I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve been in something of a slump these past two weeks. I’ve written only two articles, one of which was a glorified announcement, and my only video was an unedited rip from my stream.
Part of it is a mental gridlock as I decide where to put my mental energies. I have many ideas for videos, but where should I post them? I want to post them on the SPUF of Legend, but I’m now a paid videographer for VGFAQ, it feels silly to spend my energy releasing videos for what essentially amounts to a failed attempt to make a standalone YouTube channel. After 3 years, the only videos that get any enduring traffic are the Overwatch League clips and me showing how to close a game without alt-f4 or the task manager. So, for this article, I’m mostly getting my thoughts out in one place:
Option 1: Release videos for both channels at the same time. It’s becoming increasingly clear I can’t do this. I spend a lot of time on my videos, and I don’t like having them constantly separated. I know I work better when pouring all my resources into one place to make it the best it possibly can. Which means my actual options are:
Option 2: Release videos for VGFAQ. There are some obvious pros; I’m getting paid money for doing so (albeit not much at all, but I think my value would increase quickly if I gave them my full attention) and I even have something of a fanbase. (There are a couple users who chat with me on Twitter and visit my Twitch channel, and they explicitly came from VGFAQ.) Plus, when talking to people in real life I can answer “63 thousand” when they inevitably ask how many subscribers I have.
Option 3: Release videos for the SPUF of Legend. The main pro is that someday, god willing, it came become a standalone channel where I get 100% of money. Right now I get a very small percentage of the money from VGFAQ, and unless Kevin bequeaths the channel to me in his will or something, that’s never gonna change no matter how big we get. In addition, SPUF was my creation; I created the channel with 0 subscribers and I’ve worked hard for over three years to bring 530 subscribers and 175,000 views to my channel, and I take a lot of pride in what it’s become. I like how all the notifications involve videos I made, unlike on VGFAQ where 99% of them are ancient videos published before I’d even joined.
There’s no easy solution. My upcoming video, My 5 Favorite Healers in Games, is one of those two-minute lightning lists that the SPUF of Legend was made for. It’s probably going on VGFAQ, but it’s gonna feel weird because it’s probably only gonna get a few more views and then disappear in the sea of their other content creators. I can’t help but feel I’m giving up on my chances of becoming a standalone YouTuber by selling myself to another channel.
But on the other hand, this could be an opportunity. Right now, SPUF essentially has no community; nobody ever contacts me asking when my next video will go live, and if I rebranded it into something completely different I doubt we’d suffer any real losses in subscriber count. If I could publish a different sort of video on SPUF (something the gaming-focused VGFAQ wouldn’t be interested in), I think I could find the energy to start releasing content for both channels again. And if I ever knuckle down and learn how to animate, I’m going to need somewhere to publish them…
Aabicus Archives 