Inside a custom-built production studio in Los Angeles, Mitch Jones is working on a television production designed for the internet. With professional lighting, LED walls, broadcast-quality infrastructure, and a stage for live audiences, the longtime creator is using the space to develop interactive game shows that give viewers a role in determining what happens next. For Jones, the appeal is about combining the production value of television with the spontaneity and participation that made livestreaming successful in the first place. “It really is the perfect sandbox I’ve always wanted to execute high level productions,” Jones said.
More specifically, Jones began streaming on Twitch in 2011 and initially built his audience through World of Warcraft, known for high-level gameplay during the platform’s early years. As his audience grew, however, his content moved into Just Chatting, reactions, music, IRL adventures, and collaborative broadcasts, adapting as viewers’ interests changed.
Before IRL streaming became a dominant part of online entertainment, Jones was experimenting with it alongside his late friend Byron “Reckful” Bernstein. Their willingness to take livestreaming outside the traditional gaming environment showed that audiences could follow creators into everyday experiences, travel, conversations, and other forms of entertainment. That experimentation now influences Jones’s latest project, streamed live on Twitch in July. As his first major high-production game show, Jones brought together the structure of a classic television competition with the unpredictability of an internet broadcast, where viewers were incorporated directly into the production.
Jones believes audience interaction is an entertainment tool as well as a way to recognize the community that has supported him throughout his career. His productions feel collaborative rather than distant, preserving the direct relationship between creator and audience that originally made livestreaming different from conventional media. The debut production also highlighted another part of Jones’s strategy, which involves bringing established internet personalities together in new settings. Longtime creators including Sodapoppin, Nmpol, and Bean appeared as contestants, giving fans an opportunity to see familiar personalities interact in a format that was considerably different from their usual streams.
“The show was a great opportunity to reconnect, and the fans seemed excited to see us streaming together again,” Jones said.
While he is still interested in collaborating with streamers he has known and respected for years, his goal is to eventually bring together personalities from different corners of entertainment. That could include creators, entertainers, musicians, and other public figures who would not normally share the same production. And Jones’s own background makes this approach particularly fitting. In addition to streaming and gaming, he has explored music and songwriting, releasing original material and EPs and incorporating another creative discipline into his online career. His history suggests that he is less interested in remaining inside a single category than in using the internet as a place to experiment with different forms of entertainment. Furthermore, his emphasis on community has also remained consistent despite the scale of his ambitions. After more than a decade online, Jones has learned to adapt to the pressures of being a public creator while maintaining personal boundaries.
The next stage of that experiment could be more unpredictable. “Viewers can expect something a little different every time. I don’t want my productions to ever feel predictable, so each one will have higher stakes and new twists,” Jones said.
Jones is no longer adapting to the formats created by the livestreaming industry, he is attempting to create formats of his own. If his productions succeed, they could prove that independent creators can use internet-native interaction to rethink television itself, turning audiences from passive viewers into participants and transforming the streamer from performer into producer. For someone whose career began by playing games in front of an online audience, Jones’s next step may be designing the games everyone else gets to play.
For more information, visit https://mitchjones.vip/.
