

Each month, a hundred million visitors watch their favorite personalities play video games on Twitch, spending an average of nearly two hours a day there. Garcia, known online as Towelliee, is a star broadcaster on Twitch, a streaming platform whose popularity has turned recreational gaming into an improbably viable career. “We just need to get there before he starts to drink,” he said. Dariani’s speedometer crept toward ninety miles per hour. That day, he was on his way to meet the streamer Roberto Garcia, who was supposed to be at home but had instead gone to a casino outside the city to celebrate his girlfriend’s birthday.

He is thirty-eight, with a dry, ironic wit and a nervous habit of twirling his goatee, which is rapidly going gray his clients are, for the most part, young, boisterous, and unpredictable. of Online Performers Group, a talent-management company dedicated to professional video-game streamers, who broadcast their game play and commentary live over the Internet.

One humid morning this past summer, Omeed Dariani drove his black Tesla sedan through the foothills east of San Diego, looking apprehensive. To hear more feature stories, download the Audm app for your iPhone.
