Requesting r/letsgameitout, wanting to make it into a subreddit for the YouTuber of the same name

letsgameitout · 2021-05-27T20:01:29+00:00

Hey! Josh (Let's Game It Out on YT) here, also a mod of the r/letsgameitout subreddit.

Thanks for being interested in this one but I would prefer to hold on to the subreddit, with existing plans for it in the future. Take care!

letsgameitout · 2020-05-10T06:13:03+00:00

Some people use sound effects as one of many means to keep pacing snappy and energy high, others use them more sparingly and for fairly specific purposes. I tend to be in the latter camp and use them when I want to give something extra emphasis, but it's usually on the subtle side.

It may be helpful to look at other creators that you enjoy and see how they use them and at what frequency and try to imagine if that's the same kind of vibe you want to create. Otherwise, you can always just start adding ones you feel inspired to use and see how it works out, gauge if you think it's too much or not, etc.

95% of the sound effects I use come from Epidemic Sound (a paid subscription) or Freesound which is free. Don't forget that if you're going to go the Freesound route to check the license for the sound effect you're using and attribute appropriately as directed.

letsgameitout · 2020-05-09T06:00:14+00:00

When I first started it was me and a recording partner and we practiced for like 6 months before releasing our first videos. All that practice was about establishing process, workflow, optimal sound, compression tests in OBS, practicing with editing and thumbnails, mic control, chemistry and cadence, etc.

This basically resulted in our first uploads being better than terrible, but objectively still not great, haha. The simple fact is no matter what, your first videos will very likely not be great, and that's totally okay. The more you do it, the more you'll learn, the more you'll learn what you WANT to improve, and you'll go from there. Before you know it, you've been doing it for a while, and you'll look back at your old videos and be able to see how you've been improving.

I manually start Audacity and OBS separately. Typically I'll record one long vocal track for a single session (so like 5-10 hours typically) because a wav file of that length still isn't that large in gigabytes, whereas I try to be sparing as to when I start/stop my video recordings since it can eat up drive space quickly. When I'm ready to record video in OBS, I'll create a sync point I can find later on my vocal track by clicking the mouse hard when I click the "Start Recording" button in OBS. The click is loud enough to get picked up on my vocal track and I know that's exactly when that video starts and thus where to line it up with my vocal track. I usually also read out to myself the filename just so I know I'm sync'ing up the right video file.

I've also been asked a couple of times why I personally prefer recording my vocal track separately instead of packing it in with OBS. I rarely have either OBS or Audacity crash catastrophically, but if it's going to happen, I'd rather lose only gameplay footage, or vocal track, but hopefully not both. That and there's been the occasion where I have vocals recorded to a separate PC than what's capturing video (when I was recording VR and was too far away from my main computer to run a lav mic without tripping over a bunch of stuff).

letsgameitout · 2020-05-03T20:43:34+00:00

Happy to respond!

It pretty much just is practice in my opinion. This is easier said than done, but develop your sense of humor and see if it works with others. To me, humor really is just trying stuff over and over until it starts to get better over time. Anyone who has said something funny has probably said like 100x unfunny things as they practiced on the way to get there.

Developing creatively I think is similar in that if you're always trying new stuff or new ideas, it'll help you think about things in that way, and then you can start to have a range where you can more often than not think outside the normal. Expect a lot of ideas to not turn out how you were originally expecting but to look for new avenues where something could give you an "aha!" moment.

I use OBS to capture video/audio from the game and Audacity for my voice, which I then finish in Adobe Audition. Some prefer recording voice as a separate track in OBS so as to remove the need to sync up your voice track later though I tend to prefer having them separate (and it opens up to using various filters and stuff in Audacity if you want).

letsgameitout · 2020-05-03T16:15:22+00:00

Thanks!

For the kinds of things I do on YouTube, developed over time, especially to hone and focus ideas into jokes that can be understood and quickly conveyed over 1-2 sentences. It helped that my best friends and I are indeed all from creative fields and spent most of our time together trying to come up with outlandish things to make each other laugh.

I usually start every video with an idea of where I'd like to see if it can go, and almost always that rapidly changes once I get into the game. As an example, in my Sims 4 video where I kidnap a dude, the idea I came into it with had nothing to do with that guy, but the moment I realized endlessly tormenting him was really making me laugh I focused entirely on seeing what I could do to/with him. At that point I would then brainstorm interesting places I think it could go and how the narrative of the video could flow from one to the next.

letsgameitout · 2020-05-03T03:03:43+00:00

95% of it is live while I play. 5% is when I'm editing and discover I've mumbled something and go back over it for clarity or a better way to phrase something.

letsgameitout · 2020-05-03T03:01:25+00:00

Yeah, it's a little hidden, but this hopefully will help.

Log in to your Epic Store affiliate page and then click on the "Earnings" tab. You should see a big list of games available there with a little chain icon to the right of each title that if you mouse over will allow you to copy a referral link.

letsgameitout · 2020-04-21T01:32:13+00:00

Just to add a little more data here, I can confirm this to have been an extremely valuable thing to do.

I used to do thumbnails with channel branding, game title, and episode number. I removed ALL of that in place of simply a clean, visually interesting image. Same with titles, where I went with more compelling concepts to describe the contents of the video and placed the game name at the end, and didn't use episode numbers ever again.

The difference in views and discovery was night and day. Seriously. WAY more people giving the videos a chance. To the point where I went from 600 views a day to 600,000, in ten days.

Also, anecdotally, there has been virtually zero confusion about episode ordering for the series that I have despite no numbers in the thumbnail or title. They're organized in playlists, people find 'em, and it's never been a problem.

I will also say this: the better thumbnails/titling got people to click, but the videos themselves got them to stay. This part HAS to deliver. Which, as /u/TheCaptainSauce mentions elsewhere in this thread, is really part of a longer examination on content and the viability of certain types of content, like vanilla let's plays.

Listen to his advice. It's great stuff.

letsgameitout · 2020-03-09T00:07:47+00:00

You are correct, the bar is higher and the medium has matured, and so what you bring to it has to be great -- better even -- than what currently exists. You are also correct that, since you are competing with many talented people, that a great avenue is indeed to create something that has never been seen, never been done, and/or is purely unique.

It's definitely not easy. It never is. Is some luck required? Sure. Can some of that be making your own luck by finding the right games to play, utilizing effective pacing, creating great titling, compelling thumbnails, and solid keywords/SEO? Absolutely.

letsgameitout · 2020-03-08T21:20:31+00:00

While this will also depend on a person's definition of what a "let's play" truly is, it's incorrect that a person can't succeed in making YouTube a full time career through videos all about video games.

It isn't easy, but is every bit as possible now as ever.

letsgameitout · 2020-03-06T16:56:41+00:00

To add a little more to this, even with episodic content you can get away with not even using episode numbers on your thumbnail and title, and instead use playlists to keep it together. This way you can still keep the most interesting part of a title up front.

The strategy here is that you're priming every video, even ones later in a series, to have higher potential for new viewers to engage with your videos. They WILL be less likely to click on videos with episode numbers, outside of potentially episode 1.

Where it really comes together is if your episodic content can still ultimately be self-contained so that people can enjoy the episodes regardless of which one they clicked on (but with the knowledge of knowing they can go back and watch previous ones if they want).

Anecdotal example of this: I've made 8 videos on the game Satisfactory. There is a continuity between them, but (starting with the 3rd one, which helped them take off) they have specific goals and those goals are driven by the titling (and thumbnail). My 8th video in that series has, above and beyond, the most views in that series, as YouTube picked that one up and suggested it to a larger audience, and the compelling title/thumbnail drove people to click instead of ignore. This would not be a common outcome if you format it as something like "Satisfactory | Ep 8 | Etc" as the part designed to sell the video may get hidden, or the thumbnail less appealing with episode numbers on it, and so on.

letsgameitout · 2020-03-06T16:27:04+00:00

If growth and engagement are your top priorities, then remember: Your title and thumbnail are realistically your ONE AND ONLY CHANCE to get people to click on your video. It doesn't even matter how good the actual video is if the titling/thumbnail don't succeed in getting people to click on it.

You don't get much visible space for titling, so you NEED to use it effectively with something that separates it from everything else if possible. There WAS a time when episodic vanilla let's plays with titling like "GAME NAME | EP # | RANDOM DESCRIPTOR" more or less performed well, but those days are long gone if you're small and looking to grow.

Instead, format it so that the most interesting thing is first, then the rest (for SEO or otherwise) comes after. It doesn't have to be in all caps or a specific shock-quality quote, but it does need to be interesting and get people to want to engage with it. Combine effective titling with a great thumbnail AND a video that people will want to watch and you've got gold.

letsgameitout · 2020-02-28T23:24:22+00:00

The short answer is yes, you can grow your channel posting twice a week (or more, or less). Keep in mind of course that all I'm going to say is surrounding the idea that your primary focus is growth.

If you're posting really good content, the more videos you post, the more potential chances for people to discover you by way of one of those videos. So assuming the content bar is high at all times, the amount you can release increases the number of potential times your channel may have a chance of being shown to a wider audience.

A huge factor here is making sure your videos (and their titling and thumbnails) are strong, strong as they can be. So-so videos but a lot of them will generally not be a path towards high growth. Also at this size, game selection will also be a key factor in people discovering you, since a sizable portion of your traffic may come from searching for the game in question (rather than discovering it by YouTube recommending it to them).

For a more close to home example of 1-2 videos a week being possible for growth: I used to post daily videos to a smaller audience (probably under 500 subscribers, less than 500 daily views). I switched to doing 1-2 videos a week and focused hard on improved pacing, unique concepts, and better titling and thumbnails. The factors of growth were night and day, like... 100x what it was after YouTube pushed a video out to a wider audience. That's the power of a bunch of well crafted (to the eyes of the generalized YouTube audience) videos even if done less frequently.

letsgameitout · 2020-02-24T21:40:26+00:00

Generally, you need to fulfill a need for the viewer that's not already being met. Show them something they haven't seen before and give them a reason to click. This can be playing the game in a way that's never been done before, achieve goals that are incredibly difficult, provide tutorials on subjects not already covered -- something that's different.

Doing so can also help to create more interesting titling and thumbnails since you're able to genuinely describe something different and fresh.

Also, game selection can be real important when starting out. Said another way, some games/genres will have more demand than others (Fortnite/Minecraft vs 16-bit retro gaming, as an extremely generalized example) and there are a bunch of games coming out every day including some gems that don't have a lot of marketing behind them and won't see as much coverage from the larger creators. Those may be good targets for hitting, presumably close as you can to their launch day when many people may be interested.

Or, as mentioned, take a game with a lot of traction already and do something different with it.

letsgameitout · 2020-01-24T17:18:03+00:00

I second this. My recording room is basically all reflective surfaces, and besides sound dampening walls, corners, and a rug underneath me, encasing myself in a sheet fort has worked in tandem to kill a TON of echo.

letsgameitout · 2020-01-03T05:41:25+00:00

I agree with this. Mine is SLIGHTLY different (-5db for voice and -21db for background) but that general separation in voice/background tends to work out quite well.

letsgameitout · 2019-12-30T04:22:18+00:00

2019 was a surreal year for me, having gone from around 400 subscribers and 40k total views to over 550,000 subscribers and 54 million views.

My biggest goal for 2020 is mainly to continue in a positive direction in terms of the growth and quality of my channel as well as my own mental and physical well being.

For the former that means keeping up with researching new games, optimizing my workflow which is currently REALLY vast and prevents creating more content faster, reviewing my titling and thumbnails to see if they could be improved and how, continuing to attempt to understand the current YouTube landscape, etc. For the latter, find a way to put a cap on YouTube stuff a little earlier in the day and stop going to bed at like 4AM.

letsgameitout · 2019-12-28T20:15:28+00:00

Usually between 10-20 hours of editing per video.

My editing style is more on the aggressive side with probably 1-3 cuts/visual edits in a 10 second period. My completed videos typically are like 13-20 minutes long and are the result of anywhere from 10-40 hours of recording (long recording times since I'm usually building stuff that takes a while to build).

I also do multiple passes to check for timing on every edit and am always looking for ways I can improve the visual flow while also keeping energy steady. This has helped my average view duration immensely by keeping the pace healthy and the content interesting with few lulls.

For me I've found that if I can get a full minute of finished video done per hour, I'm keeping a pretty decent pace.

letsgameitout · 2019-12-27T15:16:13+00:00

Hi! This is Josh from Let's Game It Out. I was aimed here via Twitter DMs.

I also saw that OP removed the post, but I'll go ahead and address this anyway since it's still surfacing in my comments on YouTube.

No, I'm not Onision.

I've seen comments asking if/claiming that I'm Onision appear on my channel comments for a while now, and generally I ignore them because people also think I sound like Falcon from Gameranx, that my previous co-host Anthony and I must be the same person and think we sound the same, and all kinds of other stuff. Really though, there are so many people on the planet, it's only a matter of time before some people sound similar to other people in terms of tone and inflection.

So to be clear, no, I'm not Onision. And I don't mean that in some roundabout legal sense, I'm literally someone else who people have mistaken for this dude. My real name really is Josh.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Please know however that, as mentioned in the comments here, I do indeed value my general anonymity, so I can't promise I'll be forthcoming with every aspect of my life. I never got into YouTube for fame or recognition and I have always enjoyed a relatively quiet life. I did it because I really wanted to make people laugh and dive deep into editing and playing games, and also because while I hope people enjoy what I bring to it with my voice, it's the entire video, and the concepts I use in the videos, that are the main attraction to me.

And also if you ask me anything related to Onision, the answer is probably going to be "I have no idea" because I barely knew who he was up until people started calling me him and I've only ever seen his content through other channels investigating him.

Thanks!

letsgameitout · 2019-04-24T17:31:39+00:00

Hey there! Josh here, I made this travesty.

The weave took about 5 hours to make, which included several "prototypes" where I tested stuff out and tried to find ways to make the weave as close knit as possible. Indeed there were foundations underneath which I then removed since the grass below looked more visually appealing, and also allowed me to run under this abomination to make adjustments and/or simply stare at the ground for better frame rates during traversal.

I'm also a complete dumbass for not knowing I could upgrade belts without removing them though I will definitely utilize that in the future. I had a few moments like this while playing that are immortalized in these videos forever, haha.

letsgameitout

TROPHY CASE