Hello all,

I'm a 30-something graphic designer from the sunny UK by trade, but have always wanted to be more creative with my hobbies, so have decided to venture into creating a Youtube channel dedicated to summarising our beloved game bundles (from Humble, Fanatical and Indiegala). The aim is to demo all of the games in a given game bundle by showing two minutes of gameplay, so that the end user can decide whether they think the bundle is for them or not. These videos will also show some quick stats on price and review ratings which may help in your purchasing decision.

With every new video launched, I host giveaways of any unused keys here on SteamGifts (the links will be in the description of the video) as I almost always have keys going spare.

Anyway, I implore you to help a guy out and throw me a subscribe to help the channel grow:

thirtysmooth's game bundle sumamries channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF3g-jsD0B-Ac1x6K6U8PTg

My latest video (2 Minutes of Game - Fanatical's Mega Bundle 2 + GIVEAWAY) features a giveaway of 15 keys, available right here on SG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRs6pnZTgIg

And please, I welcome any/all feedback/constructive critisism. Thanks for taking the time to read this - have a cracking day.

3 years ago

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Hello there.
While I appreciate the idea you, as a YouTuber, have to be aware that the average viewing time on YouTube is a maximum of 3 minutes and 30 seconds. If you do videos longer than that, it's fine, but don't be dissappointed that hardly anybody will sit through them and watch them to the end.
I am telling you this to avoid any dissappointment when you look at your video stats.

3 years ago
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I agree that in general the attention span isn't very big.
BUT it doesn't mean videos can't be longer. It really is up to how entertaining and engaging the content is - most content on youtube is low quality - hence the low watch time. I mostly close videos after 20 seconds if they dont reel me in already.

To OP
What someone who plans to make longer videos definitely has to take into consideration - the intro. Maybe I'm not the target audiance, but opening OPs videos I instantly close them because there is absolutely no intro about whats to fallow. Text on screen in my opinion is dated format. Music is same in every video, visuals are the same. It all feels kind of clustered. A lot of numbers, a lot of text everywhere.

Attention span is lost already opening the video. I would suggest doing 1-2 minute intro about whats to follow - where is the bundle being sold, what's in it and some cliff hanger to keep wanting to watch it. And instead of 2 minutes per game with gameplay I would suggest around 1 minute fast intro about the game - what it offers, what it is, and did you like it. And in the end name the good, the bad and the ugly.

Definitely think about doing talk over - If you're from UK , you probably speak good English. No offence to those who have English as second language - but to be blunt... Videos really are hard to watch when the host speaks in broken or accent heavy English. Good luck in building the channel - definitely not trying to discourage here. If you could build something similar to what I described then it would be something new and useful and I would definitely watch that to decide about buying something or not. Can't say about others though, but that is how I rate if a channel is worthy of subscribing or not.

As others already point out in your video - it's not easy building a new channel but it is a good starting point. So try stuff out and might just strike that winning formula. Good luck

3 years ago*
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Personally if I look at my watching history on YouTube, I very rarely watch videos that are less than 10-15 minutes.
I think it really varies on the type of audience you want to have.
I like math videos, video essays about movies and games, and getting to learn game development, so if I stuck to videos less than 5 minutes I wouldn't get any content that is worth it for me. I average out at 15-20 minutes per watched video lol

For content that is meant as pure entertainment, my tip would be to have your own flair to it. Getting a few key expressions that are uniquely yours as well as a visual style and tone that remain somewhat consistent, it makes your viewers feel that they're part of something bigger.
And if that twist is enough to grab their attention to watch just one other video, it will be enough so that they get compelled to watch more in the future or share with friends.

3 years ago
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3 years ago
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3 years ago
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Interesting idea, keep it up!

As for feedback, you can define "chapter markers", that way one can quickly jump between the games reviewed, I think it would be helpful to add that to your videos.

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9884579?hl=en

3 years ago
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+1

3 years ago
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Yep, agreed with the others. You might want to turn it into review thing, explaining what the game was about, giving partial gameplay on each aspect, and tell whether the game is good or not. Watching 2 mins per game with nobody talking and slow gameplay make it very boring that i could fall asleep right after. Not to mention that it takes 30 mins to finish everything. I myself prefer to watch short videos that are around 10 mins max, but i'm not sure about the others.

All things aside, it's a good idea! I am curious as to what you'll do with recycled bundles like what fanatical is doing though.

EDIT: just noticed the giveaway. Instead of putting them in the description, you might want to put them in the video instead so people who actually watch the video can enter.

3 years ago
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+1

3 years ago
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Can't agree more with ChrisKutcher's comment, if you are making longer videos some kind of hook or some sort of summary of what's to come is definitely needed. I don't think these videos do a good job with presenting information about the featured games or their value. I can get a much more information from just looking through their individual steam pages and that would take less time. The 2 minute reviews on the Escapist channel could be something that you should look into if you plan to do stuff like this. And yeah voice over would be great, since your English is probably a lot better than many other content creators, you definitely have an advantage there.
I like the idea of the channel, sometimes I am not sure about the games in certain bundles, but it needs to be a bit more informative.

3 years ago
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Best of luck with your new hobby!

Firstly, I'd agree with the comments about length. 2 minutes per game doesn't sound much, but when it's raw gameplay without commentary it can feel very slow, and when there are 20 games in the bundle and you end up with a 40+ min video, it's definitely too long. If you don't want to add some commentary (and I can appreciate the idea of only including the raw game footage) you need to cut it down much tighter. Hell, the name of your channel is "thirtysmooth", and honestly, 30 seconds of gameplay clips can easily be enough to give you a good impression of whether or not you'd enjoy it. Would make for more cohesive branding, too. Speaking of which...

You definitely need stronger channel branding. There's literally nothing in the video which ties it to your channel, apart from the subscribe link in the end screen. Add a discreet watermark in the corner, and add a start and end card which prominently include the name of the video series, and your channel logo - which I would also tweak a bit to make it more distinctive. Even just adding a black "S" behind the white "30" would make it much more eye-catching and distinct, for example.

Finally, even if you stick without any commentary over the game footage (which, like I said, I don't think is a bad idea), I'd strongly suggest you consider speaking over the start and end card, to hook people by explaining the purpose of the video and of your channel.

I'll be interested to watch you develop! 😁

3 years ago
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bump
good luck with your youtube channel

3 years ago
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Bumf

3 years ago
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Thanks for all of the extremely useful feedback everyone. I've taken your comments on board and am moving to a new format which I hope is a little easier to digest.

3 years ago
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