Poll: A new Youtuber's Dilemma

[Zydrate]

Eyo. I've recently acquired the OBS recording software and over the course of the last month or two, I've been uploading playthroughs.
They've been slowly increasing in quality as I've overcome issue after issue. The first issue was that it seemed to have auto-resolution'd to a smaller res which cut off an inch on the right and bottom of my videos. So I have a few of those.

I have been dealing with a certain 'fuzziness' on my recording graphics and I have recently fixed this as well. (Just watch my... anything. [https://www.youtube.com/user/AvauntVanguard]) Recently fixed as in... just today. I just kind of dealt with it but I've recently been recording For Honor and such intense gameplay having graphical fuzziness kind of took away from the experience and I just got irritated enough to find some youtube walkthroughs that went step-by-step on increasing by video quality.

It was a rather simple matter of changing the output file from .flv to .mp4 formats. It turns 20 minute files from ~500mb into 1.3gb-ish. I don't mind it, as the quality has increased.

The dilemma I have is that I'm sitting on like, 100 videos I've yet to upload because I've sort of been dripping them into my channel over time to give the few viewers I might have some breathing room.

This leaves me a few options;

1) Stay my course. I've been uploading one video per game a day which usually amounts to 5-7 a day, depending on certain new games I might be picking up.
2) Double my output, starting doing 2 of each game a day, which might cut my backlog down from two months to just a few weeks.
3) Go insane and do like, entire playthroughs a day. My Cities: Skylines playthrough has like 20 more, my Fable Anniversary is on episode 12 or something and I've got 30 episodes left for it. I'm on episode 14ish of Mass Effect 3 and, like Fable, is up to around 35 or 40. I could blow through my backlog within a few days if I did this method to 'catch up' to my much better quality videos.
4) There's also the less ideal option of just deleting what I have so viewers don't have to suffer another 100 videos of comparable garbage. Though there is also the fact that the fuzziness is... bearable on certain games, such as Cities:Skylines and a couple of others.

Tell me what you all think.

 

[DoPo]

I don't think the quality is that bad - it's noticeable but I'd personally say it's not that big of a deal. It's comparable to some LPs from few years back and people would still watch those.

However, as for what to do - if you're that concerned about the video quality, I'd say just increase the rate of uploading videos for a while until you go through the "bad ones" and then just resume as normal on the better looking ones. I'd say it's a fair compromise. I'm not sure how much to increase it to, though, but probably 1.5[footnote]twice the amount every other day[/footnote]-2 times the amount might be fine. From what I've heard it's better to upload consistently, rather than do big batches of uploads, so I guess that's a better option since the update frequency will stay regular, overall.

As a side advice, I'd suggest you create playlists of the games, so it's easier to watch each LP.

 

[Seishisha]

Just a word of hearsay/advice but i've often heard that channels which upload too many videos per day/week actualy suffer over channels with slower uploads, basicly you end up over saturating your channel with stuff and people watching feel like they can't keep up with everything your doing.

If you want an example of what im talking about look at IGN's youtube channel ( https://www.youtube.com/user/IGNentertainment/videos ), they have like 8 million subs and upload so much shit every day that the average view count for each video is little over one percent of their sub count.

Since your just starting out now is a good time to experiment with how you want to upload it might be worth trying out for a week or so to see if your average view's go up.

 

[Zydrate]

Thank you both for the advice, I might take this advice;

but probably 1.5-2 times the amount might be fine. From what I've heard it's better to upload consistently, rather than do big batches of uploads, so I guess that's a better option since the update frequency will stay regular, overall.

Probably a good idea.

Since your just starting out now is a good time to experiment with how you want to upload it might be worth trying out for a week or so to see if your average view's go up.

This would normally be a fair point but I have 17 subscribers and only two of them have actively confirmed that they watch my videos., but you still bring up a good point about over saturation and I'll consider that.

 

[Seishisha]

Well whatever you decide on, with 17 subs you basicly have nothing to loose by trying different formats, best of luck to you.

I do seem to recall aswell that youtube's algorithms are all based upon bigger numbers and interaction on channel, so basicly more views per video, more likes, more comments and oviously more subs, will put your channel higher up in search rankings. A pretty hard system to break into but persistance and quality will eventualy win out, if you stick with it and find your niche you could very well be raking in the subs before you even realise.

As stated above good luck with this.

 

[sXeth]

I think you maybe were a bit overzealous in building up that kind of backlog. Conventionally you would sit down and play through a game in a few sessions, but doing an LP you're likely starting to burn out on commentary after an hour or two. And you'll have basically no interaction with comments because you're already hours ahead of whatever they were commenting on.

If you think the content's subpar, you may just want to drop it on for completions sake. But even some pretty established channels I follow seem to try and keep it to maybe 3 or 4 hours tops. Thats a pretty geneorous allotment even for someone spending their whole leisure time each day on your channel if you're dropping that much daily. If you have a wider audience that follows different games, I could see maybe doing more, as you're providing for two separate audience segments.

 

[Zydrate]

I think you maybe were a bit overzealous in building up that kind of backlog. Conventionally you would sit down and play through a game in a few sessions, but doing an LP you're likely starting to burn out on commentary after an hour or two. And you'll have basically no interaction with comments because you're already hours ahead of whatever they were commenting on.

If you think the content's subpar, you may just want to drop it on for completions sake. But even some pretty established channels I follow seem to try and keep it to maybe 3 or 4 hours tops. Thats a pretty geneorous allotment even for someone spending their whole leisure time each day on your channel if you're dropping that much daily. If you have a wider audience that follows different games, I could see maybe doing more, as you're providing for two separate audience segments.

There's a few things about this that are inaccurate for my specific situation;
1) I have no viewerbase and thus, no comments for me to interact with.
2) With no ads, revenue, or follower base I have no obligation to play how other people want. I play what's fun to me and when I stop having fun, I stop playing.
3) I'm currently unemployed so, beyond doing some real-life applications and various household chores (Speaking as a 27 year old, chores never stop being a thing) there's not much else for me to do. Four hours is a very small time frame out of my day. I wake up at around 10:30am most days so four hours is... 2:30pm not counting bathroom breaks. So that's another EIGHT hours of me... sitting on my hands? No, I'm going to play some damn games

There is one thing I agree with; overzealous. This stemmed from excitement. Pure and simple. Once I discovered I could actually record my gameplay my previous fantasies of being employed by Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter or Game Grumps stopped being such an impossibility and now I'm actually building up a resume of sorts. Jack of AH once said in a podcast (Or an RTX panel, possibly both) that if you want to work there, his advice was just "Make stuff." Be a creator. I just started a couple months ago and of course I'm years away from being presentable to any kind of content creating company but every day I do build up several hours of content that, for each game, I'm breaking into 10-20 minute chunks. Thus the backlog.

Thanks for the advice, though

 

[Chessrook44]

As another small YouTuber (less than 400 subs after... four years now, jeez) I can at least say... holy CRAP that backlog. I may go into a bit of a ramble with my talk here but let's see what I can go with.

Now, I've done a pretty standard upload schedule. One video a day, every day, without fail (Barring one day due to technical issues). Occasionally I did a shorter multiplayer game on the side and uploaded that as well, but my main focus has been on long RPGs with many, many hours to them. I usually complete one in about 3 months or so, as it's gone.

Regarding backlog, one of that size is WAY too big. What was stated before about how you're unable to interact with people is true... I generally have a 2-hour recording Session on Saturday and Sunday, giving me 8 episodes a week, allowing me to slowly build up a small backlog in case I can't record for one reason or another. Or to give me a chance to take a small break from recording if necessary. The downside of this is the problem that you can't respond in your videos. I feel like if you don't, or take too long, people may start to think you don't care about the audience, and start drifting away. It also prevents you from reacting to tips or advice in a timely manner. You could be frustrated at an area and finally give up, only for someone in the comments to mention "Yeah uh, the button was right there." only for you to be unable to resolve that issue thanks to the fact you have 6 or 7 episodes of backlog built up to get through. Believe me, that's happened more than once to me.

And as to your statement of "I only have 17 subscribers"? You should be saying "I only have 17 subscribers AT THE MOMENT." Given time, you WILL gain more, and if you get into a habit of posting people will become expectant of that. You will find regular commenters and viewers give tips or advice as they watch you, and it can be good to respond to them, especially in videos.

And finally, upload count. From the sound of it, you ARE oversaturating a bit. People only have so much time in a day, and they may not be able to watch all your videos, especially if they have others they wish to watch. I think 2 videos a day is usually an amount that has worked for some successful YouTubers. Maybe you could pull out three, but I wouldn't go higher.

And yes, I hear your statement of "I have all this time in the day, I'm going to GAME". Yes this is true. So game what you want on your own time. You don't HAVE to do Let's Plays of EVERYTHING you do. Hell your voice will get tired. Instead, record what you want for your channel, and then spend the rest of your time playing whatever you wish, off the clock. No pressure to entertain, or do well, or anything. Yanno?

Again, I may have come across a bit rambly there. But I guess I just wanted to mention some things, give some opinion, and so on.

 

[Zydrate]

Eyyy, there's a lot to unpack here so let's get through it. Thanks for the post!

And as to your statement of "I only have 17 subscribers"? You should be saying "I only have 17 subscribers AT THE MOMENT." Given time, you WILL gain more, and if you get into a habit of posting people will become expectant of that. You will find regular commenters and viewers give tips or advice as they watch you, and it can be good to respond to them, especially in videos.

Of course I do plan on evening out my upload speed/time/amounts, etc. My dilemma is that I currently have a few MUCH better quality videos but people won't be able to start seeing them for, at minimum, 2 entire months and some change.

And finally, upload count. From the sound of it, you ARE oversaturating a bit. People only have so much time in a day, and they may not be able to watch all your videos, especially if they have others they wish to watch. I think 2 videos a day is usually an amount that has worked for some successful YouTubers. Maybe you could pull out three, but I wouldn't go higher.

Again, I only have a couple of people viewing as it is, and they're largely only concerned with a couple of the games I do. In that respect, I'll work on building up an actual playlist for my various games to help organize their viewing a bit. That way, they can do a couple here and there at their own leisure.

In the future, as my subbers grow, most of the viewing will be retroactive. I'm trying to negate this issue.

And yes, I hear your statement of "I have all this time in the day, I'm going to GAME". Yes this is true. So game what you want on your own time. You don't HAVE to do Let's Plays of EVERYTHING you do. Hell your voice will get tired. Instead, record what you want for your channel, and then spend the rest of your time playing whatever you wish, off the clock. No pressure to entertain, or do well, or anything. Yanno?

I don't do LP's of every minute of every playthrough, that would be absurd
Currently my For Honor videos are rife with "Okay so I did a few hours off-camera, here's some of the new levels/gear I acquired"... etc.
Another example is for Mass effect 3, where I do a LOT of the Armax Arena (Citadel DLC) off camera because it's just a gold reward grindfest.
Another is Cities: Skylines. Typically when I get bored with a previous city and start a new one, I do hours of off-camera busy work. Setting down roads, pipelines, electrical grids, and anything else I might find incredibly boring to watch.
Yet another is AC:Syndicate where I spent 2 hours off camera doing collectibles for a special outfit.

So there's a lot I don't record and I've still acquired a hell of a backlog. Again; The dilemma.

 

[Zydrate]

Have you checked out the channel Video Creators yet? They actually have a lot to tell you about content rollout, technical troubleshooting and finding and attracting an audience. I've gotten a lot out of them and am using it to give my channel another swing.

I'll look into that, thank you!

 

[Zydrate]

Quality over quantity is always a good strategy for content-based endeavors. There is no shortage of videos out there to watch of any game, but if you can make yours either look technically superior (tough on YouTube) or if you have slick editing/commentary skills then that can also gain traction in the long run.

Also consider throwing in added details in the description; could be links to lossless uploads on a storage site, any additional info about the game that relates to what you're showing, like dev doc's, post mortems, songs used, etc.

You'll learn as you go. It sounds like you have the benefit of time on your side, so that's always a plus. Don't waste it!