Becoming a Youtuber

Big Phoenix

Big Phoenix

Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
<Gold Donor>
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spronk_sl said:
man i'm old none of this makes any sense
Disney to buy YouTube network Maker Studios for $500M
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Like how? How does this make any money? Every time i hear about views, subscribers and money in regards to all this all I think of is that episode of Southpark were the kids make a video and try and collect internet money from it.

There must be a divide larger than the grand canyon between people who grew up before the internet(25+) and those who grew up their entire lives with it.
 
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Syringed_sl

shitlord
104
0
Wrathcaster_sl said:
TBH I know I've mentioned monetization in virtually every post, but it's not actually my endgame here. I don't expect that I'll ever earn much off my channel, especially with the direction Youtube is heading. I did want to monetize, however, because why the hell not? There's ads on every damn thing out there, and a lot of gamers who would actually care about ads interrupting content already use adblockers/noscript plugins.

That said, I wouldn't mind making money off the content. I'm not going to pretend that it's not a horrible thing to gain revenue from doing something I already enjoy, especially when I put a decent amount of effort into producing the material.

I know the legal hurdles, and I know those hurdles will become steeper as Youtube continues to settle with labels, megacorps, and businesses at the behest of interest groups. I do have to admit part of the attraction was seeing just how quickly I would get smacked with ContentID claims.

It took two videos. My first was content created entirely by myself (with music created by a friend) aside from the game itself. That one was fine, no problem at all. I monetized that one to test the waters

The second video was another test. I did a Let's Play of Burial Under Sea DLC and didn't turn off background music, but I didn't monetize. Slapped with copyright claim immediately from what likely amounted to a brief selection of background music. I wasn't completely surprised, but I was a bit taken aback that a channel from a guy with less than 300 views, on a video that wasn't monetized got flagged and actually claimed. I immediately took it down, of course, but it really does confound me how I got hit when so many other non-partner channels managed to stick up Let's Plays of essentially the exact same content, running ads, and not getting hit. Weird. Maybe it was just a fluke, or some sort of error? No idea.

I appreciate all the suggestions, though. I used to stream all the time, but as I said before Twitch kind of lost me because of my inability to get creative with editing and the lack of control over the end product. There's also the fact that I get a rather nasty performance drop running OBS and Dxtory at the same time. I know that there's support for using Dxtory to stream, but I've been a lazy ass about it. I suppose I'll have to work that out if I want to grow my channel.

The channel is here, if anyone cares to have a look. Would love suggestions if you guys think the channel artwork or video quality looks particularly crappy.

JendrykGaming
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Best suggestion I can offer to build a youtube gaming channel is to join a Youtube network with low requirements and a short or 'opt-out-anytime' contract. It's exactly what a lot of major gaming channels eventually have to do to build a subscriber base, get access to better ads, some protection from copyright claims (Ever wonder why channel X and Y can use copyrighted music and monetize but if you try it, you get hit with claims? The network they're apart of has the 'permission' for it most likely.) and cross-pollinate with other gaming channels in the network you've joined. (As much as people hate cross-over videos sometimes, it gets more subs/views for both parties.) You have to be careful with some networks as they can be like a bad union that offers you the world but really only takes a big chunk of your monthly check for practically nothing.

Because of the abundance of gaming channels, joining a network is pretty much considered the only way to get recognition. Certain other saturated youtube fields like fitness are becoming similar. Joining a network will mean that you'll likely have to clean up your act or heavily censor a lot of your content to please the advertisers of your network. (I got rejected out of two networks because I failed to edit out DayZ bandits calling me a 'faggot'.) It's why Angry Joe has to bleep out most of his cursing unless he's on Blip.tv as Maker Studios is his network.

Some networks like Machinima are so big that it's easy for smaller channels to squeeze in and expand quickly if your content isn't garbage and you can satisfy the minimal requirements. Believe me, it's not that much. There's Machinima partners with under 100 subs. If you're interested, you can read more about Gaming Youtube Networks here:Youtube Gaming Networks
 
Falstaff

Falstaff

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Gnomedolf_sl said:
Only tip I can give you is to have big tits. If you don't have big tits, get them. If you're a guy, you should still get big tits.
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Definitely.

691GWQI.jpg
 
W

Wrathcaster

Didn't give up. Been very busy with IRL and DayZ, my primary medium, has been extremely erratic as of late as a result of instability caused by patches. Given the limited amount of time I've had to work on it, and the extreme amount of time it requires to make a Youtube-quality DayZ video, the connection, lag, desync, and general random nature of player interactions has made recording a bit of a fool's errand recently. Nemesis and Muurloen informed me that the majority of the network problems have been resolved for now, and I have a bit more free time, so I'm going to be recording more in the immediate future.

The guy who's been helping with me with music has also been very busy of late, and as I've discovered having his music before I even finished recording and editing had a huge impact on my ability to create content. It was a weird synergy process whereby I'd get a bit of inspiration from the tracks he gave me, and he'd make some material based on some recommendations I had that pertained to the footage I already possessed. Music is a big part of the process for me, so I've had to adapt without his material.

The other reason for inactivity was trying to better learn Vegas and the intricacies of Dxtory/VAC due to some performance and quality issues I was running into, along with the previously mentioned gripes about video degradation I was experiencing after uploading to Youtube. There's good news and bad news on that front (for me, at least). The good news is that I've refined my recording and editing methods into a much quicker process, and have a pretty decent grasp on the editing software, as well as found a sweet spot in rendering, codec, and performance optimization to make the whole process less painless.

The bad news is that it appears the quality degradation seems to have a whole lot more to do with DayZ Standalone. First, DayZ is horribly optimized and with my machine, I have to play on low settings in order to make the damn thing consistently playable (and allow me to actually stand a chance in PvP). It looks pretty decent as far as the final rendered product goes on my PC, but that only goes so far. Degradation seems to be unavoidable in the upload process, so the quality of the original material really matters, and I've come to the conclusion that a major difference between what I can produce and what the professional, experienced Youtube uploaders can put out in large part boils down to hardware deficiencies on my part, and at this point there's just no avoiding that.

Still, I think if the footage is entertaining enough the subpar video quality may be largely disregarded.

I will admit I got quickly burned out. Even when DayZ was functioning acceptably, I just had shit luck getting anything worthwhile recorded and that's just the nature of the game. Funny enough, the people I play with (DCNemesis, Muurloen from RR) experienced some truly epic gameplay, but they don't record (and it wouldn't have been my footage, anyway). The experience with the Bioshock Infinite/DLC Let's play copyright claim was another kick in the balls since those videos required quite a bit of time themselves, only to get fucked by ContentID.

In the interim, I'm going to do as others suggested and do more stuff with my Twitch account, which is infinitely easier. Since I can just export from Twitch to Youtube, I'll be able to at least get some more content on the channel rather than it sitting in limbo.
 
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Laedrun

Molten Core Raider
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I can't stand watching solo casters, good banter is better than an interesting game usually. Check out Lewis and Simon on yogscast, their moon quest videos are pretty fun to watch. TB, jesse cox, and dodger on cooptional-podcast is a great show and all about banter between personalities that mesh well.
 
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Syringed_sl

shitlord
104
0
Izo_sl said:
I hear Waffles is skilled at this subject.
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Lol. Waffles is a perfect example of someone who uses their time spamming random game forums with their videos instead of using that time to make those videos something that isn't unwatchable trash. Sad thing is, he'd likely have a better chance at obtaining an audience by making a Tumblr account and tagging his videos appropriately instead of posting to random gaming forums. Unfortunately, he's not that smart.
 
W

Wrathcaster

This thread was ridiculous, but at least let it be a learning experience. I had a RL and tried to do gaming Youtube at the same time with a game that just didn't mesh so well with a beginner.

Honestly, I'd overcome the technical issues but simply ran out of steam due to the difficulties of acquiring decent footage based on the particular game I'd chosen to work with. I also caught a couple of strikes on my account trying to put up videos with a few single player let's plays.

Basically, though, I got burnt out before I ever really got started. For anyone interested in getting into Youtube gaming channels never, ever, ever, ever start with something like DayZ. The footage just isn't there unless you're really lucky or really talented.

I'd say the advice here about banking on Twitch was decent, but I still maintain that Twitch as a primary medium deprives you of the ability to create some really amazing things via editing. In the end, though, it doesn't really matter.

I failed. I was really enthusiastic about trying to break into Youtube because a game I was way into was super popular on Youtube. I don't think I lack editing skill, which honestly doesn't seem to matter at all as far as popularity goes, but I just couldn't gather what I needed in the time I had to devote to the pursuit.

Advice? Do what people in the thread said. Stream. It's way easier. If you get popular enough, people will just throw you money for no decent reason whatsoever. You don't need to edit, you don't need to look for picture-perfect moments.
 
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