Many indie game developers utilize YouTube to show their process of making games. You’re probably know the big ones already; Dani, Two Star Games, Barji, and many others.

But do they really work? How much effort does it take to have how many results?

Well, lucky for you I have my own YouTube channel, NicDev (though it’s called Nikrist now). I’ve been making Indonesian gamedev videos where I showcase my game development process since 2020. Back in 2020, I was naive and don’t have any clue in how I make my videos. And to be honest, my channel’s growth has also something to do with luck, as I was carried by another rapidly growing Indonesian gamedev youtuber at the time, Kajew Developer where he promoted my channel from his community tab.

I was very grateful, because it boosted my motivation to keep making videos. From there, I was beginning to get a hang of myself on the ground in terms of a more guaranteed formula of success in YouTube. Of course, no formula is bullet proof. But if you follow the process correctly, your chances of success are also greater.

Before you start,

You have to consider some of the points below before starting a channel. As it is not used as an all size-fit solution on promoting your game.

1. It Takes SERIOUS Commitment

If you truly want to be successful on YouTube, you have an added responsibility of mastering the field of video and entertainment, and not just making your games. You need to know how to write and record a captivating video script, editing a video, and many other things that a normal indie game developer without a YouTube channel have to worry about. And not only on the technical side, you also have to understand your audience, trends, engagement, and many other theory side. You can’t just expect taking a screen recording of your game with minimal editing, half-baked commentary, and expect it to get numbers.

You HAVE to make sure that you’re truly up for this; the time, the energy, and the will to learn consistently.

2. Many Types of Games won’t Succeed on YouTube.

There are many genres and games that just don’t work on YouTube. The platform relies heavily on the viewer’s familiarity, interest, and attention spans. So the kinds of games that work on YouTube or any social media, really, is usually a game that is full of actions, flashy things, adrenaline, and surprise. These genres are like multiplayer, FPS, simulators, horror, CO-OP, and others. But even then, you have to have a unique twist on the genre that people care about to stand out. And one of the best way you can this is by incorporating trends to your game.

The worst games for YouTube are ones that are artsy, slow, has mediocre graphics, and not really visual oriented. Not to say those games are bad, in fact I also focus on making an artsy, slow paced narrative game on my second studio, Pupil Entertianment. But those kinds of game just won’t fit on YouTube even if you have the best editing and narration. They require other promotion strategy like influencer reach and online festivals. If you’re making those kinds of game, I won’t recommend YouTube because you’re just be spending too much time and energy for something that won’t give satifying results.

3. It’s only for Showmans/showwomens

If you’re a shy person, walk away from YouTube.

…

and yet there’s many introverted youtubers that are succesful.

…

Okay, maybe I have to clarify with what I meant with “shy”. What I meant here with “shy” is not related to how you’re relationship are with people in real life, of whether or not you talk a lot.

But the opposite side of “shy” here is that you are confident in showcasing your game, your voice, and uploading the video to the internet. Because on YouTube, you are the showman/showwomen. You are the host. You have to have that confidence and energy to share and deal with people’s responses to it.

Now, of course, it takes experience to build that confidence, but if you’re starting out, just decide of whether or not you’re comfortable in showing your voice to the internet. If not, then walk away. Being comfortable in your own skin is more important than being something that you are not.

With that out of the way, let’s get into the meat of this blog.

1. Watch Time is EVERYTHING

This is the main metric to decide whether or not you will succeed on YouTube. Many other metrics are there so your viewers hopefully generate you a high watch time.

Watch time is how long your viewers watched your video. A high watch time means that your viewers are hooked by your video. Maybe it’s because of its great editing, narration, curiosity that it generates, and many other. The reason this is the primary stats is because YouTube heavily relies on it to show their ads. The longer a viewer watches a video, the more ads are shown to them, which means the more money YouTube makes. And at the end of the day, money is YouTube’s goal.

Now, how do you have a high watch time?

It’s simple.

Just make good videos!

That’s it!

But what defines a good video? Well, if you have great editing, narration, visuals, and other good things, people will stick to your video longer which indicates that they enjoy it. Now, I don’t say that you have to have all of that; the editing, the visuals, etc. But it must be good enough to a point where people aren’t leaving your video.

I also have to mention that your first minute of video is the most important part. The viewer’s decision of whether to leave or not lies in there. So please make them as interesting as possible in your own style!

2. Watch Time is Useless Unless You Have Good Thumbnail and Title

Before viewers even enter watch time, your thumbnail and title will be the gateway of whether or not people will watch your video. They have to be willingly click it before they continue.

A good thumbnail involves solid principles of design; colors, composition, typography, proportion, and many other design principles. It also requires copywriting skills to write short, concise, yet captivating titles. You might say: “Woah, besides me having to be a video editor, I’m also responsible to be a graphic designer and copywriter?!”. Yes, like I’ve said in the first warning, it takes commitment and mastery of many skills if you want to be a succesful youtuber. But rather than being brought down by those challenges, please see them also as a chance to improve your game. Designing a good thumbnail may also help you in making better game art and covers, a good title will train you in writing better descriptions of your game, etc. This is a chance for you to also improve skills.

But to me, a good rule of thumb is by keeping your thumbnail and title SIMPLE. For your thumbnail, don’t make it bloated. Just show the most interesting part and use effects like brightness, contrast, lighting, etc to make it even more stand out. And for titles, keep it short, gripping, and maybe even highlight important words using UPPERCASE.

3. Thumbnails and Titles are Useless Unless You Have a Great Topic

No mather how good your thumbnails and titles are, people won’t click it if they have no interest in the video’s topic.

Imagine this, a professional Mr. Beast thumbnail editor made a thumbnail for two kinds of videos,

The first one: “How I ACTIVATE Microsoft Office!”

The second one: “I Bought a Million-Dollar CAT!”

Remember, the thumbnail editor is a high class professional. He knows every theory related to editing a good photo, every ins and outs of the tools, a ton of experience in what he specializes.

But in your opinion, which one will generate more views?

I think it’s pretty obvious.

That’s why, your topic is the first gatekeeper of whether or not your video succeeds or not. Moreover, since you are a game developer, your game’s concept and hook will be the primary attraction. This doesn’t only apply to YouTube, really. If you want to sell your game in general even on Steam, your game’s hook will be the reason why people want to buy it or not. If it’s uninteresting or generic, people will just simply skip it no matter how good the content is.

And… That’s ALL!

Yup, those three points are the only thing you have to worry about.

“But what about shares, and likes, and-”

You don’t have to worry those things AT ALL. If your video meets all of the previous points and it is not controversial or offend people, all of the other things will come by itself. You see, the nitty gritty things people talk about; likes, comments, hashtags, and others, they are there because those people don’t execute the three main points properly. And when their video don’t perform well, they won’t admit that their video is simply bad or uninteresting. And when that happens, they want to blame other factors so they feel good, when really those extra factors are like a fart in the wind compared to the basic principles.

I think this applies too to everything in life. There are only a few main points that you have to worry about to succeed, the others are just a distraction of what’s truly important. Now, not to say that the three main points are easy, they’re definitely aren’t. But we also can’t hide the fact that the main points are simple. It is simple, but difficult.

When you open your heart to accept the flaws of your video, and keep learning and improving, I promise you, you WILL reach success on YouTube.

Tips

With that said, there are some additional tips that do help you in executing the three main points. These tips are here to guide you to succeed in a path that is comfortable. Because there’s many ways to achieve success, but not all of them are nice to walk through.

1. Don’t be Too Afraid of Upload Schedules

Back in the day, youtubers are threatened to upload in a tight schedule to maintain their channel. But now, the times have changed. Nowadays, you might see many succesful youtubers upload in a rate of weeks, months, heck, even year or years! And yet, their videos would still gather millions of views!

So does it means that upload schedules aren’t important?

They’re still important, but way less than before.

Now, quality beats quantity. Because if you see at those youtubers who upload less often, if their video blews up, one thing I can guarentee you is that the video must be well made and interesting to watch.

Consistency is still important, but at what rate are you being consistent is way less important and it’s up to you to decide what rate is comfortable with your workflow. Your video’s quality, relevancy, and topic dominates.

2. Make Videos for GAMERS, not Game Developers.

This is more true to you, game developers. I see many gamedev youtubers (including me) who starts a youtube channel but then uploads tutorials of unity, or when they’re in their game’s devlog, they get into the nitty gritty of the engine and how they make certain things in detail.

Listen, unless you truly intend your channel to appeal to game developers which typically means you’re the kind of person that sells tutorials and courses rather than your own game, DO NOT do that.

True gamers and game developers are two completely seperate audience. They have a different interest, a different way of thinking, and a different way of responding things. For example, this doesn’t even apply to youtube; game developers are obsessed with making hyper generic games; platformers, metroidvanias, puzzle games. When in reality, many gamers are interested in a certain trend of game genre. They are skipping new platformers because classics like Mario and Celeste existed. Unless those new games reached a level of quality of those classics and innovate on a certain feature to it (which 99% don’t), gamers are less likely to buy the game in the first place.

This applies too to your YouTube channel. While game developers are interested in jargons, techniques, assets, programming, and all of that, gamers in the other hand are interested with gameplay clips, features, visuals, and basically things that allow them to imagine themselvess playing your game.

3. Less is More

Now, you might say, “Nic, since you said that watch time is important, then should I make my video longer?”

You can, but it’s not recommended.

Think of it as your difficulty level, the longer you make your video, the harder it is to get high views. It’s harder for the viewers because we live in a world where short attention spans are common, and it’s also harder for you to keep up the video’s quality and editing. So it’s harder in both sides.

Instead, focus on making videos that are short and concise. A good rule of thumb to me is below 10 minutes. That way, you can focus your energy on making the video’s quality without being overwhelmed by its length, and your viewers in the other hand will also be happy because they don’t need to stick to the video for way too long.

4. Don’t Set YouTube as Your Only Basket.

Remember, when you’re working on YouTube, you’re on another person’s (or in this case, company’s) palace. Essentially, it’s not yours. That means it’s not secure, because YouTube has the rights to pull it out of their platform, redirects your subscribers to another content, or even delete your channel. It’s dangerous to keep it all as your orimary base.

Instead, try leading your viewers to a platform that is yours; maybe a newsletter, a discord community (keep note that this is still in another company’s palace), and others. That way, besides having a backup of your YouTube channel, you’ll also gather a hardcore fanbase that are more willingly to support you.

I personally like E-mail newsletters. Because besides many people use E-Mails, they’re also aren’t particularly associated to any company. Yes, we have Gmail and Outlook, but those are E-mail providers, not the network of the E-mail itself. So by using E-mail newsletters you’ll be able to reach your audience without any distractions from algorithms or any other things a company has a control of.

5. Remember, You are a Game Developer.

Yes, you have to work hard on your videos and channel…

But remember, the reason why you’re start it all is because you want to promote the games that you developed. This hits me hard particulary in the early years of me making a channel. I was so obssesed with views, likes, and what kind of editing that I should use to a point where I forgot to actually focus on making my game.

It is very tempting by all of the stats that YouTube offers; whether or not your video performing as previously, and many other factors. But all of that is useless if you don’t fulfill your primary target that is to make games.

So please consider balancing the time you’ll spend on your videos, your games, and find a balance between those two.

Final Words

Feeling overwhelmed?

Good!

Because like I’ve said, it is not an easy thing to both make videos and games. You must enter YouTube with a passion and drive to make videos too. That drive is the only thing that will keep you hanging on in making a long-term successful YouTube channel. There are many games that reached success without even starting a YouTube channel. They tend to use other content creator’s platform as a way to promote their games by contacting them via E-Mail. And by making your own channel, things will be harder, but more secure and fulfilling since you have a backup of your audience.

Overall, whether or not you will pursue YouTube, I wish the best for your journey! Don’t forget to enjoy the process, because all of this is a marathon, not a sprint.