ViewTube

hypothetically, if i do another game show, would you rather 'the shader game 2', a different game, or don't care? 

~2 month Youtube livestream update.

Edit: it has been suggested that I livestream on my archive channel and that is definitely something I will consider.  If you are not subscribed to the archive channel and still want to catch streams, I would definitely start looking over there again.

Positives: Archiving the stream on the main channel for people to watch, which reduces the work I need to do in order to archive and monetize streams.  Alerts and brings people to the stream who may not normally engage with said stream.  Extra monetization helps fund my editor/future editors and livestream moderators.  Viewing experience is pretty good, with the ability to rewind the livestream while it is live and it's also not blocked at work places nearly as much as Twitch may be.

Negative: Less than .1% of people who are active viewers of the channel tune into streams and the other 99.9% get some sort of notification for a thing that they do not want to engage with at all, which is potentially driving people away from the channel.  I am not able to turn off notifications for streams like I can with videos and shorts (for example: I do not intentionally alert subscribers about YT shorts) otherwise I would do that.

Result: I will be phasing out simulcasting on Youtube for non-Destiny streams very soon, if not immediately. It feels like they do way more harm than good and the overwhelming majority only care about Destiny video content, which I'm not blaming people for, it's why you're here.  Even the people who do show up for non-Destiny stuff only stay for a few minutes according to watch time data (and based on the chat experience, half of y'all are apparently in Twitch chat anyway) and the chat rate outside of the first hour of the stream is way less than 1 message per minute.  I don't think this content would be very missed and I would just go back to my old method of uploading streams to my archive channel.  It's also quite possible that I only simulcast Destiny during major events, like new seasons, dungeons, raids, exotic missions, etc., in the future.

I will immediately halt memberships for everyone so that you don't continue to pay for a membership that you won't get as much value out of.  If you would like to re-subscribe to your membership, I am not going to stop you, but the value of them will be going down since I won't be streaming as much, so please only do so if you are just wanting to support the channel by more than just watching videos.  I'll drop the price as well.  I realize this means having to check multiple channels for livestreams, so I apologize about that, but at least I can have chat on the screen again for non-Destiny streams.

If the ability to go live without alerting subscribers ever becomes possible to do, it is MAYBE possible that streams will return to the channel, but considering how little Youtube cares about livestreaming, don't hold your breath.

Thanks everyone for indulging me about this experiment and sorry about all the pings.  If you'd like to drop some comments about how the experience has been for you, positive, negative, neutral, feel free, but I don't think I'll be changing my mind on this.  I appreciate the bunch of you who were active during the Youtube livestreams.  Been working on a personal project recently, so I apologize if content recently hasn't been up to my normal standards, kinda burning the candle at both ends right now. 

Hello everyone, this post is about livestreams, bit of a long one, sorry.

Recently, Twitch has allowed partners to multi-stream on Youtube at the same time and you may have seen me experimenting with this in the past week or so.  I wanted to get a feel for it first before I deciding on whether or not I was going to continue to do it and after doing a few, I am definitely gonna stick with it.  So, now you can watch my streams both on Twitch AND Youtube.  Doesn't matter which one you wanna watch on, if you are choosing to watch, I don't care where you do it.  This is just kind of a no brainer move for me as it allows more people to check out the stream where ever you wanna watch.  If you miss a stream and want to check it out, head to the Live tab, where all streams will be titled and thumbnailed as clearly as I can do it.

My stream schedule is typically:

Tuesdays starting at 10-10:30am PST
Wednesdays at around 12 or 1pm PST
Fridays also at 12 or 1pm PST

I don't have a set time that I usually stream until, but I try to go around 4-5 hours at an absolute minimum, usually it's around 6 to 8 hours.  All times are based on US West Coast time, which is gonna be UTC -8 starting tomorrow since daylight savings is switching, we're going an hour backwards.

In terms of what to expect, historically Tuesdays have been my "guaranteed" Destiny day, although as of lately, that is not a guarantee as I don't have a whole hell of a lot to do.  When Destiny is new and fresh, I'm on it a lot, usually the first half of the season.  When it's not, I'm on other games.  November is very likely to be mostly variety content until the next season starts.  If I'm playing by myself, chat interaction is usually pretty high, but if I'm playing with other people or trying to record for a video, it will be lower.  99% of people have been behaving themselves in chat, but I do ban people for being problematic and there are not many second chances.

Watching is completely free, although I do throw in ad breaks whenever I have to go AFK and ad revenue goes towards paying my moderators and editors.  If you are a Twitch subscriber, you get ad-free viewing.  If you are a Youtube Premium subscriber, I would imagine you get ad-free viewing on Youtube.  Streams do get monetized after they are over more aggressively though, I think right now it's 1 ad every 10 minutes, although subject to change.

I do plan on enabling paid Memberships on the channel soon if you would like to support the channel a bit more, which will give you chat emotes, a chat badge, a shoutout from me whenever you renew (or first time) and access to my Discord server.  I might do a cheaper option as well with no Discord access if I can do that for people who don't care about Discord, but want to be a Member.  If you don't want to be a member, but still wanna show some extra support, feel free to Super Chat instead.  My Discord does have rules that must be followed, just... be a good person.

There are NO PLANS in the short/medium term to provide anything more from Memberships than this, so please do not become a Member if you are expecting more.  MEMBERSHIPS WILL NEVER BE REQUIRED TO VIEW STREAMS IN ANY FORM.  If I do ever find the time to provide exclusive videos for Members only, I will make another announcement down the road.

Unfortunately, Youtube doesn't give me the option to enable ad-free viewing for those with a Membership, otherwise they would've been enabled a LONG time ago.  I never enabled Memberships on the channel because I knew I would not have time to give extra rewards to those who chose to do so.  If you're looking to further enhance your chat and/or stream experience, I'd suggest downloading the Truffle and Truffle New Tab extensions.

For those subscribed to my stream archive channel, that channel is very likely to go inactive because my streams now automatically archive themselves on this channel in the Live tab.  This reduces my post-stream workload to 5% of what it usually was AND more people are exposed to livestream content.  I will not remove or shut down the channel, all previous streams will stay there in case you wanna watch me play Elden Ring or whatever else I did, but new uploads will be very infrequent.  Of course I finally decide to make an archive channel and now I don't need it anymore.  There might be a very rare Twitch only livestream here or there, which will be posted over there.

That's everything.  Streams will have no impact on the regular production of content, this is something I've been doing for 9.5 years now over on Twitch, I'm just bringing it over here as well.  There is zero pressure to engage with livestream content at all, but I'm more than happy to see new faces in the chat.  If you have any questions, post them here and I'll try to answer.  Thanks!

Notable 2023 streams coming up:

November 28 - Season 23 for Destiny starts
December 8 - The 3rd Annual TCG Pack Opening Stream w/ Mr. Fruit
December ...22? - The 2nd Annual Not-So-Secret Santa Stream (in costume) 

Hey everyone.  Just getting a vibe check from people while also delivering a vibe check.

We have another 2 months of this season and I'm not gonna lie, there is very little on my list of content that I think people would actually be interested in.  Viewership and growth are way down on my channel and across many others.  I plan on doing a couple fun videos in the near future, another Destiny YTer vault cleaning and a little game show that I'm current working on, but otherwise, I think I've hit most of the big points that I wanna hit (I plan on doing a "what to spend your legendary shards on" video when we get a bit closer to end of season).  I got some good feedback about the Crota guide part 2 video, so I may end up doing a follow up to that video with some more "what people are actually doing" guides.  Not like I have much else going on at the moment.

I'm doing a vault cleaning with someone very soon and I was considering making them a weekly or every other weekly thing depending on how many people I can get and what the interest is like.  Those videos have done insanely well on other people's channels and I wanna see what it looks like when I bring some of that content home, but I also don't wanna drive it into the ground.

I know my personal play time on the game has gone down quite a lot this season, despite this season actually being quite strong.  Removing leveling from the game, for me personally, has actually done quite a lot of damage as without the need to go level, I don't really have many reasons to hop on and game.  I do my Crota runs for the weapon patterns, of which I'm pretty close to being done, I do my Master raid for the triumph and once that's over, I will have very little that I seek to achieve on the game.  That's because I literally have done everything that the game tracks, triumphs, titles, weapon patterns, I'm 99% done, which I realize is a very me specific problem.  I've put a little time into PvP recently, but not to the point where I'm looking to make any content.

This post is also me wanting a vibe check from all of you.  I know we're in that 3rd season of the year slump, but again, despite a really neat season, it feels like the slumpiest slump we've had as far as these 3rd season slumps go.  I don't want to have an empty channel, but at this point, I just don't know what kind of stuff people even want to engage with anymore.  I feel like the answers I'm mainly gonna see are gonna be related to a bunch of games having come out over the past couple of months and that general 3rd season apathy, but feel free to chime in anyway.

OH, merch drop number 4 is on the way.  It will be a completely new set of designs, not linked to the first 3 drops.

TwitchCon Vegas reminder, I'll be there and I have a meet and greet on Saturday that you can sign up for via the TwitchCon app.  Saturday the 21st at 2:30pm.  Hope to see you there. 

Quick channel update:

Due to my impending sabbatical next year, I've taken on 3 long term sponsorships (3/6/12 months respectively) as a way to replace the income that I would've made had I not chosen to take some time off.  I dunno how long my sabbatical will last, so in my mind, I definitely wanted to ensure that I had a few months worth of income in order to give me a bit more peace of mind about not working.

I historically haven't done THAT much sponsored content on the channel, so I wanted to give a heads up to anyone who may be wondering why there is so much more now.  I'm sure there will be a couple more one-off sponsors when we hit holiday season as well.  I will do my best to keep trying to make the ad reads and videos as entertaining as I can (I got a lot of good feedback on the previous couple I've done, thank you for that).

I've loosened up a bit as well when it comes to doing sponsored content considering how ubiquitous it has become on YT, it's just part of the YT game nowadays, a way for creators to supplement their income.  My attitude towards WHICH sponsors I choose has not changed though, I continue to plan on only taking deals with companies I'm comfortable with and/or have experience with.

As always, there is no pressure to change how you interact with these ads and sponsors.  Just wanted to be transparent about this.  I'm sure most of you are cool with it, but I like to update whenever there's any sort of change.  

Oh, also, I will again be at GCX in Orlando next weekend, looking forward to seeing anyone attending.  Leopard and I will be doing a charity block together on Tuesday, August 1st at 8am EDT/5am PDT.  I'll be doing my usual thing at GCX, which consists of standing for hours on end, talking to fans, for 2 days in a row.  Content on the channel will be light to non-existent for the next week or so as a result.  I have a video tomorrow and MAYBE one more thing for Monday or Tuesday.

That being said, convention travel for me is going to slow dramatically in 2024, we'll see how I'm feeling in the future.  After so many conventions, I'm getting a bit tired lol.  I think the last show I'll be at this year is TwitchCon in Las Vegas.  We also have PAX West, although I don't think I'll be there many days due to the reprised raid launching on September 1st.

Thanks everyone! 

Hey everyone, couple of things to talk about.


Number 1 is that I'm gonna be AFK starting July 4th for about a week and a half or so.  I'm going to TwitchCon Paris, plus a couple of other things, so there are probably not gonna be any videos during that time, still trying to see if I have enough for a stream highlights.  I also plan on trying to turn some of the Season 20 Grandmaster Nightfall runs I did with Jez and Danielle into content.  The Iron Banner video I made with them did really well, but the Legend Avalon absolutely did not, which is why I've been dragging my feet on editing those runs into content (although the video has recovered since it's poor day 1 showing).


Number 2 is that I'd like to talk about reaction/unscripted content.  The truth is that these live recorded videos and reactions that I do on the channel historically do quite well.  Reacting to raid hot takes, reacting to "hard to accept facts," even reacting or essentially live reading the TWAB (now TWID) sees way more viewership than a lot of other videos that I spend much more time creating, not to mention generate more money as a result and are also significantly easier to produce.  My reaction to Aztecross' video, for example, was not only one of the highest viewed videos on the channel in the first 24 hours, but was the 2nd highest earning day on the channel since 2016, although I realize that the subject matter was a very hot topic.  The video didn't do well BECAUSE it was a reaction, but what it was a reaction to.  But even more benign videos, reacting to Lightfall exotics, Bungie feedback, TWABs, still do much better than if I had turned them into fully scripted content.  I think back to the days where I could put "Datto's Thoughts on ______" and the video would be a guaranteed banger in terms of viewership.


I do think that reaction videos do well because they have the vibe that the person reacting to a thing is going to dunk on the subject matter or is going to be discussing drama and as we all know, drama drives viewership.  And I will say that most of my reaction content that I've done fits those molds: reacting to Bungie's thoughts on Lightfall, reacting to raid takes.  You guys wanna see me dunk on people's raid takes or bad takes, I totally get it.  But there are some other things that I think could just save me a lot of time if I simply did a live recording, no script or anything and simply reacted live.  And it's something I'm probably going to start incorporating more on the channel.


This is not to say that I'm becoming purely a reaction channel or that I plan on changing how I feel about stuff purely for viewership or anything like that, but at this point, when something gets more views, makes more money and takes half to 75% less time to make, well, I'm gonna push in that direction.  This is also a way for me to get more comfortable not scripting things and practicing for when I come back from my sabbatical as content on the channel post-Final Shape will likely be shifting slightly as I look to editors to help out on the channel.  I still want to provide that higher level analysis that I feel like I can give in this kind of content, but just make it a bit easier on myself to do so.

Unfortunately, part of the Youtube game is being first or being quick and when I fully script out responses, I'm potentially giving up on 10s of thousands of views.  This is because other creators will drop content much faster than me and by the time my video is out, it's old news, at least with regards to stuff like information drops.  I appreciate that people still want to hear my opinion, but I do need to play both parts of the game here.


Please let me know if you have any concerns.  I realize it's my channel and I can do whatever I wanna do with it, but I would not be here without your viewership.  I am not looking to become a drama channel, I'm not looking to find every single negative thing and talk about it, but I am looking to lessen the burden on myself.  Thanks all. 

No ViDoc coverage?

I ultimately decided not to do much coverage of the ViDoc because 95-99% of the it was information we already knew.  I don't really do a ton of like, trailer breakdown content anymore, I don't see much value in pointing out that there things like, I dunno, new perk icons? but we don't know what they are until Lightfall anyway, or stuff of that nature (like wow, can't believe it, new perks?????).

And stuff like exploring the new patrol area, watching broll of that or new NPCs and what not just feel like a waste because you'll get to do that in a couple of weeks.

I definitely don't wanna talk any sort of story stuff that's revealed because I'm not a lore guy nor do I really want to spoil any sort of story elements.

I realize that some people are probably gonna be mad about this decision, but there are plenty of other videos that are likely up by now that do that full trailer breakdown, 197 things you missed, type content if you really want it.  We'll have plenty to discuss when Lightfall actually comes out and I'd rather spend my time on THAT content, where we can really get at the meat of things, vs. speculating about broll shots or what this perk icon could mean or things like that.

Also, 7am release, miss me with that. 

Hey everyone.  Taking a short vacation, last chance I'm gonna get before Lightfall drops.  I have some shorts and a stream highlights lined up for when I'm gone.  Tried to do a reaction video to a recent reddit post about Bungie asking for community feedback, but it didn't really turn out that good.  Turns out just agreeing with everything doesn't really make for funny commentary.  If you're really missing me, you can check out my stream archive channel:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHsE... 

Reception to shorts has been pretty good, glad to see people enjoying them, couple of them hitting 100k, very encouraging stuff.  Sub growth has been up a little bit too, although that appears to be more long form video content related than shorts related.  Still though, net gain for the channel, so that's pretty cool.  We'll keep them rolling.

Back in a week! 

Hello all, happy 2023 to all of you.

Just a quick announcement that in the next couple of weeks, I am going to be experimenting with Youtube Shorts in addition to my normal content.  Normal content is still priority 1, shorts will not be replacing or reducing the long form content that I make right now.

When I first start doing them, the majority of my shorts are just going to be old stream highlights that I think are worthy of being converted into shorts, so if you're an avid stream highlight watcher, these are not gonna be anything new.  Some of them will also be clips from Jez videos that feature a good joke from me, like the very first one that I'll be uploading.  I think the majority of the clips that I've pulled for shorts are bangers, I tried to only pull the top of the top stuff, so it should all be pretty good.  So starting out, they're gonna be pretty entertainment based, not really information based.

Getting to utilize shorts will also enable me to make content on things that I might've not normally talked about because I didn't have enough to say on a topic, (like Iron Banner: Fortress or the Nightfall weapons of the week) or was about something that was only going to last a few days, (like Xur's rolls or some sort of dungeon or raid farm).  I also have an idea for an original series that gets my community a little more involved, we'll see if I get that rolling.

Part of this is because of the revenue share program, I do wanna see if that is worth my while and part of this is to see if we can convert some shorts watchers into long form video content watchers.  Sub growth on the channel has been basically stagnant for 2 months now and while I know it's pretty slow for everyone, I think it's worth a shot.

If I'm not really seeing growth or people aren't tuning into shorts or maybe I'm just not enjoying them, then I'll stop making them and we'll just go back to how things are now.  The ideal case for me is that I try to upload a short on days where I don't have any long form content going up on the channel, but I know for a fact that I will not be able to guarantee a short every single day where I don't have a long form video.  Maybe at the start, but I also do not wanna spam people with shorts if they are not enjoying them.

If you guys have anything you'd like to see me experiment with in YT shorts world, let me know.  But again, I'm hoping that this is going to be something where if you enjoy the shorts, cool, but if you don't, your experience will not change at all.  If for some reason shorts just absolutely pop off, which I'm incredibly skeptical of happening because Destiny is the Antarctica of the shooter world and has literally zero crossover with any other franchise and/or content creators, then we'll re-evaluate the situation at a future date.

Thanks all, let's see how this goes.