Why would i watch this doofus talking and playing Vidjagahems?

[Bells]

Hey there! So, this is going to be a big one about Let's Plays, Youtube videos, Trying to create intereting content and what -IS- interesting content... so bare with it, and please share a thought!

So, this is 1 part brainstorming to help me out and also 1 part talking about Gameplay videos and overall how we consume gameplay midia these days... cause we have a ''slightly higher than average demographic'' age group here that grew up at about the same era and are also a bunch of nerds... so you guys actually make for a nice opinion group to pool from!

So, i mentioned times and ages ago that i got myself an youtube channel... i'm ok with it, but the market in my region is way different than that of the US... i got to do some really cool stuff and got access to stuff i never dreamed of having access to. I got interviews with developers, acces to Alpha build of games, review materials from Razer and Kingstn... really cool stuff!

The structure of my channel however, it's not working... and i wanna to improve on that part, because i don't want to be another ''guy screaming at games while playing badly'' youtube channel... y'know?

So, the formula i had originally going was me and a friend... he plays, i lead commentary. I get to study the game before hand, i have more knowledge of games than he does, i'm a good speaker... so i can guide him and try to steer the conversartion to keep it going. He is charismatic, energetic and really bad at videogames... that goes to comedic foil. We tried to make it work... it doesn't work. Because the ''loveable idiot + raging nerd'' formula just doesn't work and when he complains and moans at Portal 1 for an hours because he can't clear a room i get frustraded... like... actually frustrated. And we ended up producing 2 hours of content over 30 days, which i need to make spread into 5-6 videos to keep a weekly update, which means i don't have time to properly edit stuff which means i have to continually upload subpar shit... in the very bare bones of the thing, i just want this to work more than he does.

So i'm steering it more towards solo stuff so i can do stuff that i like... i'm working with a few slow videos that take more time to produce, but are more passionate personal project... like, i'm penning down an episode showing how Final Fantasy Tactics and every Ivalice-related game influenced every Squeenix game that came after it... like, how Parasite Eve and Vagrant Story dipped into Kingdom Hearts, That dipped into Dissidia, and Final Fantasy 12 and 11 and 13 with Agito, which became Zero... etc etc etc... its quite fun.

But i also want to work on Gameplay material that i think it's worth noting... like I'm doing videos about Star Citizen, i showed the Hangar and i'm waiting for the next step of the Alpha with the Dog fighting, and i plan on riding on that for the long run...

And HEX Shards of Fate, which is in closed Beta, and i'm getting quite good at it, with a very nice pool of cards and i've even been able to tackle on some Draft Tournaments...

But i also want to do other gameplays... i dunno exactly in what format or way though.

I noticed i'm not particualry good in commenting Solo while playing. It's hard as it is... but i try to focus on the game, and not having someone to Riff from make it a bit hard to naturally pull out Jokes or Interesting commentary...

From my understanding, it makes for an interesting video if the person playing is particularly good at the game, or exceptionally good at the commentary... Like, i can see the appeal of a 100% run of a game... or a ''Hard Mode'' Run, but if the commentary is not entertaining or fun, it's hard to justify asking people to watch me every day of the week or even once a week.. y'know?

Like, i can totally beat Metal Gear Rising and Sleeping Dogs... my intention was to make videos of these 2 games i like. But i don't have these games memorized! I don't think i could make a perfect run of them... and without someone to detract the focus while i focus on playing, or to riff on from Jokes and Comments, it gets even harder.

I also wanted to tackle games that are less common on youtube videos, like Alpha Protocol... would love to beat that in video! But those games are less common and in return, less people look to see these games... and they are not in my native language, o that requires even more presence of the person playing instead of the appeal of just the game itself...

Like, if i knew i was capable of revelaing all the secrets and talking in depth of the Lore of Dark Soul 2 i would buy that game in a heartbeat... but i'm Average t best in those games... and nobody wants to tune in for 50 episodes of ''Average man plays that thing everybody else plays" ...

I could do Reviews... i can do decent reviews of games, but not much point on reviewing old games... which would means tossing aside my 500+ Steam library... and considering i bought those because of my Channel... yeah... would rather not.

Point is... trying to get yourself out there was harder back then and it's even harder now. I would love to have fun making great content and steer away from lower common denominator shit... but that's also a bit harder than i would like it to be...

I trying to get my head around what good content is, what value there is to produce content on the games i like... what angle to look into... y'know?

I mean, i know my Shit... i can talk about games. But i'm not particularly fantastic on Talking in depth about games while trying to be great at playing them... not a lot of people are actually... but there should be more ways than just that to make interesting gaming content that doesn't resort at me just screaming butt jokes and exaggerated rage into a mic... right?

So... bounce this ball with me for a bit guys... what pulls you in or pushes you back on this sort of content? I mean, some of you followed WRITEN Lp's... some of you made them! That stuff was nuts! You need to captivate your audience big time to pull that off...

i guess hearing a few different perspectives and experiences would help me clear my thoughts...

[Krylo]

I, personally, find it more fun to watch people play awful games that I would never want to play--but which might have interesting gameplay aspects that might be worth discussing--than to watch people play good games.

Like, I'd rather just PLAY good games, you know? Meanwhile, watching someone play a bad one is letting me take a look at something I might not otherwise see, and perhaps provide commentary on it. Plus, bad games are automatic schadenfreude. You don't have to be 'I'm an idiot and am going to yell at this game' to be amusing when the game is actually bad and you have bad things in the game to talk about. Especially if you also take time to talk about good things.

It does have some issue with advertising, I.E. no one is going to come to watch you play Disciples of Steel on a random search for Disciples of Steel because no one does random searches for Disciples of Steel, so that's an issue, but meh.

You asked for an opinion, so you got one.

Also: On the not being good at talking while playing: Record game, watch your own gameplay, while commenting, and put the talking audiotrack over the gameplay one. Unless you're doing livecasts/twitch.tv or something where 'doing it live' is part of the gimmick, there's really no reason to do it live.

[Bells]

I totally get the appeal of playing bad and ''meh'' games to completion for others to enjoy and see!! Hell, like i said... 500+ Steam games. There is just no way they are all good...

I have Alien's Colonial Marines for crying out loud... bought it for USD 0,99 on Amazon! True Story!

Also, may the gods in heaven and hell bless this great thing called "Bundles" least else i would not have Unstopable Gorg. You know what Unstopabale Gorg is? I don't! And i have it! BUNDLES!!

I know people who actually do the whole ''post commentary'' thing, i see the appeal, but i hate faking it... it could work for a game that i already beat, because then there would be no surprise doing it live... but i couldn't fake surprise at pre-recorded footage (o know people who do it and you can barely tell... so i kow it's more of a quirk of mine than anything else)

A thing i've been considering doing is what, in my mind, for lack of a better word, i call ''Half Plays'' which are full playthroughs of games... but where i cut off the part where there is excessive ''downtime'' grinding, i get stuck or there is just nothing interesting happening on screen...

For example, i would love to play The Witcher 2. Hell, i got my copy after interviewing the Gameplay Director!! Would love to beat it... but that game is super Hard, plus it's an RPG. which tends to be Slow. So, for a game like that... i would play it but cut out the part where it's just me beating random mobs or walking quietly to the next quest mark or stuff like that... i guess that is one way to do it... Because part of it is pressure. Just the act of recording it and knowing people will see it, puts on that pressure that ''i must say something'' and that's awful if you're trying to be interesting unless i have a thousand stories and trivia pieces at the tip of my tongue ready to roll... but i don't.


To drive the point home, this comes to mind from one of my Favourite youtube channels...

[phil_]

I don't want to be this guy, but man, Bells, if I knew how to turn you yelling "Come on Pretty Chicken, let's fight for justice!" into money, I would have done so myself long ago. Or maybe I would have PMed you how to do so; it really depends on when in the last ten years I would have theoretically come up with how to turn Bells into dollars.

I wish I knew, but I don't. Money for art ain't my thing.

[Bells]

Yeah, youtube strikes totally killed my Original 'career' as an Abridger of obscure Anime =P man i wish i could've finished that series off... at least i can look at Team 4 star and live the dream by proxy now XD

Would have made a ton of mad cash selling ''Watermellowned'' shirts!

[synkr0nized]

That video... I saw no draw to continue watching it after a brief listen. He's just talking for lack of anything better to do. So I hope that was the intent, and that it wasn't an example of good commentary.

Basic tips, imo, for overcoming the typical shit that's on YouTube:
- don't spam for subscriptions
- make sure the game takes the forefront, not you
--- you can kind of ignore this if you've got a group doing commentary together that is reasonably amusing/informative
- post-play commentary usually works a lot better than live commentary, unless, say, you're doing a co-op run with others or a race or someone is playing blind with coaches
- even group commentary can be done post-play by sharing a gameplay video with co-commentators and synching video start (or even streaming the video to them)
- don't ever try to fake surprise and the like with post commentary. That's awful, and it's usually easy to spot.
- if you put up a webcam/scarecam of yourself as you play I will ban you.


I am not quite sure why, in thirty days, you can't get two hours of content cut up into sections. Maybe you're not limiting your play time per session correctly?


You also appear to see yourself as the knowledgeable player, stating that it's more difficult to riff on a game -- especially when solo -- but that you really enjoy also showing off gameplay elements and features in addition to playing.

Maybe subtitles would be better for you. You could benefit from thinking out a script or pairing it with editing to emphasize parts of the screen, for example.

Maybe whittling content from an individual session down to highlights would be better for you.



Part of your problem now is that everyone with a computer and a YouTube account thinks he/she will become a Let's Play star. When everyone's doing something, the only way to get noticed in the crowd is to find some way to stand out or to do something so well that folks start sharing your content on their social networks and with other viewers. It feels like a lot of the time that means Let's Play channels dump quality and go for gimmicks, like shouting, excessive banners that don't really say anything, stupid voices, etc. I'm not saying there aren't good ones out there, but I feel like I find myself agreeing with sentiment found over at SA that YT channels put too much emphasis on the channel owners and not enough on the games themselves.

It may be fair, perhaps, to note the fact that I typically limit myself to SA LPs and don't go exploring YT ones makes me ill-equipped to actually offer you sufficient advice about getting more folks to your channel.



Maybe just ditch the LP idea completely and focus on good-quality videos for gameplay tips, discussions/reviews of game mechanics and characters, and things that might naturally connect with the interviews you have gotten to do / will do. Then "Let's Play" videos could be a smaller part that is interspersed with the regular content -- maybe do some nights where you stream a game live, alone or with friends, and take suggestions or explore a new game for yourself; maybe you get a couple of people together for a party game, or explore the details of an non-current game that you want to show off. And then have this content running semi-simultaneously -- i.e. don't just do the LP for a month or two, move to the next thing, do that alone, etc. Have each be something that your viewers can reasonably expect to see updated in a given week or two rather than one type of content at a time in sequence.

[Aerozord]

This is more my analysis of the LP landscape for the sake of giving you context. Obviously if I knew what it took to make it as an LPer I'd do it myself.

1. Despite what pewdiepie would indicate, solo LPs are mostly dead. One guy talking about a game as he plays it doesn't get much attention. People prefer interplay. If you want a solo show it will have to have a great hook.

2. Editing is far more common. Either they cut it to only the good bits, or even just adding in music, replays, ect.

3. Doesn't have to be about the game. I see lots that are just talking about unrelated topics. Actually listen to the usual dialog of say, the yogscast. Unless something particularly interesting happens they dont talk too much about whats happening in game.

4. Kinda need a gimmick. Even if you are good enough to stand on your own you wont get noticed just by being good. Up to you to figure that out

5. Livestreams help. If your computer can handle it I would suggest livestreaming it as you record it. People seem to really like that, and it couldnt' hurt

Actually I will make a suggestion. it was an idea I considered but didn't because I dont think I'm good at lets plays. What about, modded games? Minecraft aside, while you do see reviews and demonstrations of mods you almost never see a LP of a game thats modded up the wazoo.

[Aldurin]

Try to get a feel of the types of people you appeal to, notice trends in the compliments/complaints. Not everyone likes the same type of youtuber. I tried watching Yogscast but couldn't tolerate how slow they sometimes are at catching on to whatever they're playing, and I tried watching Squiiddish for a while but his negativity and slips into xbox fanboyism drove me away. Those people have their own audiences and personality types that prefer their content, and that's important to realize. You can't please everyone and you shouldn't try to, just figure out the demographics or interests that you think will like your content the most and start wading into there.

The other thing to keep in mind is that consistency and slow transitions retain your audience. A person clicks the subscribe button because they've seen your current videos and expect your future content to be along the same lines. The ship-jumping that will catch you off guard is if you move to a new thing that you think will be better without easing your audience into it. If you gravitate to a certain game or franchise too much, you'll receive negativity when play something else. Almost every large youtuber has their own formula for videos, and they keep their channel alive by sticking to it or making any change as gradual as they can.

[Bells]

I have to say there is more meat in these responses than i originally expected. so thank you guys very much for this. Let me try to be more succinct in my response and prevent walls of text ( Spoiler: i'll fail)

About that video i posted: It was a very odd one for that channel, he forgot to record the audio of the game and that lead to the ''eerie'' and solitaire feel of the video, it was supposed to be super awkward on purpose and he plays up on it. Which is why it worked with people like me how follow that channel closely, but for someone who is not very well accostumed with Two BEst Friends Play, that video is super Jarring!

As for Making 2 hours of content in a month, i should've been more clear on that... what frustrates me is that we can only record on ''some saturdays'' so when i say 2 hours in 30 days, i mean 1 session of recording with about 2 hours in it for me to work through... another reason as to why i want to focus a bit more on solo... i can record on most days on my own and if something is shit, i can throw away 1 hours of bad material... but i can't throw out a full month's worth of work with my friend... or i won't have anything to upload, which is Youtube suicide...

As for Livestreams... i think i need to build a base for it first. I participate on 2 Weekly Chatting Livestreams with other youtubers friends. It gets about 100-120 people watching us talking and chatting about games, moveis, and whatever really... and kinda works building up ''Cred'' with other youtubers and some of the viewer base... but for me to do a weekly stream, i would do it for something like Hex perhaps once it leaves Beta... cardgames are good for repeated streams. Or at least more likely to draw people in than weekly 30 minutes match videos for cardgames i would hope...

I know there is a huge divide between the ''Youtuber as a celebrity'' and the ''Here is a good video of this game'' crowd... and i really don't want to appeal to the celebrity aspect of it... i mean, i want to put together humor with knowledge because i always think tha Humor is a better tool to present insight to a crowd. But i'm not on the ''Rambling with baby voices'' level of wanting this that badly... y'know?

Right now my channel has 700 Subscribers. That is soooo tiny. And i have vids with 20 views and i have videos with 500 views. I have videos with 2k Views, but that one is a Review of a Kingston Memory kit we did while eating Wasabi, and even though we did that to try and drive some attention to the channel, fuck me if i want to live off of just that... ( BTW... taking a full spoon of Wasabi before giving technical data on RAM on camera with no cuts? Kinda painfull... also dumb. Learned that one myself pretty fast! ...)

My ''Middle Range'' (In number of views) videos are usually the ones i mix live action SKetching with Commentary over games... i did one about my Faovuirte Playstation-Era game intros and why i liked each one and why they are so good in context of the time of their release (So, not like a ''Top 5'' ... i kinda hate those types of videos) and that worked out really well... so i want to do more of that... now i'm trying to fill my schedule with stuff i can produce faster, but still has value to it...

As for Mods... very few games really do allow for good MOD play and Minecraft is beyond Saturated... i shoved 200 Mods on Skyrim and still can run it at 60FPS on my new PC Though... so i might try a ''Screw main quest'' thing with it though...

On the other hand, i try to steer somewhat clear of the ''trend''... i mean, now it's ''The Forest'' . Everybody playing the Fucking Forest on Steam. That, and GTA Glitches and Some watchdogs... and, well... The Forest is actually looking really nice, but i just don't want to ride shotgun on that bandwagon...

Now... for a Gimmick... and this has become so blatantly obvious to me... yeah.... you need a Gimmick. A ''Call card'' as it were... a punchline, something... i have a ton of shitty games, and i always talk of how i like Storytelling and the artistic value of games and how every game is an experience. So i considered going the ''AVGN'' Route and just ''suffer'' beating bad games while also making more fun videos out of decent games... i've considered the ''hype'' route of exagerating the bad and the good and the JonTron route of ''Sharp left turns mid-speech for an improv punchline or a joke''... guess i should aim for what feels more natural...

The problem with inspiring yoruself on the Content creators you admire is that you start to emulate them... i guess everybody does that when they start... the struggle is evolving that formula into something new.

But knowing what you guys would be interested on watching ( Spending your currency of ''time'' on, as it is said ) is quite valuable to me, because i damn sure would like to aim for a bit older audience. Not ''super serious'', but i would prefer to captivate an audience that can legally buy beer y'know?

Also, Synk... if i ever do Facecam, PLEASE ban me. that means I've gone over the edge.

[Aerozord]

Something else to keep in mind. Although it might not have started that way, pretty much all of the big LPers out there are playing characters. The main draw is you, and what draws more people are one dimensional characters. Characters that have a narrow range of emotional responses and temperaments. Then either compliment or contrast that with what you play. Say you do play horrible games, well one route is to be an exaggeration of the rage and fury someone feels from playing horrible games. Another is to be the opposite, love the horribleness to better highlight how bad it is.

Thats one of the reasons group LPs do better. It lets you have two simplified characters that con play off each other to create complexity while keeping archtypes. Allowing them to draw on whichever aspect is most appropriate.

As a final thing, find out what you are best at when it comes to script or improv. You dont have to record yourself as you play, and can redo parts and just keep the illusion of doing it as you play. AVGN was great at keeping the illusion that the nerd was actually playing games despite everything being recorded in advanced. Doesn't mean thats the way to go. Two Best Friends are far better at doing things off the cuff and organically. Just depends on the person