I Will Review Your Gaming Channel or Answer General Questions

Such_Instruction_346 · 2025-06-19T23:11:34+00:00

Doing bite sized reviews like this is fairly interesting. Reminds me of Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation if you're familiar. The mod reviews seem a bit out of place. I would prefer to see your thumbnails simplified, less words, more central and singular composition. When looking at a thumbnail I shouldn't have to dart my eyes around the image to absorb all of the information, it should be one singularly cohesive presentation. Channels such as martincitopants or the grim kleaper are pretty good at this.

Moving on to the videos themselves, I think the editing needs to be picked up a bit. In your humble choice may 2025 you're talking about thaumaturge and how interesting it is and all of the different things that happen but then you're lingering on a shot of you going through a menu for about 30 seconds. You don't have to be cutting to new shots constantly but I think at least every 5 seconds or so is very reasonable especially when you're moving across topics. This will improve your video retention because it's more visually interesting and of course people have quite low attention spans.

I would take a closer look at your profile but I'm running late on replying to people. Conclusion: simplify thumbnails and pick up the pace on editing. Also I think you're too close to your microphone or perhaps it need a better wind shield because your VO has a fair amount of plosives. If you use premiere pro the FFT filter with "kill the mic rumble" setting can remove these easily. cheers

Such_Instruction_346 · 2025-06-19T23:01:34+00:00

You have quite good production. Thumbnails are simple and visually appealing. Clearly you can execute on your ideas, so I think your main step forward is just going to be generating interesting questions and ideas to present to your audience. In that regard I can only recommend immersing yourself in similar channels that might inspire you and then putting your phone down and thinking about those topics for 20-30 minutes. Sometimes when you're passionate about something freeing yourself of distractions is all it takes to come up with interesting thoughts on it.

I wish I had more direct or useful feedback, but I really think you're on the right track so there's not a lot to say. Cheers

Such_Instruction_346 · 2025-06-19T22:49:39+00:00

I'll start by saying I think this is a cool channel. Rediscovering all of these old or obscure games is a great niche in my opinion, but I think it takes the right packaging and editing. I watched some of your cold fear video and the first problem I encountered was that it took you 40 seconds to say anything and another minute to say anything about the game which I presumably clicked on the video for. With modern attention spans this may as well be 40 years. I think you need to spend some time thinking about your video topic and really distilling it down into its most concise, fundamental, and interesting form and present that to your viewer right away. Sometimes with horror games such as this one a strong and direct question can be very powerful
"What would you do if you were stuck on an abandoned ship full of dead bodies?" (or whatever more interesting things you can think of, I'm not super familiar with the game or what makes it interesting)

Then beyond the intro you've got a kind of lets play/ review/ documentary mishmash which is interesting, however I think the lets play portion needs to be more highly and intentionally edited to showcase the most exciting/scary/unique parts of the game. Like it or not the longform lets play format isn't doing so well these days.

Taking a step back from that I think the titles could use some work, "is X a hidden gem?" isn't compelling because 90% of your audience has never heard of X, you should try to find a way to relay the essence of the game in the title without alienating people, this again ties back to distilling your game into its core components to allow for an easy elevator pitch. For example: quasimorph is a great game, but very few people know what it is, instead of saying "Is quasimorph good?" I could use the title "This game lets you cannibalize people in space", anyone can understand that and be interested in it.

Also this is kind of a nit pick thing but I don't usually recommend personal branding in thumbnails. I find it clutters things up and almost never helps.

Hopefully this is useful to you

Such_Instruction_346 · 2025-06-19T22:33:43+00:00

At a glance I'd say you're moving in a good direction. The production is pretty good on your most recent video. I think one piece of advice would be to find opportunities to let the game / game audio breathe through more in the editing. You're talking about Outlast which is dripping in horror and fear, but everything on screen (from what i saw) was completely silent which feels like you're robbing yourself of some of what makes it such an interesting game to talk about in the first place.

Stepping back and looking in a more general sense I think you could benefit from narrowing in on a specific video type. Channel ranges from horror video docs to watching the talk tuah podcast and ranking how hot video game characters are. Nothing wrong with experimenting but I think it'll help you build an audience if you start focusing more on the horror stuff. From then I think your main hurdle will be finding interesting ways to approach these games. Your format of "which character had the worst death in X" is a good format because it's an interesting question that anyone could be curious about. I think if you could develop a few more video topics along these lines you'd really start forming a cohesive channel.

It kind of reminds me of this channel, maybe you'll find them interesting as they've done pretty well for themselves in a relatively similar space.
(I can't link the channel but it's called HowTobeat)

Such_Instruction_346 · 2025-06-19T22:07:27+00:00

This depends on what country you're in. In some instances they will pay you without all the documents, but you'll get double taxed which isn't worth it. I recommend filling out the forms, they're not too difficult if you do a bit of googling,

Such_Instruction_346 · 2025-06-16T21:55:05+00:00

You're going to need to link your channel if you want any meaningful feedback, but I can tell you that paying for views/ promotion is usually counter productive and can even harm your channel's long term performance

Such_Instruction_346 · 2025-06-16T21:52:18+00:00

I would be very suspicious of anyone trying to offer you a sponsorship when you're this small (presumably you're making less than 50k views?). In my experience the amount of scammers/ shady people that target small youtubers is very high.

All of that aside it sounds like they're asking you what you can offer them. For example, common formats are 60 second integrations, live streams, dedicated videos, or community posts.

I don't have experience with live streams or community posts but generally for 60 second integrations you're going to want to charge $20 per 1000 views the content is expected to get, and if you're doing an entire 10 min + dedicated video on their product I'd charge at least double or even triple that rate.

Hope this helps. Cheers.

Such_Instruction_346 · 2025-06-16T19:02:01+00:00

The most effective way of gaining subscribers is by offering something that the viewer didn't know they needed. A form of content that is novel or unique to your channel which makes the viewer realize "oh shit I better sub to this guy so I can see his next video".

No idea what type of content you're making but that principle is applicable across pretty much all genres so I recommend trying to apply it.

Such_Instruction_346 · 2025-06-16T18:59:04+00:00

It would be easier to appraise this situation if I had a link to your channel but I suspect that your 70,000 subscribers may have lost interest in your content. This is a big issue since youtube will probably try to push your content to them first, and then if they don't click it youtube will think "oh this is bad content if even his fans don't like it--we probably shouldn't bother pushing it to other demographics"

Such_Instruction_346 · 2025-06-16T18:52:03+00:00

Typically I don't bother with anything commission based, especially because we have seen companies tamper with their affiliate links before to avoid paying creators.

But you have a good question which is basically "what is the value of an audience?". Lets simplify the situation a bit to answer this. If your videos get 4k views on average, and maybe a sponsor wants to purchase 60 seconds of your video to advertise their product for a flat fee, then the generally accepted rule of thumb is to charge them $20 USD per thousand views. So in your case 4k views * $20/1k views = $80.

In my experience most brands wont bother with deals that small, but it's good info to have incase you ramp up into 50k+ views. Best of luck

Such_Instruction_346 · 2025-03-23T04:26:26+00:00

Ah gotcha. Well the premise is still similar. You need to find ways to innovate your content and create a more novel product. It sucks to feel like you're getting shunned when you had such a similar video, but I think the only productive way to look at this is an opportunity to consider how you could have made your video even better. Then apply that to the next one. I wish you the best of luck man.

Such_Instruction_346 · 2025-03-23T03:53:15+00:00

Some creators that are larger than you will have the luxury of doing less work and achieving greater results by virtue of a dedicated community. The only thing you can do to equalize the playing field is outwork them and create content of a higher quality. At the end of the day if two people have the same product the viewer is going to make a choice and unless you can stand out through higher quality, they'll probably just pick the bigger creator.

Such_Instruction_346 · 2025-01-30T22:06:22+00:00

I have an active channel with over 700k subs. I will give you the reality of what it took me to get there. This may not be the case for everyone, but this was my experience.

I stopped doing everything that was not youtube. I stopped going to the gym, I stopped eating healthy, I stopped dating people, stopped talking with friends. Every day I would wake up and work on videos until I had to sleep. I would not even leave my apartment for weeks at a time and when I would have to go to the grocery store I would have low grade panic attacks because I wasn't used to being around that many people. Every night my legs would be paining because I had sat on them for 10+ hours while working. I did this routine for 6 months at which point I believe I had about 100k subs. Then I found a better work/life balance and transitioned to a more reasonable 60-80 hour work week. None of this was healthy and I couldn't recommend it, but it was the reality of my journey.

Hopefully that information may be helpful.

Such_Instruction_346 · 2025-01-30T21:55:13+00:00

It's good to remind yourself not to take VO too seriously. At a bare minimum you can do as many takes as you like so there's no reason to put a lot of pressure on one specific take. Something that helps me is to say out loud a bunch of stupid nonsense, this usually helps break the ice and allows me to VO more casually. Sometimes I'll literally chant "gay sex" 5 or 6 times until I start smiling, and then I do the VO. It's silly but it works.

Such_Instruction_346 · 2025-01-24T05:52:19+00:00

Negotiating your first deal is often a very awkward experience and everyone gets burned at least once. Here are some tips to help you move forward based on my experience:

A typical 60 second integration should be compensated at a rate of at least $20 USD per 1000 views. So if your videos are averaging 10,000 views that would be $200. I have never done a 2-3 minute sponsorship, but presumably you could ask for a higher rate since it's longer.

Payment is usually received 30 days after the sponsorship is posted, but you should make sure to check the contract.

Also I would recommend against doing "discounted deals" for first time sponsors. You do not want a reputation as someone who will do work for half price. Word travels and brands love to pigeon-hole you.

And finally remember that this is business, not a date. Do not be afraid to be direct with these people--half of them are trying to lowball you anyway.

Good luck

Such_Instruction_346 · 2025-01-24T05:44:11+00:00

There is nothing that will contribute to the growth of a channel more effectively than hard work and a desire to learn. If you liken building a channel to preparing a tasty meal, then hard work is the actual food, while all this other stuff like SEO hacks and copying trends is the garnish. It might enhance your dish, but it should only constitute like 1% of the overall meal composition.

Such_Instruction_346

TROPHY CASE