- [Dan] Creating a successful gaming channel
isn't as simple as just playing a game
while you're recording your screen.
A successful gaming channel has everything planned out
in advance because a successful gaming channel is one
that can tell a good story.
What makes gaming such an interesting niche on YouTube
is that there is no one formula
to become a successful gaming YouTuber.
And that's why today we're gonna be taking a look
at four completely different gaming channels.
As I'm going through these,
I want you to pay attention to the strategies
that they're all using that make them similar.
But then I also want you to pay attention to the things
that make each of these channels unique.
And the first one up is DougDoug,
well known for his hilarious commentary.
- There's a fish.
Please give me control to shoot the fish.
- Creative challenges
and overall just super engaging content.
One of our top strategies for gaming channels
has always been to play one game,
but DougDoug's channel is all over the place
in terms of genre.
You have Zelda, Skyrim, Grand Theft Auto, City Skylines.
In the case of DougDoug, though,
it's not really about what he's playing
but how he's playing it.
If you watch DougDoug,
you're gonna see that he adds unique constraints
to the different games he plays.
For example, in one video he plays Skyrim,
and the challenge here
is that he can't actually use a controller
or a keyboard mouse to move.
He has to only use voice commands to meet a certain goal.
- Give me a good weapon.
Got him, got him, got him.
Oh, staff of paralysis.
Another successful murder with no one the wiser.
- [Dan] In another video,
he's trying to play Grand Theft Auto
without breaking any laws,
but the game is basically in chaos mode,
making it almost impossible to traverse the map
especially without bumping your car into anything.
And while all of these challenges
and the commentary is hilarious,
there's more under the hood going on here
that makes these videos reach a million views and beyond.
And one of those things that's key to Doug's success
is his ability to engage his community.
You see, DougDoug primarily hosts his content on Twitch
and then re-uploads the edited down versions of the videos
onto YouTube.
And so Twitch chat has become a regular recurring theme
and character throughout Doug's videos.
Not only does Doug use his Twitch chat for suggestions
and fun voting polls that determine how things are gonna go
in the game, but DougDoug has another superpower
and that is his background in programming.
Using not only his programming skills
but his massive community,
he's able to combine these two things
and create incredible content that's very hard to replicate.
Essentially, Doug can mod the games that he's playing
so that Twitch chat can actually take over the game.
In just one example,
Twitch chat is gonna try to beat Super Mario Maker levels.
Doug has programmed a mod that can actually listen
to Twitch chat and all of its inputs for movement,
which means that thousands of people all at the same time
are trying to move Mario across the screen
in order to reach the end goal of the game.
- Yeah, yeah.
Now go, go, go, go
All right, all right, all right.
Yes, let's go!
We got three lives.
Bam!
All right, under a minute.
This is the run, everybody.
Don't, shit, we're skipping.
Okay, nobody move.
Silence.
Silence in the chat.
- [Dan] This deep level of interaction
between Doug and his viewers
makes them feel like they're a part of the content.
This strategy fosters a sense of community
and loyalty from viewers
as well as an outlet for them to be creative themselves
and even submit ideas for future challenges.
Doug has created a media empire.
He has several YouTube channels
where he re-purposes all types of content
that he makes live on Twitch.
The next channel we're gonna look at though
is not quite as big on building community,
but they certainly have the repurposing content
and media empire side of things that is similar to DougDoug.
That next creator is Josh Strife Hayes
who focuses mostly on MMO RPGs and retro games.
Josh's fan base appreciates his unique perspective
and approach to creating content.
In my own opinion,
Josh's superpower is his incredible writing ability.
One of his most popular series is called Worst MMO Ever,
where basically he takes an older MMO,
he plays it for a while,
and then he creates a pretty long video essay
on the entire experience.
Now, the games he plays don't actually end up
earning the title of Worst MMO Ever by the end of the video.
There's a lot of nuance to the arguments.
But the reason these videos are so addictive to watch
despite how long these videos are
being that they're about older MMO RPGs,
they're still incredibly engaging and fun to watch.
Josh is incredible at telling a story
and adding a lot of humor along the way.
His genuine passion for MMO shines through
in every single one of these video essays,
and that makes them very relatable and enjoyable.
Earlier I said, Josh isn't all about building communities,
but that doesn't mean his community doesn't play a part
in his content creation process.
That's because Josh has multiple YouTube channels
and each one serves its own purpose.
You have Josh Strife Plays,
which is a channel full of long form videos.
This channel is his chance
to showcase his unique perspective on older games,
go into the history of them, talk about the mechanics,
talk about what's changed between then and now.
But then you have Josh Strife Says, or says.
This channel is a really nice mix of YouTube shorts
as well as widescreen longer videos
that are funny clips from his live streams,
and usually they have very little to do
with the games he's playing during those live streams.
Josh's Twitch chat asks for his opinions
on a lot of different things.
So in these videos you'll often find him
giving his hilarious response to some random question
that a viewer had.
Repurposing content is a huge growth strategy
for a lot of channels, especially in gaming.
So hats off to Josh here for being so successful at it.
The next channel we're gonna look at
is also an insane storyteller.
So good.
But they impressed us for a completely different reason.
With just over 5 million subscribers,
we're now looking at Let's Game It Out.
This creator, also named Josh, posts about once a month.
You'll notice on Let's Game It Out
there are a lot of different games.
This might look like a list of a lot of random games,
but I promise you there is a theme here
because Josh tends to stick to simulation games.
I'm talking games where you create theme parks,
cook in restaurants, or survive on a raft.
The unique thing about Josh of Let's Game It Out though
is that he refuses to play games as they were intended.
In general, Josh's goal in seemingly every video
is to destroy this game beyond recognition.
Instead of creating a warm, welcoming,
fun family theme park,
Josh creates a theme park of perpetual torment.
Or if that's not your thing,
you could check out the unethical zoo where nobody is safe.
Another interesting thing about this channel
is the business mindset and strategies behind it.
We all wanna get 1,000 subscribers,
4,000 hours of watch time, and apply for AdSense on YouTube
so we can start monetizing our content through ads, right?
Well, Josh takes this a step further
because he also has his own merchandise.
Not to mention that most of his uploads these days
feature a sponsored segment.
I recommend studying Josh
if one of your ambitions is to become somebody
who has brand deals on their channel in the future
because Josh does a great job of incorporating the brand
into the story he's trying to tell
with whatever game he's playing that day.
- [Josh] What are you guys looking at?
Oh, wait a minute.
You're not looking at the case files.
You're looking at Opera GX, the first browser for gamers.
What's that?
You don't know about the browser for gamers?
Well, then what are we waiting for?
- If I had to sum up what kind of channel Let's Game It Out
really is, I would say it's a channel
that's carved out a niche in hilarious
and sadistic gaming content.
I'll watch literally any game that Josh plays
because I know he's going to find a moment where he says,
"Oh, is there a limit?
"Let's find out."
Watching games break under his chaotic rule never gets old.
And if you spend any time at all watching Let's Game It Out,
you'll find that making videos like this
takes an incredible amount of time.
And that's another common theme
with a lot of the gaming channels that I'm seeing these days
that are super popular on YouTube.
They are willing to spend a lot of time making one video,
and the next channel we're looking at is no exception.
Meet Settled, the most popular old school Runescape player
on all of YouTube.
To understand the genius
behind this channel's incredible strategy
you need to first understand just a couple things
about the game itself.
I won't go into all the details,
but essentially Runescape at this point is an MMO RPG
that's over 20 years old.
Achieving goals in this game
has always taken an incredible amount of time,
and I'm talking hundreds of hours
to achieve some of the most coveted items in the game,
and that's for a regular player.
Settled takes this a step further
by putting self-made restrictions
on top of an already incredibly grindy experience.
His latest series requires him
to earn a certain amount of XP
before he's allowed to essentially walk.
He can only walk on tiles that he's unlocked,
and to unlock those tiles,
he needs to earn a certain amount of XP.
- [Settled] This is McTile.
A few months ago, I only had one tile to stand on.
And every 1,000 XP I gain, I get to unlock a new one.
I can't use banks or trade other players,
and I'm unlocking Runescape one tile at a time.
- So why is that a genius YouTube strategy though?
Well, Settled is working
on an incredibly famously time consuming goal,
And sure, you could start a channel
where you work towards that goal yourself,
but anyone can do that.
Settled is always pushing the boundaries of this game
because he knows that's going to get more views.
At the same time,
he's also encouraging people to try this game mode out
for themselves, which has been really interesting to see
and of course helps build community.
The point I'm trying to make about Settled
is that he's willing to put himself through a lot
for the sake of making YouTube content.
He's also mastered titles and thumbnails
because if you're a player of Runescape,
you know exactly what this thumbnail is trying
to communicate to you.
These are the strategies that have made him literally
the most subscribed to Runescape channel on YouTube.
These four channels have a lot in common.
Three of the channels we looked at
don't stick to just one game,
and that's a strategy we would often tell a lot
of new creators to do.
All four of these channels though
are still making the same kind of videos
over and over again
and continuing to cater to the same kind of audience
with each upload.
So all four of these channels have a lot of consistency,
which keeps people coming back for more.
Another thing you probably noticed about these channels
is how they all leverage their communities
in different ways.
If you're paying attention,
you know that these channels are not making videos
for themselves.
Not a single one just plays a game
while they're capturing their screen.
They all play this game for their communities.
They play this game to bring value to a group of people.
We tell channels all the time to stick to one game
and grow by building an audience of people
who like that game and wanna see more of it.
But honestly, starting with one game is just that.
It's a start.
It helps you narrow your focus
of your channel down a little bit,
but at the end of the day, you still need to find a strategy
for your channel that works for you.
That might mean that no matter what you play,
you're not gonna play it the right way.
You're gonna work to break this game,
find glitches, maybe do speed runs.
It might be that you play games
where your audience can dictate what happens next.
As a gaming channel, you should get to a point
where it doesn't matter what you're playing on your channel,
what matters is who you're playing that game for.
Who is the specific viewer you want to make content for
every single upload?
Another thing I'm sure you noticed
is that these creators are also good
at repurposing their content.
Making content in one place
and then finding a way to make it something new
and put it on YouTube is a very common strategy.
It allows you as the creator to play into your strengths
and be more flexible
with how you actually produce this content.
So maybe you can do a live stream
where you just turn on the camera and play the game for fun,
but a story may unfold as you're playing,
and then you can take that live stream,
download it to your computer, and edit a short form video
that condenses all the storytelling elements that happen
throughout your live stream into one video.
Or maybe what you can do is spend your time playing a game
for yourself off camera,
but while taking some notes along the way.
Those notes become a script.
That script turns into a video essay
that tells people all about this game that you love.
We picked these specific channels
because they're all fantastic examples
of how you can run a modern gaming channel.
I wanna make it super clear by the way
that the channels we looked at today
are not the be all end all
when it comes to what it takes to grow a gaming channel.
And that's why we made this video here
because regardless of what kind of gaming content you make,
everything in this video will help.