How to start a gamedev YouTube channel

look let's get this out of the way first starting a YouTube channel is not going to give you overnight success and a lot of money it's going to take you probably at least 6 months and more realistically like 12 months between uploading your first video and reaching I would say about the 1,000 subscriber Mark where you know you're starting to build up that small but loyal audience and then you can like snowball it from there but I like to compare it with the saying that there are two points really where you should plan a tree either 20 years ago you should have done it or you can plan today and I think with YouTube it is definitely something similar I get asked very often like hey should I make a YouTube channel for my game will it be able to maybe give me wish lists give me more funding for development maybe you can like start a patreon as well to allow for you to fun your games development because it can be really hard sometimes to actually have the money to make your first game or like even if your first game fails your second game and looking at us we're a great example of that is our studio would not exist without YouTube let's just be honest about it and I would say that generally starting a YouTube channel for your studio not your game your studio is a great thing to do I'm quickly diving into three different reasons why I think it's good that you start that YouTube channel and then also I'll be giving you five different tips that are very simple on how you can get started with like recording your first video today still and uploading it if you want it to YouTube and I think the first reason why you should have that YouTube channel in the first place is to Simply train yourself to be able to talk about your game this is a problem that I see often when I talk to other game devs who are like in our Discord server for example or I meet them at like physical Game Dev events and I'm like okay cool this looks nice like maybe they have a good art style can you tell me about what is this game and why do I want to buy it like like why should I be interested in it and then what I noticed is that a lot of game developers they just like kind of die at that point because up until then they had been working in their bedroom or something on their own just slaving away at Unity or gdau and trying to make their own game but they never really had to sit down and sell their game so to say not like actually like someone buys it but simply why is the game good what's its hook and things like that and that is something that having that YouTube channel forces you to do because you're forced to talk about your game if you're making a game def YouTube channel kind of obvious and it just gives you a lot of dry runs basically to see what am I talking about in my game or like what is my game about and then what is the feedback that I will be getting of course the First videos you make you'll probably get not much feedback but you can still like get some by like going to our Discord server and that way you're preparing yourself as early as possible already to do things like writing that steam page marketing copy like what is your short description going to be those 300 characters are very very important to actually selling your game because that is basically where the core hook and like the reason why people should buy your game should be in there you want to have that tested out and just gone through that yourself as much in advance as possible the second Advantage is that you can build a community of other developers and what I would like to call them as well is play testers so what you hear often and what I have said as well is that look if you want wish lists having Dev loocks is not a good idea because people who watch devlogs or other developers and they're generally sure they'll wish list but they won't convert as much into actual sales most of the time and they may not be like your core audience for whatever style of game you're making and that's fine but but what they are really good at is breaking your games and actually giving you feedback on what is probably going wrong so we did a lot of play testing with songs ever dat for example and every play test we did back then we had like 15,000 subscribers a little bit less we had 200 300 people playing the game and giving us feedback that is something that is extremely extremely valuable sure it can be overwhelming to get that much feedback but other developers who don't have that audience they would kill to get that many play tests for free and sure it's not the same like high quality as an actual QA department but it's still also better than asking your mom to go and play your game that's like your desperate like lost case Resort what these developers play testing your game also have in common is generally they understand the technicalities of your engine so maybe for some reason on some person's device like the game is extremely laggy or slow for example well he could point us into the direction of hey maybe is there something with your safe system that is just killing the IO operations on my hard drive versus we all ran the game on ssds yes that was the reason that is something that a normal player will never think about and having those developers especially in the earlier stages of play testing can be extremely valuable because they also understand that hey there are things like placeholder art and not everything has to be final yet what should I focus on what is easy to add later on and what is something of the game that should really be nailed down as fast as possible those are really important pieces of feedback to get and to game the community is generally pretty chill and they generally if you have a demo available on h. or whatever they will give it a go and give you some feedback which you are going to need but of course you can't just make your first video be like hey everyone come and play test my game you need to build up that audience in advance which is why it's important to start that YouTube channel in advance as well and of course the the third one which is the one that people care about the most is it can become an extra Revenue Source now the big giant enormous caveat here is it takes a long time and even then like YouTube AdSense on it own it isn't that much money I'll put up our AdSense for the past like few months or whatever it is not enough to sustain you uh is what it comes down to right now it's about €400 every month which sounds nice but of course that's not enough but you can then also look into things like patreon you can do things like selling courses or whatever there are lot of ways that you can monetize your YouTube channel but I think that is one of those things where okay you can get the first 1,000 subscribers in like a year here but then actually going to a point where you get monetize our channel has only really gotten profitable somewhat like 2 three months ago if you're someone who is really interested in like how does the financials work of starting your own YouTube Studio then I would suggest you head over our patreon because there we do every month we do like full cost and income breakdowns of things like our affiliate sales our sponsorship deals anything really in terms of our business we give you all the numbers and I think that can give you a lot of extra insights if you're planning on taking this gamee YouTube stuff pretty serious there's more videos on there as well where I go deeper in depth into certain topics so I think there is definitely a lot of value you can find there however once again I do get those people who come to me and they're like hey I want to start my own Game Dev studio and I want to do a patreon and I'm like look calm down you're not going to be able to really do that patreon anytime soon because you need to have a somewhat of a critical Moss this is something I see as well is YouTube channels that have like I would say only start a patreon once you have about a 10,000 subscribers anything less than that you're going to have the problem that you won't have that many patreons you'll have like five or something which let's say gives you between 20 and $50 a month extra sure that sounds nice but generally patons also require you to do extra work maybe that's early video releases that's bonus content doing that for just like four people is not going to be worth it we started our patreon and we immediately had like I think 15 people joining then you already have that scale a bit more that justifies putting in the effort once again on our own patreon we have like the full number breakdowns of how has our business been evolving I think it can be really interesting so it's clear you need to build up that YouTube channel as early as possible now how do you start exactly well it's pretty easy you just turn on the camera and record but there are five tips I have now that I just quickly want to go over and I think the main number one thing anything else does not matter at all if you want to have a YouTube channel that is going to have any growth you need to have amazing audio and what I mean by this is that even though YouTube is a video medium the video quality doesn't really matter that much you can just put on your 720p webcam if you really wanted to and people can live with that but audio is one thing that people do not like if you have bad video but good audio people will keep watching but if you have like great 4K video and then you have shitty audio nobody cares about your channel I think okay I'm going to show under the bus Chris owski for example he's been dabbling in the YouTube stuff but he uploads like videos where the audio is only in like one ear it's like mono sound nobody will watch it even though it has like amazing amazing quality of like the actual value he delivers with like his his video and like the PowerPoint presentation he goes through because the audio is so horrible people just drop out and basically my advice here is don't use a headset microphone not a single headset microphone sounds good enough even even a lot of those gaming like Standalone microphones have questionable audio if you ask me if you have like a very baller streaming setup for some reason that you like convinced your mom to do okay you're good there but I don't really think you need to spend like immediately $500 on a sure smb7 and then an XLR interface what I would recommend is having something like this which is a lavalier mic it's like one of those little microphones that has like the the clippy thingy that you just put underneath here it has superb audio now this is the road Wireless go too this one is already kind of expensive this one I paid for like €300 you do not need this you can also just get like €40 like Wireless lavalier microphones that sound just as good almost and even that will already massively increase your Channel's quality so really if you do any of these tips focus on the audio as much as possible if you have audio that is not bearable to listen to nobody will watch your videos and you will not be able to grow and then you get the next overwhelming question and it is what should my channel even be about I think the best thing to do here is to make Studio based channels which are pretty broad still you can mix in some of your own personality your own experiences you can talk about your game and your sequels and your like longer term plans and more also like General like Studio binded topics I think this is a pretty solid approach because it also allows you to build of more of a longterm audience where people who are subscribed to you aren't there for just one game and then you are kind of locking your yourself into working on that game for 7 years because the moment you stop development on that game your audience will leave and once you have that what I would do is find similar channels like my Channel or someone like I don't care Thomas brush or something I took a lot of video ideas that like Thomas brush it like I sorted by popular and I just looked at okay what is his title and like what is his thumbnail basically and I'm like okay how can I take this title and just reading the title not watching the video what would I talk about so like it's simple things like oh five mistakes that I did starting my studio that is something that you can already do if you have like two months of experience making a game maybe you've joined the game jam and be like hey these are five experien of me joining a game Jam there are plenty of things that you can talk about and definitely in the beginning you do not need to be original in terms of every video you make has to be 100% new there is nothing like it on the internet the first video we had that like kind of blew up was our game design document one there are like 5 million game design document videos on the internet already we weren't Reinventing the wheel we were just bringing my own background my own biases to that topic and that is what resonated with people already because it's a different way to tell the same thing so don't be scared to talk about things that other developers have talked about already let us do the heavy lifting of okay just throwing video ideas at the wall until finding something that sticks and then take that title and be like okay now I'm going to be making my own version of that but bear in mind that even with those like video ideas that you've like filtered out from other people your first 10 videos are probably not going to be good anyway and the important thing here is you go for good enough but don't try to focus on your first videos immediately bangging there are some YouTubers who do that like they make a channel out of nowhere and they have like one video and it immediately gets like 400,000 or a million views or something and it's like one of those videos that spends like months in editing I don't think that is the approach that you should go for if you just want to go and grow really because it is a very very big gamble and you probably don't have the editing background and the storywriting background to make that YouTube video that good that it can actually have that like million views instead accept that hey look the first 10 videos I'm going to make are probably going to suck they're purely there just so you can learn look at our first 10 videos they are horrible I'll like link some of them down below I think if all you focus on is just some basic editing which means like cutting out some bad takes and like cutting out the part where you are like opening your OBS or like closing it to start and stop the recording and just make the video flow pretty decently already there is like no long silent periods where you're like trying to think about what to talk about that is already enough sure you'll be rambling sometimes and sure there will be points where you're like this is dumb what was I saying here just leave them in cut out like the smaller parts that are like just silences and upload those you'll get better at editing over time by doing it more it took me about a 100 plus videos until I really felt like hey I'm somewhat decent at basic editing I still think my editing is pretty garbage when you compare it to like the more entertainment Game Dev YouTubers that are like full of memes and whatever that's not the style I'm going for but even the style of these YouTube videos that you see on this channel even though it's very basic and it's mainly a talking head and some b-roll that still takes a bunch of time so don't go for crazy video editing go for good enough especially those first 10 videos and you will probably not be happy with it and that is fine just push the upload button and you'll be done some of the videos on our channel that have performed the best are the ones that I personally don't like for example the 3 months to start a studio video I think it's like top five or something I recorded and edited that video in a single Panic induced afternoon because I was like me I have no upload for today scheduled yet let me just record something I think the quality of that video was really bad but somehow the YouTube audience still likes it so remember that you are one viewer but you are not the only person who watches your channel so maybe it's something that doesn't 100% vibee with you but it will still vibee with other people then also another piece of advice I have especially if you're doing those studio YouTube channels is to show your face I know you're like oh I'm awkward on camera I was awkward on camera showing your face it's simply cheat Cod to getting longer retention is one thing I would say like because there's permanent movement I don't need to have Minecraft Parkour gameplay in the background you can just look at my face mve move and it's also a good thing in terms of being more memorable and more branded you have to remember that you're starting a studio Channel and you are the head of your studio most of the times but putting up your face sure you'll get some mean comments maybe although no one has really criticized my face mainly just our games but this is really important to build that longterm audience really that's the best way I can describe it because people can relate more to an actual other human being who also has some flaws and who doesn't look perfect then like some disembodied voice that is like put on top of some random platformer footage for example there is a big difference there I know it's going to feel very awkward the first times you like have your face on camera and your family sees it or whatever at this point my grandma watches every single video hi Grandma and it's like you get over those things so it's just something that you're going to have to get through but it's going to pay off and then the last thing that will pay off is be as open as possible if there was a single thing that I would attribute this channel success to it is our radical transparencies what I like to call it we talk about everything we talk about a lot of the numbers I absolutely despise I've talked about this in other videos already YouTubers who are like hey this is how I grew My Wish lists and then they like blank out the wish list numbers and it's like cool bro you know that there are other tools we can use to see like wish list estimations anyway right it's just pointlessly kneecapping yourself I think that is also when I talk to people about like hey what do you actually like about this channel it's either okay I'm like a jolly personality like my face which is why you should use your face or it is that we are so transparent about everything I am not pretending to be better than I am Forge industry wasn't a success I think we're pretty humble in that regard I don't know maybe this is a bit too much virtue singaling but things like okay look here is just our steam dashboard let's just talk through it those are really important things to talk about and that is a big differentiator between you and other YouTube game deps that is going to give you an unfair Advantage if you me a lot of other gamers are like oh no I don't want to show my wish list because maybe if I get a publisher they'll be mad at you and I'm like once again you have 2,000 wish list what publisher is going to sign with you just show the value to the people that's going to be much more worth it in the long run than just like hiding everything and pretending that your entire Game Dev career is sunshine and rainbows which let's be honest it's not going to be just talk about those things it's free content negativity gives you a lot of views I've learned as well even though I try not to do too much of those videos being transparent is probably one of the best things you can do to give your viewers actual value when they watch their videos so really just get started with those YouTube videos is what I would say and maybe also a second plug is once you have uploaded like a few of those first videos once again we have our patreon where you can actually just talk to me like you can just book like an 1 hour time slot where I sit down with you and we talk about okay how is your game going how is your studio going or in this case how's your YouTube channel going I kind of know a little bit at this point about how the YouTube stuff works so if you don't want to just like me spend 15 months trying to get 1,000 subscribers and then another 6 months trying to get monetized I think that can definitely help you expedite that Journey so apart from that I'm really curious what are the reasons that you have that you haven't started a YouTube channel that are not mentioned in this video are you scared of something else maybe I'm really interested to hear about that because I think this video addresses most of the big issues that people have already apart from that if you haven't subscribed yet to our YouTube channel please do so only about 35% of our audience is actually subscribed which is kind of weird if you ask me so really if you could do me a favor head down below and subscribe in exchange you get these videos twice a week where we just talk about the things that are going on in our studio with our games development and pretty much anything else really that I feel like talking about so that's all I really have to say thanks for watching and I'll see you guys in the next one bye

Channel: BiteMe Games

Views: 5,549

Keywords: gamedev, indie, indie developer, game development, unity, c#, blender, game design, game studio, devlog, development, startup, forge industry, flega, steam

Id: PZLWbUQxTLk

Length: 18min 52sec (1132 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 19 2024