to be if you are doing well at it.


Thank you all so so much for your time! If you have not heard of these folks as a League of Legends player then I suggest you get on it right now!
One last thing though

Sky: I wanted to give a shout out to UberDanger. I think he is League of Legends' best director. And even though he does play a character, I think for real he is one of the most wise people I have ever met. Without him I don't even think I would want to be making content anymore. He has improved my way of uploading. That guys is a f**king legend!

Twitter: @Keyori, @SkyWilliamsTho, @imNickiTaylor, @falconshield
Facebook: Nicki Taylor, Sky Williams, Keyori, Falconshield
YouTube: Falconshield The Band, Sky Williams, Keyori, Nicki Taylor