Stop Making Let's Plays

Let's plays are like most overused thing on youtube, but i respect video makers for effort. But this market is wayyy to overcrowded or something. Pece
 
I do not think it matters what you do as long as you enjoy it and have a passion for it. I try to make my let's plays entertaining/educational by researching the game before I do a video if I do not already know enough about it and I share it with my audience while I play. I also have guests that are very experienced at certain games play them with me on my channel to help me and my audience improve on a certain game. But regardless, do whatever you want and if you do not get the results you want from it then start tweaking but staring at your sub count everyday is no way to live. I rather just have fun and see what happens. I just wish the death threats would calm down on my channel.
 
Malachi Vargas said:
I want to share my thoughts on why I think people who want to grow their fan base should stop only making unedited Let's Plays. Last Thursday I posted a thread that poked at the idea of not watching YouTube videos anymore.

Why would I say that?

Well, I think that the majority of people creating videos are not being as creative as they should be and not sharing enough new experiences to grab attention. They are doing this without knowing and this type of unoriginality comes from spending too much time watching and not enough time (taking action/living life/discovering new experiences/making videos).

In this thread, I wanted to give an example of how you can unknowingly shoot yourself in the foot as a creator when you spend to much time watching your favorite channels.

Do you ever stop to think why you watch unedited Let's Play videos? When I watch a Let's Play video that is 15 minutes long of just gameplay it is because I've built a relationship with the creator and like their personality. The problem with wanting to post unedited Let's Plays that showcase just your personality is that you don't have a relationship with anyone. You are asking people to watch 15 minutes of you talking when they don't even know you.

How many times have you done that yourself?

Before I started watching Achievement Hunter Let's Plays it took me 10 (2-3 minute long) achievement guides over 6 months to even want longer content from them. It takes time to build a relationship with your fans. You're asking for too much if you think most people would want to spend 15 minutes to watch a video of someone they don't know.

So why are you thinking this is a good idea?

When you watch too many YouTube videos of your favorite YouTuber you trick yourself into thinking that the 30 minute long Let's Play is what people want to watch. This is incorrect. The reason your watching them is because of the relationship that you have built with that YouTuber.

You have to realize that many of your favorite YouTubers did not build a fan base because of long 30 min Let's Play videos. You are just seeing the aftermath of their success. They most likely started with action packed very well edited content that had only the funniest moments after hours of footage. They were able to attract mass amounts of people because their videos were short enough to be shared and had enough funny moments to want to watch another video.

While I do agree that you can build a channel with just long unedited Let's Plays. It is going to take way longer, you better have a standout personality, and you have to communicate with every single viewer to build that deeper relationship that will have them coming back. Your fans have to like you well enough to want to share your video.

But there is also another reason why people should stop watching their favorite YouTuber.

You start to like their videos so much that you even want emulate the same personality of the YouTuber. I've seen it plenty of times to the point that I can tell which YouTuber a person watches the most.

I have done this before myself. My thinking behind it was that if the person is getting millions of views they must be doing something right. So then I try and play the games they play or edit the same way they do or even make the same jokes they do. I totally gave up my creative abilities because I couldn't trust myself to play a new game or make a new joke.

To wrap this thread up, all of your content shouldn't have to be completely from your own ideas. I think before you should make any video it is important that you stop and think about the content as a whole. Ask yourself, How much of this video is content I've creatively made up and how much is from the content already out there?
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That is exactly why I don't do let's plays. They don't attract and audience and my retention for the one Let's Play series I did was about 4% compared to 50% or higher on my others.
 
Gotta love those overly-sensational-clickbait-titles. Thank you for saving me from the pit of lies I've been putting myself in all this time.

You have to realize that many of your favorite YouTubers did not build a fan base because of long 30 min Let's Play videos. You are just seeing the aftermath of their success. They most likely started with action packed very well edited content that had only the funniest moments after hours of footage.
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("You have to realize." Lol. But if I start nitpicking about the language you choose, and how you are in no place to be a figure of authority, I could go forever, so I'll pass on that)

30 minute Let's Play videos? Way to exaggerate. Tell me one "favorite YouTuber" that has 30 minute long Let's Play videos that might have confused our tiny little brains into thinking it was the correct way, master (oh, of course not the occasional 1,5 hour long video PewDiePie and alike put out every once in forever).
You have absolutely zero ground to stand on your statement. Since 30-minute-Let's-Plays are not a thing, let's talk about real and popular Let's Play template which is around 15-mins. And surprise surprise, Syndicate, Jacksepticeye, Markiplier, Pewdiepie and many other "favorite YouTuber"s have 10+ min Let's Play, starting no later than their first 10 videos.

That still doesn't mean, "Hey look they succeeded, so let's make 15 min Let's Play videos!" of course, since when they were doing those videos there were not a billion other people doing more or less the same thing.

To conclude, logicwise I would agree with your thoughts but when I looked at my channel stats I surprisingly saw that my long, relatively unedited Let's Plays had way better audience retention than my other videos. This new information made me think again and now I'm experimenting before coming to a conclusion if I should go with longer let's plays or heavily edited shorter ones.

You, on the other hand are bold enough to use imperative language based on a generalization, your hunch and zero credibility.

After this post I don't want to see any negative comments about the purpose of this thread.
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Sir, yes sir.

Seriously, Get your attitude in place.
 
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