Weaver said:
Batou667 said:
Thanks for the kind words! I honestly haven't done too much to drum up publicity. I'm not really sure how to as most forums simply don't let you post your content lol.
Blitsie said:
It's good advice! That said, I can only honestly do something "for myself" for so long before I want some kind of outside engagement. Let's be frank, no one is making youtube videos for no one to watch them. I love playing games (obviously) and making videos is painless, but the real joy for me comes from engaging an audience. The catch here is I need an audience to engage, and to do that I need to make content, but if no one watches it... what do I do?
Kuilui said:
I do think tackling some indie games is a good idea, I'll look into it! That said, I'm not going to play something I don't want to just to get views. I want views, but not if it means having to play a game I don't want to
.
Luckily I enjoy indie games!
WARNING: Post was written quickly, we're talking first draft standard, barely coherant shit here.
I've often seen you on these forums mentioning that you made videos and whenever that happened I always imagined the worst (this is the internet, any random with a webcam can make videos), that your videos would contain commentary that came across like an ear-grating, lispy-voiced turd that stuttered like a broken air-conditioner being a pretentious wanker (not due to your general post content, mainly because this is a game site). This thread finally made me go, "ya know what, I'll check this out and actually give an opinion and be insultingly honest", (and If you've seen many of my posts, which I doubt, I'm a very cynical, blunt and rather insultingly cruel person when it comes to criticism).
I was honestly surprised, there's actually some charisma going on there and the nervous speech ("err", "uhh", "like", that sort of speech, people naturally insert it when they're nervous) was at a perfectly reasonable level (even bigger personalities do it when they're unable to do it).
Here's the thing though, you're wanting an audience and there's a fair few roadblocks to getting attention (even moderate attention) that people just don't understand (partly because YouTube is a backwards shitheap, partly because people have shitty taste). Firstly, Let's Plays are a dime a dozen and getting noticed is something that rarely happens and is often completely random (for example, check out a number of successful YouTubers, a lot of them will say that they really got their start when someone big noticed them and mentioned them in a tweet or something) or caused by a particular topic blowing up, often with them being the first person there. An example I saw very recently where someone because a big shit overnight (well, as in they jumped from a nobody to someone a 23k sub base) was a guy called InternetAristocrat (say what you want about the guy, I disagree with him on a lot of large things, but his presentation is why I watch), he came to prominence purely because he was the sort of guy who watched internet boards all the time and made a video about "The Mighty Number 9" controversy as it was happening and had a lot of information on it (more than almost anyone else), he was the only one who had really made a video yet and he was one of the very first, so early in fact that actual game news articles linked to him as a source (and he's not exactly audience friendly), this caused him to blow up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXDSfUJBCj0 <--- The video in question.
Then, there's also the sad fact that YouTube bases who gets "recommended" your videos based on where you live (this is partly beneficial because it stops you from being recommended nothing but videos from countries who speak a language you don't, but it also separates countries that speak the same language, like fucking English), at least, they separate you until you get a big enough audience (what size you need to be isn't really known). A brief explanation of this is contained within this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgMqhEMhVV8
(It's a Gametheory video explaining why Pewdiepie (ewwwww) is as big as he is, a lot of it has to do with his moving to another country dicking with this system and spreading his videos almost globally instead of isolating them. A brief aside, I hate Gametheory, but the video illustrates this point well).
Next problem, you're not trying to be funny, which I approve of, that means there's more flavours out there than fucking vanilla (Vanilla being comprised primarily of shrieking shitheels), however when most people go after Let's Plays they're normally after some big personality that will make them laugh. In my opinion this is both your biggest problem and your biggest boon, if you can establish yourself as someone who's not a mugging, preening jackass (which you've managed to avoid) and who provides insight and long-term information on a game then you may be able to set yourself up with a nice, niche audience. But to do that you're going to have to try and go after games that no one else is looking at yet (like others have mentioned), not some old crap, but some new and obscure stuff (Stryder is way too mainstream), something that you can potentially beat everyone else to the punch with. Your current presentation matches this sort of content in my opinion, you've not got too humorous a bent to your tone, but you do sound like you've got something interesting to say and you've got a decent, respectable voice.
Your voice isn't something that you can change, this is something that a lot of people never want to accept, they want to be some sort of "eCelebrity" but they've got a nasally tone, stutter uncontrollably, etc and as such no one can stand to watch their videos. You're not that unlucky, however you've been saddled with a more serious and less comedic tone (that doesn't mean you can't be funny or anything, but it's not the best focus), an example using the ever-famous shrieking shitheel PewDiePie: His voice is extremely fucking annoying, but it matches the sort of crap he makes very well, if he were attempting to talk more seriously he wouldn't be able to carry it, yours is a voice that can carry a more serious tone (but not too serious, yours is slightly laid back, you've got a decent stage presence, like the sort of guy you can imagine sitting beside and playing games with).
Also, don't feel pressured to put out too many videos, the amount of videos that larger channels put out it meaningless. If you're not feeling 100% into this your audience WILL know and they won't like it, even if you're only putting out something once a week or something so long as you're at your best then you should be good. Also, if you've made a video and you don't think it's your best stuff then you shouldn't put it out, don't feel forced to upload something just to keep people's attention. Another big example of this is TotalBiscuit, he actually makes a lot more videos than people thinks he does, he actually doesn't upload the majority of the videos he makes because he feels that they're not up to his quality standards.
To help with quality, just look up some stuff about the game, some basic talking points to fill in for dead air, Let's Plays are not a medium that in any way allows for periods of silence, unless it's a cut scene/story moment. This means that whenever there's nothing of note happening in the game you've got a small list of bullet points that you can just address for a little while. Here's an example, you can bring up the publisher of the game, their previous titles, some controversy they're involved in (this can also help invite viewer comments which I address in greater detail below) and be ready to go off on a tangent on that stuff until something in the game worth commenting on happens. I checked out your first Stryder video to get an idea of your stuff, you mention some basic items that I listed here but as soon as you mentioned them you moved along and were at a bit of a loss for things to say, that's something you can elaborate on in the down time and make it sound interesting; "My god, the resolution on this thing, you should have seen the black magic I had to pull to get this thing to record properly..." and then you can proceed to go into a long and elaborate story (keep stories like this true, but exaggerate a lot, keep it entertaining) to buy yourself time whilst staying on the topic of the game AND being entertaining at the same time.
Foster some good will amongst viewers, get them involved in the comments, make them feel as though they're part of a community and interact with them, in the early stages of video making word of mouth is literally the only thing you can do to get your channel out there. People don't react well to a person recommending their own channel, but if its a viewer who's super excited about the channel based on its merits then that's an opinion you can trust. It doesn't take much, just ask a handful of questions in the videos (don't let them come across as forced), ask for recommendations or what people have been playing and just talk back to them, people get excited when the video-maker talks with them. If people think you're listening to their feedback then they begin to care about the content more because they feel as though they've invested in it in some way.
Finally, I finished this post before realising that the last post was a couple of weeks ago, but after typing so much I refuse to put this up (and you can suck it escapist! I got in before the 30 day cut off! Blow me whilst gently cupping my balls).
TL;DR: Fuck you, I wrote a lot, read it. But, If you boil the problem down to its most basic level, you're trying to get attention based entirely on the merit of your content and YouTube is sure as shit not an environment with merit is rewarded, you've got to do other things as well.
