About Skoogage

Well, where do I begin? While I love going by my online alias, Skoogage, my real name is Maik. Nice to meet you! Going by that name, you might think that I'm not a native English speaker. You'd be right! I'm actually from Germany - born and raised - and live there to this day. Born in 1993, I'm currently 31 years old and most vividly remember the late 90s and the 2000s as my childhood. I'm currently studying Applied Computer Science and work in an IT company supplying services to most German health care institutions. Meanwhile, with my passion for acting, I try to join stage acts whenever I can and practice improv with one of my groups. I also stream IRL and gaming content on Twitch about twice a week! Apart from that, I love to program and game in my free time. I have several personal projects right now, including finally finishing this website, a mobile game for Android and some more things that are either too premature or too secret to mention. ;-)

Gaming

Since this website is more-or-less dedicated to my Twitch channel and YouTube VoDs, let's talk about those for a second. Growing up in the late 90s and early 2000s, I'm one of many people that witnessed the ascent of the internet and video games in modern society. I remember a huge bias against video games and times where the internet hasn't played a huge role in everybody's lives. Before the age of smartphones, YouTube or FaceBook. Luckily for me, great games were already available back then. Growing up, I was shown the classics of my time by my brother, some of which would become all-time favorites of mine. I played games such as Half-Life, Unreal Tournament, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and quickly grew attached to the still somewhat-new hobby. While I've certainly had some bad times in my life, even at the innocent young age of 10, video games would always prove to be an outlet I could depend on. Sometimes, to the dismay of my dear parents.

YouTube

As I grew older and more fond of new releases, the internet grew up with me and suddenly, we had YouTube. I don't recall exactly when I started watching videos there, but I know I have for quite a few years before I thought about making my own. I was 14 years old, still had a thick, German accent when I spoke English and after being relatively popular in primary school, found myself alone in secondary. I found comfort in online communities and thought that starting to make Let's Play videos would provide me with a sense of belonging. And as it turns out, I was right! For some reason, people enjoyed watching that German kid playing Assassin's Creed, F.E.A.R. and Half-Life and I gained quite a few subscribers in my heydays. And it felt good. Perhaps a little too much so. However, once I grew more popular again in real life, my online presence started fading again. There were fewer videos and eventually, my old-time viewers grew disinterested. After many years of trying to reboot the channel, I finally gave up on it, turning to something else:

Twitch

My transition to streaming was a slow one. When I was still as big as I ever got on YouTube, I treated my 'fans' to a stream only every once in a while on the platform that was then known as UStream. There was no Twitch yet, and YouTube had stuck to videos-on-demand for the time being. But as I watched many of the YouTube channels I liked join Twitch, I eventually followed suit as well and complemented my YouTube videos with the occasional Twitch stream. As interest in my YouTube waned, however, my Twitch popularity slowly grew. Not necessarily because of my content, but more for making connections with fellow Twitch viewers and streamers alike. I always knew that my real life was way too busy to pursue a career as an 'influencer', though. As such, I only stream twice a week to a handful of people that I like to think of as more like my friends than anything else. I am entirely content with what I do and while I would love a more sizable community to share the love with, I enjoy the two late nights a week I get to play video games and talk to some of my online-buddies.