July had 5 videos, and overall it’s gone pretty well. The theme for this month was finishing off some prior obligations (Not a bad thing, it’s just that i’d promised to show some things off in videos and needed to get those done this month), so with those out of the way, I can focus in August on trying to grow the channel!
Here’s the stats for July:
Subs and watch hours are both up over last month, which is mostly thanks to the MiSTer video, which you’ll see why a bit later on!
The first video this month was:
Cancelled GBC FPS Resurrected 19 Years Later! [Tyrannosaurus Tex]
Starting off with an interesting curiosity and piece of gaming history. I found out that Piko had released a previously cancelled gameboy game and decided to order it to make the video. I wasn’t expecting this one to do that well as it’s a very niche topic, but I really enjoy researching for these videos, and the people that did decide to watch it really seemed to enjoy it!
I was especially excited to find out that the developer for the game actually saw it and said I did a good job! That means more than any number of views or subscribers! 😀
Like I mentioned in the last blog post, this is a video that only went out to my regular viewers, as you can see, after the first day, the views just stop growing almost completely.
Next was another Game Boy review, this time for the homebrew release, Museum on a cart.
Again, didn’t expect this one to do incredibly well, but just like the last episode. i’m glad people enjoyed it, as I do find these kinds of releases fascinating!
I tried to make a more “You-tuber” style thumbnail… not sure if helped or hurt he video, but i’m trying to improve them each week, and thought it would be interesting to show the actual museum and how it shrinks down to fit on the game boy…
Unfortunately, I think the audio on this video could be a lot better, it’s very echoey. mostly because there’s not much stuff in this room now the games have all been taken out that were usually in front of where I do these videos. I also don’t like how jarring it is when going from my talking in front of the camera, to my narration. I tried to improve it in the next video…. which was:
London Gaming Market Is Back! – Tour & Pickups
I was so excited to go back to the London gaming market! I knew this would be a good video, because i’ve done quite a few in the past and they’ve always done well. I did this one a bit differently though. As it wad the first event since Covid I didn’t really feel comfortable doing a full video tour, so instead I took my 360 camera and did a kind of quick walk around the event along with some commentary. To make the videos. bit more interesting I also turned it into a bit of a VLOG style story of my time in London too. I think this helped make the video have a better feel than just showing the event. Having the extra game shops at the end was a nice addition that people wouldn’t have expected.
The 360 footage didn’t look amazing, but it was very easy to film without feeling like I was getting in the way. I think it will be good as an additional camera and angle at events in the future, but if i’m doing close ups and tours, i’ll still be using my phone or actual camera for a clearer picture.
Im also going to try and add a bit extra in my videos in addition tot he main content. I think people will appreciate having a little surprise they weren’t expecting! Also, as you can hear, the audio quality is a lot better than the last episode! I decided to try and use the same microphone for both voice over and behind the camera, it was awkward finding a good angle, so that’s why i’m sat in a different location compared to the last video, but I think it definitely flows a lot better!
You might be able to hear some clicks in the video as the camera cuts. This turned out to be a problem with the Blue Yeti microphone not being updated to work with the latest version of Mac OS and Final Cut, so for the next video I ordered a new microphone that does work and sold my Yeti.
In terms of engagement with this one, i’m really happy with the continuous segments, but still struggled to keep people when I mentioned the sponsor (the dip section on the graph below). Overall though, considering the video is over 20 mins long, this is really good!
Next was my video on the MiSTer FPGA console.
the device had been sent over to me by Bifrost Bridge Studios a few months ago, but i’d been struggling to find the time to produce the video, so i’m glad I finally made time, I did really enjoy making this one, and it’s gone down really well so far too! It’s reaching a wider audience than usual thanks to showing up in search results! I think the simple thumbnail I decided to go with helped a lot too, a lot of the other ones on youtube make it look like a very complicated device, and I wanted to portray the fact that it’s not as complicated as it might first seem.
here’s some of the first results on youtube:
Now compare them to mine which has somehow risen to near the top of the rankings! I think my one seems inviting for people which are unfamiliar with the technology.
You can see here that on day 6, youtube decided it wanted to start showing more people this video, and it’s been a steady growth ever since! Really happy with how this was received, makes all the extra time and effort I put into making it worthwhile!
As you can see, this video is almost entirely supported by youtube recommended it on the homepage, or from the search!
I managed to fix the audio issues from the last episode, and this was the first one I made using my new wave 3 microphone, I didn’t mess with any settings for this one, it’s straight out of the mic. In the next video though, I really tried to focus on improving the audio, so lets see how I got on with that…
8 New Game Boy Homebrew Games Coming Soon!
as you can hear, and see, the new mic was finally properly up and running in this video! I do think maybe I had the gain a bit too high, or the mic too close to my face though as there’s a bit of peaking going on at the start. I also don’t like how I sound during the voice over sections, feel like I was rushing it a bit and it sounds too much like i’m reading from a script. Think once i’ve got the sound from the mic figured out, my next point of focus should be on making the script reading sound more authentic and not so disjointed.
In terms of the actual video, I think I did a good job showing off all the different games, Its gone pretty well too, sitting right on the top line for an average video, so i’m happy! 😀
So, plans for next month:
- Improve audio
- Improve script reading, make it sound more natural
- Make more videos that get recommended on the home screen (Easier said than done!!)
- Make some follow ups to popular videos from earlier in the year
From next month I’m going to start these posts with how I improved the channel each month, with the idea being that if I continually pick one thing to improve and spend the next 4 videos doing that, over time it should become second nature and add to my increasing production values, and hopefully in turn, make more people want to stick around and watch more videos! So, this month I focussed on improving the sound quality. It wasn’t until he last two videos that I started to implement the changes, but it’s something that i’ve wanted to do for a long time, and I feel like it’s starting to take shape, let’s see if next month is even better in this regard.
Thanks as always for reading this far! Hope you enjoyed this deep dive into the past month on the channel!
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