Need Advice on Rebranding (or Not)

[pleasantsims]

I'm torn over which direction to take here and I could really use some advice.

I created my gaming channel focused on The Sims games. Now I feel I've pigeon-holed myself into only creating content for a single game because of my channel name, Pleasant Sims.

I have 1,500 engaged subs. I want to play other games that allow me to tell stories, which is my angle/niche. But I don't want to remain limited to The Sims franchise.

I'm not sure if I should keep my channel name as it is and play other games anyway. Or if I should change my name to something like Pleasant Let's Plays, so it's still a recognizable brand but not so restrictive.

The struggle I'm having is mostly because I've embedded my current Channel name and social media account names into all my old videos. I'm worried this will hurt me when new people come across them.

Any advice?

 

[Dutchie Abroad]

I can see your struggle, especially with so many committed subs. Maybe you can take a page from the Extra Credits channel. Their channel is called Extra Credits and the main series is focused on Game design. But a few years ago they started a series called Extra History. It got super popular and now they've made spin offs called Extra Sci-Fi and Extra Mythology. While the main channel and brand is still called Extra Credits

So I would just start an experiment. Start a series, maybe call it 'Pleasant Plays' and add whatever title you're going to play. 'Pleasant Play Golf with friends' of 'Pleasant Plays Halo'. This clearly signals to your audience that you are still the same branding, but that you are extending to other games (regardless of your name).

 

[pleasantsims]

Thank you so much! That is super helpful. I'm going to try this out.

 

[GameVestment]

This is kind of a difficult topic, I'm no expert but I can share you my honest advice

1. I think is a good idea if you wanna choose another name, something more general whenever you wanna grow your channel with different content... that is something I did when I started my channel.
- You have a small channel so it's the best time to experiment, changing the name will not make a big difference except that is true it will be really annoying to change every link and social media from your videos. If you really want to change the name, I would say now is the time to do it before it's too late and people really identify you with that name and it start becoming a brand. Think about the future, if you would like to launch some Merch, is it possible with your name without infringing any copyright from a company?

- The reason why people try different games and experiment is because they want to find a special niche that they like and they will grow their channel with. It took me months to find my niche inside a niche and you are already successful doing this. Achieving what you do with livestreams, getting those views with that amount of subscribers is absolutely amazing and hard to grow a channel this way. If you want to experiment and try new games and that makes you happy, do the test and see how people react but you already have a successful product, changing this waaaay too much can kill your channel. With the game I cover, now there're 200K+ subs channels only getting like 2K views because they just changed the game completely. Changing to another game is almost as starting a new channel

2. Another strategy is to leave your channel as it is. Cover only sims games and every now and then play another game.
- The scary part about doing this is..... how far you think Sims 2 can grow your channel?

What Dutchie Abroad suggested is the best way to start in my opinion! Changing game is always something scary for a gaming channel specially when your viewers are engaged!