Less is more? Let's find out. (Patreon)

I've mentioned the forthcoming change to my video schedule in the past two Reduced's, and I figured it was high time I let you in on some of the specifics of what will be changing.

Why change anything?

As you undoubtedly know already I started YouTubing in order to learn about it so I could perform my 9-5 (hah) job more effectively. By understanding what matters to people you work with you can better work with them. That was the idea, and it's turned out well. 

At some point during this experience, early on, I got the bug for creating videos and since then have worked to try and replace my 9-5 with video-making. I'm having a great time on this quest for several reasons, but I'm still around 2/3 short (in income terms) of being able to turn professional. Add to this that my change in growth over the past year has been completely flat and I either need to dig in for the long haul or change things up to try and stimulate better growth.

So, in a nutshell, I'm going to experiment for 2-3 months to see if a different approach will yield better or worse results. The results in question come down to views. Subscribers are great, but views are the thing that matter - after all every subscriber started out as a viewer.

Conventional wisdom for Let's Play style channels is that pushing out a new video every day is the best route to success as this feeds the YouTube algorithm and keeps you in the public eye. I've run with 7 videos per week for the past 2 years, and while my growth rate has been consistent it's only increased in a significant way when I've covered a new, related games, or released a tutorial or preview. I dislike doing previews, and I'm not about to jump on the "HOTTEST NEW GAMES THIS MONTH" badwagon, as it's not my style. There's still a place for tutorials, but again it's not what I love doing most. New games are still an angle, but they're not a reliable catalyst for significant growth.

Essentially, what I've focused on so far is quantity over quality. Hitting the 7 video per week bar without fail (more or less) has been my focus while trying to maintain consistent delivery of key series.

"The first sign of madness is to continue doing things the same way while expecting a different result."

Herself said that to me when I was, once again, scowling at the fact that my growth rate hadn't changed. She's pretty damn smart.

What is changing?

At present I spend between 12 and 20 hours on creating videos each week. That covers recording, editing and all the other prep work associated with each video.

This amount of time investment has a hard limit - any more time spent than that and I'll land myself in trouble. So, let's not do that.

Instead of spending my time on 7 videos per week, instead I'll be cutting that to 3 per week, but investing the extra time in editing and polish. 

How does editing help? If someone were to ask me which of my videos was my best, I'd point at Descenders. It's extensively edited (although still too long), punchy and funny (if you like that kind of thing). This is critical to the likelihood the channel grows.

Remember that the conventional wisdom says that daily videos are the best way to keep the algorithm recommending your videos? This is accurate. However, there is a far bigger audience to be gained if your viewers recommend your videos to their friends, or tweet about them, or post them to a forum or Reddit or whatever. To achieve this level of sharing the video must be exceptional. If you're aiming for funny, you must make sure that what you're doing is FUNNY. Fall any way short, and you won't get uplift.

Now, typically my videos aren't FUNNY (although they have their moments) but there is an underlying level of droll to what I record. This needs bringing to the fore.

You've likely noticed that occasionally I spend additional time on the intro to a video. Here are a few examples.

These snippets represent more effort than the norm, but they also end up being work that I'm often quite proud of. My thinking is that if I can bring this level of polish to my existing approach to recording games there is a greater chance it will get shared, potentially accelerating my growth curve. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't, but if I don't try it I won't know for sure.

Specifics

I'll do this bullet-point style to avoid being too wordy...

1. Changes will come in after the current baseball series is complete.

2. I'll release 3 new videos per week.

3. The mix of videos will be: 1x Transport Fever, 1x Series 2 every week.

4. The third video each week will be one of the following

4a. A tutorial

4b. A preview

4c. A survival game

4d. A multiplayer game

5. All videos will be between 15 and 25 minutes in length.

6. There will be 2 live streams per month, 1 of which will be Transport Fever the other will be a Fail Brigade game.

7. Rough cuts and outtakes will be made available to Bad Company Officers Club.

8. Unedited videos will be made available to Bad Company Sergeants.

9. There will be an ongoing sports series exclusive to all Bad Company members (anyone who joins Bad Company). The first series will be Motorsport Manager.

That's the stuff you'll see most obviously, but there are some nuts and bolts I also must attend to, might as well let you know what they are too...

- Every new video gets a bespoke description. 

- Create a new channel trailer.

- Create a new Patreon trailer and thanks video.

- New merchandise.

- Complete work on Fail Brigade.

Fail Brigade

As indicated above, it's a work in progress and I'm not quite ready to talk about it yet. What I will say is that it's an extension of something I've been doing already but better and could well be the leapfrog move necessary for my being able to turn full time attention to this unusual video/community type thing we have going on here. I'll spill the beans when it's closer to being ready (and no, it won't cost you anything).

That's it for now.

Based on current projections, this should come into being at the tail end of August. I'm starting some work on the new format now and I'll share some rough material with Officers Club in the next week or so.

-CF