About Catreina

Jennifer “Catreina” Snow is an avid gamer, writer, and aspiring solo game developer. She began gaming on an Atari 2600 back at the tender age of six. Catreina has played many games in her life, and now, having entered her 50’s, she’s considered a gaming veteran, but not in any way a professional. She does still try to play in a manner similar to most hardcore or pro gamers, though she fails consistently in that endeavor. She answers to Cat, Catreina, and JJ interchangeably on stream.

Catreina has been with her lovely spouse Kayluun for over 30 years. Kayluun is a major part of Catreina’s streaming history and her current endeavors, and they both expect to be together like this for the next 70 years and more.

In the past, you would often hear her and their hysterical kids on stream trolling Cat (like in this clip – caution, loud laughter). Her family can be very trollolol when necessary, though they are all adults now.

If you stick around long enough, you will eventually come to know that Catreina is also trans and identifies as gender-fluid, which means that she presents however she feels like presenting on any given day. She does try to keep an open mind, though hate speech and racism is dealt with quickly via a permanent ban. Be respectful to her and the channel and be treated in kind.

How long has Catreina been streaming?

In April of 2009 Catreina was playing World of Warcraft heavily when she started looking for an end-game guild that had the capacity to continue pushing content. She eventually came upon the guild Fusion on the server Turalyon and decided to start the application process. The guild had one caveat — they desired people who had a little more, something beyond the game that they could provide for the guild. Their website showcased four of their players streaming their gameplay on Justin.TV – and so, Catreina set out to see exactly what this Justin.TV was, and how she could use it to her advantage when she eventually decided to apply.

Well, she never applied to Fusion, but she did start casting on Justin.TV. She became one of the first gaming casters as well as “the best quality stream” at the time, which gave her the motivation to stream everything she played. This was originally just World of Warcraft, but she started playing other games, and people started watching – a lot of people.

Viewer counts in 2009 were much different than today. Having 100 or 200 viewers was considered wildly successful — only a few broadcasters would get even close to that amount. The two that immediately come to mind are Four Player Podcast and Swiftor, both of whom had communities prior to their foray into live streaming. Catreina was one of the other high-profile casters, with an average of 400+ concurrent viewers for daily WoW raiding, and sometimes hitting 600 or more. This success solidified her desire to provide entertaining content for her viewers, and she dove in headfirst — even if every stream was rage-infested.

A lot has occurred since then. Justin.TV morphed into the hugely successful Twitch.TV, YouTube, Kick, and TikTok are viable streaming services, and places like Own3d.TV have failed and been reborn with entirely different skins. There are entire ecosystems built around streaming. And the real-life streaming that spawned it all with Justin.TV is now the largest category on Twitch.

Meanwhile, Catreina has had her streaming peaks and valleys. She quit streaming in 2015 to pursue education, tried coming back a few times, and finally returned to streaming often in November of 2024. She spends most of her current streams learning game development, playing one game or another, and always trying to entertain the viewers with novel content and stream interaction. No longer are there days of rage and anger at anything and everything for absolutely no reason, though there are fond remembrances of those days gone by, the likes of which shall live on in internet histories.

What games does Catreina play and stream?

Catreina enjoys games heavy with story, whether current or retro. She particularly enjoys and streams RPGs, Adventure, MMOs, turn-based and real-time strategy (TBS/RTS) games. World of Warcraft remains one of the games she streams, though she tends to play more Classic and Anniversary than retail. She is eagerly awaiting new releases of her longtime favorites. As of this writing, some of these include the (expected) new StarCraft game, the (expected) new version of World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 3, Emberville, Mass Effect 5, Cyberpunk 2, The Witcher 4, and so many more. When available, Cat focuses on challenge-based runs such as dead-is-dead and hardcore max difficulty attempts.

Historically, Cat played many different games, including World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Eve Online, Guild Wars 1 & 2, Diablo 3, and Starcraft 2, the Mass Effect series, The Witcher series, and many, many others.

Where can I find Catreina’s streaming schedule?

Catreina’s casting schedule is a living document which can be located here. Updates will be made as far in advance as possible.

Updates will be made to the schedule as far in advance as possible, though late-time modifications may happen. Today’s schedule is always available on the main page in the right sidebar, in Pacific time. As of the most recent update to this page, Catreina streams Monday – Thursday, 4 AM – 2 PM, Friday 2 AM – Saturday 2 AM, and Saturdays from Noon until 6 PM. Sundays are off days, but a stream can occur to explain the coming weeks events or get input from the community for upcoming challenges and games.

Where can I find Catreina’s PC specs?

Under construction. Historical content:

The PC Catreina uses is nearing six years old, and the components and build are listed here. This page also includes her internet connection and quality test results, as well as direct links to the parts if you desire them for yourself. An updated computer is definitely a plan for the future, sooner rather than later. A post will go up when this happens, and the computer specification page will be updated with the new build at that time.

What Streaming software does Catreina use?

Under construction. Historical content:

In 2009, streaming software was basic, bloated, and difficult to configure for an optimal streaming experience. At that time, Catreina used Flash Media Encoder or Flash Media Live Encoder along with the screen capturing driver VHScrCap. These two tools allowed her to stream her desktop at what was then full quality 1280×800 (remember, 2009), and look amazing while doing so. She even had a few tutorials on how to tweak and optimize the stream for the best quality, which were used by many who are now high-profile casters, such as Dan’s Gaming.

Currently, Catreina uses OBS – Open Broadcast Software, a very low-overhead highly configurable streaming application. In 2012, XSplit was used, and even purchased. However, it became severely bloated and the expense, a yearly license, was not worth overlooking the free and powerful OBS. OBS is amazing in every way – free, as powerful as XSplit, and it uses WAY less resources than any other streaming software available as of this writing.

Does Catreina have a website, facebook, twitter, etc?

Catreina has a large social presence, each of which is available at the bottom of any page on this site, including a Facebook Page, Twitter/X and Bluesky (@Catreina), a TikTok, Youtube Channels for curated content and stream VODs, and more. She also has a public Steam Profile.