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Low Morale, High Stakes! (Blog) (Patreon)

Published:
2017-08-22 09:29:55
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

I'm sure it'd be kind of obvious that due to recent troubles with videos, YouTube and various technical catastrophes (what a perfect way to describe it) that I may not be in the best of spirits, which is true. However, things are forever changing and I made a promise to myself a few months back...

"Don't miss a single week you lazy cunt, Jak!"

What am I on about?) Knowing full well the channel would be growing following Crash, I knew that I had to capitalize on that as best as possible, hence the Spyro review, some interesting Top 10 topics and a discussion video, followed of course by Bad Wrestling Games! I originally wanted to push the idea of "AT LEAST one video per week" but clearly, that wasn't to be. Not for a lack of effort or anything, it's just that not much else has been my focus enough worthy of a video: no games to test and no other game collecting or gameplay ideas (excluding Stormy Ascent). I did want to reach a point of a review or Top 10 EVERY TUESDAY and Game Testing or Discussion Videos EVERY FRIDAY. It's no secret YouTube is a game of quantity over quality but with everything that's been happening, I just haven't had time or energy for 2 per week. I'm sorry about that even though I know it's not expected, I just keep forgetting that even though my average was 2-3 videos per week in 2015, that they were much easier to produce back then. So unless something else is going on in the world of Square Eyed Jak, there'll be only one video per week. Point being: The promise I made myself going into the Crash N. Sane Trilogy was to not miss a single week through until October.

Why does this matter?) ...

" YouTube is a game of quantity over quality"

Honestly, it's just something that needed to happen. We're coming into the slow time of year for YouTube, the past 2 years have been literal brick walls for the channel and while I've got plans to counteract that as best as possible, I wanted to get all my shit in before then and ride the wave a bit. SO with all of that, talking with people, brainstorming, cancelling planned, scripted and previously shot projects... just to bring them back anyway, we won't be missing a week until October! The revitalized project I originally cancelled has been tweaked over the past few days, ready for shooting tomorrow. I'll be shooting 2 reviews in a single day and while they're no Bad Wrestling Games, the more "down to earth" format for both means that editing will be brief... getting me ONE WEEK AHEAD OF SCHEDULE! The second half of this FOUR part series is that videos 3 and 4 were always designed as easily produced, but still interesting and kind of a new idea (as far as I know).

Because of this simplicity, both of these can be written AND shot together, also edited very quickly getting me ANOTHER WEEK AHEAD OF SCHEDULE! Holy... shitballs! Now you're probably thinking I'm working myself to the bone, but I'm not. Like I said, these are simpler videos that the spoils I treat the channel with here and there. So with an extra 2 weeks, I'll have the very valuable time to 100% focus on the week long special planned for October: 5 DAYS - 5 REVIEWS! Yes, this has been planned since May and a long overdue event for the channel. Now, there is a week in the middle there without a video in September. Depending on what's done by when etc. I'd count on this getting filled with a Top 10 or something like that. It's supposed to be "Do Modern Games Still Suck?" however... I'm really unsure of time on that so I might shelve it for longer than planned and miss a week. It'd break the promise but hey, fuck it. You'll be getting 5 the following week so who cares? ;)

Beyond October) Obligatory Halloween will be happening again this year. I do have a planned review, I have to. This year, Halloween actually falls on a review upload day (for Australia at least) so it only makes sense, as well as something else if I can come up with it. I've got PAX Australia the weekend before this though, meaning it will have to be done super early, cutting time before it so... I may miss a week or even 2 in October but that just can't be helped I'm afraid. As for November, I will spoil this one, the plan is a return to Skylanders! With 6 games left to look at in the series so far, I'll be doing the next 3 console installments: Giants, Swap Force and Trap Team. And for the rest of November, things will start to get a little less frequent towards the end of the year so be aware of that. Not uncommon of course but, I'll explain more about that when we're there!

I NEED YOUR FEEDBACK: Real quick, I had an idea for an extra Patreon Reward for ALL TIERS of support. I'm thinking about maybe doing a MONTHLY Podcast and I NEED to know if it's something people are interested in. It wouldn't just be myself, ThatGuyCal a friend of mine would be co-host 90% of the time as well as maybe getting some other people on here and there to discuss everything: games, YouTube, movies, news, whatever. The reason I'm considering it as a Patreon reward is because, there isn't really a good platform for me to attempt that kind of content currently, it's hard enough getting people to show up to live streams, let alone 45-60 minutes of conversation. So if you're interested, PLEASE let me know. We might do a pilot episode to see what people think if you all like the idea of it but it was just an idea. I'd like to try and offer some good rewards over here that people want, without it killing my time to work on stuff and since I give Outtakes and Behind the Scenes away for free on YouTube, some kind of exclusive content is something I'd like to get happening!

This was a really long blog this week. If you read the entire thing, be awesome and like it just so I know you've seen it and feedback as always is seriously appreciated. We've had a rough month but despite whatever results occur, I know there are good things on the horizon, content wise. So with that, thank you as always for reading and I hope you have a great fucking day. Cheers! :D

Comments

BloxXor

Monthly podcast sounds lot of fun since I really like both of your videos and humor.

SquareEyedJak
>>6811924

Awesome! It's something we've talked about before so I thought I'd see what everyone thought about the idea. Cheers mate.

Jake Ogden

I think the podcast is a good idea as it gets us more involved in the channel.

RadioTails

Is this a video or audio podcast? Sounds interesting and worth giving it a shot. Would the patreon views being able to suggest topics to discuss?

SquareEyedJak
>>6812040

Well the podcast probably won't be open to the public, just everyone on Patreon. But yeah, we'd certainly be open to fan involvement. :)

SquareEyedJak
>>6812618

Well I'm really not sure at this stage. I'd like to have a video podcast but that's a whole lot of extra work cutting to a lot of stuff. I was thinking some chilled gameplay over it just as something, maybe face cams with related stuff edited in when necessary. Say we're talking about a game, we'd be showing the game but it might not be too involved is all, at least from the start. And certainly, I'd be seriously open to Q&A or suggestion of topics. Depending how much there is each month, we'll probably pick 2 or 3 things mixed in with our own conversation and topics. :)

Jek

Yes please gimme podcasts m8. I dont listen to music when working I lisen to podcasts. I need more podcasts!

SquareEyedJak
>>6842867

They'd only be a monthly thing but cool, the more people interested, the more reason to do it! :)

Alistair Winter

It seems like you are putting a lot of pressure onto yourself by saying that you need to get all of these videos out on time by this time sheet that you have created. It seems to already be creating stress and frustration, that and problems with YouTube and how you are losing ad revenue. It also seems like that you are wanting to increase your views, subscribers and grow your channel within a certain time frame + keep your subscribers happy. Though, all of this is just expectations for the future of your channel. I mean, anything could happen. I feel like that you are placing a lot of pressure onto yourself and are focusing on growth so much, that you are forgetting a very important point. Having fun and enjoying what you do. Pumping out content to time scales and focusing so much on views and how well your channel is growing is only going to narrow your focus and put you into the world of stress and frustration. In time it will either lead to burn out or you will start to get angry at your viewers because you will feel like that they are demanding a lot from you. I guess the question is: Could you forget about how many views a video is going to get? Could you forget the What If questions about if your channel will grow enough or fast enough to your exceptions or ideas? Is this something that you enjoy and love to do? You said that your most new wrestling video took a lot of hard work and time but you called it your passion project, something that you really enjoyed doing and making, even if things went wrong. Then what happened? The video that you really enjoyed to make did not do so well, at all when it came to views. Would you of enjoyed the video more if you did not rush it so much to this time frame that you have set up? If you forget about how well a video may do then you could create anything that you want and you would also not have that worry there to think about, that puts pressure onto you. Less pressure and stress = More fun and more freedom to be as creative as you want with as much time as you want. I mean, this is your channel. You call the shots. You can do whatever you wish to do but I am mostly sharing this because I went through the same fate. I used to have a YouTube channel where I recorded game playthroughs and at the end I had just over 500 videos uploaded of different games. Some of them were even RPG games like Grandia where I spent over 30 or more hours playing the games – Not non stop but it was mostly every day. When I started to get comments from people saying how much they wanted more videos or that I was playing the game wrong and that I was stupid...etc. I found out that I was mostly only creating videos for my viewers and not for me. I was playing games and recording them but finding no fun in doing it. It became such a chore and all that I was focusing on was how my videos needed to be good enough or how I should try and show everything in the game. So much pressure and stress I put onto myself for this state of perfection for my videos and trying to please my viewers. What I would say is: Take a step back and see if you do feel stressed, pressured or frustrated and if you actually want to focus on these time scales and focus on all of these problems that actually don't really matter. You can choose whatever you want to focus on. If you are having fun and enjoying yourself then all the more power to you. Good luck

SquareEyedJak
>>6871196

Sincere thanks mate, I really do appreciate the concern. I'll always be the first to admit that I get myself into these high stress situations and do everything down to the wire, life is a stressful thing but I always get my kick out of the overall process rather than enjoying the filming stages for example, or even playing the game. Every part of the entire process can be both an awesome or fucking draining part of the process and it's different each time. In a very rare case, the Bad Wrestling Games video was the first for as long as I can remember where EVERY SINGLE ASPECT not matter how time consuming or challenging and stressful... was so much fun. I've done this full time for almost 3 years come November and in the ups and downs, you learn to predict things and figure out an idea for how videos will and SHOULD perform. The Bad Wrestling Games video is simply a case of YouTube's algorithm being tweaked a changed, resulting a lot of incorrect flags across the entire site. So it's just poor timing really and nothing else for that video "bombing" as I've been putting it. I've seen enough videos to almost know, that had it not been affected, it would have hit 10,000 views fairly quickly yet to this day, it's only at half of that. As for being concerned about views and growth and all that good, fun, stressful and ultimately meaningless shit... it's not meaningless. I try to be as open and transparent with everyone who watches the channel but the one thing I've always kept locked away is plans: A- Because I like to think it's more fun for viewers not knowing what's coming up and it feels good as a creator to pull the rug out from under people at any given chance and take them on a ride. B- I've got specific numbers and goals I'd like to hit and constantly work towards that really, don't matter in the slightest to the public, nor should I be running around saying "I need to hit X for X to happen." This year in particular has been very important to latter there with goals I set myself. Knowing very well how YouTube works, better than a lot of other people in my opinion who are supposedly "senior" to myself, I can tell immediately just by looking at numbers where and when things aren't working and why. I do actually get a kick out of that as well, whenever I have to explain something to someone about the site's inner workings and I ultimately blow their minds, I call myself the Mad Scientist of YouTube, because there really is a challenging science to it. Point being, I've had specific goals since day one and knowing how all this works, I know that something went wrong at a very specific point in time that has ultimately hurt the channel and it still stunting it's growth to this day. I obviously want the channel to do well, these numbers I'm talking about hitting, I know where I need to be if I'm going to keep doing this full time as a career so I'm forever gunning towards that with carefully crafted plans to both fool you guys and take you for a ride, knock things off of my to-do list and especially this year, try to get this thing growing as strong as possible. Your point about less stress and pressure = more fun, doesn't apply to everyone. Fun fact: I've been clinically diagnosed with severe stress issues but it seems to be the sort of thing, where I'm subconsciously adding stress because it's ironically easier for me to deal with. If I take a break for example, I did after Bad Wrestling Games. I still have to do something, I've been raised and wired in a way that demands me to be doing something. If I'm not and I'm just doing nothing, it ironically makes me more stressed majority of the time so... you can see the dilemma I'm in and will be in for the rest of my life. Most people call it unhealthy but the doctor informed me that I'm in total control of it, so it's totally fine. I dunno. To sum up, I'm fine and I like the challenge of getting these things out as frequently as I can. I've got nothing better to do and I currently, nor EVER have wanted anything else so I'm more than happy to smash this shit out, forever raising my own bar. I hope that answers your concerns and I do appreciate it, honestly. Feel free to ask any questions on that if you want, I could talk all day! ;) Cheers mate.

Alistair Winter

Thank you for answering me back Jak. It is good to know that you are on top of it and are still pushing yourself to do great things for not only yourself but for us as well. It sounds like that you are a youtube expert then! How about giving out some advice sometime on the inner workings of Youtube and how you got to the point that you are at today. I'm sure alot of people would like to know the secret. Though, I expect the secret is: Hard work, Don't give up, Expect the unexpected, Listen to people, Take suggestions, Communicate, Set Goals, Plan, Create Stories/Ideas/Scripts, Research...etc...etc. Hmm....Now that I have listed them, you sure do work bloody hard don't you, if you do all of that! Well anyway, I wish you luck with your videos and hope your channel grows bigger and better! BTW: I personally liked the green screen effect with the two versions of yourself. I like Skits with different chars. Like what the Angry Video Game Nerd does or did. Yeah so, keep it up or maybe even bring in other people as well :)

SquareEyedJak
>>6894630

Of course mate, any time. I've always wanted to make a video or series of videos on that but there are a few problems: It's already been done (in a static, boring, repetitive kind of way). YouTube is also changing all the time so what I might say could be wrong in a few months. And the final, main reason I haven't, I'm just worried I'd come across as a bit of a know it all, kind of "look at all this stuff I know" sort of deal which I don't really want to be perceived as. plus I'd have trouble not calling people and channels out because there are A LOT that don't make the effort and it really gets under my skin. I never claim to be the perfect channel but when I look around, I know I'm working harder than a lot of others. For that alone, best I stay away from public advice like that to avoid letting my ego host the show. I do still offer advice to people when they ask though, all of those things you listed pretty much. It is a lot more strenuous on the brain than a lot of people could even imagine and even now, the channel is still small int he grand scheme, but when you're putting all of this in for little, to no response like when you first get started, it's hard to keep your mind on the track, trust me. And thanks mate, glad you enjoyed it! I don't want to make a habit of stuff like that but this year has certainly seen a healthy increase of that type of thing happening which is always fun. Dunno about getting other people in though, I don't let anyone into videos unless they understand and fully appreciate this as much as I do so... they're aren't too many.