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?

[captiveateher]

Just giving a light impression here, as you requested honesty- I believe your first hurdle is your thumbnails. They have far too much going on, too much text, and IMO the style actually makes me scroll past without reading because my mind reads them as being advertisements. Like the ads for insurance placed in my Youtube scroll amongst videos I'm actually interested in.

I am an early thirties person from the US who spends probably five hours a day with Youtube on in the background while I am working. My favorite game of all time is Gothic, I hang out in that community online, so your accent is definitely not going to put me off. I am almost certainly your target demographic, haha.

So, my advice.

The video I was interested in was "A Macedonian Retro Christmas".

- Less cluttered thumbnails.
If I'm looking for something to watch on my phone, I'm not reading all that.
As a customer, you're not just not getting me to walk in the door, you're not even getting me to realize you're even open for business.

- Subtitles.
I can understand you well, but I know that my immediate friend group in the US would not be able to. They might still be interested in your content though, long-form or Shorts. But you'd need subtitles. For long-form content, just putting your script into the closed-captions might be fine- but I suggest putting a little on-screen note in the first ten seconds of your video that CC is available. For Shorts, use captions for EVERYTHING you say. The kids just want to see that in their content these days, haha.

I love your voice though! Definitely keep talking in your videos.

- Introduction.
If I've never clicked on your channel before, you have less than fifteen seconds to convince me to stay. Your video is great, but it opens with a VERY loud, short and (sorry) unsatisfying intro. You need a better hook. It literally doesn't have to be something flashy- but it definitely shouldn't be so much audibly louder than your actual content.
As a viewer, if you blast my ears out in the first second, I'm clicking off.
Beyond that, think about what I will see if I hover over your video with my mouse. If I already think your thumbnails look like an ad, that hover-over that shows me the first few seconds of your video also looks like an ad to me.



Overall, what I'm trying to say is that I don't even think the immediate issues lie in your content itself. I think the issue lies in navigating the youtube landscape and understanding what gets people to click.

I think I would suggest, given your style of content, to look at the thumbnails of Slope's Game Room, Accursed Farms and Mandalore Gaming to get a better idea of what I mean when I say "less cluttered". I would also examine how each of those channels produces a "hook" in the first five seconds of their videos to get you to want to stick around.


Best of luck!

 

[Sonic Boomer]

I don't think I'm cut out for patreons and stuff guys, I've always had fans who enjoyed my channel hence all the subs but youtube just doesn't send many of my videos out to the correct people it seems. The less money is involved in this the better, I don't want to stress myself over this stuff.

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.

I didn't want to go too deep into the games so I could give them proper reviews, also the Mickey 3 game on NES (Kid Klown in the US) was just a game I mentioned in passing to illustrate just how close our NES ecosystem was to Japan's. But I know what you mean, that's why in my latest video on Retro Handhelds I label every game I show since I tend to show many obscure ones.

I plan on doing hidden gem videos and what not in the future if I keep this up so I will dive deeper into some of these games for sure in time.

The next 3 videos should be
- Evercade overview as a means for Retro Gaming, with focus on the Alpha
- Switch as a means for retro gaming

and finally I will be probably reviewing the Tiny Toons GB to NES port by Hummer Team tho that's probably going to be a short one.

 

[TechnologicalMF]

Brate akcentot ti e super.
Seriously never thought I'd meet another Macedonian on here lol, I guess the world really is small.

Napravi go toa tri lol

 

[chxshire22]

all the best! i'm looking forward to ur next vid :D

 

[Sonic Boomer]

Just giving a light impression here, as you requested honesty- I believe your first hurdle is your thumbnails. They have far too much going on, too much text, and IMO the style actually makes me scroll past without reading because my mind reads them as being advertisements. Like the ads for insurance placed in my Youtube scroll amongst videos I'm actually interested in.

I am an early thirties person from the US who spends probably five hours a day with Youtube on in the background while I am working. My favorite game of all time is Gothic, I hang out in that community online, so your accent is definitely not going to put me off. I am almost certainly your target demographic, haha.

So, my advice.

The video I was interested in was "A Macedonian Retro Christmas".

- Less cluttered thumbnails.
If I'm looking for something to watch on my phone, I'm not reading all that.
As a customer, you're not just not getting me to walk in the door, you're not even getting me to realize you're even open for business.

- Subtitles.
I can understand you well, but I know that my immediate friend group in the US would not be able to. They might still be interested in your content though, long-form or Shorts. But you'd need subtitles. For long-form content, just putting your script into the closed-captions might be fine- but I suggest putting a little on-screen note in the first ten seconds of your video that CC is available. For Shorts, use captions for EVERYTHING you say. The kids just want to see that in their content these days, haha.

I love your voice though! Definitely keep talking in your videos.

- Introduction.
If I've never clicked on your channel before, you have less than fifteen seconds to convince me to stay. Your video is great, but it opens with a VERY loud, short and (sorry) unsatisfying intro. You need a better hook. It literally doesn't have to be something flashy- but it definitely shouldn't be so much audibly louder than your actual content.
As a viewer, if you blast my ears out in the first second, I'm clicking off.
Beyond that, think about what I will see if I hover over your video with my mouse. If I already think your thumbnails look like an ad, that hover-over that shows me the first few seconds of your video also looks like an ad to me.



Overall, what I'm trying to say is that I don't even think the immediate issues lie in your content itself. I think the issue lies in navigating the youtube landscape and understanding what gets people to click.

I think I would suggest, given your style of content, to look at the thumbnails of Slope's Game Room, Accursed Farms and Mandalore Gaming to get a better idea of what I mean when I say "less cluttered". I would also examine how each of those channels produces a "hook" in the first five seconds of their videos to get you to want to stick around.


Best of luck!

- Tho I'm a professional illustrator, thumbnails are the hardest thing to make tbh because they're more marketing than art and boy do I suck at minimalism. You're not the first to call my thumbnails cluttered tho so I definitely need to figure that one out.

- I'm doing away with the intro/loud noise thing from now on for sure

- On the subject of subtitles, I don't have a script, but from what I've seen enabling automatic subs picks up what I'm saying just fine

- Shorts I'm done with for good, it was just an experiment, but if I do make any in the future I will be sure to include text

- Hook is something I hate the most tbh, I don't like what youtube has evolved into. I don't see Game Sack having a hook or My Retro Life and so on, they just make good videos. Slope does his thing tho, I love his videos. Also did you know I literally thought Slopes and Guru Larry are the same person, then I learned many others thought the same thing and they even addressed this in a video once XD

 

[destinyduelist]

Napravi go toa tri lol

Flynn SMTIV Macedonian confirmed??

 

[TechnologicalMF]

Flynn SMTIV Macedonian confirmed??

Think about it... Mikado... Macedonia... it all adds up really

 

[Sonic Boomer]

Now I'm the only one of us who hasn't gotten around to playing SMTIV in fact I mine is still sealed, well the seal has long been torn by my cats but you know what I mean.

 

[_oBSOLEte_]

Ok I'll give feedback. At this point I dont think Youtube is viable as a platform, specially for the goals you have.

I use sponsorblock, Unhook and Ublock and will actively try to avoid channels that are advertising. Specially retro handhelds. Cant see the point when people can run it all on their smartphones already. I also dont really like channels from game collectors, they tend to flex too much about all that plastic stuff that'll end up in the bin in 20 years.

I think you should change your paradigm and just stop counting views so much. Youtube is too vertical to have a real discussion about anything, there's simply no point to talk to a crowd. And half the traffic is from bots nowadays. Upload the stuff you like as if it was a blog, for yourself untill Youtube finally crash and burn.

 

[TechnologicalMF]

Ok I'll give feedback. At this point I dont think Youtube is viable as a platform, specially for the goals you have.

I use sponsorblock, Unhook and Ublock and will actively try to avoid channels that are advertising. Specially retro handhelds. Cant see the point when people can run it all on their smartphones already. I also dont really like channels from game collectors, they tend to flex too much about all that plastic stuff that'll end up in the bin in 20 years.

I think you should change your paradigm and just stop counting views so much. Youtube is too vertical to have a real discussion about anything, there's simply no point to talk to a crowd. And half the traffic is from bots nowadays. Upload the stuff you like as if it was a blog, for yourself untill Youtube finally crash and burn.

The thing is though, he has found similar channels with a following that he wants to have and is more so just trying to have a sizeable community of that size of his own.
He isn't trying to expand like crazy or anything, just wondering what it is exactly that is holding him back from reaching that goal with those smaller target channels

 

[_oBSOLEte_]

The thing is though, he has found similar channels with a following that he wants to have and is more so just trying to have a sizeable community of that size of his own.
He isn't trying to expand like crazy or anything, just wondering what it is exactly that is holding him back from reaching that goal with those smaller target channels

Yeah I think he's genuine and I subbed. I just don't think there's still a community to be made on Youtube. I've yet to find any successful gaming channel that doesn't end up as another sandwich man for the neoretro market.

 

[Bonkers225]

Yeah, I'm going to be serious. Youtube is an extremely saturated market, and there are hundreds of other gaming channels out there that are way entertaining than your's, and they can't grow bigger themselves. So why would more people turn to you? It makes 0 sense. You've said you're uncomfortable of doing things outside the box, and just takes too much work. Well yeah, that's where successful people come from. Going out of their comfort zone, and grinding their ass off. You may get couple dozens, or even a hundred more subscribers, but you won't achieve anything more if you stick to your mindset, and it seems like you will be. So you got 3 choices here. 1.)Try to do something different/get a catchy personality from the other channels and hopefully it will garner more attention 2.)Just be content with what you have right now 3.)Quit, and find a new niche. Good luck to you.

 

[Yousef]

Nice thread title, could you make it any longer?

 

[Sonic Boomer]

Yeah, I'm going to be serious. Youtube is an extremely saturated market, and there are hundreds of other gaming channels out there that are way entertaining than your's, and they can't grow bigger themselves. So why would more people turn to you? It makes 0 sense. You've said you're uncomfortable of doing things outside the box, and just takes too much work. Well yeah, that's where successful people come from. Going out of their comfort zone, and grinding their ass off. You may get couple dozens, or even a hundred more subscribers, but you won't achieve anything more if you stick to your mindset, and it seems like you will be. So you got 3 choices here. 1.)Try to do something different/get a catchy personality from the other channels and hopefully it will garner more attention 2.)Just be content with what you have right now 3.)Quit, and find a new niche. Good luck to you.

My channel is clearly not for you if you're looking for clowns, I personally prefer channels that keep their videos grounded and more laid back like mine, so there is clearly an audience for that type of content. It's just that those youtubers have already established themselves with a solid audience and reaching that audience with the way youtube sends out videos for impressions has becomne a problem. Just because I disagree with your mindset doesn't give you the right to be rude when I clearly have a certain format I personally enjoy watching and I want to create my own videos in that format for others who like that type of content to enjoy as well.

There are plenty of witty youtubers out there with good and bad humor, catchy personalities are a dime a dozen yet many of them fail worse than my channel has. So your dismissive and downright rude comment only tells me you were bottling this in to troll more than anything else.

"either get a catchy personality" is such a dumb and especially rude thing to say to a 40 year old man with as strong a sense of identity as I have. I know who I am and at 41 I don't intend on reinventing myself so that some schmucks on youtube can watch my videos because they need constant and dumb entertainment, those people were never and will never be my audience. The topic title clearly says "what can I do without changing the spirit of my channel" and what you are suggesting is changing the very core and spirit of my channel and in the utmost stuck up and rude way imaginable.

There is nothing wrong with wanting more up beat content, more humor, but the way you worded it all tells me that's not what you are after with your post. If you were you would have just said "hey man your channel is too serious for me but I can see there's an audience for that type of content too" nope you did not say that.

Nice thread title, could you make it any longer?

That's easy but I think I hit the character limit there

 

[Bonkers225]

My channel is clearly not for you if you're looking for clowns, I personally prefer channels that keep their videos grounded and more laid back like mine, so there is clearly an audience for that type of content. It's just that those youtubers have already established themselves with a solid audience and reaching that audience with the way youtube sends out videos for impressions has becomne a problem. Just because I disagree with your mindset doesn't give you the right to be rude when I clearly have a certain format I personally enjoy watching and I want to create my own videos in that format for others who like that type of content to enjoy as well.

There are plenty of witty youtubers out there with good and bad humor, catchy personalities are a dime a dozen yet many of them fail worse than my channel has. So your dismissive and downright rude comment only tells me you were bottling this in to troll more than anything else.

"either get a catchy personality" is such a dumb and especially rude thing to say to a 40 year old man with as strong a sense of identity as I have. I know who I am and at 41 I don't intend on reinventing myself so that some schmucks on youtube can watch my videos because they need constant and dumb entertainment, those people were never and will never be my audience. The topic title clearly says "what can I do without changing the spirit of my channel" and what you are suggesting is changing the very core and spirit of my channel and in the utmost stuck up and rude way imaginable.

There is nothing wrong with wanting more up beat content, more humor, but the way you worded it all tells me that's not what you are after with your post. If you were you would have just said "hey man your channel is too serious for me but I can see there's an audience for that type of content too" nope you did not say that.



That's easy but I think I hit the character limit there

Once again what we have here is someone who cannot take criticisms asking for public opinions. You just wanted praises, and subscriptions. Every time. Every time.

 

[Sonic Boomer]

Once again what we have here is someone who cannot take criticisms asking for public opinions. You just wanted praises, and subscriptions. Every time. Every time.

There's a difference between taking any and all criticism, bowing your head down and thanking everyone who roasts you and being a spineless person and a person like me who gladly takes criticism he believes he can apply or benefit from and does so in an honest, direct way.
But I've seen "criticism" trolling over the years on the internet, basically it's always the same song and dance. Someone who creates something shares it with a community, they get feedback and all goes well. Then someone comes in with a more rude approach right out of the gate and when the creator/artist what have you calls that person out on their attitude or implies their suggestions don't work for them the person who came in with the rude attitude instantly plays the "you can't take criticism" card sometimes swaying the entire community if they're gullible their way, but usually people see right through those folks.

For example in this topic alone I took a lot of what was suggested to me and will be implementing it gradually in future videos. So just because I disagree with you and voice my disagreement, especially on how you worded your post it doesn't mean I don't take criticism, it means I'm experienced enough to not only filter the right criticism but also call people out when they're being rude and offering criticism just for the sake of being rude.

I'm a fairly successful illustrator despite being visually impaired.

Very early on in my career I learned to NOT just take any criticism, bow my head down and thank whoever was dishing out criticism at me but rather to stand up for myself, defend my work, give out reasons for why I do what I do and insist on creative freedom and autonomy when taking up projects.

To this day, I have yet to find a client who doesn't respect this attitude I have towards my work.

People often think that creative folk should be pawns of the public, that we have to humbly accept everything, bow our heads down and constantly humbly thank the abusers dishing out criticism left and right or accepting any and all criticism and implementing it in our work thus losing our identity in the process.
But that's not how you do art, that's how people who are in it for the money or success do art or people who can't find the confidence to be themselves do art. And sadistic people who love being in control often gaslight and guilt trip artists when they don't humbly accept any and all criticism they throw at them because they WANT to be in control over what the artist does and enjoy seeing artists and creators struggle trying to implement any and all criticism thrown at them.

Plenty of people offered advice and criticism in the topic, but I was very polite to them because they were polite as well about it. However you came in already expecting I'd disagree and you were just waiting for the right moment to play the "doesn't accept criticism" card.

This isn't my first rodeo, son, I've seen many people like you over the course of my career and I've never fallen for their games.

Bottom line guys, my point is, you want to learn not only to filer out criticism, but also who it comes from and how it is delivered to you. If you have the courage and ability it's a good idea to stand up to it and stand up for your work. Understand what applies to you, what can improve your work without it completely changing the spirit of what you are doing unless of course you are ok with wanting to try something completely new and different which is ok too.

 

[Bonkers225]

There's a difference between taking any and all criticism, bowing your head down and thanking everyone who roasts you and being a spineless person and a person like me who gladly takes criticism he believes he can apply or benefit from and does so in an honest, direct way.
But I've seen "criticism" trolling over the years on the internet, basically it's always the same song and dance. Someone who creates something shares it with a community, they get feedback and all goes well. Then someone comes in with a more rude approach right out of the gate and when the creator/artist what have you calls that person out on their attitude or implies their suggestions don't work for them the person who came in with the rude attitude instantly plays the "you can't take criticism" card sometimes swaying the entire community if they're gullible their way, but usually people see right through those folks.

For example in this topic alone I took a lot of what was suggested to me and will be implementing it gradually in future videos. So just because I disagree with you and voice my disagreement, especially on how you worded your post it doesn't mean I don't take criticism, it means I'm experienced enough to not only filter the right criticism but also call people out when they're being rude and offering criticism just for the sake of being rude.

I'm a fairly successful illustrator despite being visually impaired.

Very early on in my career I learned to NOT just take any criticism, bow my head down and thank whoever was dishing out criticism at me but rather to stand up for myself, defend my work, give out reasons for why I do what I do and insist on creative freedom and autonomy when taking up projects.

To this day, I have yet to find a client who doesn't respect this attitude I have towards my work.

People often think that creative folk should be pawns of the public, that we have to humbly accept everything, bow our heads down and constantly humbly thank the abusers dishing out criticism left and right or accepting any and all criticism and implementing it in our work thus losing our identity in the process.
But that's not how you do art, that's how people who are in it for the money or success do art or people who can't find the confidence to be themselves do art. And sadistic people who love being in control often gaslight and guilt trip artists when they don't humbly accept any and all criticism they throw at them because they WANT to be in control over what the artist does and enjoy seeing artists and creators struggle trying to implement any and all criticism thrown at them.

Plenty of people offered advice and criticism in the topic, but I was very polite to them because they were polite as well about it. However you came in already expecting I'd disagree and you were just waiting for the right moment to play the "doesn't accept criticism" card.

This isn't my first rodeo, son, I've seen many people like you over the course of my career and I've never fallen for their games.

Bottom line guys, my point is, you want to learn not only to filer out criticism, but also who it comes from and how it is delivered to you. If you have the courage and ability it's a good idea to stand up to it and stand up for your work. Understand what applies to you, what can improve your work without it completely changing the spirit of what you are doing unless of course you are ok with wanting to try something completely new and different which is ok too.

Right. Blah blah blah heard it all before. Your fee fee's got hurt and you couldn't take it and you decided to write an essay about it. Good on you. I said what I said, and I'll stick to it. Either do something different, be content with what you have right now, or leave and so something else. I can't make it any more clearer. What you wanted ultimately was some subscriptions from ppl on here, you didn't care for anyone's opinions. And once you got a honest valid criticism you completely lost your shit. I'm done talking. Good bye and good luck.

 

[Sonic Boomer]

Right. Blah blah blah heard it all before. Your fee fee's got hurt and you couldn't take it and you decided to write an essay about it. Good on you. I said what I said, and I'll stick to it. Either do something different, be content with what you have right now, or leave and so something else. I can't make it any more clearer. What you wanted ultimately was some subscriptions from ppl on here, you didn't care for anyone's opinions. And once you got a honest valid criticism you completely lost your shit. I'm done talking. Good bye and good luck.

This is a very interesting thing to observe, talking about hurt feelings. There is no one more angry in my experience than people offering supposed honest criticism, angry/manipulative critics as I call them and getting absolutely infuriated when said criticism is rejected or simply isn't something the criticized person can apply for different reasons.

It's so strange yet so common to see this behavior in some people offering criticism, they're angry before they even get rejected, it's as if they can't wait for the rejection of their criticism to do what you are doing now.

We see this throughout history with creative people and those who fall for the likes of you end up miserable and unhappy because people like you tend to absolutely toy with the willingness and lack of self esteem on the creators' end where IF the creator accepts one aspect of your criticism you immediately assume the role of, for a lack of a better term, control freak and demand you have a say in every aspect of their creative work from there on out. All while, of course, getting mad and manipulating the creative person in the process as soon as they disagree with something or can't implement something. Manipulation usually comes in the form of telling them how it is immature to reject criticism, gaslighting them into believing that if they reject criticism they will never grow as an artist/musician/creator, then there's the whole jig about how the person offering criticism took their time to help yet the artist/creator refuses to respect their time and many many other forms of manipulation all so that somebody can have full control over a creative person's work and artistic expression in order to live through them or to feel pride that they have had some kind of involvement in a creative process. There's also the fact that some people who offer criticism the way you do simply do to see artistes/creators struggle to implement things that don't work for them and get nowhere fast all while being depressed in the process thinking they're bad artists.
This is where another form of manipulation comes from the critic and that is keeping the artist stuck on the basics at all time, "keep practicing", "you just need to work harder, you got this, you'll get there", this is the first step, encouragement but it soon turns into berating the artist/creator and the initial encouragement soon turns into vicious remarks such as "you're purposely rejecting what I'm saying, you won't get anywhere" or like what you are doing, threads "either do <insert thing here> or you will never grow as an artist" all while insisting that the artist keeps practicing the basics because they are still not good enough.

While all this takes place, the artist/creator loses confidence in their own work and skills which have long gone past the point where they'd be rejected by many clients, companies and so on.

But this is where the final and most devastating blow comes by manipulative critics. IF the artist/creator dares to dethatch themselves from the critic, seeks out work and gets a gig the manipulative critic delivers a very powerful final blow and that is...that the artist has been accepted by said client/employer or what have you out of pity all while presenting seemingly intelligent arguments as to why this is the case, mind you.

This is a very interesting to me thing that is happening in this topic now and I'm glad you went all out and posted your tantrum, man, because it gave me an excuse to bring this topic up since it's a topic I rather enjoy talking about.

I've seen this behavior from manipulative/angry critics in all creative fields and I pride myself on not falling for their manipulation and having built myself a beautiful career in illustration in spite of their aggressive approach.

Also as an artist/creator I can assure you there is nothing wrong in seeking like minded individuals who love your work and wanting to hear support from said people than trying to appeal to people who don't like what you are doing. That is how you find your audience.

 

[_oBSOLEte_]

Isnt the Youtube algorythm itself the worst troll you could have to get feedback on your work? And yet you seem to value its metrics so much, when the platform actively try to make you pay to promote it...

The guy worded his critic poorly but there is some truth to it. People are so overexposed to marketing that you'll always get some frustrated who'll vent about it, it's part of the game, take it or leave it, and if you identify a troll, don't feed it.

And it's true. Youtube IS saturated. Has been for years now. It's only a question of time before they limit the upload size, just like they recently did with Twitch. Because their model is simply not viable. It's good to read about artists trying to keep their integrity. If only you could direct that fighting spirit on the root cause of your problem, and why you come here to tell your doubts about continuing your channel or not. If you just want to make "successful" content, just aim for second-screenability and mass produce with AI like everyone else.

 

[Sonic Boomer]

Isnt the Youtube algorythm itself the worst troll you could have to get feedback on your work? And yet you seem to value its metrics so much, when the platform actively try to make you pay to promote it...

The guy worded his critic poorly but there is some truth to it. People are so overexposed to marketing that you'll always get some frustrated who'll vent about it, it's part of the game, take it or leave it, and if you identify a troll, don't feed it.

And it's true. Youtube IS saturated. Has been for years now. It's only a question of time before they limit the upload size, just like they recently did with Twitch. Because their model is simply not viable. It's good to read about artists trying to keep their integrity. If only you could direct that fighting spirit on the root cause of your problem, and why you come here to tell your doubts about continuing your channel or not. If you just want to make "successful" content, just aim for second-screenability and mass produce with AI like everyone else.

don't sass me about AI bro, it don't take long for me to post my AI Milfs :)
but real talk, I understand where you're coming from but there is a difference between what I want from youtube and what those who want to blow up want.
For me, I just want to keep it mid, to keep it as a side hobby. I think this topic explained all there is to explain and any further discussion on the subject would just result in pointless arguments.

I have a lot of experience with criticism and critics ruining artists and I already explained that when I saw through the manipulation attemp of that guy.
Again, my goal on youtube isn't to have hundreds of subs, for one I am very happy with my current subscriber count, second just wanting subs for example who aren't going to watch your content is a sure fire way to kill your channel.

ALL I wanted from this topic was to see IF I could do something to help viewer retention without changing anything or doing things I don't feel work for me, that's all.

Big youtubers can keep their hundreds of thousands of views, money, that's not me, that's something I wouldn't be able to deal with nor do I want that.

 

[_oBSOLEte_]

ALL I wanted from this topic was to see IF I could do something to help viewer retention without changing anything or doing things I don't feel work for me, that's all.

"Retention" says it all really when you think about it for 5 mins. In French it's used to describe jail time.

 

[lil_thang]

interesting thread and perspectives.

i've operated a channel that is an upload graveyard of low effort recordings, very occasionally i have bothered to edit something.

i intentionally avoid metrics and have never even looked at the default dashboard page (i go direct to the upload page instead lol). i'm sure if i begain to peruse such metrics i would get a bogged down and wonder how to improve them. the most i see is a view and comment count integer.

however i just dont care. perhaps at one point i did. you really just gotta do this solely for you and without expectation. i found a couple nice people through my random uploads so that is more than one could've asked for i suppose.

The metrics can suck the love and ethusiasm out of you. most of my 'higher effort' edits had small handful of views compared to a 30 second pointless clip from a random vidya, as with OPs experience doing an AI voice over'd short (everyone gets the kiddie views from Shorts, i hope that one gaining significant views didn't affect you too much).

As an outside observer with a mildly comparable situation, I think the core dissonance of the issue is that you simultaneously want to keep this a casual 'for the love of it' thing and also gain a consistent wider audience. This is where the friction lies. and i sympathize completely.

Take some solace however in the fact that you are a creator, you CREATE things, as opposed to the vast majority. You've created and uploaded something and the world is a better place for it.

 

[Sonic Boomer]

interesting thread and perspectives.

i've operated a channel that is an upload graveyard of low effort recordings, very occasionally i have bothered to edit something.

i intentionally avoid metrics and have never even looked at the default dashboard page (i go direct to the upload page instead lol). i'm sure if i begain to peruse such metrics i would get a bogged down and wonder how to improve them. the most i see is a view and comment count integer.

however i just dont care. perhaps at one point i did. you really just gotta do this solely for you and without expectation. i found a couple nice people through my random uploads so that is more than one could've asked for i suppose.

The metrics can suck the love and ethusiasm out of you. most of my 'higher effort' edits had small handful of views compared to a 30 second pointless clip from a random vidya, as with OPs experience doing an AI voice over'd short (everyone gets the kiddie views from Shorts, i hope that one gaining significant views didn't affect you too much).

As an outside observer with a mildly comparable situation, I think the core dissonance of the issue is that you simultaneously want to keep this a casual 'for the love of it' thing and also gain a consistent wider audience. This is where the friction lies. and i sympathize completely.

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Take some solace however in the fact that you are a creator, you CREATE things, as opposed to the vast majority. You've created and uploaded something and the world is a better place for it.

I think your outlook is too idealistic for me, sorry.
The thing about doing this just "for the love of it" at my age doesn't work. I'm not in it for the money but my reward should be having shared my thoughts and feelings on gaming with a satisfactory number of people and that's not the people who clicked and dropped out but rather the people who stuck around for the most of the video or even finished it.

I can't justify the time I spend on editing, recording and everything just for "the love of it" because if I'm not getting a satisfactory viewcount and retention that means I might as well be talking to myself and talking to the walls around me which is rather unsettling to say the least.

Making videos like this for yourself even if nobody is watching them doesn't sit well for me, it's time, effort and most importantly energy spent that I could be focusing elsewhere if this thing ends up tanking completely. I love many things, from gaming to drawing and so on. The time I spend editing I could be spending gaming or working on a new big illustration project which WILL get me paid too.

I just don't see the point of putting a lot of time and effort into stuff like this if there is no reward and believe me, video editing itself is more often than not a tiresome process not a rewarding one, the reward comes when you see it all nicely put together AND when you've shared that with a satisfactory number of people. Otherwise what you get is the equivalent of your parents hanging your childhood drawings on the fridge at best or you talking to yourself at worst.

 

[Sonic Boomer]

Thank you so much for the pin but I've decided to put my channel on hold for the time being, it's just not working out and I don't feel happy or fulfilled when I see that retention drop below 10%.

This is the final message I left on my community tab on youtube.

"Although I'm getting very good view counts for a small channel, I am unable to hold people's retention even on videos I know are on popular subjects that would normally get a ton of impressions. As soon as the retention drops so do impressions and videos are effectively killed by youtube. My goal with this channel was to express my thoughts and feelings on gaming but while some people definitely appreciate that I feel that most simply grow tired of my video format, accent and overall laid back structure of my videos. Unfortunately I am unwilling to change any of that, I don't want to be someone I am not on camera and I have seen plenty of videos far worse than mine do better in all aspects.

Therefore, for the time being this channel is put on hold and if I ever feel like making a video every once in a blue moon I will. But the days of me regularly uploading are done and over with.My goal was never monetization and even tho I'm surprisingly close to that, I don't care.I have other, more important things to focus on where my work is greatly appreciated and sought after.With that said, I will try one more thing which I know succeeded on a test channel I had and that is AI Voices that sound very natural.

I tested this on a different channelAs you can see the videos with a good AI Voice performed very well here:

Gaming Pal Ollie Shorts and AI Friends

A spin off channel of my main Gaming Pal Ollie channel where I post quick videos with AI Generated voice overs because I have a lot to say and share on gaming but I honestly don't always feel like recording myself every time I want to blurb something out. I hope you find these videos enjoyable...

www.youtube.com

The same videos did awful on my main in my own voice.So with that said I will try to save this channel or upload my next video whenever I am able with the Milo AI voice that I know does well already and if that works out, I will be using native English speaking AI to see if that is going to help with retention. I understand some of you appreciate and love my voice and acting guys, but that's just not helping the channel at all. I have a great amount of views and subs, but views and subs mean nothing in this day and age on youtube it's all about retention and engagement otherwise youtube kills the videos.I can't justify the time and effort I put into my videos to get such low retention at my age and at this point in life.When a video on such a highly popular subject gets such low end video retention and overall stats and I am too stubborn to change my style and formatting because it just wouldn't be satisfying emotionally for me to do my videos in a style that isn't me. I am going to have to stop whatever this is and move on to where I can express myself freely and actually be seen like I have for years now.With that said again I will try the AI thing, I know many of you despise and hate AI but don't, it helps non native English speakers and those with speech impairments and so on, let's see how that works out first because it did allow me to express myself on the other channel, I got very very satisfactory viewcounts and retention so if it helps me tell my gaming stories, show and share what I know and feel on gaming I'd be very happy.It's downright degrading seeing your retention drop to below 10% the way it does on my videos. I can't afford to feel that way at my age. It's a shame I will never show you all the amazing games, systems, strange bootlegs and strange tabletop and electronic games I own and play. Tell you more of MAcedonia's gaming history and so on...all because I am unwilling to be a clown or conform to modern youtube standards."

I need out, for the first time in months yesterday I sat down to play games without thinking of whether or not this would get retention if I record it or not.
I played and finished Astal, the Japanese one which is one of my favorite games of all time.
Played some Visions of Mana and felt liberated.

Screw youtube, I've been wanting to review this for youtube for so long but I know it's not worth it, nothing is and I'm done.

I'm out
I'm done with this youtube nonsense, it clearly isn't for me
even tho I didn't even want to make money off of this I was unable to share even my thoughts and feelings and knowledge on gaming.

Just look at the games I show in the Switch video
90% of youtubers never even REMOTELY show many of these games or know they exist, but so very few appreciate that.

 

[Spike's iconSpike]

YouTube can be cruel, it's very hard to make it when thousands of videos get uploaded each minute.
I think your mental health will improve dramatically without it in your way.
Best of luck!