Insider (November 2017) (Patreon)

I didn’t know what to do for this month’s insider. But with 2017 coming to a close, I thought it was maybe a good opportunity to look at what I’ve been up to this year. Here we go.

What did I make this year?

In 2017, I made 18 episodes of Game Maker’s Toolkit. You can see them all above.

(That’s smushing the Dead Space trilogy into a single video, for ease. And includes the two December episodes, which aren’t finished yet).

5 of them are topic videos, where I explore on idea or concept through the lens of lots of games. That’s versatile verbs, artificial intelligence, the soulslike genre, detective games, and protecting players from themselves.

The remaining 13 are analysis videos, where I look at a single game or series. That’s Last Guardian, Doom / Titanfall 2, Zelda 1, Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Psychonauts, the Dead Space triology, Donkey Kong, Ori and the Blind Forest, Metroid 2 and its remakes, Cuphead, Mario Odyssey, and the two December videos.

That’s not a great ratio. It’s very heavily weighted towards individual games, and so that’s something I’ll be working on in the new year. Topic videos always take longer than analysis videos, but they’re super important, they’re what makes GMTK stand out, and they are often the most helpful. So, expect a better ratio in 2018.

That’s not to say that the analysis videos aren’t helpful, though. I think the level design stuff from Donkey Kong Country, the boss design tips from Cuphead, and the storytelling thoughts from The Last Guardian could prove very useful to people.

I also made 5 episodes of Boss Keys, for Twilight Princess, the DS games, Skyward Sword, A Link Between Worlds, and the NES games. I was determined to finish the series this year, but decided to hold off on the Breath of the Wild video until the DLC came out, which will definitely push the final episode into next year.

My enthusiasm for the series definitely waned over time, which can be seen in the length of time between new episodes. You know, what I like about GMTK is that each episode is a clean slate. Start from scratch. But Boss Keys is building on work I started over a year ago, which can lead to some weird crumbling foundations, which feels weird.

I’m definitely going to do a second season, but I’ll use what I learned from Zelda to make sure I can keep the episodes coming along at a sharper pace.

And I made three bonus videos, too. The one on Zelda’s music gave me a chance to just chat about some stuff outside my game design remit. The turn timer video was cool because it felt reactive and responsive, and let people know that their comments were being read and considered. Though, I still wish I had the foresight to include that info in the original video.

And of course there’s the GameJam video. More on that in a bit.

By my count, that’s 29 different videos. Up from 26 from last year. I’m pleased with that. I think I could do more, technically, but I was careful to pace myself this year. Give myself breaks for illness, actually take weekends and evenings off for myself, and work on one video at a time.

Who watched the videos?

Let’s talk stats. This year’s videos received a combined 14.8 million views. Pretty much all of the views came from YouTube itself. Whether that’s subscription feeds, recommended videos, the homepage, and so on. Only 600,000 views (4%) of the views came from outside sources, like Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook.

They received 500,000 likes (and 6,000 dislikes), and 64,000 comments. I added 187,000 new subscribers, bringing my total up to 335,000. Which is bonkers, and a 75% increase from the number of subs I earned in 2016. 

Half of the views came from computers, 30% from phones, and a few percentage points each from tablets, consoles, and TVs. The most popular computer is PC, phone is Android, games console is PlayStation, and tablet is iPad.

My videos are primarily watched by American men of 25-34 years old. Which is - well, it is what it is. 200,000 people watched the videos with translated subtitles, though, which is awesome.

On average, people watch 60% of the videos, and can stand listening to me for a whopping 7 minutes at a time. No one clicks on cards or end screens. 

My top 10 most viewed videos in 2017 were:

• How Game Designers Protect Players From Themselves - 1.2 million
• What Capcom Didn't Tell You About Resident Evil 4 (2015) - 617,000
• What Makes Good AI? | Game Maker's Toolkit - 487,000
• Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - An Open World Adventure - 391,000
• The Magic of the First Legend of Zelda - 366,000
• Do We Need a Soulslike Genre? - 363,000
• How Cuphead's Bosses (Try to) Kill You - 341,000
• Half-Life 2's Invisible Tutorial (2015) - 271,000
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess' dungeon design - 269,000
• Finding the Fun in FPS Campaigns - 266,000

That meant I had two videos hit 1 million views this year (Protect Players From Themselves and Resident Evil 4). Which is nice, though I can’t discount the slightly clickbaity titles.

What games did I talk about?

So, I often get some shit for mentioning the same games over and over again. And if I look at the numbers, that does hold up. In terms of individual games, I showed DOOM 2016 five times, Hitman five times, Uncharted 2(?) five times, and Zelda: Breath of the Wild seven times. 

(If you’re curious, I talked about it in the videos on Zelda 1 and, of course, Breath of the Wild. As an example of good AI, an immersive sim, a game where designers encourage a certain style of play, and a good Nintendo game. And it gets a cameo in one of December’s videos).

But if we squish together games into franchises, I showed Donkey Kong, Call of Duty, DOOM, and Resident Evil games 8 times each, Metroid games nine times, Souls games 10 times, Uncharted games 11 times, Zelda games 19 times, and Mario games 20 times!

Which, okay, isn’t great. In some ways I like being “the Mario guy” or “the Zelda guy”. It was very flattering that people wanted to hear my takes on Breath of the Wild and Odyssey. But I never want my channel to be typecast as just a Nintendo show, or something, so more variety is needed.

But at the same time, a good example is a good example. If I need a shorthand way to talk about a hard game, I’ll use Dark Souls. An aggressive game, I’ll use DOOM. A systemic game, I’ll use Hitman. An expressive game, Mario. So I won’t make my stuff harder to follow or lacking in info just to avoid comments saying “Spelunky?! Again!!?”.

(Actually, Spelunky was only in three episodes this year!)

Something I brought up in last year’s analysis was a disappointment that the 2016 games I focused on (like Mirror’s Edge and Star Fox 0) were miles away from the games people were actually playing (like Overwatch and Uncharted 4). 

I did a bit better this year, with videos on big new games like Zelda, Mario, and Cuphead, but I could still have commented on games like Resident Evil 7, PUBG, Horizon, and Hollow Knight. Still, as ever, I’m not gonna make stuff just because it’s in the news or everyone else is covering it. I’ve gotta have an angle I care about, first.

What else did I do in 2017?

I went to Prague and did a talk about game design for some mobile and web game developers. That was really fun. I need to do more of that in the new year. I’m already signed up for an event in London in January and I’ll be looking for more things throughout the year. I think I’ve left GDC a bit late, but I’ll probably go to Gamescom. 

We also did the GameJam. That was a lot of work and a fair amount of stress, but it was also amazing. We had, what, 700 games in the end? It was the biggest one in itch.io’s history, by my count, and it was incredible to have so many people making games because they’re fans of the channel. We’ll definitely do another one in 2018.

A huge thank you to all the Patrons who helped set things up and judge games. You really came through when I needed it. 

Speaking of which, we opened up the Discord. That’s been terrific. A really nice community has cropped up over there, and I’m pleased to see it keeps going - thanks to a lovely bunch of moderators - even when I get really busy and forget to check in for a week. Whoops.

I also started live streaming, I’ve been streaming games on YouTube every week and it’s fun. It’s a good way to get some direct conversation with my viewers. I can show and talk about brand new games without having to make a full video. And I get to be a bit silly, and show my actual personality. I’m not really some stuffy academic type who talks about keys all the time, promise. 

And, unless anything cataclysmic happens, I’ll have delivered on all the Patreon rewards for the year! That’s 12 newsletters, 12 reading lists, and 12 playlists. I think I’ll stick with this set-up next year, but I’m going to try and have the rewards come out throughout the month instead of always at the end. And I will also make GameClub more regular with a monthly schedule.

In conclusion

Video games.

Anything I missed? Any questions? Suggestions? Lemme know!