What are you looking for in a youtube gameplay video?

Antall Innlegg : 15 Join date : 2012-07-22

Basically what the topic say.

Thing is, I was rather happy with my channel before. I've had my capture device for the Xbox 360 for roughly a month and made a couple of simple videos. Most of them show objective waves + extraction which I deemed was the most 'fun' parts of a session anyway.

I've hit perhaps a dozen or so hits per video which I found nice. Then I made videos of all the new classes and the N7 Fury one got a couple of hundred hits. Which of course made me want more. Smile

Thinking of how the N7 Fury video got so many hits I tried to figure out what people wanted from gameplay. Just looking at someone play is not THAT fun. So I looked at other peoples Fury videos. The one with most hits (around 5000 views) had the following:
* 3 seconds of preroll, unskippable commercial.
* No voice-over or music
* A description that basically said 'this class rockz'
* Gameplay showed two waves of Firebase White. On Bronze.

Now, I don't wish to begrudge him of his success, but what the heck?

I was thinking of doing voice-over for my videos, but then I realized I don't like the sound of my own voice. It's really hard to have a decently sounding monologue and I envy the youtubers I follow that pulls that off. I know I can't.
So instead I went for music. Which means I get stuck with the 3rd party commercials. I.e. I get commercials in my videos where the money goes to some agent of the people whoms music I've borrowed. Which is OK by me, since I am leeching of their talents in lack of my own.
I've uploaded a couple of videos with only the music and soundeffects for the game, but then things get boring. I might as well have played the game myself then.
I don't have the skills to solo Gold nor doing Platinum consistently so people looking for skilled play would go to Zhhks or Stardusks channels anyway.

But in all this misery and doubt, there is that guy that offers nothing to his viewers and still get 5k views. It's boggling. And I wish you could tell me why. Smile

(Good post).

Personally I watch people play games I'm either playing myself, or interested in. While taking a break from Battlefield 3 I didn't watch Shibby2142, d0n7bl1nk or swordsman that often - but now that I'm back into it I found myself watching three videos from them each just today. When it comes to voice, I don't really care what type of voice they might have. Of course it's a plus when they have a voice like Boo or Jerma, which are both just a delight to listen to - and I don't even necessarily watch their videos, I just browse whatever forum and listen to the commentary.

My voice is nothing to brag about, but I've got a lot of stuff to say so I'm assuming that's one of the reasons why people are tuning in. Watching a 20 minute gameplay isn't all that exciting, which is why I usually don't put up just a "Salarian Infiltrator Cerberus Firebase White" gameplay.

I personally would like a lot of information about the character and the game (pointing out the bugs and so on). I am a bit of a geek so i like when you attach numbers to it too. Having a good mic is more important than the actual voice itself and if the person does not have great english, it'd be great if he prepares a script so that he is not lost in the middle of the video. These are personal preferences by the way

Antall Innlegg : 15 Join date : 2012-07-22

Thanks for your input.

I think you are both right, I need to overcome my own voice and do voice-overs.

As Zhhk says, just watching a 'Class / Faction / Difficulty' video gets boring. And I do have things to say, opinions are not something I'm lacking. Explanation of why I did things I did. Comments on what is happening and other players.

However, reading from a script does not work for me. This is what I did that time I tried it. Wrote a script and read from it. Sounded awful as there was no natural flow in the speak. I'll be better off improvising and mumbling a lot. Wink

I wonder if there is a market for Swedish Mass Effect videos? Rolling Eyes

i have to disagree on the point of not wanting to watch a certain class/game play for 20+ minutes. this is dependent if you're capable of averaging 100k+ points each game.

key point;

NO music, this is completely personal, so you can alienate viewers as many won't like what's playing in the background. for instance, i enjoy stardusks gameplay, but his mic volume is appalling and he puts terrible music (in my opinion) in the background of some vids.

don't pay attention to what anyone else is doing. just do what you want. i watch zhhks vids as there was always variation in terms of weapons and powers used. if you're good, anyone can run around with a krysae and tear shit up. leave that to people like "jumpin", who i used to watch, but got tired of his illiteracy and same old gameplay. plus the fact he keeps saying his own gameplay is amazing and putting it in the title. that's for everyone else to decide. so don't do that!

just go with some "old school" character videos 20-25mins with varying strategies/weapons/powers used, maybe?

if you did this with no voice over/commentary i'd watch. i make it a point of principle to not subscribe to anyone, but if the vid is good i'll like it and comment to help out that way...

good luck

my view is that if you play as an "Overused" or "Higher Tier" class like the Geth Infiltrator or Drell Adept, you better be dropping huge scores OR have really entertaining commentary.

Live comms are good, as are post comms, and one isnt better than the other, although live banter is my personal preference

Music should be in the background, used as a supplement to the gameplay/commentary. Don't make music the main focus of the video (with the exception of showing off your own/your friends' creations). Remember, if the person wants music in their video they can always mute the video and play some of their own.

Montages throw the music thing out the window though.

anyway, that's my two cents for now. I'll probably think of something else

DonPidgeon wrote:: However, reading from a script does not work for me. This is what I did that time I tried it. Wrote a script and read from it. Sounded awful as there was no natural flow in the speak. I'll be better off improvising and mumbling a lot.

I feel that this is depends on the type of video.
If the video is a form of 'Guide' video, then I have no problem if the creator is reading from a script as long as they get across useful information.
However, if the video is a 'Commentary' type of video, then I prefer the commentary to be free flowing and not feel as if it is being read from a piece of paper.

only1biggs wrote:: NO music, this is completely personal, so you can alienate viewers as many won't like what's playing in the background. for instance, i enjoy stardusks gameplay, but his mic volume is appalling and he puts terrible music (in my opinion) in the background of some vids.

I can understand you view point. I myself do not have a preference of whether or not music should be playing in the background.
If there is music playing, then it should not be 'overpowering' the game/commentary volume.
As an example, zHHk uses music in the background and (in my opinion) it is at the perfect volume as which it is complementing the gameplay instead of overpowering it.

gilgamesh v9 wrote:: Live comms are good, as are post comms, and one isnt better than the other, although live banter is my personal preference

You can never go wrong with a live com.
The reason that I enjoy live com's is that you are able to understand some of the reasoning that the player makes while they are playing. While this may not be intentional, it quite often comes across in the live commentary.

totally, background music is fine, especially if it's somewhat of a "theme" like zhhks Wink

If you enjoy the background music I use you should totally check out my boy Pringlez! He just started making music but I really enjoy it - especially as a backdrop to my commentaries.

I have another friend who makes breakbeat/hip hop related music - He's on a bit higher level than Pringlez, though. He's been doing it for a while. He's currently making and looping a couple of tracks for me, so I've got some variety - different types of music to choose from. If you want to check his style out here's the only track he's put out on YouTube:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Don't worry: Sample/vocals will never be included in my background music (:

Antall Innlegg : 15 Join date : 2012-07-22

theeav3ng3r wrote:: You can never go wrong with a live com.
The reason that I enjoy live com's is that you are able to understand some of the reasoning that the player makes while they are playing. While this may not be intentional, it quite often comes across in the live commentary.

This is what I actually been thinking about. The gang I usually play with often end up with a party that is 7-8 people in with most just listening in for the banter. Might be fun for others.
Also the viewers might learn something when they tell me when I did something wrong. Wink

Problem is that the Xbox can't record this. I can change the voices of my teammates to go via the speakers (and thus record it) but my own won't show up. External microphone and mixing it together is an option, but I don't really want to spend hundreds of dollars on an external microphone and hanging the PC-headphones around my neck and use that microphone will be very uncomfortable. Laptop microphone is out of the question for quality sakes.

just keep recording a bunch of different gameplays with no comms, and put some subtle background music in. but nothing recognisable, like zhhks's i guess

Antall Innlegg : 15 Join date : 2012-07-22

I just bought a couple of adapters so I can hijack the headset audio.

Since my Tritton headset has a 3.5mm jack in for voice, I figured I could split that signal and get it into my computer without use of external microphone.

We'll see if it works out for my 3 subscribers. Wink

ha! good luck. like i said, if you want some help with any vids, let me know and we'll play some games..

i prefer to host, but as i'm mostly playing with the piranha and it's not a host dependent weapon, i'm happy to join other lobbies

DonPidgeon wrote:: I can change the voices of my teammates to go via the speakers (and thus record it) but my own won't show up.

I think that if you go to:
Xbox Guide>Settings>Preferences>Voice and set 'Voice Output' to 'Play Through Both', you can record your voice and your teammates voices.

Antall Innlegg : 15 Join date : 2012-07-22

theeav3ng3r wrote:: I think that if you go to:
Xbox Guide>Settings>Preferences>Voice and set 'Voice Output' to 'Play Through Both', you can record your voice and your teammates voices.

It doesn't. I googled it before. Found two videos claiming this but it didn't work at all (thus they had more than 50% dislike). Then I found a guy who did the adapter route (although his variant meant a feet of adapters stacked on the controller) which I got the inspiration from.

@DonPidgeon

The way I record my clan and I playing games is by

1. Setting voice to play through Both Headset and Speakers (so my PVR gets the voice too)
2. Turning the Game Volume (from the preferences screen) down to like 3 and the voice volume up to 8. this way you can clearly hear my buddies over the sounds of gunfire and such
3. I use Audacity to record my voice, so hook up a mic or my webcam mic works fine. Audacity is free to download
4. Use an in-game event to sync the audio to the video in the editing room later, like firing a gun or using Throw
5. Record your gameplay like normal
6. After you're done recording, go into Audacity and under the Effect tab click Compress. This makes the loud stuff quieter and the quiet stuff louder. Also, If there is background noise like a PC fan or something, you can highlight a section of the recording where you are not talking, but the background noise is present and then go to Effect>Noise Removal then click Get Noise Profile. Then select the entire track, go back to Noise Removal, then click okay.
7. Use audacity to edit any other audio thing you want
8. Export the audio to wherever
9. Use the syncing thing from step 4 to get your audio in the right place when you're editing
10. do any other editing and publish!

hope that helps, that's just my process

oh, and your iPod can be used as a mic if you can record Voice Memos and export them from iTunes, but that's a whole other issue

Antall Innlegg : 15 Join date : 2012-07-22

I tried the splitter a couple of days ago. Did not work out at all.

Had to connect to line-in on the computer (if I used microphone the xbox would not recognize the headset) so my talk was very low, strangely enough, other peoples talk was OK.
Easy enough to fix in audacity, but everyone in the party had an echo.
The echo did not show up in audacity (as me talking) but as soon as someone said something, it would be echo to them using my headset (as shown in the headphone logo on the party screen).

Of course, that was unacceptable. So it's back to separate microphone for me. Will look into using my phone as gilgamech suggested.