welsknight
Well-Known Member
NOTE: This is copy-pasted from a write-up I did in /r/LetsPlay.
Hey guys, Welsknight here! I think most of us would admit that Minecraft is a polarizing game in this subreddit (and in the LP community as a whole). There is a stigma concerning Minecraft among our little community, which has been bothering me for a while now. It is a game that has been played, played, and played some more. I can't even count the number of times I've seen people in this subreddit say things like "Don't play Minecraft," or "You'll never be successful with Minecraft." In a recent thread about things that annoy you in LPs, one user said in reference to Minecraft:
Well, my fellow members of /r/LetsPlay, I'm going to take a few minutes to talk about Minecraft, and why it is still a great game to LP, even with the (literally) millions of other Minecraft videos and LPers out there. First, however, I think I should talk a little bit about my channel and background, so you can get a better idea of my experience (and point-of-view) on the matter.
My channel started September 15th, 2014, and today I hit 500 subscribers. I have a "C" total grade rating on Social Blade. While I am certainly not even close to the largest or most successful person/channel in this subreddit, I am quite proud of what I've accomplished in the less than 4 months that I've accomplished it. Although I already did a fairly extensive write up on How to Grow Your Channel, one thing I did not cover in that guide was my game selection. On my channel, I upload 2 videos a day. Of the various series and videos that get uploaded throughout a week, about 70% of my content is Minecraft-related.
But wait, surely that means that it must be the other 30% of my content that has been the reason for my success, because Minecraft can't get you noticed, right? Nope. Here's [Link Removed] an image of my top 10 videos from my analytics. 9/10 of those videos are Minecraft. 8/10 of those videos are from my single-player Vanilla survival Let's Play, which is the exact type of Minecraft LP that everyone explicitly recommends against because it's been done so often. Either I'm just an amazing commentator (I'm not), I've been blessed with some sort of divine miracle (don't think so), or it is possible to be reasonably successful with Minecraft content.
But why? It's relatively simple:
No game in history has been played so many times in so many different ways. No game in history has presented the same level of opportunity for an LPer to display his or her creativity in their gameplay. In Minecraft, no two LPs are the same. My vanilla survival LP looks nothing like another LPer's vanilla survival LP. The gameplay is different. Our actions, builds, and methods are different. Our progression and goals are different. Unlike other games, where there is a story, and some semblance of linear progression, Minecraft has no clear goals, story, or ending. There are no rules, only game mechanics.
But that's hardly the tip of the iceberg. Within "Minecraft Videos" are a huge number of sub-types of videos: build tutorials, redstone tutorials, single and multi-player LPs, mod reviews, texture pack reviews, vanilla and modded LPs, minigames, and PvP to name but a few. No other game offers such a wide variety of niches to fill.
There is a massive number of people producing Minecraft content, but there is also a massive audience watching Minecraft content. Minecraft is truly an all-ages game. Parents will often watch Minecraft Youtube videos so they can get an idea of what their young children are playing. Minecraft does not ship with clear directions or even a simple manual, so anyone who starts playing Minecraft is practically forced to look to the internet to learn how to play the game, and Youtube is often one of the first places people look. Furthermore, when Minecraft players run out of ideas, they look to Minecraft Youtubers for inspiration, drawing ideas from Youtuber's videos, builds, and designs.
Minecraft is also a game with a massive amount of promotion opportunities. Sites like Minecraftforum.net, planetminecraft.com, and even /r/Minecraft all provide opportunities for your videos to be seen by a large number of people in a very short amount of time (just remember my advice from my "How To Grow Your Channel" guide mentioned earlier concerning becoming a part of every community where you promote yourself).
Ultimately, it comes down to this: regardless of one's personal thoughts on the game itself, it is still possible to have success with Minecraft. To tell people that they "shouldn't play Minecraft" is flat-out wrong. Since when did we as LPers start telling other LPers what they should and shouldn't play? How many times have we seen, "Play what you want to play, and what you enjoy playing," given as advice to people in this subreddit? And yet, many of us actively discourage others from doing just that. If Minecraft is what you love, play Minecraft. Yes, you have to work hard to promote yourself and get your content out there... but how is that any different from Youtube as a whole?
Here's the TL;DR:
Hey guys, Welsknight here! I think most of us would admit that Minecraft is a polarizing game in this subreddit (and in the LP community as a whole). There is a stigma concerning Minecraft among our little community, which has been bothering me for a while now. It is a game that has been played, played, and played some more. I can't even count the number of times I've seen people in this subreddit say things like "Don't play Minecraft," or "You'll never be successful with Minecraft." In a recent thread about things that annoy you in LPs, one user said in reference to Minecraft:
Well, my fellow members of /r/LetsPlay, I'm going to take a few minutes to talk about Minecraft, and why it is still a great game to LP, even with the (literally) millions of other Minecraft videos and LPers out there. First, however, I think I should talk a little bit about my channel and background, so you can get a better idea of my experience (and point-of-view) on the matter.
My channel started September 15th, 2014, and today I hit 500 subscribers. I have a "C" total grade rating on Social Blade. While I am certainly not even close to the largest or most successful person/channel in this subreddit, I am quite proud of what I've accomplished in the less than 4 months that I've accomplished it. Although I already did a fairly extensive write up on How to Grow Your Channel, one thing I did not cover in that guide was my game selection. On my channel, I upload 2 videos a day. Of the various series and videos that get uploaded throughout a week, about 70% of my content is Minecraft-related.
But wait, surely that means that it must be the other 30% of my content that has been the reason for my success, because Minecraft can't get you noticed, right? Nope. Here's [Link Removed] an image of my top 10 videos from my analytics. 9/10 of those videos are Minecraft. 8/10 of those videos are from my single-player Vanilla survival Let's Play, which is the exact type of Minecraft LP that everyone explicitly recommends against because it's been done so often. Either I'm just an amazing commentator (I'm not), I've been blessed with some sort of divine miracle (don't think so), or it is possible to be reasonably successful with Minecraft content.
But why? It's relatively simple:
No game in history has been played so many times in so many different ways. No game in history has presented the same level of opportunity for an LPer to display his or her creativity in their gameplay. In Minecraft, no two LPs are the same. My vanilla survival LP looks nothing like another LPer's vanilla survival LP. The gameplay is different. Our actions, builds, and methods are different. Our progression and goals are different. Unlike other games, where there is a story, and some semblance of linear progression, Minecraft has no clear goals, story, or ending. There are no rules, only game mechanics.
But that's hardly the tip of the iceberg. Within "Minecraft Videos" are a huge number of sub-types of videos: build tutorials, redstone tutorials, single and multi-player LPs, mod reviews, texture pack reviews, vanilla and modded LPs, minigames, and PvP to name but a few. No other game offers such a wide variety of niches to fill.
There is a massive number of people producing Minecraft content, but there is also a massive audience watching Minecraft content. Minecraft is truly an all-ages game. Parents will often watch Minecraft Youtube videos so they can get an idea of what their young children are playing. Minecraft does not ship with clear directions or even a simple manual, so anyone who starts playing Minecraft is practically forced to look to the internet to learn how to play the game, and Youtube is often one of the first places people look. Furthermore, when Minecraft players run out of ideas, they look to Minecraft Youtubers for inspiration, drawing ideas from Youtuber's videos, builds, and designs.
Minecraft is also a game with a massive amount of promotion opportunities. Sites like Minecraftforum.net, planetminecraft.com, and even /r/Minecraft all provide opportunities for your videos to be seen by a large number of people in a very short amount of time (just remember my advice from my "How To Grow Your Channel" guide mentioned earlier concerning becoming a part of every community where you promote yourself).
Ultimately, it comes down to this: regardless of one's personal thoughts on the game itself, it is still possible to have success with Minecraft. To tell people that they "shouldn't play Minecraft" is flat-out wrong. Since when did we as LPers start telling other LPers what they should and shouldn't play? How many times have we seen, "Play what you want to play, and what you enjoy playing," given as advice to people in this subreddit? And yet, many of us actively discourage others from doing just that. If Minecraft is what you love, play Minecraft. Yes, you have to work hard to promote yourself and get your content out there... but how is that any different from Youtube as a whole?
Here's the TL;DR:
- It is possible to have success with Minecraft, even now.
- No two Minecraft LPs are the same, because everyone plays it differently.
- Within the category of "Minecraft videos" are an almost endless number of sub-categories (mod showcases and reviews, single and multi-player LPs, minigames, tutorials, etc).
- There are many people producing Minecraft content, but there are also massive numbers of people watching Minecraft content, and the demographics of that audience are extremely varied.
- Minecraft, for many reasons, is a game that drives people directly to Youtube to look for Minecraft videos, more than most (if not all) other games.
- There are many different opportunities and places out there to promote Minecraft content (which is not the case with many other games).
- To tell people to "play what you want to play" and then to tell them not to play Minecraft is a double-standard. If you want to play Minecraft, play Minecraft. If you don't want to, then don't.
