My pleasure.
As you then said...
I will give you my two cents on your channel after these replies.
Change the link to your channel that appears at the bottom of all your posts here on YTtalk (the link in the red box) to your English channel since you are wanting to switch over to it anyway.
Did and found it.
See my Suggestion #12
Alright. I watched the first one until I hit the Diana scene. I will explain why I stopped in Suggestion #8. Now my two cents.
1) In the first Hitman video, it wasn't until 6:30 that you dropped the bombshell that your uncle is part of gaming company that makes the Hitman series. You treat it as a cute little fact (almost an aside comment) when it is anything but. Ask (plead, beg) your uncle to sit down and do a video interview with you about Hitman for your channel. Break that interview up into bite-size pieces and release one a day. Pretty much each Q&A can be its own video. The question you ask becomes the video's title. After all of the Q&A videos have been released, release the whole interview in one video. Ask if he would let you film him at his work. Ask if he could give you a tour of the company and let you film him doing so. See if he can open some doors for you to video interview others at the gaming company. Don't do all interviews in one day. Do at most one a day. Better yet, do one, edit it, break it into Q&A bite-size pieces, release one Q&A video a day, release the whole when all the bite-size pieces have been released, and THEN interview a new person at the gaming company. Lather, rinse, repeat. And these interview videos are in ADDITION to your regular gaming videos. You're sitting on a gold mine. Mine it!
HOWEVER, if your uncle works on other computer games, do those as well. Have your channel specialize in the computer games your uncle works on. No matter what genre they're in. Yes, even if he works on a computer game for My Little Pony, you cover it and do Let's Play videos about it. You've got a HUGE "in" because of your uncle. Capitalize on it. And the more successful your YouTube channel becomes, the more it should help your uncle in his career. You two can mutually benefit each other.
Now everything I say next is insignificant in comparison to Suggestion #1 above. Seriously. The above is your ticket onto a gravy train. FORGET all other computer games. I know you're a kid and you probably don't understand how awesome your good fortune is but, trust me, you're unbelievably lucky. Don't waste this opportunity!
2) It is great that you are putting a video image of yourself in the upper right corner of your gaming videos. However, you need it more front on. You're talking TO the viewer, not the game. Gaming channels are ALL about connecting to their viewers. You wouldn't want someone to always look somewhere else when talking to you, would you? So don't in your videos. And when you're not having to watch what you're doing on the computer screen, look directly into the camera. Yes, it will feel weird at first but you'll get used to it. Think of the camera as one of your viewers. Talk to the camera as you would your most favorite viewer.
3) You need to better light your image. Yes, yes, it is a small image but that means lighting is even more important. There are a TON of YouTube DIY videos on how to properly and CHEAPLY light a small set. You're WAY too dark right now. When looking at lighting, I would suggest you consider using color gels for the background and see if they make your videos more visually interesting or at least different from other gaming channels. I would also recommend a "warm" light on your face.
4) Only use ONE ear bud and then hide its wire as best as you can. Yes, I know you need to hear what's going on in the game BUT, again, you're trying to connect to the viewer. Would you want to converse with someone who has ear buds in their ears? So don't in your videos.
5) Your background is as much of a character as you are in your videos. Put up Hitman movie posters in the background. There are TONS of different Hitman movie posters. Get them and regularly rotate them on the wall behind you for each video. Be sure to test shoot. You don't want any poster reflecting light into your camera. Adjust as needed.
6) What you wear can greatly increase the visual of your videos. As you should be ONLY playing Hitman, dress like Hitman. Yup, suit and tie. No, you don't need to shave your head and tattoo a bar code on the back of it. However, go to a make-up shop and buy a bald cap and temporary bar code tattoos. Gaming is all about immersion. The more you look part of the game, the more fans of that game will like you and your videos. [And, yes, dress up as a pink pony if your uncle works on a My Little Pony computer game when you do videos for it.
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7) It is great that you jump cut in your videos. Do more of it. Only present your best performance. Jump cut to it. The better the video content you present, the better your videos will be. No one likes sitting through boring content. No one likes see someone else grind UNLESS they're cracking jokes left and right while they do.
8) Don't show cut scenes. You will instantly lose gamers when they find out that you show cut scenes. They want to experience those for the first time when they play themselves. The killing of Diana was one of those cut scenes and why I stopped watching that and all your other videos. I mean I might want to play the game myself someday and you've now spoiled that scene for me. And, no, there's no excuse for doing so. It isn't part of a tutorial or a walk-through. It is a spoiler. I would STRONGLY encourage you do re-edit your videos and cut out these cut scenes and don't show them in the future videos. If you want me to continue reviewing your videos, cut out the cut scenes and then tell you have done so in a reply to this thread and I might continue reviewing them.
9) Sorry, but no one cares about your mad gaming skills. What they might care about is YOU. Unless you're doing a tutorial/walk-through, show more of your failures and your reactions to them than your successes. If you react in the right way, people will laugh. Not to mention, narrating your game play in a funny way. Giving nameless meaningless cannon-fodder characters their own names and background life stories ... which you then end by killing them. NEVER underestimate the value of laughter. If you can get your viewers to regularly laugh, success is guaranteed on YouTube. But that is genuine laughter. Them literally laughing out loud. As for what kind of humor to do, there are a lot of different humor styles. From the British dry to in-your-face New Jersey style. Read up on them. Which one is closest to your style of humor? Research it. Watch videos of comedians who do that style. Incorporate as much of it as you can in your videos.
10) It is great that you did a channel trailer. Now make another. Don't state the obvious, as you did when you told people who are viewing it that they're not subscribed to you. Shorten it to between 30 seconds and a minute long. First talk about the game (Hitman) you play on your channel as you show clips of you doing so ... then who you are (people subscribe to people, not channel) ... then tell your release schedule ... and then do ONE call-to-action and that is for them to subscribe. Don't monetize your intro video. The intro video is an ad for your channel. Don't have another's ad hurt your ad.
11) Increase your release schedule to daily. You're a gaming channel. You are trying to develop a relationship with your viewers. That takes being part of their daily life. It is also what you need to do to be competitive.
12) If you are monetized, you can use the scheduler to regularly release videos. Always always ALWAYS build up a backlog of videos sitting in your scheduler. Do this not just for vacation time but in case you get sick, your computer crashes, your internet connection goes down, you get writer's block, etc. It also gives you breathing space. If you release a video everyday, fourteen videos in your scheduler represents two weeks of episodes before you have to produce another video.
13) Work on your thumbnails and video titles. Do a YouTube search on how to do thumbnails and video titles. There's a lot of good videos out there about both topics.
14) Subscribe to Tim Schmoyer's "Video Creators" and mine its archive. You can and should spend days in its archive.
15) Make up a flyer. Use yellow paper to draw the eye. Have tear-off tabs at its bottom that has your channel's name and its YouTube URL. Post it everywhere you can within reasonable driving distance. By "reasonable" I mean as far as you are willing go to promote your channel. Laundry mats, bus stops, supermarket bulletin boards, and telephone poles at intersections are good places to post. Get a map of your city and mark on it where you've posted them. Once a week, revisit those locations and replace missing, all tear-off tabs gone, torn, etc. posters. Always keep a box of these flyers in your car so when you travel, you have them right there with you and you can post them wherever you go. If you go on a trip, put a stack of posters into one of your suitcases and take a half day and post everywhere there.
16) At your school, start a YouTuber Club. Talk to your teachers about creating it. Get a teacher to be its sponsor. Ideally a teacher who knows how to work a camera, lighting, etc. Your best bet is your art teacher! Ask the teacher if those who make videos for the club can get extra credit from their teachers (or at least the art teacher) and ask the teacher to pitch this to the principal. Getting extra credit will pull in some kids. The key to the club is the teacher who runs it. Find a teacher who is excited about doing it. The teacher can then invite local video production companies and TV stations to come and speak to your group. Don't just invite news anchors and radio talk show hosts, but separately invite camera operators, sound technicians, producers, editors, etc. They have a HUGE wealth of knowledge that your club can mine.
Be inclusive. The club must be open to all grades in your school and all students are welcome. Don't let it become a clique. Meet weekly. Every meeting, show all the videos that all the members did over the last week. Applaud and comment. Encourage. Help each other. Collaborate with each other. Appear in each other's videos. Do skits. Have a group discussion video. Make cookies together. Brainstorm, brainstorm, brainstorm. But most importantly of all, have fun.
And when you get to America next year, start up a YouTube club at that school as well. In fact, contact the teachers who will be teaching you next year and see if they would be interested in doing so. They'll like your initiative and forethought. Then when you come, the teacher is already to help launch the YouTube club for you. They might even start it up this year so it is already in operation when you come next year. The club will be a great way to make American friends. And it doesn't hurt your popularity in that club by coming in with a successful channel.
17) Lastly but most importantly, collaborate, collaborate, and collaborate. You're a small channel right now but everyone has to start from somewhere. Your best bet is to contact local YouTube channels. As you grow, contact larger and larger gaming channels that match your new size. Always propose an activity for the collaboration and never just that you want to do one. After you release a collaboration video, send links to it to other local YouTubers to show them how you do collaborations and invite them again to do one with you. Go to ALL YouTube conventions that you can afford to go to and your parents will let you attend. Find out who's going and suggest you meet up for at least an interview of them. Doing it while you're at a friendly restaurant gives it a good backdrop. Don't worry about the sound.
