Video Production Update January 8th 2025 (and 2024 re-cap)

In this update I want to let you in on the current video progress while taking stock of 2024's achievements and where I want to take the channel and Patreon into 2025 and beyond. Hopefully they'll be some good incites into both my process so far and going forward.

Looking back, I'm a little disappointed with how the year turned out. I'm pretty proud of my Final Fantasy content (especially the Final Fantasy 13 video) and I feel like the Rayman video came out extra fun without being any less informative and thorough. Please let me know what your favourite video of the year was though.

That said I don't feel like the year was representative of my best, and there weren't quite the right amount of truly meaty channel defining videos as I'd have liked.

Back at the start of 2020 I felt like I had a lot of big projects on the back burner I wasn't getting to by being distracted on smaller projects so I went all in on big larger videos like Silent Hill 2, Killzone, Overblood, etc. This lead to what I think was a great streak of big videos, and I think I'm at a point now again where it's time time for a similar sort of reset. I'm in a similar place right now to early 2020, with big projects in mind but a constant voice in the back of my head telling me "to do those big ones after this quick little one". I think we need to put that voice on mute again.

This is what lead me to do last month's content vote, so I can get the ball rolling on more big meaty content again. The vote is still live, if you're a Legend Backer (5 dollars and above) then you can still have your say here. In fact I think about half of those eligible to vote haven't yet. I'll probably keep the vote up for another week or so.

Unless there's a voting upset for the ages though it looks like Silent Hill 4 is well ahead of the pack. In preparation I've recorded a playthrough.

It's easy to relate to the protagonist of this game in my line of work. Wake up, go into another world (with a computer, instead of a portal), then wake up the next morning and do it again.

Rest assured you're in for a big video because there is a LOT to say about this game. Maybe not as much as SH3 but If this doesn't go over the hour mark I'll be shocked.

                                                             "Time to edit more audio".

In January last year I had a go at doing weekly videos. It was a lot of work but the videos made came out pretty good all things considered. There's definitely a thrill to be posting so often but I'm not sure the amount of work needed to it is worth it for my channel. It becomes almost impossible to spend time making the bigger videos that I like to do and quite frankly the bigger videos are also the ones that tend grow the channel, usually getting more attention than 4 shorter videos combined.

Here's the thing, I don't like discussing the ins and outs of "how to do well" on Youtube with you all. I feel like I see a lot of content creators spend too much time uhhming and ahhing over algorithms and then relaying their discoveries over to their audience in an attempt to curry favour and understanding - when maybe all that thought should just be put into making a great video. But I hope you can forgive me for breaking my rule and getting into it just once, simply as a way to explain what's coming next.

I subscribe to what some might say is a naive view of things. I truly believe if I make something impressive it will be spread and get an audience and if that doesn't happen the content wasn't quite as spectacular as it could have been.

That said, some types of content are just never gonna be spectacular smash hits no matter what you do. Talking about an NES game like Shatterhand isn't gonna shake the world without some high level of deceptive framing, "The Greatest NES Game", "The Most Underrated NES Game" - and even then there's no guarantee.

Sometimes a game just isn't "An Underrated Hidden Gem" or "The Best/Worst X Ever" but something that's just interesting to talk about to a smaller crowd.

Those smaller niche videos are lot of fun to make and the reception is always very positive. It's when I get comments from the viewers most like myself - interesting and fascinated by older interesting titles and thrilled at the chance to discover something new or see something cool and overlooked have a place in the current discourse.

But I think the delivery system for that kind of content has to change because while a lot of algorithm fortune telling is just that, one thing is true, and that's that Youtube is less likely to recommend your videos (even to your own subscribers) when not a lot of subscribers watch a video - because it assumes not a lot of your own followers were interested.

And look, I don't need a Shatterhand video to get a lot of views for my ego or anything and I don't expect it to get them, out of my 200k subscribers I do believe only 10% of those would be interested. I'm perfectly fine with it getting the views it gets but if it's slowly gonna cause my channel to recede into the shadows then even the good intentions of sharing a niche game are gonna be self defeating.

Again, even addressing this sort of topic sounds like a gloomy moan, but I'm actually quite optimistic about things going forward.

Here's what I'm thinking, so I can continue covering all the things I want to cover.

As I said before I want to get back to making some bigger videos but I also want to recommend the niche things I always have. Since I'm gonna assume the kind of people who love the niche recommendation videos are the same people who back the Patreon, I'm thinking of moving that shorter nicher content here. I'm not sure yet if I'll change the tiers or what for that yet, but I think it makes some sense to do.

Maybe I could do a series of recommendation videos on different NES or PS1 games on the Patreon and then combine them together down the line into one big video on the channel.

I recently did an Insider Review on the point and click game Barrow Hill. I put a little more effort into this one than the average Insider and I think it's the type of video better suited to those who seek out weird interesting stuff than throwing it like a message in bottle to the Youtube Ocean. You can view it if you're an Insider Backer here.

This isn't to say I won't make videos about niche subjects on Youtube. Some obscure things have something special enough about them (Overblood 2, Gallerians) to where it can attract a wider audience on their own. It will be a case by case basis thing. My ideal scenario would be to make the Patreon a cool hub for niche content we can share and discuss with each other, one that isn't beholden to the Youtube economics. Of course all of these lofty ambitions will be restricted by time, so we'll see how it goes.

If you have any questions or comments feel free to jot them down below. I'm pretty reserved about the video process on Youtube and Twitch etc, but am of course open to hearing from those gracious enough to support the show financially. It's still here thanks to you all, and I hope you have a great 2025!