The road to 1 million subscribers (Patreon)

Hello everyone!

Very soon, GMTK will hit a staggering, mind blowing, unbelievable 1 million YouTube subscribers. In this article, I want to talk about how that happened - and what's next.

So at the end of 2019, I saw that I had reached 715,000 subscribers, which seemed pretty close to the big milestone. And so I wondered if I worked really hard, by making videos that attracted new audiences and then convinced them to subscribe, could I get the 285,000 needed before the end of 2020?

For some reason, I decided that this was probably doable - without checking something important: the total number of subscribers I've received in other years. If I had done, I'd have seen that the most I've ever reached was 205k in 2017, and that it was all downhill from there: 187k in 2018 and 175k in 2019. If I had seen that, I probably would have given up the plan entirely!

Thankfully, I didn't. Instead, through blind optimism alone, I set the goal and started tracking my subscriber growth on a spreadsheet. If I divided 285k by 12, I'd get my monthly target: about 23,000 subscribers per month, though this would change each month depending on whether I met or missed the target.

I started the year strong with 30,000 subs in January, thanks to The Two Types of Random. But missed the target in February, as the Shovel Knight video underperformed and I struggled with difficult family issues. March, April, and May were good, but I missed the target in June as the Mass Effect video didn't have the impact I was hoping for.

Since then, I have hit the target every month - thanks to the success of videos like The Games That Designed Themselves, the episode on motivation, and the Game Jam wrap-up. I've already surpassed my target for October, thanks to the lives episode, and now there's only about 21,000 subscribers to go. 

By my calculation, that will happen in mid November.

So, wow. It's all gone staggeringly well! And while the lockdown probably helped (people who are stuck at home have more time for YouTube), I also put in a lot of hard work and determination, and had a better understanding of the YouTube algorithm than ever before.

And I've also learned a lot about goals and motivation while doing it.

When we set a goal (say, losing weight or buying a house), it's important to remember that reaching that goal is just one tiny moment in time, with two enormous stretches of time on either side: the time spent reaching that goal, and the time after the goal ends.

In terms of the time spent reaching the goal, it's really important that the processes you undertake to get to the goal are meaningful and interesting. Or else you'll lose motivation. You might set yourself a goal of losing 5kg, but if you hate the exercise regime you've set yourself you'll probably never get there. Goals are great - this million sub goal has given me something really fun to focus on and work towards in a nightmare year - but processes are more important to get right. Thankfully, I really enjoy making videos, so that was okay.

You also need to think about how a goal can change your approach to things. So for me, if my goal was squarely "get subscribers", it might cloud my judgement and force me to only make certain types of video. A video on, say, accessibility might be important but if it doesn't get subscribers it's not worth my time.

For the most part, I stopped this from happening by giving myself the time to work on stuff simply because I was interested in the video project, even if the video was unlikely to lead to subs (like the British episode of Design Icons) or were very risky bets (such as the Last of Us and Mass Effect videos). Not every video this year needed to be a big hit in order to meet the goal.

However, this goal did change my approach in one, unexpected way.

Normally on GMTK, I just play games for fun like everyone else, until I'm inspired to make a video. For example, I might play God of War, and then wonder "what makes a good combat system?" - which leads to a video.

But in 2020, because I put this extra pressure on myself to always be making videos (I saw first hand what happened to my targets when I slowed down!), I started coming up with video ideas first and then playing the games necessary to make it.

And then something weird happened. The thought of playing games for fun made me miserable. At the weekend, I'd load up Steam, flip through my library for a bit, then give up and go watch a movie or read a book. For many months through the summer, I didn't play games at all if they weren't for a video.

At the time, I thought I had just lost interest in games… which really worried me. Do I hate games? Is GMTK over? But then I made the video on motivation which made everything completely obvious! I was now playing games for purely extrinsic reasons (to gather footage or research), and that killed my intrinsic motivation to play video games! Whoops!

As soon as I realised this, the problem started to fix itself. I gave myself time to play games, and forced myself to play games with no intention of turning them into videos unless inspiration struck. And it totally worked! I played Crash Bandicoot 4 just for fun, but it inspired the video on lives. Another game I played for fun ended up being the missing puzzle piece in a video I'm working on right now.

So the other part of the equation is the length of time after the goal is hit. What's next?

I think it's important to think of goals as "I want to achieve X, so that I can do Y". Thinking about the consequences of the goal - the new avenues it opens - is really important because if you don't, you'll reach the goal and either feel immensely hollow or just reset the goal to the same thing but bigger ("I made $1 million… I guess my new goal is to make $10 million?")

In terms of YouTube, getting a million subscribers doesn't really do anything. I'll get a shiny gold plaque from YouTube but I won't be able to do anything that I couldn't do before. So what's next? 2 million? 10 million?

Well, the answer is that while I'm not sure - it's definitely not that! I'm no longer interested in subscriber milestones, so I won't be actively working towards the next one. When it happens, it happens.

I do want to do some bigger video projects, which might take a month or even two to create. I enjoyed making the Mass Effect video, but put off doing any more in 2020 because I knew it would throw me off target. In 2021, without a spreadsheet to track my growth, I'll be able to take the time to dedicate to these larger projects. I'll let you know when that happens, as you deserve to know when my output will slow down.

I'm also interested in doing more game dev. I know I say this a lot, but it really does feel like the natural next step for the channel - for me to try making some games and share what I learn. How do my theories and ideas actually work in the real world? I've downloaded Unity, but have so far been too scared to start it. Maybe over Christmas?

Most importantly, though, I'm gonna give myself a break. No targets, no spreadsheets, no goals. Just play some games, see what tickles my fancy, and go from there. So far, GMTK has done really well by just doubling down on the stuff I find interesting - so that's what I'll be holding onto.

Oh. But there is one other thing. What do I actually do to celebrate the 1 million subscriber milestone? I should probably do that video I've been putting off for years. You know, that one where I made a whole series of videos in preparation for one final video… Yeah, that one. Watch this space.