One last attempt to save my Game review and talk channel - What do you guys honestly think could save but not change the spirit of my channel?

[Sonic Boomer]

This is my channel

Gaming Pal Ollie

- This is a personal channel where I express myself about video games. I simply want to share my thoughts and feelings on the games I play. My views are completely subjective and in no way, shape or form are my videos meant to inform or please an audience. I'm simply making this channel so I can...

www.youtube.com

First I'd like to give you guys some background on who I am and why I do youtube.
I'm a Slavic, Macedonian guy born in 1983 in the Balkans, in the Republic of Macedonia and gaming has been my entire life. There is huge misconception about my part of the world that we didn't have many video games or that we lagged behind when it came to gaming compared to the first world, but this isn't true. In fact, during the 90's we probably had more games than the US did thanks to piracy and lack or region restrictions.
My goal with my youtube channel was never to blow up or make money, but to simply share my thoughts and feelings on gaming as well as, hopefully shed some light on gaming history here in the Balkans, specifically Macedonia through my videos and stories. Eventually I would have made specific videos on the subject to summarize all I had said in my other videos.

I like to review both modern and retro games tho I focus more on retro games and new games released for old systems or bootleg games that were sold here in the early 90's but aren't well known in the 1st world.
I have a lot to show and a ton to tell about gaming, but I want to do it in my own, more relaxed, more slower paced way rather than this up beat, modern way of doing videos which I am too old and too tired to follow and pay attention to.

All my favorite Gaming channels, such as Game Sack, Classic Game Room back in the day, Gamester81 back then, 8bit Joystick, Crazy Burger (evercade), Retro Gamer Boy, RetroGamerNation and many many others have make calm, down to earth, slower paced videos too and I love this type of content and that is the content I myself love making.

Anything above 500 views is enough for my game reviews on a small channel like mine, I have around 1556 subs at the time of this posting which is great.
BUT, when it comes to certain videos such as my latest video series on the best ways to get into Retro Gaming in 2025:

I feel given the topic's popularity at least 1-1.5k views would suffice. HOWEVER views aren't the issue.

I can not hold people's attention to save my life.
I don't want to lose my identity or to lose my style of video making, my pacing or anything, who I am on youtube is who I am in real life.
But even tho my videos start with average or above average retention in the first 30 seconds, by the end only 7% are usually left watching, which is fine by me but youtube has a problem with this and kills my videos refusing to give them impressions and no impressions means no views of course.

I believe that the chief cause for my problems are my voice and accent, sure some find my voice and accent pleasant, but most native English speakers can't listen to accents like mine for long.

So what do you find most irritating about my channel? I'm probably going to quit but I want to hear what you think about it regardless even if I don't implement those suggestions for one reason or another. I'd like to hear how you think my videos could get better viewer retention while staying true to my current atmosphere and feel of the channel.

I want to talk about games and topics I care about
not what is trending
because if I have to make videos on popular things only then there's no point in me having my own channel, I don't do this for money.

Even so, it's degrading talking to walls, I want to share my thoughts and feelings on gaming with more people.

The reason I believe my voice and accent are the problem:
Although I make long form content, i did try my hand at shorts and here's something interesting.
this short I made with an AI voice got 14k views instantly DESPITE the quality of the video being abysmal (I've improved my CRT recording a great deal in my latest videos)

the same short WITH additional info on my main channel has 188 views

Still I make long form content, my most viewed video is the review for Sam's Journey on C64 and NES where as you can see my CRT recording has been drastically improved and like I do with most of my newer videos I combine CRT and emulation footage.

(I cant turn this into a link i dunno why it is what it is)

This video ends with 12% retention, which i am happy with but that is abysmal according to most youtube advice I've read

I despise youtube communities on reddit and such, it's all motivational drivel like "you got this! You are amaizing! you can do it!" or other such brainwashing nonsense or exceptionally high standards.

For example, the video on which games I, as a Balkan kid from the 80's and 90's associate with the holidays didn't do well at all despite it being liked by those who watched it.

The video wasn't going to get even 600 views, but I paid $10 for youtube to promote it :( which DESTROYED its retention, never doing that again for sure.

Speaking of liking my videos, my videos have either 100% like ratio or over 95% like ratio for each one, so those who do watch them seem to enjoy them yet youtube isn't pushing them at all.

 

[RageBurner]

People really complain about your accent? there's absolutely nothing wrong with it at all. I'm going to give your video a full watch, but I'm pretty sure your voice is fine.

 

[Sonic Boomer]

I'm a huge and I mean HUGE fan of VFD games, I have well over 20 VFD games and I wanted to make a big, long video on VFDs, I once tried doing a short with a bad AI Voice and it didn't do well at all (my other AI Voice shorts did well)

But I know I can make an amazing long form video on VFDs and show so many of them, however I also know youtube won't push that video and nobody is going to watch it because even topics that do well for others, youtube won't push for me. Sam's Journey and a few of my higher viewed videos are an exception but they all have very bad retention regardless of high view counts.

Post automatically merged: Mar 11, 2025

People really complain about your accent? there's absolutely nothing wrong with it at all. I'm going to give your video a full watch, but I'm pretty sure your voice is fine.

People used to love my voice and accent on LUElinks and GFAQs 2016-2018 when I was first doing this. And even now, those same forums or what's left of them give me full support and love my videos.
But youtube does everything it can to suffocate and kill my channel :(

 

[RageBurner]

People used to love my voice and accent on LUElinks and GFAQs 2016-2018 when I was first doing this. And even now, those same forums or what's left of them give me full support and love my videos.
But youtube does everything it can to suffocate and kill my channel :(

It's the stupid algorithm more than anything. There are some youtubers I know (not personally mind you) like Meridian, that has a very distinctive accent too, so I'm sure you can carve yourself some space.

 

[Sonic Boomer]

I never thought about my accent or voice at all until recently when it became clear youtube is just not pushing my videos and kills them very quickly. I never went into this thinking my voice or accent would be a problem. But man after eliminating all other issues short of clowning myself or screaming about politics in video games on either side, I don't see what I could do to increase retention at this point and the only thing I could think of was that maybe my accent is the issue.

 

[destinyduelist]

Brate akcentot ti e super.
Seriously never thought I'd meet another Macedonian on here lol, I guess the world really is small.
I'll keep it English for everyone else's sake, but your accent or editing isn't the problem. You've got great editing and your scripts are good, assuming they are scripts, if you're talking about things as you're going about the video then that's even more impressive.
The accent isn't an issue either, take a look at another Balkan YouTuber Rank10YGO, he's got a very thick Serbian accent and it isn't an issue for anyone.
Your channel doesn't need saving, at this point its all algorithmic if your videos get big or not, trust me I've tried making videos before and some would hit big while some wouldn't break 100 views. YouTube is an abysmal, AI filled slop site now with YouTubers who are popular having been popular for over a decade now, and the ones that are becoming popular are usually filling in some incredible niche (like Rank10YGO for example.)
The best thing you can do is just try to fall into some niche, and you've got retro gaming so you're already going into it. Again, like RageBurner said as well, its all the algorithm, we can't really control that. Its why I stopped posting my art on social media as well, and its why I stopped making videos. You can always post about your newest videos here or in some niche discord channels. Another great thing you can do is broaden your horizons and try to get more networking done. YouTube is no longer a "You" site anymore sadly. As much as we want to pretend we can use it as an outlet to talk about the things we love and gain a following just by being ourselves, it is no longer possible. Its a machine that feeds into generic AI slop and has lost all meaning and soul. Its a bastardized version of its 2005-2010 self.
And lastly, don't quit. You don't have to be as active as you are, but quitting is the worst thing you could do. Even with a day job, or college, or internship or anything, quitting what you love is the worst thing anyone could ever do.
I know what I've said up to now sounds like you should become some corporate style slop channel that just feeds out AI garbage, but authenticity is still a very important thing. Its much better to have a smaller, loyal following and be your authentic self, than have a massive following and have to put up an act and lose all sense of self in your content. People love authenticity.

 

[TotzOnGaming]

Great Content Man!

Best of Luck with your Channel!

 

[Sonic Boomer]

Brate akcentot ti e super.
Seriously never thought I'd meet another Macedonian on here lol, I guess the world really is small.
I'll keep it English for everyone else's sake, but your accent or editing isn't the problem. You've got great editing and your scripts are good, assuming they are scripts, if you're talking about things as you're going about the video then that's even more impressive.
The accent isn't an issue either, take a look at another Balkan YouTuber Rank10YGO, he's got a very thick Serbian accent and it isn't an issue for anyone.
Your channel doesn't need saving, at this point its all algorithmic if your videos get big or not, trust me I've tried making videos before and some would hit big while some wouldn't break 100 views. YouTube is an abysmal, AI filled slop site now with YouTubers who are popular having been popular for over a decade now, and the ones that are becoming popular are usually filling in some incredible niche (like Rank10YGO for example.)
The best thing you can do is just try to fall into some niche, and you've got retro gaming so you're already going into it. Again, like RageBurner said as well, its all the algorithm, we can't really control that. Its why I stopped posting my art on social media as well, and its why I stopped making videos. You can always post about your newest videos here or in some niche discord channels. Another great thing you can do is broaden your horizons and try to get more networking done. YouTube is no longer a "You" site anymore sadly. As much as we want to pretend we can use it as an outlet to talk about the things we love and gain a following just by being ourselves, it is no longer possible. Its a machine that feeds into generic AI slop and has lost all meaning and soul. Its a bastardized version of its 2005-2010 self.
And lastly, don't quit. You don't have to be as active as you are, but quitting is the worst thing you could do. Even with a day job, or college, or internship or anything, quitting what you love is the worst thing anyone could ever do.
I know what I've said up to now sounds like you should become some corporate style slop channel that just feeds out AI garbage, but authenticity is still a very important thing. Its much better to have a smaller, loyal following and be your authentic self, than have a massive following and have to put up an act and lose all sense of self in your content. People love authenticity.

Dude, your post blew me away on so many levels! Thank you.
I go way back with video game reviewing, I don't know how old you are but if you remember a magazine called PCInfo+, I used to do most of their video game reviews and I'd say I single handedly promoted the Dreamcast in Macedonia back then :) I fully agree with everything you said about youtube and initially I too was blaming the algorithm but those cult like reddit youtube subs got to me I guess so I thought hey, maybe I should try and see if there's an issue on my end because people there keep insisting that if things aren't going well it's always the creator and not the algorithm which I'd strongly disagree with in the past.

As for quitting. I don't think quitting is a bad thing, knowing when to walk away is crucial to being able to focus on other, more important things in life. For example I work as an illustrator but physically I can not do both youtube and illustrations, so if I step away form youtube I can and will start working on another big illustration project as I always do. So we'll see how things progress, but your posts means the world to me, bud, thank you.

Like, I'm not trying to blow up or anything, far from it. I just can't stand seeing my work being killed off by the youtube algorithm or me being unable to retain at least some kind of decent viewer retention and that's what really bums me out about all this.

I still have to finish my Best Ways for Retro Gaming in 2025 series so we'll see what happens after that.

Post automatically merged: Mar 11, 2025

Great Content Man!

Best of Luck with your Channel!

Thanks, unlike many who usually just post the same few generic games when showcasing systems like this, I want to show how the games I personally like and play on these devices perform and this video was supposed to be both, a way to show newcomers what Retro Handhelds can do as well as give them some great games they might not have heard of to play on them that aren't the same old generic stuff everyone always posts. Of course some of it IS generic but a good chunk of the games I showed are not.

 

[RageBurner]

Okay, I've watched the whole video (and liked it, I might try the game!) so let me give you a few suggestions. Keep in mind I'm not a content creator, I'm just sharing my thoughts with you here, and there's nothing wrong with how you do things.

I would make your talking points a little shorter. I understand you have points you want to make, but give your narration a little pause and fade in the music of the content you are covering, let people listen to the game a bit and get a feel for the sound effects and such.

In a similar vein to the above, maybe it would help if you segmented things a bit, use title cards to highlight what you are going to talk about next (like an eyecatch), since human eyes are instinctively driven to moving objects on the screen. So, say if you are going to discuss gameplay next, have something crawl along the screen and read "GAMEPLAY", before you start the next segment.

I really liked the brief history you gave on the C64 and Euro game design, but I feel if you had prefaced the video with that (and the games you've shown as examples of poor design), and later contrasted it with how good Sam's Journey is (because it really is!) it would have made an even bigger impact.


So that's it, I hope you don't think I'm trying to teach you how to do things, I'm not a content creator, as I said.

 

[Sonic Boomer]

Okay, I've watched the whole video (and liked it, I might try the game!) so let me give you a few suggestions. Keep in mind I'm not a content creator, I'm just sharing my thoughts with you here, and there's nothing wrong with how you do things.

I would make your talking points a little shorter. I understand you have points you want to make, but give your narration a little pause and fade in the music of the content you are covering, let people listen to the game a bit and get a feel for the sound effects and such.

In a similar vein to the above, maybe it would help if you segmented things a bit, use title cards to highlight what you are going to talk about next (like an eyecatch), since human eyes are instinctively driven to moving objects on the screen. So, say if you are going to discuss gameplay next, have something crawl along the screen and read "GAMEPLAY", before you start the next segment.

I really liked the brief history you gave on the C64 and Euro game design, but I feel if you had prefaced the video with that (and the games you've shown as examples of poor design), and later contrasted it with how good Sam's Journey is (because it really is!) it would have made an even bigger impact.


So that's it, I hope you don't think I'm trying to teach you how to do things, I'm not a content creator, as I said.

you are right about the fading my voice out and letting the game's sounds take over. I used to do the fade out of my voice and let the game's sound play and stuff more 2016-2018 but apparently that doesn't hold people's retention so I stopped doing it as much these days sadly. I still do it from time to time tho but if it were up to my I'd do it even more.
The problem is I can't get away from that mindset of what holds people's attention these days anymore.

Some of my videos are segmented, like my Christmas video or my SNES Mini review(that's from 2018 tho) and I show title cards and all. I was going to do the same with Sam's Journey and Bubble bobble MD but some of the topics kinda flow into each other hence why I opted out of that. But I still include video chapters. I should definitely do that more for longer videos tho

 

[destinyduelist]

Dude, your post blew me away on so many levels! Thank you.
I go way back with video game reviewing, I don't know how old you are but if you remember a magazine called PCInfo+, I used to do most of their video game reviews and I'd say I single handedly promoted the Dreamcast in Macedonia back then :) I fully agree with everything you said about youtube and initially I too was blaming the algorithm but those cult like reddit youtube subs got to me I guess so I thought hey, maybe I should try and see if there's an issue on my end because people there keep insisting that if things aren't going well it's always the creator and not the algorithm which I'd strongly disagree with in the past.

As for quitting. I don't think quitting is a bad thing, knowing when to walk away is crucial to being able to focus on other, more important things in life. For example I work as an illustrator but physically I can not do both youtube and illustrations, so if I step away form youtube I can and will start working on another big illustration project as I always do. So we'll see how things progress, but your posts means the world to me, bud, thank you.

Like, I'm not trying to blow up or anything, far from it. I just can't stand seeing my work being killed off by the youtube algorithm or me being unable to retain at least some kind of decent viewer retention and that's what really bums me out about all this.

I still have to finish my Best Ways for Retro Gaming in 2025 series so we'll see what happens after that.

PCInfo+ is a little before my time, and by a little I mean I'm 23 lol
On your topic of quitting, that's understandable, I'm an intern at a videogame dev company as an artist. Before I was working on my own comic book but since my internship its been harder and harder to draw during my own time. What I meant though was, if its your passion and what you love doing, there's no reason to quit. You don't have to be as consistent, but we as humans want to do what we love doing no matter what, its what makes us happy.
I'll be tagging along for that series though, cheers
Also, funnily enough my neighbour had a Dreamcast growing up, who knows, maybe it was your promotion that led to that.

 

[Sonic Boomer]

PCInfo+ is a little before my time, and by a little I mean I'm 23 lol
On your topic of quitting, that's understandable, I'm an intern at a videogame dev company as an artist. Before I was working on my own comic book but since my internship its been harder and harder to draw during my own time. What I meant though was, if its your passion and what you love doing, there's no reason to quit. You don't have to be as consistent, but we as humans want to do what we love doing no matter what, its what makes us happy.
I'll be tagging along for that series though, cheers
Also, funnily enough my neighbour had a Dreamcast growing up, who knows, maybe it was your promotion that led to that.

This reminds me of a thing that happened in a taxi once. It was around the time Dragon Quest V came out on DS, so I was in a taxi, minding my own business playing and enjoying Dragon Quest V and the taxi driver goes "hey kid, I know you from Joker!" (a store that used to sell consoles and games here) and then he tells me that I recommended his son buy a Dreamcast and how much his kids loved the console and all. This was years after the DC was relevant yet the dude still remembered me :) The DC wasn't overly popular here but quite a few people did have it because it was so easy to get bootleg games for.

 

[ciro64]

Watched the review for Kira Kira Star Night, I loved it! I like the CRT filter you used, the high quality footage when filming, and you did manage to describe a simple game for 10 minutes in a interesting yet relaxing pace.

 

[Sonic Boomer]

Watched the review for Kira Kira Star Night, I loved it! I like the CRT filter you used, the high quality footage when filming, and you did manage to describe a simple game for 10 minutes in a interesting yet relaxing pace.

:D Thanks, the thing is I don't think there's a single other review of Kira Kira Star Night that actually properly dives into the game's systems and mechanics. So I really wanted to give the game a fair review. In fact I couldn't find a single other real review of it on youtube.

 

[ciro64]

:D Thanks, the thing is I don't think there's a single other review of Kira Kira Star Night that actually properly dives into the game's systems and mechanics. So I really wanted to give the game a fair review. In fact I couldn't find a single other real review of it on youtube.

Giving obscure games proper spotlight is a heroic thing to do!

Here's how I feel towards your voice:

In the review I just watched, I had to get used to your voice at first, but after that it felt cozy, sweet, natural and real. Made me want to come back to your channel later.

The AI short, on the other hand, instantly grabbed my attention, but also made me feel fatigue shortly after clicking it, like the majority of youtube does to me nowadays.

I don't know what to offer as advice right now regarding the growth of your channel, other than that reaching out here was definitely a step in the right direction.

 

[Stingy Perry]

Be more subjective and less emphasis on your topic introductions plus add a little humor some jokes here and there, it may not have to be super funny but to loosen things up and grab your audience attention a bit.

 

[Bonkers225]

Create a character. Something not of the norm when it comes to game reviews, because there are thousands of them. An alternative version of you, a zany character to do the reviews. And I'm being completely serious when I say this, try puppets. Why? There isn't anybody else out there doing it. You NEED to be different, or be an extremely attractive woman unfortunately.

 

[Samatonic]

Subscribed to show support mate, don't worry about.

 

[Stingy Perry]

Oh yeah by the way I liked your content and subscribed to your channel.

 

[Sonic Boomer]

Thanks everyone, I appreciate all of this.

Creating a character or using humor isn't my style, if I have to force myself to do those things that just won't be me, it would create unnecessary stress for me when making videos. I just want to talk about the things I have on my mind, not clown myself out there. Sorry I can't do either of those things, I understand why they draw viewers but they're very off putting to me personally and forced humor is hands down one of the most stressful things to do.
I don't even write scripts, I just sit down and tell my stories.

As for being more subjective, I'd love that, I cut a lot out of that out from my final videos because I tend to go on tangents about things that happened to me or things I relate to and associate with certain games and what not, but sadly those things kill viewership these days.
I definitely do include such tid bits here and there tho :) especially in my bootleg game reviews where I have a bit of history or personal experience to share with those games.

Post automatically merged: Mar 11, 2025

Also there are plenty of youtubers who do characters, two that come to mind and I respect a lot are Arlo

Arlo

Hey there, I'm Arlo! This is a channel about video games where I make videos about videos games. END OF DESCRIPTION.

www.youtube.com

and my recent favorite faceless youtuber TechDweeb

TechDweeb

I bought every retro game ever. It's a good thing I backed them all up because all the originals were destroyed in a fire. https://linktr.ee/techdweeb

www.youtube.com

But that's not who I am, even if that means I'm a boring person. It's of utmost importance in life for me to always remain being myself. Clowning myself with a puppet or even an AI character or what have you just isn't me.

 

[Spike's iconSpike]

I don't have advice for you, I'll sticky this thread hope you get more exposure.

 

[Sonic Boomer]

wow thanks, this is a tad embarrassing. :)

 

[chxshire22]

KEEP POSTING retro gaming in general doesn't get a lot of views BUT your content is good.

like for real it's good content. as others have said: making a character is something you can consider.
one of my favorite youtubers when it comes to gaming is bigsleeter.

what i recommend is adding some jokes, impact lines, etc. keep your speech varied in terms of emphasis, volume, pitch, speed, as long as it makes sense. what i notice is that the video while containing great (GREAT) content, can be rather dry when you continue to ramble on for 15 minutes.
kinda like attending a lecture

does that make sense?

anyway! liked, subbed SO YOU BETTER KEEP POSTING!!! XD

also here's a vid from bigsleeter for reference:

i've watched it multiple times just cos it's pretty interesting and kinda funny

 

[MilkMan]

Just watched your Christmas video and it was very good. Getting views on Youtube is essentially like winning the lottery. There are some creators I've watched that made videos for years and years before the algorithm finally picked them up and they started getting more than 1k views. Looking at your channel history it looks like you've only been posting regularly for about 4 months, so you're really not doing too badly.

When it comes to viewer retention I think at least in your christmas video the style of the video doesn't lend itself well to high viewer retention. Specifically it's a video with lots of short segments and lots of recommendations on lessser known games. What happened to me while watching that video was I kept seeing games that looked interesting and I would pause the video, open a new tab, google that game and start going down rabbit holes that eventually could lead to me forgetting the video all together. This is great for me, but it's bad for your viewer retention.

The Mickey 3 NES game looked interesting to me but your video didn't actually go into any depth about what the gameplay was like or the history of the game, developer or series it was a part of. I saw that game and opened a wikipedia article to learn more about it because I felt like the video didn't tell me enough about it. I think if was a shorter video with less games but more detail the viewer retention would be higher.

Also try to tell stories and personal anecdotes when you can. People love hearing stories and a large part of the retro gaming community is nostalgia based so if you have a story or memory associated with a game, tell it and then use that story to springboard off of and provide more information about the game.

 

[ciro64]

Do you consider making something like a patreon? Seems like you're gaining some fans already.