Link to the Video Essay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgUXN9Fol3s
For this past 2 months I have been working on a video essay for my YouTube channel of over 2.6 thousand subscribers. The channel is mainly known for a completely different genre of content, so this type of video was a real test of if I have built an audience over these past years on the channel that are there to watch my videos for me or for the game I am playing.
When it came to choosing a topic, I knew right away I wanted to talk about the difference between old and new games and decided to create this elaborate plan (https://wordpress.com/post/mediapem.tech.blog/297 ) to stream some old games and some new games, research, review the games and I kindly got feedback from my peers essentially telling me that it was a waste of time to do all that and I am so grateful they said that
Instead, I directed my focus to researching the gaming industry and playing all different types of games in the spare time I had and was able to come up some points to talk about in the video essay and even a conclusion to the question I was proposing, “have video games gotten better?”.
When making this project I was aware of two major things that would possibly affect the overall performance of the video. First point was that it was going to take some time, way more time that it usually would make one the normal videos I would put up on the YouTube channel, so I had to compromise and make shorter formed videos advocating to the current subscribers to keep them coming back and keep my overall watch-time up so that when this essay comes out it wouldn’t flop.
To those that are unaware the longer you take to upload a video on your channel the harder it is to get views, with the YouTube algorithm being watch-time based, you must make sure you’re still pumping some views into your channel to keep attracting existing and new viewers.
The second major complication that could affect the video is the way my reputation is with my channel. The way I’ve always done videos and thumbnails are to a certain style and I intended on trying to pull in a new audience and grow so I had to pull away from my style which doesn’t prove the greatest with the algorithm and instead go a more “clickbaity” route whilst still trying to stay to my “roots” and please the current subscribers.
When diving into the research aspect I did have some struggles trying to find resources related to my topic, seeing as the whole video is a subjective piece and the experiences of games can differ from person to person, but I decided to do a quick bit and scratch the surface of game publishing in the video essay to add some sort of perspective on the gaming industry for the viewer and surprisingly got more comments about that topic than I thought I would initially get.
Another place I went to research surprisingly was YouTube, I was thankfully recommended a video talking about the YouTube algorithm from this channel called, “Creator Inside” and they some helpful tips and talked about current trends going on in the YouTube space and that’s where I got the idea for my thumbnail. As I said this design is completely different to what I’ve done in the past, but I got inspiration from the current influx of “reaction-based” content which is flooding YouTube as of lately.
To conclude, I think this video was a success, I seemed to have entertained my current subscribers as well as pull in some new ones. People stated they want more of this content, so I intend on bringing out more. I wish I was able to find more research to help dig deeper but maybe next time when my topic is more concise, I’ll be able to find some articles that will come in handy.
Resources used throughout the Project:
Video Game Industry is SO Fierce: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/250012/why_are_deadlines_so_fierce_in_the_video_game/
How the Crunch Hurtrs Video games: https://screenrant.com/video-game-crunch-development-time-studio-impact-controversy/
About the Crunch: https://www.kotaku.com.au/2015/05/crunch-time-why-game-developers-work-such-insane-hours/
MrBeast Talks about How to get more Views: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1jDk_2Yeno&t=896s Creator Inside: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGg-UqjRgzhYDPJMr-9HXCg
James Mackay - Portfolio 