Two months into 2020 - a few GMTK updates (Patreon)

Hey all! So we’re two months through 2020, and I thought it was time to check in and let you know what’s been happening.

The channel

So the first video of 2020, The Two Types of Random, was a tremendous success! It lead to loads of new views (700,000 at time of writing) and subscribers, and led to articles on sites like Kotaku and Polygon. I’m really proud of it - though, I can’t take all the credit as Patrons who got an early look at the video contributed some great ideas.

The second video, on Shovel Knight’s Signature Moves, didn’t do nearly as well with traffic. It kinda just petered out. But I’m not too bothered - I’m really pleased with how it turned out. It’s like a nice extension of the Celeste video from last year, has some great developer insights, and it’s packed with lots of cool visual effects and demonstrative footage.

And then a few days ago I did the video on environmental storytelling. Mostly pleased with the video and its reception thus far. Maybe I should have focused a bit more on a specific subject rather than trying to do all three in one video? Initially the video was going to just be about designing levels for emotional / evocative purposes, but I decided to also talk about more traditional environmental storytelling, too. Focus Mark, focus!

The original thumbnail

One other issue I ran into with this video… it got age restricted! I got an email from YouTube this morning telling me that the video “has been placed behind an age restriction” for graphic violence. That’s the first time that’s ever happened to the channel.

I assumed that this was because of the footage of Bioshock Infinite where the dude’s face gets mashed up by a spinning saw blade. So I used YouTube’s built-in blurring tool to hide (what I assumed to be) the offending footage and sent an appeal. Soon enough, the age restriction was removed and the video is back to normal. Phew!

But it’s a good reminder that GMTK is supposed to be for a more general audience, including educational institutions. And while I’ve censored nudity and swearing in the past, I should also be more careful about excessive violence and gore. A good lesson!

I’m unofficially looking to get to a million subscribers before the end of the year. Which means I need roughly 23,000 new subs a month. January was a roaring success with over 30,000 subs, but February came in a little low with just 21,000. Fingers crossed for March! 

Other business

So this month I did my first proper bit of game design consultation. I went to a game studio, played their game, and wrote a big chunky report about what I thought. I can’t tell you anything about the game, the studio, the platform, or anything - but let’s just say it was for an unannounced game from a major (major!) publisher. 

This was a really cool experience! I got to play the game for two whole days, and got to chat with the designers on the team. I also got to see a game in a pretty early state of development with placeholder graphics, unfinished music, features that were set to be killed, and cutscenes where the developers did the voiceover in place of the professionals who would be drafted in at the end of the project.

It was also just fun to chat about design with real game makers. We talked about ideas for making mechanics more interesting and how to make visual designs read better. It also gave me some ideas for new videos. Hopefully the publisher liked my work and will want me back for future projects!

Next, I was a judge on a rather prestigious awards ceremony. So I got given 10 games to play - from small indie titles to obtuse simulation games and so on. I had to play all the games, then pop into London and talk about the games with my fellow judges. We then whittled that down to the six nominated games, and picked a winner. 

I have to admit, my category - which sadly I can’t name - was a bit difficult. The games were so different to each other that picking a winner was very much an apples-to-oranges comparison. But I did my best and look forward to seeing which game wins (the judging was secret, so the judges don’t actually know who won yet).

Finally, I was also asked to be on my current favourite gaming podcast, The Spelunky Showlike. I actually played a short clip of the show in my random video, the hosts heard it, and asked me to come on and chat about randomness! I was initially reluctant - I don’t like doing podcasts, as I prefer to use a script. But they talked me into it and, in the end, it was okay! I didn’t make a huge fool of myself. Hooray.

Personal stuff

Unfortunately, 2020 has already proven to be very challenging from a personal standpoint, as if 2019 wasn’t tough enough. One of my family members has been struggling with mental health issues, and has actually taken several attempts at their own life. Luckily they weren’t successful, and I feel we’re now finally on the long road to recovery with the right therapy and medication. But, as you can imagine, it was pretty scary, sad, upsetting, and time consuming.

Things are finally looking up though, so me and my fiancé are currently finishing up wedding prep ahead of July! Going suit shopping this week.

I’ve also started doing a little bit of game development on the side. I tried to do some in the past but lost enthusiasm due to some really tricky programming problems. However, I was (weirdly) inspired by Dreams to return to game dev. 

When I played the game, I thought to myself “why bother learning this when I could learn an actual game engine like Game Maker or Unity?” And then was like “you know, that’s exactly what I’m going to do!" So, uh, watch this space. 

Oh, and finally, March 2020 marks the 10 year anniversary of me being a proper games journalist!

I’d done some stuff before then, like running British Gaming Blog, Bacon’s Bargains / VG Bargains, NinSprites / The Spriter’s Resource, some freelance work for Ready Up and Games Radar, and an internship at Wired. But in March 2010 I started as News Editor for Pocket Gamer, which was my first proper, paid, full-time(ish) job in games.

My first article was the exceedingly interesting "ngmoco's Eliminate Pro gets free co-op mode". Pulitzer Prize material right there.

From there I became Features Editor, then Deputy Editor, and finally Editor! (My last job title before leaving was “Editor at Large” as I reduced my hours to focus on GMTK). Plus, I did some more work for Wired, and freelance jobs for places like Eurogamer and Edge. 

I don’t really miss it: GMTK gives me all the fun of journalism but with a bigger audience, more editorial control, no advertising issues to deal with, and - ahem - a better salary. But I wouldn’t be where I am today without those first jobs in games journalism.