Announcement - Major Changes Going Forward

So, today I just thought I'd share some stuff that's been going on behind the scenes that is directly affecting our channel - A lot of changes are being made by YouTube that essentially makes it to where a lot of what we do here puts us on the bad side of the algorithm, the main reasons being:
1- I don't do long form videos (No viewer retention)
2- I don't accept many sponsors (No financial promo incentives)
3- I do not make many "Shorts" (Which is where YouTube promotes most)
4- I don't live stream (At least not yet, but YouTube makes a lot of revenue with live streams, so they go out of their way to promote channels that stream often)
5- I promote software or leave links that take people out of YouTube. (This includes Unreal/Epic Games Website, ArtStation, Unity, ZBrush, Blender, ArtStation, Patreon etc)
6- The type of content we cover is not generally consistent (Because the nature of Game design, you have to know a lot about a lot of different fields. In my journey to teach you about Game Development, we have covered 3d, 2d, rigging, modeling, animation, texturing, Blender, ZBrush, Unity, etc) While this kind of content makes sense from an Indie Developer perspective, the YouTube Algorithm likely has trouble figuring out what type of people to recommend our content to because it seems sporadic and inconsistent long term.

All in all, after much introspection, I think these are probably the biggest reasons why the channel seems to grow at a steady rate (Around 2-3000 per month), as opposed to having random spikes where the algorithm kicks in. So, I'm going to see if I can make some adjustments to try and help put our channel on the "good" side of the algorithm.

Out of all the issues I've highlighted, I think the first and easiest one I can address is leaving links everywhere that take people out of YouTube. I'm pretty sure that's a big one that keeps us on YouTube's "suppress radar". So, from this day forward, I will no longer be leaving direct links to my other social media areas like my ArtStation, Rumble, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, or here on Patreon. The only links on YouTube from this moment on will be to other YouTube playlists or the YouTube tab for people to support the channel from Memberships.

What this means though, is I don't expect the size of our Support Squad here on Patreon to grow much anymore. I'll leave some visual cues and logos in the video to try and remind people to check out Patreon, but more than likely the people we have now, will be the people we have going forward - Which, honestly, I'm fine with. I think we've been able to accomplish quite a lot with our small but dedicated squad here, and I'm proud of that -

So, if you're reading this, and you're on the Squad, I just want to say thank you, and that I really appreciate everything you've done here each month. You guys are the backbone of this whole operation, and I'm truly honored to have each and everyone of you here each video :)

Anyway, that's the report for now, I'll see ya in the next vid -
And as always, hope you have a Fantastic Day-!

-RS