Content consumption has shifted—and not just for Americans—as hundreds of millions people around the world subscribe to streaming services. Boasting over one billion users, YouTube holds the top ranking for most monthly active users (MAUs), accounting for one-third of all internet users on the planet. Yet when it comes to video game live streaming, the Amazon-owned Twitch slays the competition, with three times the number of daily streamers as YouTube. Hundreds of thousands of streamers are generating revenue on Twitch, as millions tune in to watch them play video games online. Top streaming gamers have reported earnings of up to six figures a month—and that’s not even including all the sponsorship deals and free swag.  

Now, a growing number of male and female porn stars are cashing in on the platform, becoming better known as gamers than as sex workers—in spite of strictly enforced regulations. Twitch is an all-ages SFW platform and prohibits sexually suggestive content. In addition to the expected ban on sexually-explicit content and activities, the platform’s strict code of conduct makes it clear that they can ban accounts for suggestive attire, sexually suggestive camera angles, and reactions to comments (including what types of chat messages users allow in their community).

With millions of views and nearly 200,000 followers on Twitch, adult actor Manuel Ferrara has taken his boyhood passion for gaming public—and it’s paying off. “More and more people come to me and say, ‘Hey, you’re the streamer Manuel Ferrara, and they don’t mention porn. Which is a weird thing for me, since I’ve been doing porn for 23 years and only been streaming for three years,” says the multi-award-winning actor.

Cognizant of his audience, and still active in the adult entertainment industry, Ferrara says he adheres even more than most to the rules, knowing the platform keeps close tabs on his content. “My goal was not to bring porn to Twitch,” says Ferrara. “My goal was to have fun doing something I love, playing video games. And also to show that people from our industry are normal people. We’re regular people too, we just don’t do a regular job.”

In an effort to humanize his colleagues, porn stars are frequent guests on Ferrara’s Twitch channel, ManuelFerraraTV, where they chat candidly about various topics, fully clothed. The way Ferrara speaks about gaming comes across as very personal, as something he holds close to his heart. “I use Twitch as therapy. I’s really good for me. Creating content for people that enjoy it is very rewarding for me. Also, a lot of my community is French so it allows me to speak French on a daily basis, which is really good for my head,” says Ferrara. “I used to get homesick a lot but since being on Twitch, since I stream with French people, I don’t get as homesick as I used to.”

To be a successful streamer requires more than charisma and good looks—you must have the skills to boot. “Until I joined Twitch I thought I was a great gamer. Then I started playing with guys in eSports who are world champions,” says Ferrara. “I became good friends with the four-time world champion of FIFA Soccer, I thought that was one of my games, I thought I was a monster at this game until I played against this guy and he literally made me quit this game because I realized I would never be at that level.”

Adult actress Tana Lea considers herself a lifelong gamer. Even so, she’s cautious about what she plays in front of a live-streaming audience. “People will shit on you if you go in there being pretty not knowing how to play,” says Lea. “I’ve tried playing new games before that I would never play in real life because it gets a bigger audience, but you can’t go into a game not knowing how to play or you’ll get destroyed.”  

Lea appreciates how serious Twitch viewers can be about gaming since she’s right there with them, like one of the guys. But she also tries to censor herself more than most. “When you Twitch, half the kids that are in the chat or game are like 14- or 15-year-olds and the insults are so funny, like, ‘Hey, I bet you’re fat.’ I get in screaming matches with 15-year-olds and then I’m like, ‘Oh wait, they’re 15,’ and I realize what I’m doing and I have to stop,” says Lea. “Twitch is very picky about anything you say, so you always have to pretend you’re playing with 15-year-olds, and they’re part of your audience anyway.”

A video game enthusiast, Alana Evans was one of the first adult stars to crossover as a “gamer girl,” shortly before the software and gaming platforms like Twitch were so accessible. One of the barriers, and social deterrents, to becoming a career gamer was the excessive harassment, which she endured well into her first year as a publicly known porn star gamer.

“The harassment was hardcore. I got death threats, people calling my house, I got doxxed on a more personal level. I was Gamergate before Gamergate even existed,” says Evans. “I was trolled so hard I had a headstone sent to me with my own name on it with an obituary attached to it.”

Evans, who founded PwnedByGirls.com to live stream video games eight years ago, marvels at how far technology has come and what she had to do in those early days before platforms like Twitch were readily available. “Before the tech existed we’d set up two cameras, one pointed at the video game screen and the other at us, and we’d feed it into these two little boxes to make it work,” recalls Evans. “Our first live gaming stream we did as a free service, we kept our clothes on, then we said let’s go topless (since they were live streaming on a webcam site), and people paid $1.99 a minute to watch us play games for three hours straight.”

Seeing how excited people were to just watch her play was invigorating, and made the harassment and accusations that she was a “fake gamer” a little easier to endure. Evans’ love for video games is obvious, not just in how she expresses herself verbally—it’s literally written all over her body, with a Nintendo controller inked on one arm, a Zelda tattoo on her shoulder, and the Zelda logo on her forearm. “Gaming is supposed to be about having a good time with your friends whether that’s in real life or they’re online. When we start judging people about what we think is real or fake, at that point we’re just projecting our own issues onto other people,” says Evans. “Depression and mental health issues can creep upon gamers just as easily as anyone else and its easy to stay in our box, being harassed and shamed… if you are getting trolled while you’re playing, mute them! Block those people.”

Evans is not only a streamer; she also enjoys watching other gamers, and can see why Ferrara has attracted such a big following in the gaming community. “Manuel gets all the love. I’ve watched Manuel stream, he has hundreds if not thousands of people in his stream at once and he’s yelling in French as he plays FIFA. It’s awesome,” says Evans.

Gaming has been very lucrative for adult stars as they embark on yet another unconventional career path, yet it’s one of the few jobs most say they’d do for free. “For me, gaming has brought just as much financial value as spiritual value. In porn you aren’t going to go do scenes for free, you want that check, but in gaming I will take a job that has no money attached to it because I want to play or because I’m excited about the event,” says Evans. “The gaming, it’s for the love not the money. Plus the swag is unbelievable.”