Production update 2022-09-04 (Patreon)

Hello everyone!

I have some good news and some bad news. We're gonna start with the bad news because it's more fun.

Bad news

The last couple of weeks, I had no motivation or energy to work on the video. I made next to no progress after finishing the script and recording about 20% of it. I feel bad about that, but on the bright side I think I am getting out of this rut and I'm ready to get going again.

Lately, I've had a bit of demotivation regarding the channel as a whole. I think it's fair to say that I'm not the type to try and squeeze every coin out of YouTube. My goal is to make enough money to afford a comfortable life for me, my girlfriend and a future family. But I'm not churning videos out with minimal effort, maxed out in midrolls and sponsored segments. I have a vision for my content that includes a high level of care and detail in the editing, zero fluff, and no unrelated bits like "like and subscribe" or sponsors. I'll follow this vision as closely as I can for as long as I can. 

I'll be honest, I had expectations for the growth of my channel that just aren't being met. I don't know if it's the expectations that were unrealistic, but I'm just not at the point I thought I'd be 3 years into full time. Below is the graph of my monthly views since 2019. 

On one hand, I know 500,000 views a month is a lot and I shouldn't be complaining. But on the other, I look at the trend line and it seems perfectly flat at best. As of right now, everything included (YouTube, Patreon and other sources), after income tax, I took home less than $39,000 CAD in 2021 ($29,000 USD). It's good enough to live decently in a cheap apartment, but let's be real, I'm not rolling on gold here. I can't imagine supporting a family with that kind of income.

I look around me and it just seems like every speedrunning channel out there grows so much faster. I try not to compare myself with anyone - in fact, I honestly don't really watch other speedrunning YouTubers so it's easier to stay true to my style and not copy others. Hard as I may try though, I can't help but see the obvious example, Summoning Salt, who went from 1 million monthly views to 3-4 million in the same time that I went from 500k monthly views to 400k.

There's good in the bad news

Obviously, it's not all bad. In the past few years, I've gained a lot of respect from the speedrunning community and I very much appreciate that. I've gained the support of you guys through Patreon, which I can't thank you enough for. For every bit of demotivation I get about numbers going down, I am reassured by the 200 people who choose to contribute directly to help me make what I make.

I also got some amazing recognition for the quality of my work, the most clear and obvious one being the opportunity I got to give a talk in Munich this year. This wouldn't have happened without the support that keeps me going. Especially with the state of society and the economy, every single day I am thankful that I make a living talking about video games, even if it's not currently going as well as I was hoping it to.

I want to emphasize this: I am still very happy with my channel, Patreon, and everything around it. I will keep working hard to bring you the best speedrunning videos I can make. I am not remotely considering quitting.

Addressing the bad news

There's another elephant in the room. The Super Mario 64 ABC History series, as passionate as I am about it, as passionate as its core audience is about it, is a huge undertaking and it is getting increasingly niche and complex. As proud as I am of it, I doubt it will ever reach the mass appeal that simpler videos like SMB1 or Zelda 1 explained have. I understand that and I expected it going in.

Nonetheless, I believe it has contributed to the overall stagnation of my channel and, as soon as it's done, I want to change course for a while. I am going to go back to the regular format of Speedrun Explained, taking a world record or a TAS and breaking down the tricks and glitches used. But also, partly to broaden the target audience, and partly to preserve my own sanity, I want to explore a few games that are relatively simpler to understand, where explaining a trick doesn't rely on breaking down sub-frame order of operations in the processor.

Right now, for my next project after SM64 ABC, I am tempted to look at a TAS of Minecraft any% set seed that beats the game in under 30 seconds, or possibly both the any% and glitchless any% TASes if just the first one is too short. Keep in mind this is still subject to change.

I think it would be a fun project and a nostalgic return to my roots. For those who don't know, I was the first Minecraft any% set seed speedrunner back in 2012. I set a world record during a live run at AGDQ 2014 and that kickstarted a speedrunning community for Minecraft. The record was basically uncontested and relatively weak even for its time, but it was impressive to many regardless.

Good news

Time for the good news! Spoiler warning, if you want to be fully surprised when the video comes out, stop reading here. I suspect if you're reading production updates, though, spoilers are fine. 

There was a huge new development in August that prompted me to add over 2,000 words to the script. Part 7, which was initially going to be in the low-40s is now going to be almost a full hour. This is, in fact, the longest script for a video that I've ever made.

And it turns out it's a bit of a problem. It's just too long. My vision for videos has always been to not worry about the length, just be as thorough as possible and as concise as possible. I still try to aim roughly for 30 to 40 minutes, give or take a bit, as a rule of thumb. With SM64 ABC though, a lot of these videos end up way longer than I thought they would be: 

• 49 minutes Part 2 
• 47 minutes Part 3
• 45 minutes Part 5
• 54 minutes Part 6

Getting into another even longer video was killing my drive. The first 25 minutes of the video already feel like a mountain, and now I've got another 15-minute mountain added on top of it. Have you ever tried climbing a mountain that's sitting on a mountain?

So, I looked at it another way. There's a clear cut in the video between two different blocks that has narrative potential, and it happens to be just a little bit past the mid point. If I just cut the script in half, I'd go from 10,400 words to 5,700 and 4,700. That's roughly 29 minutes and 24 minutes respectively. And the more I looked at it, the more it made sense. 

I think I shouldn't shy away from videos in the 20 to 30 minute range. So, I took the decision to split Part 7 in two, so that 24-minute back half would become Part 8. There's even a chance that this Part 8 ends up having another surprise bonus round of content, which could easily send it to the high 30s, low 40s range as well.

Restructuring the production schedule

This obviously calls for a bit of restructuring and redefining deadlines (No! This has nothing to do with me falling 2 weeks behind! Stop it!). That's what I did today, and here's the new updated, double schedule!

Part 7 would come out on October 1st, but the schedule on this one is quite light. My weekends have been filled with all sorts of stuff in September and I wanted to keep Monday free for leeway. That leaves me with the option to release it early on Patreon! Please note that I don't intend on making this a regular thing; only if things line up well for it and I want to. I'm not going to make it an official perk.

Part 8 would come out 3 weeks later, on October 23rd. Because it's expected to be roughly 25 minutes long and the script is already pretty much fully complete, the production cycle would be much faster than usual.

That's it! I hope you appreciated the bit of introspection, and I hope you are excited for what the future will bring. Thank you again for your patience and support!