Serious Question. Are my lets play videos bad?

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fcdrifter13
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Serious Question. Are my lets play videos bad?

Post by fcdrifter13 »

I just want honest opinions as I am trying to get better. This is my latest one



I try to make the best content i can but I feel like I am missing the mark as my average watch time over all of my videos is around 3mins.
Survival Start of The Calm Lands. Currently have built homes for our workers, so we actually get workers.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... H-DmlmlDQT
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Guil
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Re: Serious Question. Are my lets play videos bad?

Post by Guil »

Haven't watched it yet as I don't have time but I think it will just take some time before the videos become popular and then it should take off provided they are good.
DirectCedar
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Re: Serious Question. Are my lets play videos bad?

Post by DirectCedar »

YouTube is sort of flooded with let's plays for just about everything popular. I would imagine becoming a new player of a current, popular game, is a hard racket to break into. There is a pretty extensive base of let's-players "just playing the game" and unless you're doing something unusual or novel or outrageous or particularly insightful it is likely to be a slow burn.

That's my guess at least.
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Re: Serious Question. Are my lets play videos bad?

Post by markare »

If you want to build up a subscriber base and generate views you need to go a different route than everyone else. Throw in some games that popular yotubers don't play. Throw in some older games with a new throw on them. Not watched any yet but from what I have read here you spend the intro explaining things that's going to happen in the video or what you have done different off camera. You are better to try and keep to a continuous flow, so you don't need to explain things that you done off camera. Let viewers see changes as they happen, remember a let's play is just that. It's a video showcase of your game play, even if you record a massive amount of footage you can edit these down to make a series. That's how most are done. Explaining what you have done ruins the emersion for most viewers. Also the YouTube market aswell as any other streaming service these days is hard to crack. Unless you are doing it almost all day every day. You will not conquer YouTube instantly.

It takes time to build up followers, regular viewers and fans in general. Also use social media to your advantage, Facebook, twitter, Instagram, and any others that you can communicate and advertise your stuff. There is a wider audience on Facebook and twitter to be gained than there is on a gaming forum. Time, hard work and effort is what's needed. I'm talking from experience with this. Due to consoles ability these days to stream directly to platforms such as twitch and mixer there is a lot of competition out there, almost everyone who plays games these days has the ability to show the world their gaming.

You just need to be a lot different and approachable than other well established streamers/youtubers.

I have been streaming to twitch for over a year but due to work commitments and reality I'm not able to do it as regular these days as I did when I started so my streams are lucky to gain 3 or 4 viewers as there are a lot more users doing it now than there was a year ago. Also being friends with bigger streamers and youtubers could help. But don't go stalking them just to get them to gain you views. Use legit gaming friends that also do what you are doing. Get shout outs, return the favour in videos e c. The gaming community for the most part are friendly folks and help each other out. You do however get certain ones that think k anyone else doing what they do have no right and flag your videos.

Just persevere and the views will come but try and keep people's interest and not give away too much detail at once, narrate on changes etc as you go along. Also if comments are left on videos try and give answers to questions people post. This will help you gain viewers as you pay attention to your audience and converse with them.
:hi:
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http://aatg.freeforums.net/ work in progress
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RODHA
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Re: Serious Question. Are my lets play videos bad?

Post by RODHA »

@fcdrifter13,
As I work on a full time job and farm the rest of my life :biggrin2: I'll try and watch your let's plays if I can find time.
But before that, as some different expectations have already been expressed in the above posts, I would like to give my opinion.
People always look for what suits to their liking.
Some seek tips and tricks, some seek just fun, some seek for the absolute madness, some seek to watch the incredible talents of the player...
Nevertheless, you will get your own audience if you keep doing it.
It will take time for people to hear about you and become a regular sub to your channel. But after that you will have an audience who likes what you do.
What I would like to humbly suggest is never play or record for the liking of the audience. Do it for yourself in the first place. So that you can have the subs who also like what you are doing. This way you can get permanent subs instead of a ton of people just joining and leaving. Do it as you like and let the people who enjoys the same become your subs. Otherwise it turns into a theatrical role play which I really don't like. And the best example for that is Daggerwin in my opinion. His attitude and videos just feel completely synthetic to me. But I still follow him because from time to time he just does whatever he wants and those are the times when he acts sincerly making me to enjoy his sharing.
PS5 / FS22
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fcdrifter13
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Re: Serious Question. Are my lets play videos bad?

Post by fcdrifter13 »

Guil wrote: Thu Apr 12, 2018 5:06 pm Haven't watched it yet as I don't have time but I think it will just take some time before the videos become popular and then it should take off provided they are good.
I am hoping they are good, and that my low watch time is because I have recently switched the type of game I used to play.
DirectCedar wrote: Thu Apr 12, 2018 7:32 pm YouTube is sort of flooded with let's plays for just about everything popular. I would imagine becoming a new player of a current, popular game, is a hard racket to break into. There is a pretty extensive base of let's-players "just playing the game" and unless you're doing something unusual or novel or outrageous or particularly insightful it is likely to be a slow burn.

That's my guess at least.
Thank you for the feedback. I dont know if i bring anything new or exciting to the table I just play how I play and react normally to events that happen in the games that I play. I do this for fun not to become famous or anything, but I do care about the quality of what I put out.
Drmattymd wrote: Thu Apr 12, 2018 11:04 pm Well I guess the first thing that needs to be established is, what is the goal or focus of your video? Personally I dont want to watch a video just to watch somebody else play when I could just be playing. If Im watching one of these videos its because Im looking for tips or tricks that I havent thought of, or touring a new map with special features or something. Or Im having a problem with something and looking for a fix to it. Learning how to use a new mod, etc.

Another thing to consider is peoples attention span. People have less and less every day. I open up a video and it says its 25 min long, I'm probably not gonna watch the whole thing UNLESS I feel pretty quickly that theres going to be something useful or very entertaining in there. Now, you said your average view time is about 3-4 min. The first 3 min of this particular video all you did was talk about what equipment you switched out and something about deleting a bunch of trees, yada yada. Kinda boring bro.
Another thing is not everybody has unlimited data, granted, alot do, but a lot dont. I dont, so again, if i see a video is gonna be 25 min long, I'm probably not gonna watch the whole thing, UNLESS I feel like its gonna be helpful.

Just my thoughts, please dont think Im trying to be mean.


Again thank you for the input. The focus of the first few minutes was to establish what I had changed and why I had because this is my more "realistic" series and I dont want people to think that equipment will be just falling from the sky into my lap to use every video. I dont think I would be a very good person to offer tips and tricks, as my game mechanic knowledge is a lot lower than people that have 1000s of hours on record and I think it takes a special type of person to make a video that is engaging for that subject matter. I also never thought about the usage of data as its something I personally have never had to worry about, so I try to make my videos to the length that I normally see while I try to cut out the boring no talking parts as much as I can. My average recording time per video is around 1.5-2hours if that gives any indication of how much I do cut out to make them actually watchable.

I dont think that anyone on this forum is mean! I asked for honest opinions and you gave yours.
markare wrote: Thu Apr 12, 2018 11:58 pm If you want to build up a subscriber base and generate views you need to go a different route than everyone else. Throw in some games that popular yotubers don't play. Throw in some older games with a new throw on them. Not watched any yet but from what I have read here you spend the intro explaining things that's going to happen in the video or what you have done different off camera. You are better to try and keep to a continuous flow, so you don't need to explain things that you done off camera. Let viewers see changes as they happen, remember a let's play is just that. It's a video showcase of your game play, even if you record a massive amount of footage you can edit these down to make a series. That's how most are done. Explaining what you have done ruins the emersion for most viewers. Also the YouTube market aswell as any other streaming service these days is hard to crack. Unless you are doing it almost all day every day. You will not conquer YouTube instantly.

It takes time to build up followers, regular viewers and fans in general. Also use social media to your advantage, Facebook, twitter, Instagram, and any others that you can communicate and advertise your stuff. There is a wider audience on Facebook and twitter to be gained than there is on a gaming forum. Time, hard work and effort is what's needed. I'm talking from experience with this. Due to consoles ability these days to stream directly to platforms such as twitch and mixer there is a lot of competition out there, almost everyone who plays games these days has the ability to show the world their gaming.

You just need to be a lot different and approachable than other well established streamers/youtubers.

I have been streaming to twitch for over a year but due to work commitments and reality I'm not able to do it as regular these days as I did when I started so my streams are lucky to gain 3 or 4 viewers as there are a lot more users doing it now than there was a year ago. Also being friends with bigger streamers and youtubers could help. But don't go stalking them just to get them to gain you views. Use legit gaming friends that also do what you are doing. Get shout outs, return the favour in videos e c. The gaming community for the most part are friendly folks and help each other out. You do however get certain ones that think k anyone else doing what they do have no right and flag your videos.

Just persevere and the views will come but try and keep people's interest and not give away too much detail at once, narrate on changes etc as you go along. Also if comments are left on videos try and give answers to questions people post. This will help you gain viewers as you pay attention to your audience and converse with them.
Streaming is something I used to do everyday. But after awhile it just became a toxic thing to me.I feel like I have to be "on" all the time and cannot relax, and I have had some of the most vile and toxic people in my streams and it was just a major turn off for me in that regard. Not streaming FS BTW. Social media is something I wish I could do better at but it seems like a job on top of another job and right now I simply do not have time to manage a page correctly while pushing 1-2 videos daily on YT.
RODHA wrote: Fri Apr 13, 2018 8:58 am @fcdrifter13,
As I work on a full time job and farm the rest of my life :biggrin2: I'll try and watch your let's plays if I can find time.
But before that, as some different expectations have already been expressed in the above posts, I would like to give my opinion.
People always look for what suits to their liking.
Some seek tips and tricks, some seek just fun, some seek for the absolute madness, some seek to watch the incredible talents of the player...
Nevertheless, you will get your own audience if you keep doing it.
It will take time for people to hear about you and become a regular sub to your channel. But after that you will have an audience who likes what you do.
What I would like to humbly suggest is never play or record for the liking of the audience. Do it for yourself in the first place. So that you can have the subs who also like what you are doing. This way you can get permanent subs instead of a ton of people just joining and leaving. Do it as you like and let the people who enjoys the same become your subs. Otherwise it turns into a theatrical role play which I really don't like. And the best example for that is Daggerwin in my opinion. His attitude and videos just feel completely synthetic to me. But I still follow him because from time to time he just does whatever he wants and those are the times when he acts sincerly making me to enjoy his sharing.
I try to be me in every video and try not to hide mistake or when I am simply just not happy with something I am doing or a problem with the map. I really do not want people that sub just to sub, as I never ask for them, I want people to stay in my channel because they actually want to be there. I hit 86 subs today which is nice but 1/2 of that is from my old Space engineers days so I dont see them actually wanting to watch my content as it currently is. Id like to have a base of people that would watch what ever I put out and be interactive, or maybe a better way to say Id rather have 100 that converse and give feedback than 10,000 that sit idle.

On the last part. I like daggerwin, I think that he is good person at heart but a little too soft as he listens to those screaming at the top of their lungs instead of his solid base. Just the other day I saw someone just lay into him over a tractor choice and the very next episode he apologized for it and went with what they wanted instead, even though I am sure he really liked what he chose in the first place and was generally excited about it. I watch his videos everyday as well and I kind of look up to him in a way I guess.
Survival Start of The Calm Lands. Currently have built homes for our workers, so we actually get workers.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... H-DmlmlDQT
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RODHA
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Re: Serious Question. Are my lets play videos bad?

Post by RODHA »

fcdrifter13 wrote: Mon Apr 16, 2018 1:35 amJust the other day I saw someone just lay into him over a tractor choice and the very next episode he apologized for it and went with what they wanted instead, even though I am sure he really liked what he chose in the first place and was generally excited about it. I watch his videos everyday as well and I kind of look up to him in a way I guess.
This... This is called money. And this is what I was talking about. He probably makes a considerable amount of money from his channel. May be it doesn't make him rich or anything like that but still it is powerful enough to make him act like that. Thats what I don't like.

Although I'm not in his shoes I could still confidently say that I would never do such thing for any benefit.

Youtube should have stayed as a sharing platform.
PS5 / FS22
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fcdrifter13
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Re: Serious Question. Are my lets play videos bad?

Post by fcdrifter13 »

RODHA wrote: Mon Apr 16, 2018 8:35 am
fcdrifter13 wrote: Mon Apr 16, 2018 1:35 amJust the other day I saw someone just lay into him over a tractor choice and the very next episode he apologized for it and went with what they wanted instead, even though I am sure he really liked what he chose in the first place and was generally excited about it. I watch his videos everyday as well and I kind of look up to him in a way I guess.
This... This is called money. And this is what I was talking about. He probably makes a considerable amount of money from his channel. May be it doesn't make him rich or anything like that but still it is powerful enough to make him act like that. Thats what I don't like.

Although I'm not in his shoes I could still confidently say that I would never do such thing for any benefit.

Youtube should have stayed as a sharing platform.
we can make a rough estiamte on what he makes based on views and total watch time. His videos are longer and he receives around 50k views per video in the first few days. If I had to guess it would be in the neighborhood of 60k a year. this take in account that most people do not have adblock on and on a nominal average watch time.

I also do not feel if I was making videos that paid that I would change my attitude or what I am doing to satisfy to loud few in the sake of maybe getting a few more views each week
Survival Start of The Calm Lands. Currently have built homes for our workers, so we actually get workers.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... H-DmlmlDQT
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Re: Serious Question. Are my lets play videos bad?

Post by markare »

It's easier to see than have to estimate. Plenty of sites give breakdowns of what is earned on YouTube. This one is the first I looked at https://socialblade.com/youtube/user/daggerwingaming. You can search the details of any youtuber using these sites
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fcdrifter13
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Re: Serious Question. Are my lets play videos bad?

Post by fcdrifter13 »

markare wrote: Mon Apr 16, 2018 5:14 pm It's easier to see than have to estimate. Plenty of sites give breakdowns of what is earned on YouTube. This one is the first I looked at https://socialblade.com/youtube/user/daggerwingaming. You can search the details of any youtuber using these sites
I have never seen that site. I use the chrome plug in and its giving me around the same numbers. I took the median as it seems more likely than 244k lol
Survival Start of The Calm Lands. Currently have built homes for our workers, so we actually get workers.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... H-DmlmlDQT
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Questionnaire
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Re: Serious Question. Are my lets play videos bad?

Post by Questionnaire »

fcdrifter, are you on discord? and if so you should speak to Beez I feel he knows more about getting money from youtube than anyone here.
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Re: Serious Question. Are my lets play videos bad?

Post by Guil »

Beez made sweet feck all from YouTube last year, can't remember the exact figure but I think he said 40 something euro.
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fcdrifter13
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Re: Serious Question. Are my lets play videos bad?

Post by fcdrifter13 »

Guil wrote: Tue Apr 17, 2018 9:48 am Beez made sweet feck all from YouTube last year, can't remember the exact figure but I think he said 40 something euro.
Dont know who beez is but if he/she under 1000 subs starting last month and 4000 watch hours you can't even monetize videos any more
Survival Start of The Calm Lands. Currently have built homes for our workers, so we actually get workers.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... H-DmlmlDQT
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Re: Serious Question. Are my lets play videos bad?

Post by Beez »

Beez reporting for duty! Get it? Duty :D. Every single person that started doing youtube started somewhere. You can't just make high quality perfect videos with epic sound and commentary. You will find out that with time your content only gets better and MOST IMPORTANT, you put YOUR vision and CONCEPT and YOUR PERSONALITY in the content itself.

Now for the sad and part that I hate more than anything. Since about 2 years ago, or about 1 and half youtube has made some really really bad changes that affected every single content creator, and it has hit the small ones the hardest. Thing is, you make a video, get that 1080p 60fps, edit your voice with a fancy pro mic, remove noise, add voice effects, make great and awesome channel graphics and all you want. But, the discovery of new content is now down the drain. Swear to god, i see videos, I mean, really really bad, bad thumbnail, no CEO, nothing, 1 mil views. I look at one of mine, I even get feedback, barely hits 400 views. And the under 1k monetize stuff hits small channels harder than a truck... I started my channel with Farming Simulator one year ago, and god damn I love this game. But about a month or so ago, I just felt like I was pumping fs content out, and I was not having that much fun, so I decided to take a small brake from it, so I dont start to despise it, so I can come back kicking.

Don't look back, just do what I do. I have a full time job, and a full time girl, and in my small amount of free time I look at youtube as my personal space, my hobby, where I can let things out that I can't usually in public. Just keep having fun, play what you like and what makes you genuine.

If I can help you out with some times I am happy to, just message me, it's my pleasure.

Have a good one!
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Re: Serious Question. Are my lets play videos bad?

Post by Miura74 »

Seriously good advice Beez. *thumbsup*

Just keep making content YOU like. The more you create, the better you can become. Takes time. I personally cringe at my own older vids. Yeah, ok, may be cringe at few newer too. Lol. :mrgreen:

Having fun creating content is SO important. Don't be tempted to make shallow content as it's what you THINK other people want. Make it for you. Too many YTers start out making stuff they wanted to, but soon end up making content just because it gets views or makes others happy for 2 mins. They tend to ignore their own original vision and become wrapped up in views, subs, likes... agh... my advice try to ignore the stats. You can't please everyone either. So don't even try to.

I agree with Beez, sometimes take a break from it. It is easy to go crazy fixated over constant uploading of content. Ya gotta have fun with it.

My personal view, just have fun creating content and playing games.

I'm ad-free, which really drops you on YT. But I've met lots of great new subscribers by chance and they do like the content. I just have fun with it.

Anyhoo, just my 2cents too.
PS4 + PS5 (Miura74) & PC player.

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(No monetization - I don't earn money off views - just fun)
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