Goodbye, YouTube

okay hey everyone um David here you've probably noticed I haven't uploaded anything in a long time and I'm going to get to that in a bit but first I did want to celebrate a huge milestone that I'm really excited about so here's what happened I finally received the Nintendo switch physical copies from Strictly limited games thank you guys I'm so excited to open this and I wanted to share it with all of you because this is kind of like the Capstone or like the like pivotal ending moment in my indie game Journey with the first tree and I never thought I'd see my game on a Nintendo console like truly like like a lot of Gamers out there I was like a 5-year-old playing Super Mario Brothers and it inspired so much of everything that I love to this day creatively and professionally so to hold a Nintendo game that I made in my hands I'm really excited this is the ending of a long journey and it's also fitting that this is the last thing I'll do for the first tree because Nintendo switch is where this game found its largest audience it's where it resonated with most of you and it's the reason I became a full-time Indie developer it's because of Nintendo switch so I did want to give my most heartfelt thanks to Kirk Scott at Nintendo Benedict brich at strictly limited games and of course uh Matt Tai at do games who helped Port it and pass certification thank you so much to everyone who supported this and it's a gift like I'll hold on to for literally the rest of my life so without further Ado let's get unboxing should really get some scissors oh man it's hard to see but there's like so many copies of the game in there I can't believe this is it a this is the deluxe version oh my goodness I I worked with the designers to make this happen but the designers at strictly limited games they did amazing thank you everyone who worked on this this means so much to me that is so cool this is the not the special limited edition but just the normal limited edition oh that's cool this story ends at the beginning of Life oh my gosh I can't believe I just looking at and I don't believe it it it's humbling like truly like I'm like I'm like kind of shaking right now just looking at it wow that seriously blows my mind okay I have a few copies in here that I'm going to keep for posterity sake maybe give them away to close friends and family but I'm going to open up this one right here this is the deluxe super special edition Pro controller compatible I had to do that in rewired asset and unity but it was worth it I love I love my switch Pro Controller okay you ready oh my gosh oh the soundtrack oh a beautiful sticker that's pretty cool this is really special the soundtrack as you guys know um I licensed it through a stock music website amazing generous composer named Josh Kramer but I don't own the rights to the music and so I emailed Josh saying would you be interested in licensing your music to like a deluxe edition of the game cuz this has never existed in physical form this soundtrack and this artwork was commissioned by Mana wave media who did the vinyl release of the soundtrack so they had to work together with us to make it work and they were so generous oh this is amazing I love it that is love that watercolor Art thank you to everyone who worked on this this is amazing oh this this is the coolest one a really generous artist named Wendy um helped make this little acrylic art standy then you get the game of course there you saw that already and then um I helped put together these postcards oh man there's so much stuff in here oh my gosh yeah these are like the same screenshots oh and then uh they made a notepad how cool is that I'll have to use that somewhere and then a poster the poster there was a poster in the PlayStation 4 version when which that was limited run games and now we have another poster oh that's cool how's that does that look pretty cool and then this I made to celebrate the announcement of the console release I just had the idea it literally hit me when I was in the shower that's that idea of the two stories and the fox above and then the the story of Joseph below the fox I should open this up right should we check out the inside and the cartridge a Nintendo cartridge for my game oh it blows my mind oh my gosh check this out I was the kind of kid that had like the nice Game Boy case with meticulously organized Game Boy games and I carried it everywhere I went and I was so proud of my cartridge collection for game boys and just thinking somebody could have my game and their like switch container it just blows my mind I'm holding this in my hands and it feels great like it's like I've come to the end of a long journey but it also solidifies something I felt for a while I'm ready to say goodbye to this and I'm ready to say goodbye to all the life events that came with it because I've been working on this since 2016 and I'm also ready to say goodbye to this YouTube channel game do unlocked or at least I'm ready to say goodbye to it in its current iteration actually eight months ago I already said goodbye in a blog post I wrote and not a lot of people saw it and they've been confused why I haven't been uploading things and so I did want to be perfectly clear and that's why I wanted to upload this video I won't repeat everything in that blog post but to sum it up at the height of the pandemic at the height of me starting a business by myself at the height of my parenting responsibilities something broke inside me I actually went to therapy for the first time in my life and something needed to change cuz it wasn't sustainable with YouTube and my online course and with being like taking the weight of my business onto my shoulders and also the weight of everybody who needed my help something needed to change and basically the way I felt was that I was setting myself on fire to keep everyone warm I was actually really angry at myself that I couldn't do what was expected of me to help all these people and so I withdrew like I I enlisted my email address from the internet I hired um an employee to help me with all the customer support for my online course and I stopped checking all forms of social media I was so burnt out that these creative things that have brought me so much joy boy since I was 12 like making videos and making mods for games like they made me sick to my stomach like I had to force myself to work and I felt aimless and purposeless and I was angry at all these people on the internet who I I helped them and I gave into their demands and then they would insult me for not helping them more and so I withdrew 8 months ago and I started taking it easier I started really taking a sabatical of sorts which was sorely needed because I was I was burnt out working on the first tree in 2017 because I made a game in 2015 I was working full-time I had a baby and I still kept making stuff and I did it because it brought me a lot of Joy but there's always these expectations to keep going and be like okay now you got to get on consoles now you got to speak at GDC now you got to make a YouTube channel and you got to teach everybody and it I didn't set boundaries for myself is what I'm learning and I'm trying to understand my burnout more and taking it easy because you can heal from burnout but it takes time it's like you're in a boat full of water and you just have to bail out the water with a bucket and you have to keep going and going and it takes time there's no other way around it and there's been things that have helped me learn and understand my burnout more and I've been trying to do a lot of research including reading lots of books um there was a talk by Tom Scott about parasocial relationships and the way the internet is engineered and it helped me learn why being a YouTuber or live streaming to an audience like why that wasn't compatible with my personality as much as I thought and then there is another amazing article I read by Peter levels who talks about like if you click on his contact page there's a blog post saying why I'm unreachable and why you should be too and just reading that really brought Comfort to me that I wasn't crazy but that like the internet is this amazing tool of reaching almost unlimited amounts of people but that as humans like we have finite energy levels and finite capacities to like help everybody which was humbling to me I was worried if I actually like was a good person I was worried that I was being a hypocrite to like my religious beliefs like I held dear I was worried that maybe I really just at the end of the day was like a selfish spoiled white guy those are the thoughts that ran across my mind like I just I didn't care about myself I didn't love myself I was lost pretty much but there was one quote I found just like a couple months ago that really like put things into the place for me and it's by it's from an unknown college professor and after I heard this it did make me feel a lot better about what I need to do and how to take care of myself in the future he said we all have a little bit of I want to save the world in us just know that it's okay if you only save one person and it's okay if if that one person is you and I'm learning I need to focus on saving myself a bit more I've learned the past couple years that I'm not really a YouTuber I'm just not it's not in my wheelhouse I don't particularly like being on the camera but I do love helping people and that's when this opportunity to have a viral YouTube channel and people like cared what my experiences were that's why like I spoke at GDC and people came up to me asking for advice I never I've never had that happen before and I wanted to help everybody I could but I was realizing that I just have finite amounts of energy and it was it was burning me out and it made me feel bad it was this bad spiral of self-hatred and not being good enough to help the people who really needed you and then add in the complexities of having to run a profitable business and I don't want to paint myself too much of a martyr but I do think I owe it to myself to be honest with how I was feeling um I did come to the realization that I can I have a choice like I can choose to live the life I want to live even if that means not being able to save the world in my mind and that I realize that my happiness matters which is honestly something I didn't believe even like a year ago I didn't believe that I felt I should be a martyr cuz that is what the that's the right thing to do is to help the world and to sacrifice yourself but I'm also realizing that I matter too and that also so I want to be the best husband and father I can to the people that are most important to me in my life so I realized YouTube wasn't for me and some for some people it is like it's they love it it's their passion they love the grind they love trying to like Trump the algorithm and try to like make great content that stands out but it's it's a burnout Factory I feel so bad for all these content creators that are putting their all into this machine to try to make a living and then when you do get a viral video it's it's not enough money to live off of it's you have to keep trying to game the algorithm constantly and trying to make clickbait and try to keep it going no matter at what Co at any cost if that makes sense and it just wasn't for me like I had lost my passion for storytelling and that's that's truly what I love and that's what I'm proud of in this YouTube channel is like I did tell my story because I'm a Storyteller that's that's truly what I love is storytelling and I miss it I I I haven't told a story I wanted to tell in a long long time but I want that to change and so that's why I'm sunsetting this version of the YouTube channel um I fully intend for the next video I upload to be a trailer for my next game and I am proud I'm proud of what I did on this channel and it's all thanks to you like huge thanks to everyone who's been watching huge thanks to Thomas brush who gave me so many shoutouts and really helped me grow this channel Help Me Grow game do unlocked thank you Thomas um thanks to so many people that have believed in me um Unity reached out a lot epic games reached out a lot and I really appreciate all the support I've received from them and and I'm happy with where this has gone like I always dreamed of reaching 100,000 subscribers I've actually been uploading to YouTube since 2006 and it was a dream to get that silver play button that you can kind of see behind my shoulders and I it fills me with pride seeing that because I love video editing I love telling stories even if it's my own story and it makes me a little uncomfortable it gives me stage fright but I'm proud of what happened and I'm especially proud of all the students who joined game do unlocked the the online school I made and thank you so much like I'm so glad I I get to know you guys and I'll still be around helping you on the Discord server and everything but I'm very proud of the games I've seen you guys make I'm proud of like the jobs that you guys have obtained in your Fields because and I'm like I I wish I could have helped more but I I just seen your success stories with the people who started making their very first games and releasing them it makes me truly feel like it wasn't for nothing and that it was worth it for this this long journey of creating a YouTube channel and creating Game Dev unlocked so thank you to all have supported the channel and the online school so now you're probably asking what's next what's next for David and did this sabatical even work because I disconnected about 8 months ago and the good news is I've never been happier or more at peace like truly I'm I'm so happy and I'm focusing on my family and I'm focusing on a project that I'm super excited about in fact I've started making stuff just for me without an expectation of releasing it or monetizing it um I bought I bought a midi keyboard and I just plugged it into my computer and I started composing music with piano and strings and it was honestly like it sounds corny but just making that song for me and for my wife I showed it to my wife and that's probably all show it to but like just making that song like filled like it soothed my soul and I realized like that's what makes me happy is making stuff and making stuff for me and I do love sharing it with the world but that there's a balance there right and I'm trying to find a better balance with that in my life my passion for storytelling is also coming back slowly as I heal from the burnout and from working myself to the Bon since like 2015 and I I I am so excited for this game idea it's hard for me to explain it and it's pretty different from the first tree but in some ways it's it's it's pretty similar and I'm also realizing I can't make this game by myself anymore it just that's not what I want it doesn't make me happy I I'm done being a solo developer so like what is the next Big Goal like what is the what's the next big dream to chase for me and I want to start a studio like I want to make games with my friends who I love and respect and make cool stuff together and have a good time and so that's what I'm going to do I'm I'm talking now to potential partners for my game on how to make this new game a reality so it will be a while but I'm going to release a trailer of this game on this YouTube channel and I can't wait to show it to you guys and and I'm hoping I can do it in the studio environment that I always dreamed of making with all that said um I especially want to thank you for watching these videos it's meant the world to me that I can make this my full-time job and I I've tried my best to talk to all of you and I hope you understand where I'm at at this point in my life but I'm so excited to keep communicating and sharing my stories with you in different ways other than YouTube um I want to keep communicating with all of you and sharing my life through games and I I might make videos again one day I it's possible like I won't never say never cuz I do love video editing I do love film making but like I'm ready for a new change I'm ready for the next big adventure and I wish you all the best I hope I wish you guys so much luck with your project I've tried to help you guys the most I can but at the end of the day it's up to you to finish your projects and I'm super excited to see what kind of success stories I'm super excited to see even the lessons you the lessons you learn from failures because that's inevitable like there will be failures and learning from it is what will set you apart from everyone else and I hope if you guys see me at PA or GDC I hope you say Hello I'd love to meet you guys cuz I do I care about all of you and I want to see you all succeed so yeah I will be around but I I wish you well I'm I'm excited to work on this game and to disconnect from YouTube but thank you for watching thanks for supporting this Channel and I wish you all the luck in the world on your Game Dev Journey

Channel: David Wehle

Views: 101,256

Keywords: The First Tree, YouTube burnout, Depression, YouTube depression, game dev depression

Id: Rxn66BKnCIU

Length: 18min 10sec (1090 seconds)

Published: Thu May 19 2022