Retro game streamer AshSaidHi built a lively community on Twitch

Surrounded by a sizable, colorful cascade of plushies — largely Nintendo-themed — and an impressive retro game collection, Ash goes live on Twitch five days a week. She’s played everything from Bethesda’s Oblivion, The Elder Scrolls 4 to Sierra Entertainment’s Quest for Glory, Focusing on retro games. The one thing that stays the same each stream is the way Ash ends them, with a message to her viewers: “Don’t forget to tell your friends Ash said hi!”

AshSaidHi, who is known online as AshSaidHi, began with a name when she first imagined her Twitch account. “I knew I had to have a tagline or a call to action,” she told Polygon. “That’s where the name AshSaidHi comes from, because I wanted it to be like, You know, I was told by a friend to say hello. It sticks in your brain a little bit.”

Over the years since Ash started her Twitch channel in 2019, she’s worked to build a community and a business that matches her values — a place where she could have a work-life balance that her previous career didn’t allow for, and a community of support Twitch can provide.

“People go to Twitch to connect about the things they love and find other people that are into the things they love,” Ash said. “That’s how I built an engaging community.”

Ahead of TwitchCon 2023 in Las Vegas, Polygon spoke to Ash about how she’s carved out her own space on Twitch.

[Ed. note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.]

Polygon: First of all, let me tell you that I really like the background collection.

AshSaidHi: Thanks! That’s years and years of work. Video gaming was introduced to me by my parents when I really young. My mom still enjoys video games. I texted her the other day and was like, “Did you downloadLies about P?” and she was like, “Yeah, but I really like Lords of the Fallen.” And I was like, “What?”

She’s a big Soulsborne, like Elden Ring, player. She just bought a PS5 and was like, “When are you getting a PS5?” I was like, “Mom, I play retro games on Twitch. OK?”

Your Twitch channel was launched in 2019, I believe. Why did you start streaming?

I was working in an industry where I didn’t have a work-life balance. When I finally left, I felt like: What do you want to know about content creation? And I got into a different industry. This gave me more time to produce content. Then I thought, I think I’m gonna start on Twitch.My degree is in advertising. My first goal was to create an idea for my new channel. The first thing I wanted to do was create an idea for my channel. I also knew that I needed a catchy tagline, or some sort of call to actions. So that’s where the name AshSaidHi comes from, because I wanted it to be like, You know, I was told by a friend to say hello. You’ll remember it for a while. And so it’s like, “Oh, don’t forget to tell your friends Ash said hi.” That’s how I always wanted to end my videos.

The first thing I did was to start on Tetris 98The following are some examples of how to get started: Breath Of The Wild. These were my first Twitch broadcasts. However, I still have a large backlog of unplayed video games. Why don’t I start getting into retro games? And that’s how it it really snowballed. It was a great community. I became interested in retro games. They taught me the ropes, I met a lot of friends — friends that I still have to this day. My life was changed in many ways.

The creator experience on Twitch is amazing. It’s the feeling of community you feel when you come across people who share your passion for the same thing. The people I met were all into Amiga 500, Commodore, NES, Super Nintendo etc. I knew I found my people.

What is your streaming schedule?

It’s what I mainly spend my time doing. It’s always a funny question because when people say “stream full time on Twitch,” they imagine it means eight hours a day, five days a week. However, I believe it simply means that it is my sole focus. My channel does a great deal of sponsorship and offline work. Yes, technically.

What was the time it took to reach the point that you were able to spend this much time with Twitch?

Twitch Partner came in November of 2020. Then I thought, OK, wait a minute, people really like what I’m doing here. I have an engaging community, I try to never miss a message in chat — I literally have chat up on like three or four screens.

After I hit Partner I learned about Twitch Ambassador because I saw someone with a tick and clicked on it. Then I submitted my application and discussed all of the skills I’d acquired. In addition, I discussed why my passion for what I did was so strong. They called me back a few months later and were like, “We want to invite you into the program.”

They announced my name in March 2021 and had also placed a Times Square billboard at that time. I’m originally from New York, but I no longer live there. My picture was put up on the billboard. And at that point, it kind of gave me a kind of sense that there’s credibility to what I’m doing, which is really important for me. My mom was astonished when I returned to New York from my home. The moment was surreal. For me, in my hometown — the crossroads of the world — here is a picture of me. From there, it grew. Then it snowballed from there.

Sponsored broadcast is one of my main sources for sustaining business. Because of my professional background, and the way that I communicate — I work on trying to build good bonds with developers or marketing people. It is important to me to do all my research, be punctual and professional. Whenever I’m called upon for a job, I put a lot of pride into what I’m doing. The moment people paid me to play games on my computer, I knew it was serious.

The freedom it gives me to attend events such as TwitchCon is amazing. This allows me the freedom to travel to TwitchCon or spend some time relaxing with my mum. I’m really proud that my mother is. When I talk about it to my family members, they’re always so happy for the things that I’m doing.

It’s cool to hear you talk about that work-life balance, because I think sometimes when you hear about people doing Twitch, it can be grinding out streams for 12 hours straight. It’s nice that you’re able to have a balance.

That’s key, right? I can’t do my best work if I’m not taking care of myself. I understand why that’s the mindset of constantly streaming, like you’re not discoverable if you’re not live sometimes. That’s the conundrum. If you spend time on things such as, I’m going to start writing a little bitIf you want to know more about. I’m going to start making short video that I can post on social media so people can get a sense of who I am. Even when I’m not broadcasting, people can find AshSaidHi. When I’m not live, those things helped me bridge the gaps.

How have you changed since starting to stream?

I learned to be authentically myself — be present in the moment. I always tell people this when they meet me in person, that you’re meeting the Ash that you see on camera. I’m always talking about my mom and my dad and how they got me into video games. I feel like I’m sharing the best parts of myself — what I grew up with.

My channel is all about food. If you meet me, I know all the places in New York where you could get some good food, you know what I’m saying? It’s like, it is a very important part of my identity. All of these things are my favorite. I like Star Trek, Nintendo, drawing and all those other things. The people I share these things with are the most important to me. We should be excited to share the things we enjoy. I think that’s key — being able to share the things about you would that you could connect with people.

I think that that’s also the magic of Twitch — connecting with people. It’s a people platform first to me. We go on there, we play video games — whether it’s playing video games or cooking, exercising, ASMR, chatting or whatever it is on Twitch. They go to Twitch in order to meet new people. Twitch allows people to talk about what they like and to meet other people who are also into that thing. That’s how I built an engaging community.

What do you want people to know about Twitch or your career?

It would be wonderful to spread the word about Twitch’s community. There is the Twitch Women’s Guild, which is incredible, because not only does it connect women and empower women to be who they are on Twitch, but it’s a place where we cheer each other on. This is a place where we can talk openly about things that affect us as broadcasters.

It was amazing. I attended a Creators Camp with some women from that group. The show I did was called You can also use Streamer Strategies.. Every month I host a live show where we cover different streaming strategies. First, I talked about creative monetization. Next, I worked on collaboration. It’s amazing how many opportunities you can get from connecting with people. And it’s such a great program. It’s one of the best things that Twitch created because it gives us a space to learn. It also gives us the opportunity to share our stories. We also get a number of tools that help us improve our abilities.

This is especially true for Black women and people of color. These things solidify our place in the world. And I think that it is so important to inspire people who feel like they don’t know if they belong, right? This is something we often see. I’m really grateful for all of those opportunities that I’ve been given. I want people to know what a great resource and tool these are. Without them you may question whether you’re capable.

How many times have you worked on something and people are like, “Oh, can you really do it?” They’re questioning your intelligence, or they’re saying, “You just got by on, like, certain qualities.” But no — there’s so many hardworking individuals that get a space because of things like that. It’s a great space.