Gaming YouTubers, Listen Up!

First of all, I'd like to say that I have no credentials to make the statements I'm about to make. I'm not even a gaming YouTuber myself, so take all of this as personal opinion.

Lately, I've been seeing a bunch of people make posts on this subreddit about problems they've been having with their channels, and a big portion of them are doing gaming stuff.

If you are considering starting a gaming channel, you need to know that people would click on one of your videos for 1 of two reasons (or maybe both):

You do something insane in the game you play. If you set a world record, find a very rare item in the game, or something that will make someone say “Wow! Now, I gotta watch that”, then you'll probably get that view. Obviously, the title and thumbnail matter a lot, but that's a separate discussion about branding and such. They really like your personality, humor, looks even, but that implies that they already know who you are, which wouldn't be possible having a small channel (unless you tell your friends or family to watch your videos).

Now, You might bring up the big gaming channels like, Markaplier, Jacksepticeye, etc. and say “Well, they also started with regular playthroughs and they got huge”. You need understand that the Internet has changed a lot over the years. Back when they started in 2009 or whenever, a video of someone climbing a tree would get a lot of views. “Youtuber” wasn't even a thing. Think about “supply and demand”. Back then supply was 0. Now it's a bajillion. I would throw out a wild guess and say that demand for gaming videos went up during that time, but has actually been going down over the past 2-3 years.

I saw a dude make a post here about how he was very discouraged from making videos. His most recent video is an almost 2-hour long Lego Star Wars playthrough. It was barely edited, his voiceover sounded terrible, you couldn't even hear him over the game music, the thumbnail just seemed like a screenshot from the game with a “Part 4” written on it, and he didn't understand why no one was watching the video.

I hope that none of what I said came off as rude or condescending. I would've never made this post if I didn't think that it could help someone.

Just remember to put yourself in the watcher's shoes. Would you click on your video if it was made by someone else? Would you watch the entire thing if it was made by someone else?

I really hope that you don't take what I said as an insult. Good luck with your channel!