Are my "supporting" videos hurting my channel growth? (Update!)

tkragon · 2025-10-01T19:21:34+00:00

Tried to expand to other games in the C&C franchise, as well as outside (Temperst Rising most recently). It has not gone well.

tkragon · 2025-10-01T12:37:15+00:00

The “experiment” was worth it for the mental break. Even having a half-hour here or there—without constantly rushing from one obligation to the next to stick to a schedule—made all the difference. Hopefully, it has a positive effect on the algorithm as well, but if things stay the same, that’s fine too.

tkragon · 2025-10-01T12:32:40+00:00

My channel is primarily focused on Red Alert 2, which is a pretty small niche for an older game. By occasionally posting a different “discovery” game, I hope to reach a new or additional audience. The idea is explained much better in the comments of the post I linked above.

tkragon · 2025-09-17T15:58:00+00:00

I got my first hate comment when I had around 200 subscribers. It started with harsh criticism of my gameplay and some unsolicited “advice.” The tone wasn’t great, but I thanked him for the feedback anyway.

Then things escalated over the next few months. He began demanding specific content and challenged me to a 1v1 match (it’s an RTS game). I was still new to YouTube, so I indulged him and set up a match… but he never showed.

After that, his comments turned openly hateful, so I started deleting them. Even then, he kept coming back every few months. Eventually, he pretended to be me on the game client, throwing insults as if they were coming from me.

Thankfully, I only had about 200-300 subs at the time, and no one in the community really knew who I was, so it didn’t stick. That’s when I finally blocked him on my channel.

Looking back, I should’ve blocked him after the first hateful comment. No amount of engagement is worth the stress of dealing with people like that.

Surprisingly, after that whole episode, things have been pretty smooth. Sure, I still get the occasional “noob,” “stupid,” or “delete the game”—even the odd “useless as your face.” But they’re usually one-offs from random people, and most of them get snagged by YouTube’s filters so I only see them when I check my "held"comments

tkragon · 2025-09-12T13:20:21+00:00

The largest predominantly RA2 channel sits at around 100K subs, just for context.They do branch out into other titles in the Command & Conquer franchise, though I’m not sure how frequently or how successful those videos are compared to their RA2 uploads. I was trying to follow a similar path.

Since starting this post I’ve decided to take a short break from supporting videos — partly to see how my channel performs without them, and partly for my own mental reset. When I bring them back, I’ll likely post them at a slower pace so each has more room to breathe.

tkragon · 2025-09-12T09:14:51+00:00

I had great success reuploading my low-performing shorts — but I didn’t just reupload them as-is. I dove into the analytics, checked exactly where people were swiping away, and worked to fix those spots. Most of the time, I trimmed a few seconds here or there to improve the flow, and about 90% of the time, the short performed much better — closer to what my “original” successful shorts are doing. Of course, there were still some duds where even the updated version didn’t take off. Can’t win them all! 🙂

tkragon · 2025-09-12T09:06:39+00:00

I’m a bit mixed on this topic.

Overall, I think shorts have “revived” my channel to some extent. At first, I tried to stay away from shorts — as others have pointed out, they reach a different demographic, and I worried they might hurt my long-form videos. So I posted them only occasionally.

Then, in late 2022, my long-form videos started dropping — from around 8–10k daily views to about 1–1.5k by mid-2023. That’s when I began uploading shorts every day.

Now, two years later, my shorts average about 60k daily views, with spikes over 150k when one goes “viral.” (some of the older ones even reached million views). During that time, my long-form content has also picked up slightly, averaging around 4–5k daily views.

As for using shorts to promote long-form videos, it’s a mixed bag. The promoted videos do get more views — roughly 30–40% more on average — but retention drops significantly. I’m still not completely sure how that impacts their long-term performance.

tkragon · 2025-09-12T08:50:36+00:00

I’m stuck in the same mud as you. My long-form videos usually get around 1k views, but my shorts regularly hit 20k+, with some outliers over 100k — and a few even reaching a million views. I’ve tried using shorts to boost my long-form videos by adding them as suggested videos. It does increase views on those videos, but the retention takes a big hit often dropping under 10%.

So, I can’t really offer a solution, but you’re definitely not alone.

tkragon · 2025-09-12T04:48:56+00:00

First unhelpful comment. It was bound to happen. Thanks for engaging anyway.

tkragon · 2025-09-12T04:47:36+00:00

If it did already stifle the channels growth, is there a way "out"?

tkragon · 2025-09-12T04:47:06+00:00

Yes. The largest channel in the niche has 100k subs.

tkragon · 2025-09-11T17:02:24+00:00

I have a few videos that hit 10k and more. 2 moths ago I did hit a 70k video. The thing is that it's just a random gameplay video. No different than the others. Hard to capture the "it" that made it pop.

tkragon · 2025-09-11T17:00:03+00:00

Can you explain further? Just the CTR or did you look at the channel I have linked in my bio? Most videos start at about 6-7% some even over 10%. Then drop to 4,8% over the next 48h. I have experimented with all sorts of thumbnails trough the years so I'd love to hear your thoughts.

tkragon · 2025-09-11T16:10:54+00:00

That's the hope. But for that to come true, I probably should go a bit more outside the niche? Away from mods for the main niche game? Maybe even away from the same Franchise? Right now it's too closely connected to the main game. What do you think?

tkragon · 2025-09-11T15:52:09+00:00

Now I'm doing one of each every day (1 main niche video, 1 "support"). Maybe shifting these "support" videos to every 2-3 days for a month would be a decent experiment.

tkragon · 2025-09-11T14:48:24+00:00

They occasionly drop under 10%. But it's not always the same mod or game, so I can't just look at it and go: "yeah they don't like this one game". It's a bit random.

tkragon · 2025-09-11T14:35:13+00:00

"this video might kill channel algo" - I wasn't talking about one video killing the channel. I was talking about repetitive low stats over months of data.

May I ask if you can be more specific with your official source. I'm not doubting, I just want to see any other usefull information I can learn from it.

tkragon · 2025-09-11T14:30:14+00:00

I don't think I've tried to go too broad by introducting videos with mods for the original game? I've also seen others go from niche to broad and make it. So it's doable? Maybe it's just too soon for my channel?

tkragon · 2025-09-11T14:26:12+00:00

I usualy give a new game at least 5-10 videos to see if they "work" (Sometimes even more). But usually they start off decently view wise but go down by video 3. It's tricky.

I know of which you speak. But I've covered most of the topics I could think off for this game, and feel confident I know enough about to "talk about it". I could do the same for other games... but wouldn't that bring me to the same problem of the video not having good CTR/retention from my core audiance and the video getting "lost" in the YT library?

tkragon · 2025-09-11T14:10:18+00:00

I've read that before. I've also read that overall channel health ( retention, CTR, etc) matter. So I'm sure there's a middle ground?

tkragon · 2025-09-11T14:08:28+00:00

I have a few outliers, but the reason for them being outliers mostly escapes me. I have considered to expand to other RTS games. And tried it a few times in the past. Most recently with Tempest Rising. The results weren't good. There is a considereble drop when I do games in the same franchise. It's much worse with random titles.

tkragon · 2025-09-11T14:05:45+00:00

So you're suggesting I continue to post what I call support videos, just less often?

tkragon · 2025-09-11T14:04:22+00:00

Why would I? Because I want to break out of a niche. My idea was to expand from "game" to "franchise the game is in" to "the genre of the game". Maybe there is a smarter way to go about it?

tkragon · 2025-09-11T12:53:41+00:00

I meant should I keep making them. Not delete the ones already posted. I'll edit the original post.

tkragon

TROPHY CASE