Daily Report - 19/11/2023 (Patreon)

Catching up

First results of the new schedule

The past week I’ve had less personal contribution to the things mentioned in these daily reports. This is because I’ve been spending a lot of time for YouTube now that we’ve switched to 3 uploads/week. I figured I would use this calmer day to talk a bit more about the experience and lessons learned from it so far.

Personally, I have a double feeling about it. YouTube growth-wise, it’s really worth it, as generally, our channel dies a bit 2 days after a video upload, getting in general 50% fewer views. Getting a new video out then brings views back to normal. Having the Sunday upload now means that there’s only 1 day/week now where our YouTube is performing below standard.

Another advantage is that it spreads risk. When we were doing 1 video/week, a bad video could ruin the channel momentum for a week. With 2 videos/week, this was already going better, and even did occasional Sunday uploads for videos that we knew weren’t going to perform as well (our 10k channel update for example). Now with 3/week, I can create videos about topics I really want to talk about, even though they may not always be the best performers, as the 2 other videos that week will catch up the slack.

Yet the biggest cost is time (and maybe stress a bit). 3 videos/week is a breakneck speed, especially if you consider I can usually edit only 1 video/day. Combine this with the lack of a backlog, and the need to keep the BiteMe Business paperwork in order, this leaves me with less time than I personally like to work on Songs of Everjade. There aren’t any other gamedevs out there at all with this schedule, and I can see why.

When I embarked on the 3/week schedule, I had set myself a 1-month trial period, and I will most likely still stick to that, as there is still a tangible difference in how fast we are growing. I’ve also been spending a lot of time the past week recording 8 different videos, allowing me to build up the backlog a bit more, as right now I am finishing the edit of a video the day of the upload itself, which is too close for comfort. After the month, I will probably go back to a slightly more chill 2/week period, as I am not happy with how I am impacting the development of Songs of Everjade.

What’s next
I’ll be continuing the editing grind, and Thomas will continue picking up my slack in Songs of Everjade.

“From the time you take your first breath, you become eligible to die. You also become eligible to find your greatness and become the one true gamedev”

Marnix Wyns

Producer & Creative Director @ BiteMe Games