Not Growing, Don't Know What I'm Doing Wrong

MediocreMichael said:
Your videos are wayyyyyyyy too long. An hour long video for 100 subs on an obscure game? Jesus, no wonder you're not growing. I don't know your gaming niche, but you have to jump on something. I'm not a mega gamer, so I'm going to have to give a past example, because I don't know what's mega relevant this second. Back when Slender or Minecraft first broke in, you could have done a hack/glitch video. Those are usually popular.

The videos have to be unique. Obviously people don't subscribe to Smosh because they're similar to Shane Dawson, they're different people. People don't sub to TobyGames and sub to some other guy who plays the exact same games because they're similar, again, they're unique people with unique takes on the same games.
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Well, I'm not a fan of bandwagoning but we actually did Cube World because it is super popular right now. A lot of the Minecraft community has moved over to that and many YouTubers were starting new channels and getting thousands of subs and views in a matter of days by covering Cube World. It clearly didn't work out though. I've had a ton of feedback in this forum about the length of the videos and I'm taking that to heart. All Together Now is going to be getting a major retooling. Now that I just got Internet at home that's capable of supporting HD live streaming, I am considering just turning that into a live show. I have to talk to my co-op partner about it. I am doing a couple of test recordings to see if I can shrink down Retro Flashback videos while still maintaining the "spirit" of what I want that show to have. I think I can do it, it'll just take some practice.

As for the channel art, I agree 100%. As I said upthread, I've had multiple graphic artists whiff on me so I've had a real pain in the a**e time getting art done. My girlfriend has a graphic artist friend who was willing to do it for me but she's really busy so it's taking longer than I'd planned. Trust me, no one has to convince me of the value of channel art and thumbnails. It's coming, I swear. :)
 
^ Live streams/live shows probably won't be very fun to host or participate in if there are only a few people watching at the same time. Maybe it's just me, but I like being in live events where the comment box is being filled with activity constantly.

Also, if you're using the YouTube live feature, the shows will be archived and uploaded when you go off air. If you take your time with a live show, the video could be an hour long, which is exactly what you are trying to avoid.
 
YouTube hasn't granted my account access to the live feature yet (even though I've been a member since 2006) so it would be done through Twitch. I guess I don't really see the difference between having a live stream with only a handful of people watching it and putting content on YouTube that goes similarly unwatched. The advantage I can see of doing it on Twitch is that people can (and do) come in to check stuff out (kind of like switching between channels on live television) and if they like what they see, stick around and might watch in the future. As opposed to on YouTube where apparently if they see a number higher than 15 minutes, they don't even look. The problem I'm wrestling with right now is I have a full-time job, a girlfriend, a dog and other games I want to play and I don't know if I have the time to spend cutting up All Together Now segments into 10 minute videos without sacrificing one of those things. Currently, that show requires far and away the most work and is generating the smallest returns, whereas launching it as a live thing might have a better chance of catching a different audience. I'm just spitballing and thinking out loud here, I'm not saying any of this is what I'm planning to do.

I'm putting a Retro Flashback episode up tonight that I'm testing my faster commentary style with. I'm not sure if I'm pleased with how little I ended up being able to show of the game but that was partially to this episode involving checking out two versions of the same game. Normal episodes only include a single platform which will hopefully allow longer exposure. This is definitely something I'm going to have to refine but I am very curious to see if bringing the length down a chunk will actually drive any more traffic. This will obviously take a few episodes to measure but we'll see.
 
Parallax Abstraction said:
"Just keep making content, people will come." - I just don't know how true this is.
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You are correct. When you think about it, there are so many people on YouTube, it is hard to be distinguished from the crowd.

The same goes for other industries. Restaurants may have good food but for whatever reason, so many of them fail.

TV Shows. Look at the crap that is on TV yet there are so many good shows that don't get renewed or even past the pilot stage.

Music artists. There are so many talented singers and musicians but only a small percentage can earn a living from it.
 
Parallax Abstraction said:
The problem I'm wrestling with right now is I have a full-time job, a girlfriend, a dog and other games I want to play and I don't know if I have the time to spend cutting up All Together Now segments into 10 minute videos without sacrificing one of those things. Currently, that show requires far and away the most work and is generating the smallest returns, whereas launching it as a live thing might have a better chance of catching a different audience. I'm just spitballing and thinking out loud here, I'm not saying any of this is what I'm planning to do.
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Don't make All Together Now a lot of work. I know I've just over-simplified it but it's true. I'm an example. You want to make what you want, that's fine, but stop just trying to make what you want. Make what people want to watch. Find the compromise.

Honestly, Twitch isn't your answer. How people consume on Twitch is entirely different than YouTube and unless you're ready to stream the same game for hours and hours everyday, then Twitch isn't for you.

I understand you're having trouble coming to grips that people don't consume content the way you do but it's the reality. Find the middle ground of your content. Produce what you want but make something people actually want to watch. Pay attention to those Analytics, especially audience retention.
 
How do you mean don't make it a lot of work? Cutting it up into multiple episodes a week is a lot more work versus what I'm doing now and my time is stretched very thin as it is. Sorry if that sounds snarky, I don't mean it to, I'm just a bit at a loss here. I can see the value proposition in doing that since the overwhelming opinion seems to be that people refuse to pay attention to anything longer but cutting up the videos will add substantial amounts of time to producing the show and time's not something I have a bumper crop of. It's not really a question of desire, it's just a question of how much time in the day I have and whether or not that's going to result in a decent amount more viewers. It's definitely something to think about. I may try an experiment and take our last episode and try to split it up and see how much more editing time it adds.
 
Did you watch any TobyGames Let's Plays, yet? If not, then do that and it'll make more sense.

Plan for shorter segments. If you have time to record one hour or more sessions, slap an intro on it, then compress it down and upload it, then you have time to upload smaller segments which don't take as long to compress and upload anyway, and you can spread them out throughout the week. :)
 
I have not watched his before but I will make a point of doing so, thanks for that!

I also did a new Retro Flashback last night with a new commentary style to cut down on the time. I talked faster and tried to have less filler (which I did purposefully have before in order to show more of the game.) This one was 13 minutes instead of 20. I know some people said to go shorter than that but baby steps and whatnot. :) This episode was also one of the rare ones where I talk about two different platform editions of the same game so it was a bit longer by necessity. I'm hoping I can shave it down some more in the future. So far, the views are doing about the same as before but again, baby steps.
 
To make your video stand out now, you have to be noticed more ! People won't look for these old games, make a funny 2 min montage of cube world for example to drive more traffic to yourchannel, earn sole more subs and have a better start for each of your arcade video !

You should read uberdanger thread ! He has some good point !

"The small stay small, the bigger gets bigger"
 
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