- Gaming is easily one of
the most crowded spaces on all of YouTube, but somehow
people are still blowing up, even if they start their
channels right now. In fact, in rare cases,
some channels blow up with their first video and
that success is happening early because these channels are
starting their YouTube journey knowing what works today on YouTube, and after watching this
video, you will too. I've been making these gaming guide videos for a few years now, but in this one, I want to avoid the generic tips. So here's what we're gonna do instead. First, we'll talk about what's not working so well in gaming right now. Then we're gonna dig into what is working and from the perspective
of a lot of different types of gaming channels. And finally, I'll share with you my biggest revelation from last year. It completely changed the
way I see gaming on YouTube. This affects everything, from
how you physically record and produce your content,
all the way through how often you should be
posting your content. So what's not working right now and how can you keep from wasting a whole bunch of time making videos that pretty much nobody is discovering? Well, for starters, going
all in on one video game is a losing strategy,
at least, in most cases. Centering your entire YouTube channel around one video game
isn't just unsustainable for you as the creator, I mean, even your favorite
games get boring after a while, but it's also unsustainable
from a business perspective. Unless you've chosen a
game with a massive TAM, or total addressable market, you are not gonna be enjoying
much long-term success. And when I say massive
total addressable market, basically think of games like Minecraft, The Sims, Diablo, games that are huge household
names and franchises. And heck, even creators who
do focus on one of those games tend to also bounce around a bit. In the case of DarthMicrotransaction TV, they're pretty much all in on Diablo IV, but occasionally do
talk about other games. Path of Exile, Last
Epoch, World of Warcraft, those videos may not be
getting as many views as some of the Diablo videos, but they're still enjoying
respectable view counts. In one example, they have a video titled "Why Gaming Isn't Fun Anymore." It's doing really well for their channel and potentially could, over time, reach a lot of new viewers. Over in a whole different corner of the gaming YouTube
universe is lilsimsie. Her channel covers, you
guessed it, The Sims, except even lilsimsie is
leaving room in her channel to cover different games,
in this case, a recent video about an upcoming Sims competitor. Channels like lilsimsie and
DarthMicrotransaction TV are making content for one
audience, not one game. And look, focusing on one audience can be tough and also risky. I'll help with that more
in a little while though, because the next type of gaming video we need to discuss right now
is news and updates videos. This type of content has changed so much. When you cover new updates and releases, your strategy should not be
solely focused on search and SEO because think of it this way, what happens when a new game
comes out or a new update? Well, first, a bunch of journalists and big YouTubers get early access, which gives them a leg up. Then all the other humans get a hold of this game
when it finally launches, and the content creators among them all make the same exact video. And finally, in the case
where you make that video and you've covered the
new update, then what? You still need more to do, right? I mean, most channels don't just stop at one video every six months. Essentially, this means
it's not a great strategy for everyone to be the
news and update person. So instead of just reporting on the news, you should use the one thing that you have that literally nobody else does, and that's your specific opinion. For example, here's somebody
who took a different approach when they covered the recent
Minecraft 1.21 update. At the time of recording, you'll notice that they have 6.5K subscribers, but their update video has 789,000 views. Why though, is this just luck? Well, let's take a look
at their video page. It does seem like they've
been more focused on Minecraft since this big viral
hit for their channel. Specifically, they seem to
be giving their opinions on a lot of different
Minecraft topics and updates. Some of these videos are
doing better than others, but ultimately, no, I don't think that their massive successful
video was all luck. To me, some of these titles and thumbnails and topics are just more
appealing than others. For example, the videos
featuring strong opinions about easy to quickly understand concepts are doing really well, but the videos that
speculate a bit too much or have slightly confusing
titles or thumbnails are still doing well, but
not to the same degree. The coolest thing about this video is that it's not just
good for YouTube search. The opinion in both the
title and the thumbnail is also on display,
meaning that this video is going to show up in YouTube
browse as well as search. So when it comes to
covering news and updates, be more like TheGeekFactor. Their Minecraft 1.21 video
beat out update videos from channels with over a million, and in one case, 11 million subscribers. Another type of gaming video that hasn't worked in quite some time is the generic Let's Play video. I'm talking specifically
about these videos that you click on and it feels like the creator
just kind of hit record, but didn't go into the recording session with much of a plan. Now you can absolutely play a game and provide real time commentary and react to things that are happening, but you have to plan ahead a little bit. You need to do some research
and pick a video topic that's going to tell a story,
and that needs to be clear in the title and thumbnail as well. When you don't do that work up front, you don't get views on your Let's Plays. The thing is these types of gaming videos are so easy to make and therefore,
they are super saturated. Recently, I had a chance to
talk to The Spiffing Brit, and he summed all this up pretty nicely. - [The Spiffing Brit] If you are going to go into a saturated
market, you have to find the emerging market inside
of that saturated game. I think the best example of
this would be the first arrival of 100 days content in Minecraft. And so if you are going to
break into a saturated market, like say Minecraft, you've got to enter with either an established hook
that people would recognize or would find interesting that
it's proven to have worked, or you've either just gotten
a one in a million idea that no one else has ever done, and it's gonna shake the landscape. - When it comes to games,
there's a lot of ways you can add a bit of story
progression to your videos, and if you do that, you're gonna be ahead of so many other gaming channels. Now that you know what's
not working on YouTube, but let's dig a little bit deeper into what is working super
well in gaming today. We already touched on
doing gameplay challenges and adding a bit more storytelling and progression in the videos, but Spiffing Britt had
more to say on this topic that I wanted to share. Remember earlier when I said I wanted to help a little bit more when it came to finding one
audience for your content? Well, Spiff does that
really well on his channel. Every time he posts a new video, it's about a different game, but you'll notice that
there's a specific theme across each upload. - [The Spiffing Brit] Take
your unique selling point and just move it to a different game that you do want to play. When I'm tired of playing one game, I just go find a different game. - If you want people to
watch your channel for you and not just the game you're
playing, this is how you do it. You need a thing that
people remember you for. When I think Spiffing Britt,
I think, "Oh, that's that guy that breaks games in
YouTube all the time." And yeah, if you didn't
know Spiffing Britt isn't famous for just
breaking video games. Some of his most popular videos revolve around breaking YouTube itself. He became known for breaking things and now he can break all kinds
of things, not just games. A genre of videos that's new to me started to catch my attention
a lot more last year. And then I noticed gaming channels are really jumping into this space. You should really start paying
attention to video essays. Video essays, or some
might even consider them documentaries, are really
cool for a bunch of reasons. One, they allow you to
create at a slower pace. You can play your game, take some notes, and really craft a video
over a long period of time. Two, since you're uploading less, you only need to think of one title and thumbnail combination
rather than a whole bunch over the course of a week or a month. And three, you get to
enjoy games a lot more rather than if you just
picked up a new game and pressed record to get
content out as fast as you can. Your essay is about the
experience that you had in a game. You're not just reacting to
what's happening in real time. You are informing people
about your unique experience that you had time to sit down and actually appreciate for yourself. We covered a channel recently that made a video essay
about an older game called Wing Commander. It was their very first video and it did take some time for
it to finally gain traction, but once it did, it
hit over 100,000 views. Their second video essay
was about Star Wars: X-Wing, and it also hit 100,000 views, but in even less time than
the first video essay. The audience that they're
talking to with this content is likely a bit older and
maybe has some nostalgia for these classic space games. That understanding of their audience has made Space Cadet Rewind a
huge out of the gate success, and that's even if their videos take several months to produce. But another channel that's
also doing gaming video essays that don't take quite as
long is known as Idyl. He started out by making
videos on Old School RuneScape. Some are about various challenges and others were about plugins
that he actually created, which I mean, talk about effort. Not only is he making a video, but he's having a program an entire plugin to go along with it so
that he can make the video. He's enjoyed some pretty good success making those types of videos in the past, but more recently, he's
pivoted into video essays and not just on Old School RuneScape. He's branched out a bit more, and these video essays
chronicle his experience in various MMOs. These videos are created
after Idyl takes some time away from uploading to sit down and actually play and
experience the games. The titles and the thumbnails
alone speak to a video that obviously took a
lot of time to create, and they demonstrate a very
clear point of view up front. Creators that do this
slower paced kind of content tend to disappear for a while, but once they finally pop back
up in your recommended feed, you know immediately that
not only did this video take a long time to make,
it's gonna be worth watching. I mean, seriously, in the last six months, how many videos have you made? And when you total up that
six months worth of videos, how many views are you left with? If your upload frequency is high and your views are low,
let me ask you this: what if you did take a
really, really long time to make your next video? You're gonna spend this
month making a video on a topic that you're
really passionate about and that not enough
people are talking about. Considering the time investment, this obviously won't be for everybody, but it's something you might consider. Another type of gaming video that's worked really well for a long time is a category that all dub
high skill-level content. Speed running is a prime example, but it's basically
anything that could require a lot of skill to achieve, thus getting your gaming
channel a lot more views. One of the benefits behind this content is that your title and thumbnail
kind of create themselves. They're super popular because the story is also built in, right? I mean, you're being
upfront about trying to hit some type of record or otherwise achieve something impressive in a familiar game. Players of that game
either watch that content to simply be entertained
or to learn from you, so they can also become better
speed runners themselves. You'll also notice that sometimes this content is super long, and that's because it really
doesn't require any editing. This works because it's
actually super important not to edit the original run. If you need to prove that
you actually beat this game in an hour and a half, you can't have jump cuts in the video. Otherwise, it would be too easy to cheat. But if this type of content
has been around for so long, why am I bringing it up today as some kind of magical new strategy? Well, in the case of those super long speed running videos, it's watch time. I don't know if it's
because of YouTube shorts or something in our drinking water, but all of a sudden, it
feels like a bunch of people are willing to sit down
and watch a one hour, a three hour, or even a
12 hour gameplay video. Yes, this was my big revelation of 2023, and I studied it a lot,
so I could sit here today and tell you how you can
potentially benefit from this. And it doesn't matter
if you speed run games or if you're not even a gaming channel. Watch time is a key metric on YouTube, and it's one that here at vidIQ, we don't often talk about too much. Honestly, that's because
so many of the creators that come to us are asking
kind of the same questions. They tend to ask, in no particular order, about titles, thumbnails,
subscribers, views, and ultimately, monetization. But the truth is if you
can figure out watch time, it's gonna bring all of
that stuff into focus. But that does mean that you
should be brainstorming ways that every so often you could
make a super long video. If you did this even once in a while, what would you make that video about? How long do you think it would
take to record and edit it? And most importantly, what can you do to make sure that even just
a portion of those viewers makes it to the very end? Well, as I talked about earlier, storytelling is gonna be key. And for gaming channels, it's kind of easy because you can lean on
progression to tell that story. Viewers love progress,
whether it's speed running, massive Minecraft builds or
even long grinds and MMOs. That's exactly what
Settled did when he began his Swampletics series
in Old School RuneScape. And even if you don't play MMOs, pay attention because
this strategy could work for so many other types of channels. Each episode on average
was about 20 minutes long, and they focused solely on his character that was locked in a specific
region of the RuneScape map. Quests being completed,
rare items being dropped or just levels going up. Once Swampletics wrapped
up, Settled had become one of the biggest creators
in all of RuneScape, but he wasn't done because then he made his next genius move. He took his entire series and compiled it into one
massive 12-hour video. At the time of recording this video, that video has four million views. But why? Who the heck is watching a 12-hour video that's just a whole bunch
of other previously released videos crammed into one package? Would a YouTube playlist not
have served the same purpose? Well, I have a few theories here, and these are based off of several hours of my own research on the topic. What I found is that this type of video is perfect for the kind of
person who loves to binge. You know how Netflix started releasing seasons of shows in like two parts? Yeah, people don't like that. Whether it's for five
minutes or for five hours, a viewer wants to hit pause
and resume on their terms. What I've also seen is that people love to put this kind of content
on in the background, whether it's because they're doing chores or maybe they're trying to go to sleep. The fact of the matter is
they're not going to engage with YouTube to keep playing videos. They just want something
that's gonna stay on. With games, a lot of people in
the comments of these videos admit to sitting down and
actually playing the game alongside the video. It keeps them company
and it gives them ideas and inspiration for things they could be doing with the game. Games like RuneScape can be played in so many different ways, so if you sit down and watch
someone's 12-hour video, whether it's all at once or in parts, you're gonna pick up a lot of things and you're gonna learn
a lot about this game that you may not have known before. And on the subject of playlists, no, I'm sorry, they are not good enough. I don't know about you, but I
find it incredibly difficult to pause in the middle
of a series on a playlist and pick it back up later. It's so much easier to have
a 12-hour video, hit pause, and then whenever I want, come back to it. YouTube remembers my
place on one long video way better than it remembers
my place in one long playlist. YouTube, honestly, your
playlists are just a bit clunky and could probably use an update. But also, YouTube, just don't listen to me because I'm enjoying
the really long videos and the tons and tons of watch
time I'm getting from them, so thank you. My big takeaway from last year and from all of this is watch time. And yes, titles and thumbnails and click-through rates
and average view durations, it's all important, but if
someone clicks on your video and they don't stick
around, it doesn't matter because that video stops spreading. Viewers want to be taken on a journey when they click on that
Let's Play video you made. They want to hear your opinions when they click on your
gaming update news videos, and they appreciate it when you spend time crafting your content. But to get that watch time,
you need quality content. And in this video I take a
look at your gaming videos to see how you can improve your overall editing and presentation.
