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unfair
Oct 6, 2012

Eulisker posted:

I present you: The Awesome Incarnate!

Man, this guy must be terrible at LPs - and I can say this without watching a single video. Looking at his SocialBlade stats he's getting 75k views a month and maybe 40 subscribers (which is a really bad ratio). Basically all the people are finding his videos of day-one games via search and not liking the content of his videos.

Weird that he would be mystified by that, rather than trying to improve his content/style. I recognized his channel when you mentioned it because he changes his channel name to the newest game he's LPed with a bunch of numbers - as if that somehow helps traffic.

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unfair
Oct 6, 2012

John Liver posted:

Jesse does have a few weak points - he tends to jump early onto new releases, but he gets through them fairly quickly and cuts out things that viewers might not want to see. He has a compulsion to collect/observe absolutely everything in a game, and this can often hang him up and make videos last longer than they should

I'd actually disagree about the new releases thing. Sometimes he does, but other times he's explicitly not hurried to play popular games because he wants to finish up other series. I get the impression it really depends on how excited he is to play the game. That said, even though I occasionally watch a video from him the collection thing you mentioned really kills my long term interest. I can't watch 65 parts of what should be a 30 part LP. (But if I'm going to watch part of a blind LP I'd still pick him over a lot of other people)

unfair fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Oct 11, 2013

unfair
Oct 6, 2012

Help Im Alive posted:

Do many of these people make a living from doing LPs? Or is it only possible if you're one of the super popular ones like PDP?

Making a living from YouTube is just the weirdest thing to me.

I think you'd need a minimum of 500k-1mil views per month to live off it, so it's really a very small percentage of people who do. (Although SocialBlade claims Jesse is #728 in views, and he's at 5mil per month, so that small percentage is probably a couple thousand people).

unfair
Oct 6, 2012

AMooseDoesStuff posted:

Two Best Freinds Play allegedly quit their jobs to live off of their Lets Play dollars and they've only got some 370,000 subscribers. I think. I'm not sure if they're some special case or if who you partner with really matters when you take into account living off of lets play.

Views are what matter for money though - subscribers are mostly irrelevant (though normally channels get around 10-20% of their subscribers watching each video, the rest comes from search traffic and viral factors)

Edit: Yeah it looks like they're at 5.7 million views per month right now.

unfair
Oct 6, 2012

SleightSighted posted:

Also, I want to see the thread's opinions on things like: Geek and Sundry's Co-optitude. It's a blind one video playthrough of NES era games by an internet personality and her brother. There's facecam, and edits everywhere so that no one can fully see a game, but I'm guessing that it serves a different purpose than let's plays so I don't know what to think of this one.

They're both pretty terrible at the games, but it seems like her brother generally shows a semblance of competency. At one point Felicia got Sonic stuck down a hole where you have to rock back and forth to get momentum, and couldn't get him out for what seemed like 5 minutes. Then proceeded to talk about how terrible the game was if I remember correctly.

They've changed the show a bit lately to be more positive - probably in response to the backlash from that episode. Before that it was basically them playing old games very poorly (while mocking them) and then saying they sucked. It's actually kind of unfortunate because if you had a couple good gamers playing through retro games they weren't familiar with it might actually be interesting.

unfair
Oct 6, 2012
One of my guilty pleasures is Nika Harper, who I found through the Geek & Sundry writing vlog a while ago. She isn't exactly good at Spelunky, but her enthusiasm and effort tends to make it entertaining regardless. Occasionally she has a facecam, but most are just the game - though if you do check them out I'd recommend something other than the most recent since it's with other people and the sound quality is a bit crap consequently.

While we're on the topic of Geek & Sundry, they also have a board game show which I'm sure some of you are familiar with called Tabletop. Hosted by Wil Wheaton it's informative, let's play-ish, and I'd highly recommend checking it out.

unfair
Oct 6, 2012

100 HOGS AGREE posted:

Do many LP channels like, combine their MAD YOUTUBE REVENUE with like, bloging-for-bucks tactics? You know, the ones that drive pageviews and use like, amazon referral links to get kickbacks? Like in their video descriptions, link to an amazon page for the game or whatever?

I'd think that'd be a logical step to take if you were focused on MAXIMUM COMPENSATION, or is there some kinda rule about that on YouTube?

I know some people that do, but it's more for review/first impression content rather than LPs. I'd imagine the buy demand would be much lower on LPs, except maybe for launch week.

unfair
Oct 6, 2012
I thought you guys would appreciate this gem from /r/letsplay:

quote:

What's wrong with [reading text in funny character voices]? People don't like to read, and it's annoying when they read it in their own voice because it takes you out of immersion.

There are a couple cool people over there, but every once in a while I run across a comment like this that makes me do a double-take. Recently the subreddit banned posting LPs except in megathreads, so it's a bit less spammy now at least.

unfair
Oct 6, 2012
That pseudo-dump of Long Live The Queen someone did reminded me of the BackwardCompatibles - they're a couple episodes into what I assume will be a single attempt at that game. They said at one point their job is making cosplay costumes, so if they're ever dressed up for videos/intros that's why.

I'm not exactly sure what you guys would think of them as they do sometimes flash to a facecam, and aren't usually super informative, but on the flip side Allison usually knows the game they're playing fairly well. They usually do one-offs though, not full LPs (plus other miscellaneous stuff).

unfair
Oct 6, 2012
I think it's funny how they said "We're going to need subtitles for sure!" in the beginning and proceeded to not ever shut up. Even with subtitles I couldn't pay attention to the game because of how hyper they were.

I guess the appeal for that sort of LP is more a MST3k vibe, but at least movies are relatively short - I'm not sure why someone would want to waste 8+ hours of their life on the same exact garbage. Games at least tend to have a story arc or some sort of change that keeps you engaged over that long of a time period, but this kind of act is really one note throughout.

unfair
Oct 6, 2012
Fun fact - YouTube is now forcing you to make a Google+ account to reply to comments on your favorite YouTube LPs. And unless they fix it, you also can't reply to any old comments made by someone who was posting using the old comment system - so 99% of previous comments are now effectively archived.

unfair
Oct 6, 2012

ReturnOfFable posted:

Well, time to go to the war bunkers. Let's break out that .pdf of which companies are safe to LP their games.

It isn't about which games are safe to LP - the Content ID claims hitting right now seem to not be legit for the most part. I only got one, but it was by some third party that didn't seem to have any association with the game in question, unlike the few semi-legit ones I've seen in the past.

If everyone has my ratio of claims to videos though it isn't the apocalypse - because that's like one out of three hundred.

Mzbundifund posted:

Speaking of youtube monetization scams, has anyone else been pestered a lot more lately by those "networks" who promise you views and want you to join and sign some appalling contract? I dunno if it's because we're doing a better-known game now or if it's just luck but I've had a lot of emails from these sorts of people lately.

They've been doing that for about a year now, and I think it's what prompted the upcoming change to YouTube MCNs (multi-channel networks) - although I don't think the change is going to solve anything.


Here's a summary of what's changing, if anyone cares:
Basically before if you were an MCN member your content would bypass a lovely approval system that's usually a gatekeeper for monetizing your content.

Sometimes that system would hold your videos hostage for days, weeks, or months, so it really wasn't viable for monetizing anything real-time reliably (I do video game reviews on my main channel and was seeing 10% rejection rates on indisputably legal content). So the answer was obviously to join an MCN and bypass it.

Now YouTube is changing MCNs so they have two partnership levels - Managed and Affiliate. Managed works just like the old system and bypasses approvals, but the MCN is liable for any copyright strikes incurred by the managed channels (this used to be purely the channels responsibility, and the MCN would drop anyone who got a strike). Affiliate doesn't bypass the approval system and has a lot of people locked in contracts mad (because obviously MCNs don't want the responsibility and are making most people Affilites).

If the networks had been policing content like they were supposed to this probably wouldn't have happened, but they were too busy trying to recruit every channel with 100 views in hopes of locking the next Pewdiepie into a 2+ year contract. I think YouTube was trying to stop that with this change, but they're just going to keep doing it and make people Affiliates instead. (And YouTube doesn't want to shut down MCNs completely since Google owns a portion of Machinima - one of the largest gaming MCNs)

unfair
Oct 6, 2012

unfair posted:

It isn't about which games are safe to LP - the Content ID claims hitting right now seem to not be legit for the most part. I only got one, but it was by some third party that didn't seem to have any association with the game in question, unlike the few semi-legit ones I've seen in the past.

If everyone has my ratio of claims to videos though it isn't the apocalypse - because that's like one out of three hundred.

This single claim I got hit with (and contested soon after) now seems to have disappeared. I don't know if it's because the claimant released it, or if YouTube is cleaning up the new Content ID a bit.

E: for anyone who's interested - if you do counter-claim one of these and the other person doesn't respond within 30 days it automatically releases too. IDOL usually rejects claims a couple weeks in though, so if you're dealing with them it probably won't work.

unfair fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Dec 12, 2013

unfair
Oct 6, 2012

JamieTheD posted:

Well, funnily enough, I asked them to clarify just who the gently caress was claiming what, and got my reply about an hour ago. It was a form letter, saying "Er, use our dispute form"

Ah yes. The same dispute form which no longer has an option for "This is in error", and forces me to use the Fair Use (Review and Parody) defence that is a rather shaky one, and which will result in a copyright strike if I am, in fact, wrong, and even one of this "A collection of music rights collecting societies" decides to say that no, they own it?

Essentially, scam or not, the only legal leg I have to stand on is that this is (was, if I don't get a response from Google in the next week) far too god-drat vague for me to make any judgements beyond the fact that the Cold Fear copyright claim is too vague to judge. Same with the Rogue Trooper vid, because although it gives a track name there, Rebellion, afaik, didn't name their music for Rogue Trooper beyond generic level names.

Essentially, even if the claim is complete bunkum, I need to know what musician this represents, because otherwise, I risk losing both the videos and the standing that would allow me to continue LPing properly... Natch, the people claiming have little risk to no risk whatsoever on their end, which is part of the problem with the whole system.

EDIT: Gaz-L is right about the other part. I've had radio stations claim before, because they played it once. Go figure.

Unless I'm misreading your post you have a misconception about the dispute system. You can dispute anything once with no risk, however if that dispute is rejected and you choose to dispute it again you may get a strike if they turn you down a second time. Definitely use the fair use option, and explain your case in the following comment box provided. Using other options may net you an auto-rejection from YouTube - I don't remember which ones are which.

I do agree it's tilted in the claimants favor though, you're at their mercy.


Highwang posted:

On the note of YT's new copyright system going loving mental; a video I put on private which is just a stream recording of Castlevania LoS got hit by two guys, IDOL and Merlin[Phonophile]. Apparently these two companies are notorious for automatically rejecting all claims against them. I'm not seeing a red cent either way, but is there any other way to get this claim legit disputed just in case?

You won't win those - IDOL rejects everything, I think Merlin does too. As far as I know they don't have a way to contact them and ask for removal. Those matches are usually legit for soundtracks during cutscenes, etc in my experience. (Not that they should be getting the money, but that's another story)

unfair
Oct 6, 2012

Cheez posted:

I've got a video with both Nintendo and "AdRev" having some kind of claim on it. I want to dispute AdRev and acknowledge Nintendo since I don't care if Nintendo does it, but I can only acknowledge both or dispute both. There doesn't appear to be a way to separate them. Yet another problem people face.

There is actually a way to dispute one and leave the other - at some point during the dispute process (I think it was right after picking a reason such as "fair use") you can uncheck one and leave the other claimant checked.

As far as I've seen YouTube hasn't really announced what they changed, just that there were changes to the system. From what I've seen on my own videos I think they just cranked the detection threshold down. It used to require somewhere around 30 seconds of uninterrupted matchable audio to hit on music, and now it seems to be much less - maybe 5 seconds or so.

On the upside a lot of the music people (aside from IDOL) seem to be pretty agreeable to removing claims on gameplay footage if you ask the right way.

unfair
Oct 6, 2012

SelenicMartian posted:

Just watch the start up. It's magnificent. I mean, you can see the screen of the recording PC in the reflection.

I don't know if I've ever seen someone record an LP with a laptop webcam before. :doh:

Highwang posted:

So I'm not recommending this guy because I can't form a fair opinion, but I'm curious on people's thoughts on ShinyRayquaza. I'm mainly curious because the dude has an 80+ episode series for Risk of Rain at an average of 1 Hour+ per episode, and I wonder if I'm missing something. I personally can't last past the 5 minute mark of any vid because his commentary does nothing for me.

His tone, cadence, and general commentary style seem very close to Northernlion, I'm not sure if that's intentional mimicry or just coincidence. It's hard to tell if he's very skilled at the games or not though - I just skipped through a recent Risk Of Rain episode and starting at the 12:30 minute mark was just him cheesing a bunch of enemies for a full two minutes. I'm not opposed to strategies that work, but as an LPer there has to be consideration for the viewers boredom level.

Edit: Apparently his channel is hot stuff right now though because it more than doubled in size in the past month - I'm guessing due to search rankings on a few Risk Of Rain videos and it being officially released on Steam about a month ago. (That same right place, right time effect with Binding Of Isaac was what made Northernlion big - so it shouldn't be surprising)

unfair fucked around with this message at 12:13 on Dec 22, 2013

unfair
Oct 6, 2012

Dragonatrix posted:

Let's be honest; in the vast majority of cases, this would not change a thing. There might be one or two exceptions that actually check (even then probably not every case) but a good 99% would just rubber stamp everything.

They actually already have the ability to do that, where it just queues up all matches for them to approve or release - but either it isn't the default (and people are too lazy to change it) or they just choose the flag everything immediately option.

unfair
Oct 6, 2012

RareAcumen posted:

Does anyone have a list of the stuff you can do on Youtube to format comments? Asterisks make things bold, hyphens add strikethroughs, etc.

https://support.google.com/plus/answer/1053549?hl=en&topic=1257360&ctx=topic

only three total, asterisk, hyphen, and underscore

unfair
Oct 6, 2012

VivaVizer posted:

Just the first one though because gently caress yeah.

That's okay, I'd be surprised if he makes it through one before he decides it's too hard anyway. It'll end abruptly.

unfair
Oct 6, 2012
I think Sony Vegas and Adobe Premiere Elements are the most common choice among those who choose to pay for editing software, but even then you're only talking about $100 or so. Personally I use Premiere Elements because I'm familiar with it and do pretty heavy editing. I've never tried using AviSynth/MeGUI but I was under the impression you're just running scripts on video files - rather than the WYSIWYG ease of normal editing software.

unfair
Oct 6, 2012
That was super hard to watch. Apparently I'm a lot better at Dark Souls than I realized, even though I hate the game.

unfair
Oct 6, 2012

muike posted:

If he uploads a million videos a day, isn't that actually going to hurt his overall view rate? Like, people are going to see a million videos in their feed if they're subscribed to him, how likely is it that they're going to check out more than one of them?

The strategy - I think - is to upload most/all of a game on day one, then people with short attention spans are likely to watch multiple episodes. Otherwise they may forget/get tired of you before you finish the series.

I don't know if it actually works, but that's the theory.

unfair
Oct 6, 2012

Holon posted:

Though I had another topic I wished to question, what are the general opinions on Polaris? The new contracting group that's got everyone from Pewdiepie to Total Biscuit doing poo poo for them.

They're not terrible, but also not God's gift to networks as some people seem to think. They also have a one/two year lock-in contract which can be a bit risky with the major changes YouTube has been making recently.

E: Also they aren't "new", they just renamed The Game Station.

E2: Anyone considering joining a network should really wait about a month and see how the whole Managed vs Affiliate thing shakes out. January ad rates are usually poo poo anyway so you won't miss much.

unfair fucked around with this message at 01:45 on Jan 8, 2014

unfair
Oct 6, 2012
Modern games seem to bother you a lot with tutorialized instructions though if you aren't following their orders exactly. I can see someone not expecting anything to really happen by ignoring the game prompts.

It's actually a good game design in the tutorial sense, because it lets you know they aren't messing around - and your actions can make a difference in the story. I almost wish it happened a little faster, since they give you like 10-20 minutes before it has an impact - so only the most thorough explorers will run into it.

unfair
Oct 6, 2012
I'm sure $3750 is a drop in the bucket for the MS advertising budget, it's surprising they're only buying 1.25 million views. $3/m isn't a ton to spend, but it also isn't bad for the people making the videos since it will probably basically double their ad revenue. (especially in January - which is terrible for ad rates)

unfair
Oct 6, 2012
Since Bobbin Threadbare started replaying Deus Ex I though I'd also mention ChristopherOdd. He does blind (sometimes day-one) LPs, but I quite enjoyed watching him figure out the original Deus Ex since he really gets into good stories.

unfair
Oct 6, 2012

BMS posted:

As for TotalBiscuit actually having health problems due to YOUTUBE comments....that....if that's actually true, that would lead one to think there's some borderline (at the least) mental problems going on there. But then again, isn't he the guy that posted on here that he had an IQ of 138 or something? poo poo man, rise above it.

Seriously though, he should thank his lucky stars he's in Europe, I mean, I highly doubt that if he were an American LPer going to the Doctor for Comment Injury, that that poo poo would be covered under Obamacare. :911:

I think he has a condition that exacerbates it, but really anyone who produces content for the general public needs to have a relatively thick skin. There are a lot of people out there willing to tell you that your content is poo poo and you need to die, for no particular reason.

Sometimes even if you know a complaint is bullshit it still nags at you for a little while - if you're honest with yourself. (edit: introspective is the word I was looking for) By this I mean that some people go "lalala everything I believe is correct, gently caress you!", and others try to find an objective truth. Game reviewers would probably tend to fall more into the latter group. So it isn't all about having a thick skin necessarily, you also have to improve while not letting negativity impact your mood.

That said, I don't know why he didn't just hire someone to read his comments for him, and pass on any important feedback. A third-party proxy seems like it would be invaluable to someone who makes a large amount of money off YouTube content. We live in a world where some people will have a vendetta against you if you say something bad about their favorite game, and reading that garbage doesn't help anyone.

unfair fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Feb 9, 2014

unfair
Oct 6, 2012

Aurain posted:

Sounds like a sort of self-destructive tendency, and while fortunately I'm not as famous as TB so I don't have to deal with morons, I can sympathise with his plight because I sometimes find myself compulsively and habitually doing things I know aren't good for me mentally and even though the voice in my head screams "no", I have to fulfil that morbid curiosity and it never works out well. It's like a self fulfilling prophecy of bad news, and it's incredibly hard to break once it has its claws in you.

Being inquisitive and social isn't innately self-destructive, it's the venomous attitude of some people on the Internet that makes normal human interaction toxic. Combine that with hateful comments usually mattering more than ten times as many fans singing your praises and it can be stressful.

I have a feeling that most of the people dismissing his reaction either haven't tried to make content for an audience, or haven't had appropriately vile comments directed their way. It bothers most people with normal social skills, but takes a while to really break you down. Some people deal with it by sticking to an echo chamber of reassuring fans, others just occasionally lose their temper.

At this point I don't think even a break will help him - he just got back from a cruise. He just needs someone to step in and filter out all the trivial bullshit and give him the interesting conversations/comments. Anything less is probably just a question of how long it takes him to implode.

unfair
Oct 6, 2012

Brassherald posted:

For a full time Youtuber, though, its like when you get a bad review at work, or a bad grade or whatever and it seems to split like we would at work after evaluations.

It's like that, plus if all your co-workers told you how stupid you were as you walked in the door every day. Doesn't matter if he has a 155 IQ, repeat something enough and you can make people question reality. (or at least put them in a bad mood from being poked at constantly)

unfair
Oct 6, 2012

VivaVizer posted:

@Nidoking

My point is the First Amendment doesn't apply to Youtube at all. First Amendment only stops the government from making laws or actions that infringes on your freedom of speech (and a few other freedoms). It doesn't apply to any privately owned platform or property. I can no more claim First Amendment rights to scream about military drones on your front yard than I can claim First Amendment rights for anything that is posted on the internet or Youtube. Maybe on a government website though.

In fact, if Youtube decided tomorrow to make a system that randomly deleted a video every minute, then they are completely within their right to assuming that gels with their ToS.

You would be correct if YouTube itself decided to take your video down - for example due to nudity. If they remove it based on a copyright claim from a third party though you can use Free Speech and Fair Use as arguments depending on the content type and pattern of takedowns.

For instance, there's a big difference between "FUN Creators" being able to say "take down all videos containing Guise Of The Wolf gameplay", or just targeting one specific negative review (in this case TotalBiscuit). It's an issue of free speech issue when you're trying to quash negative publicity. Of course due to Fair Use they probably can't legally take down any actual reviews, but Let's Plays are most likely easy targets.

unfair
Oct 6, 2012
If I remember correctly once the YouTube dispute hits the real DMCA stage (I don't know how many steps it takes now - used to be a lot more straightforward), they put the video back online and only take it down if you lose the legal dispute.

fake edit: Yeah I found it in the YouTube FAQ:

quote:

I notified YouTube of a video that infringed my copyright and it was removed. Why did I receive an email saying it may be reinstated to the site?

We have likely received a counter notification regarding your removal request. In accordance with the law, the video will be reinstated unless you submit evidence that you’ve filed a court action against the user seeking to restrain the allegedly infringing activity. If we don't receive that notice from you within 10 days, we may reinstate the material to YouTube.

unfair fucked around with this message at 08:46 on Feb 16, 2014

unfair
Oct 6, 2012

Sneaky Fast posted:

How much money does someone like DSP make doing this racket?

At minimum around 60k a year, probably more like 100k. That's just based on rough napkin estimates of what his monetized views and CPM probably are.

Keep in mind the dude got 3.5 MILLION views in the past month.

unfair
Oct 6, 2012

Roar posted:

The question that remains is why the gently caress are they not doing so immediately

Because that isn't how you fence currency. They wouldn't try to sell them on the open market if they wanted to cash them in. What you do is sell the whole wallet to a third party for a percentage of what it's "worth". That third party then gets the risk/profit from selling it off piecemeal slowly. That's assuming they actually care to sell them.

unfair
Oct 6, 2012
Limited currency doesn't work that way - you'd have to ruin peoples faith in it, otherwise it will just stabilize and go back up once you've hit it with the inflation. It might not go as high immediately, assuming fixed demand, but you couldn't keep the price artificially depressed with a limited number of coins.

Keep in mind I don't own any bitcoin or care about it.

unfair
Oct 6, 2012

Roar posted:

It's not a matter of self-deprecation, it's a matter of acceptance. LP'ing a game is roughly on the same level of "coolness" as D&D is to the general public. It's fine and pretty fun if you're in the loop but it's not something you would bring up at a social gathering if you don't want people to think you're a dweeb.

I feel a little bit sorry for anyone who is so ashamed of a hobby or entertainment they enjoy. I mean assuming we're all adults it isn't like we're going to be beaten up for admitting that we like to play/watch video games on the Internet.

And even if you do feel the need to hide it, that shouldn't carry over to being bashful about talking about it here.

unfair
Oct 6, 2012
Slowbeef, your mailbox is still full. I just thought you might want to be careful with your recent Retsupurae video - even if it's a joke, people have been getting strikes recently for jamming keywords in the description box (they might have been community strikes, but it's still a hassle).

unfair
Oct 6, 2012

Lazyfire posted:

Reddit's LP community is apparently so toxic that there are no longer downvote buttons for threads, as a quick trip to the "Top" tab will show they were there once and everyone just downvoted everyone else to get their poo poo promoted.

This is a bigger problem in small subreddits obviously, since a single up/down vote can sway the ratio a lot. That said, it's just disabled via CSS, so if you have something like Reddit Enhancement Suite you can just turn off the subreddit style and your downvote button is magically back.

I tend to browse /r/letsplay, but avoid the megathreads. I'm glad they added them though because almost all self-promotion is now relegated to those, which makes trying to find interesting topics a lot more pleasant experience. There are a lot of people that are super-new to LP there, and although a lot of the questions are repetitive there is sometimes an interesting one.

unfair
Oct 6, 2012

Suspicious Dish posted:

Subreddits can have wikis.

http://www.reddit.com/r/letsplay/wiki/index

Subreddit moderators often put FAQs there, but it seems /r/letsplay doesn't have one.

This one from the sidebar is a bit more readable: http://www.reddit.com/r/letsplay/wiki/guides - there are still a lot of common topics not covered though, and I'm not sure that new people really look at the wiki anyway.

Before they added a couple new moderators it was very common to see self-promotional threads sitting around for a while before they got deleted, and there were usually at least 5 per day. Out of curiosity a while back I started tagging people who broke the rules, to see if it was just a few repeat offenders or a lot of new people. Turns out there are a ton of new LPers, because I rarely saw duplicates. In a year I saw at least 2000 new people and that's just posting on a subreddit, so you can imagine how many others just try their luck on YouTube.

unfair
Oct 6, 2012

Bobbin Threadbare posted:

What exactly makes something a self-promotional thread? I mean, basically every LP thread is self-promotional to an extent. Are we talking like a low-content "come check out my Youtube channel in case I eventually do something!" post or what you'd call a Youtube dump around here?

Yeah, people just leaving a link to one of their videos, or their channel - many times without any explanation of why people would even want to look at their "episode 15 of Borderlands" over that of anyone else. Most of the subreddit threads are now either requests for help, or conversations on marketing or subjective topics. (e.g. what mic to buy, how many videos to release per day, live or post commentary?)

The change banning self-promotion outside the megathreads is fairly recent (a few months maybe?) and before that the subreddit was just a wall of "episode 5 of this" and "episode 29 of that" updates. Because of how Reddit weights threads you can't even keep all of one LP in a single thread, so it's a horrible solution for broadcasting LP updates.

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unfair
Oct 6, 2012

Angrymog posted:

Because we can't get enough of geeks going on about how much they love our accents or trying out terrible pick up lines.

I know you're being sarcastic, but I'd wager that list was made by a female YouTuber that realized women just innately get more views. It's smart business sense to have a more exclusive list, and to try to cross-promote with other people in that category. Because we're on the Internet it's easy to stereotype everything as geeky men trying to keep the women out of the club, but YouTube is the opposite - pleasant foreign accents (England, Australia, ..) or a feminine voice are an innate advantage.

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