What is Gamecaster Gold and Should You Care?
Gamecaster has come a long way since its inception several years ago. Once a part of the XSplit suite, it has grown into its own element. Now, it’s free to use without watermarks and throttled resolutions while also offering Gamecaster Gold. But, what is this “gold?”
Today, I’ll go over what this in-app currency is, how you can get it, and why it matters for streamers.
What is Gamecaster Gold?
Gamecaster Gold is an in-app currency used to buy premium extras within the program itself. The gold can be earned or purchased directly through Gamecaster.
Although Gamecaster offers a lot of free elements, such as a growing list of beautiful stream overlays, some of the premium offers are simply amazing.
For example, the “stingers” all cost gold to purchase and offer a highly animated and stunning transition from one scene to another.
Get Gamecaster 4 and Empower Your Stream!A Fun Way to Encourage Users
Because Gamecaster is free, the developers needed a way to encourage more users while possibly bringing in a bit of extra cash. Realistically, you can’t expect every programmer to hand out freebies.
They have their own bills to pay, after all.
Gamecaster Gold helps the business model while providing an interactive way to get more people to use the software.
Although you can pay cash to get gold right now, everything that you can buy can be earned. There are no specials locked behind “cash purchases only.”
How Do You Get Gamecaster Gold?
There are several ways you can get Gamecaster Gold. And it really depends on how active you are as a streamer or if you want to pay the cash to get it now.
But as I said, there is nothing you can buy that you can’t simply earn by being active.
Earn Through Play
Gamecaster hosts what they refer to as “Seasons.” Each of these seasons, you have quests and activities that earn you XP. And the higher your XP, the more gold you earn.
You also have daily quests that offer rewards in addition to seasonal activity.
What this means is that if you’re a very active streamer on Twitch or YouTube, you can collect a large amount of Gamecaster Gold in a short amount of time.
The seasons also provide ticket entries to win specific prizes aside from gold. For example, Tier 8 gives you two tickets to enter to win an Elgato Wave:3, which is the microphone I use.
And it’s amazing.
Earn Through “Refer a Friend”
Gamecaster also provides a custom URL specifically linked to your account. You can use this URL to share with friends, family, viewers, and anyone else in between.
When someone signs up with Gamecaster using your refer a friend link, you and the new signup will earn 200 gold.
This URL can be used just like any other. So, you can put it in emails, on your website, in social media profiles, and anywhere else you can add a web address.
In fact, I use mine within a button on this website.
Buy Gold Directly
Obviously, Gamecaster adds the ability to buy gold directly. For the most part, it translates to about a penny per gold. But if you buy in larger quantities you get more for less.
This is more ideal for people who just want certain extras right now, such as the stingers I mentioned earlier. Seriously, they are pretty cool.
The beauty about Gamecaster, though, is that you don’t absolutely need to fork over any cash. Remember, there is nothing for sale that you can’t just earn over time.
And it’s not like it takes that much time to earn enough gold to buy a few extras. As long as you’re semi-active, you won’t be waiting a year.
What Can You Buy with Gamecaster Gold?
To spend your gold, you click into The Vault from Gamecaster. Here, you’ll be able to spend your earnings in a variety of ways.
There are quite a few things you can buy with gold, with more added periodically.
Animated Alerts
While every overlay within Gamecaster that I’ve seen comes with custom alerts, you can buy other animated alerts to make your stream stand out more.
From a design perspective, though, you may want to consider building your own overlay to match the alert style. Personally, I just think it will look nicer.
But, it’s really up to you. There are some very well-created alerts in the Vault.
Emotes
The list for emotes is a bit short. There are only three special Gamecaster emotes you can use for your streams, and they’re really not all that expensive.
I’m not really a bit fan of the emotes, myself. But, perhaps there are people out there who want to show support for Gamecaster on their Twitch channels.
Premium Overlays
Out of everything you can buy with Gamecaster Gold, the overlay section has the largest selection. At the time of this post, there are over 170 styles to choose from, most of which are free.
However, there are several premium overlays to install I would love to add to my stream for specific games. For instance, the Ocean overlay would fit perfectly while playing Raft.
In any case, there are a lot of overlays to go through that are easy to set up.
Panel Graphics for Twitch Channel
Twitch panels are essentially the images you see on streamer channels that head a piece of information or simply act as a button. Right now, there are 16 styles to choose from that you can add.
It’s my hope that this section gets a bit more attention from designers in the future. Some of the ones available are nice, but a larger selection would be better.
Animated Stingers
The animated stingers are among some of the nicer visual effects you can get with Gamecaster Gold. These are transition animations that simply pop out while providing a very attractive element to the stream.
I can see these adding quite a bit to an action game stream.
To me, they appear to be something you’d probably see in a game tournament broadcast. In any case, they are pretty cool overall.
This is another section that I’d like to see more development in the nearby future.
Add More to Your Stream
Gamecaster Gold simply helps you buy a few things here and there to get more out of your stream. And since you can simply play to earn the gold, the entire platform is still perfectly free.
It’s an interesting take on how to set up free game streaming software, and I’m looking forward to seeing what else they add.
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