2020 in review (Patreon)

Hi everyone! It's that time of year again where I take a step back, dig into YouTube's analytics page, and figure out what worked (and what didn't) in terms of raw numbers.

So the headline news is that GMTK hit a pair of enormous milestones. And hit them back to back. This year the channel achieved one million subscribers and 100 million views. Which is absolutely amazing - thank you so much to everyone who helped make that happen!

And… it really shouldn't have happened. Subscriber growth has been going down year on year since 2017 - but 2020 was an amazing turnaround. The channel received more than 300,000 subscribers - by far the largest number I've ever received.

So what happened? 

Well, the pandemic almost certainly helped. The entire world was stuck indoors at some point this year, and so after they'd finished Tiger King and got bored of Zoom-powered pub quizzes, YouTube was a good way to spend time. But it's definitely not the only culprit: my channel was already exploding back in January.

Instead, I just listened to the advice I gave myself in 2019! In my 'year in review' post I noted that the channel was missing "broad, widely applicable, educational content" and needed a better balance between GMTK videos and videos from spin-off series like Boss Keys and Design Icons. And so that's what I did.

Of the 21 videos I made: 18 were GMTK videos, 2 were from Design Icons, and 1 was a Game Jam wrap-up. That's a much better balance than previous years!

And of those 18 GMTK videos, eight were about general topics. That's randomness, following the fun, lives, the psychology of rewards, power fantasies, environmental storytelling, player feedback, and accessibility. Plus, three videos on stealth games.

The remaining seven were about specific games or franchises. Specifically, Mass Effect, Zelda, Prey, DOOM Eternal, Shovel Knight, The Last of Us Part II, and Watch Dogs: Legion.

And so let's look at this year's videos, ranked by number of views in the video's first eight days. (Accessibility and Watch Dogs: Legion videos didn't have enough data at time of writing).

Okay, wow! As we can see, the top videos are those that look at broad topics across a variety of games, with the top three being about randomness, following the fun, and lives. The randomness video achieved over a million views, which is always a good sign.

The worst-performing videos were those that focused on specific games like Shovel Knight and The Last of Us Part II. Now this is understandable. A video about randomness can be of interest to anyone who plays games, whereas a video about The Last of Us is only of interest to people who care about that specific title. And, even more limiting, those who aren't worried about story spoilers. 

I should note that the Prey and Mass Effect videos picked up steam after a bit of time and did much better than expected. Prey is now the year's 5th best video, and Mass Effect is the 9th. The other game-specific videos remain pretty low, however. 

As I always state: views are just one part of this and never fully dictate the type of content I make. I make what I want to make! But it does help me know how to balance my content, and how to best package certain ideas.

Stand-out videos

This year, there were loads of videos that I just really enjoyed making. 



In terms of research, I loved making the video about Britain's Bedroom Coders, which involved scouring through hundreds of old British game magazines in order to build a timeline of events and gather useful ads and articles. I also enjoyed the Commanding Shepard video, which meant playing through all three Mass Effect games multiple times.

And also the video on The Last of Us Part II, as I quickly realised that the interview I held with Evan would make for a really great "director's commentary"-style breakdown. 

For editing the videos, the Gloo Cannon episode was a great time. Almost every clip in the video was recorded specifically for that shot, which makes the whole video really clean and directed. 

The Games That Designed Themselves video used a bonkers papercraft art style, as I needed a way to depict ideas and concepts for games that don't actually have footage I could use. And the Shovel Knight video is nice because I figured out a way to get super crisp scaled-up pixel art.

I also had more interviews on GMTK - this time with ex-Naughty Dog dev Evan Hill and a couple guys from Yacht Club Games. This is important because it shows off the reach and importance of GMTK in the industry. So even though both videos kind of flopped, they're still important to the channel!

School of Stealth was quite good. It was a smart idea to split the video into three focused topics, rather than one unwieldy video. And this also encouraged people to subscribe so they didn't miss future episodes. Plus, I liked the shared visual language across all three episodes. 

There was only one big mistake this year. The original version of the "How Level Design Can Tell a Story" video was flagged as inappropriate by YouTube, thanks to some gory visuals from Bioshock, and discussion of some uncomfortable themes in Fallout. I had to remake and release the video (which is always a no-no in terms of views). I was under a lot of personal stress when I made this video, which meant a mistake slipped through. But it was an important lesson for the future (see below!)

What else happened?

This year's Game Jam was another enormous success. With over 18,000 sign-ups and more than 5,000 games submitted, it wasn't just the biggest GMTK Jam - it was the biggest online-only Game Jam ever. Bigger than Ludum Dare and anything else on Itch. It's only dwarfed by the in-person Global Game Jam which is just leagues above us.

Also, the round-up video has had a million views in record time. Always worth losing a month to running the jam.

The jam went pretty swimmingly this year. Every year we have to deal with issues surrounding public voting and the possibility of cheating. This year I worked with Itch.io to create a system that forces public voters to rate a certain number of random games before they can freely vote - which almost completely cut out fraud and cheating. This massively reduced the amount of post-jam whining!

For 2021, the main thing will be about making the rules as crystal clear and accessible as humanly possible and then just pointing people at them. That will take some stress off the amazing Discord mods, who will then only need to keep the peace. As for timing: I'm not sure! I was supposed to get married this year, but that has been delayed until 2021 due to the pandemic. So it will need to exist around that, if the wedding can go ahead.

Last year I said that I did too many talks around the world, which distracted from making videos. And so I'd strive to do fewer in 2020.

I guess I wished that on a monkey's paw or something because thanks to the pandemic I haven't done a single in-person talk all year. I did one online guest lecture, but turned down others because without the interaction with students and the travelling, it's not very exciting to me.

I did do one thing before lockdown, though. I went to Sumo Digital to play Sackboy: A Big Adventure, because Sony asked me to be a game design consultant on the game! It was a really interesting experience, though sadly I can't share anything of what I learned, said, or suggested. The game came out in November and has been receiving pretty good reviews, which gives me a weird sense of pride for the tiny weeny contribution I made to the game. I also ended up in the credits, which was awesome.

I'm already talking to some other developers about future projects.

Meanwhile, I worked with a guy named Sky to turn my video on 2019's gaming accessibility into an academic paper. It got published in a prestigious game studies journal, and that's just awesome. I was also a judge for the BAFTAs and a Tencent-backed indie game competition. And I wrote the foreword for an ebook about game jams. So, I've still been pretty productive despite hardly leaving the house!

2021's plans

Okay, so 2020 was all about traffic. I spent a lot of time looking at YouTube analytics, a lot of time tracking my subscriber growth and forecast on spreadsheets, and a lot of time learning about the YouTube algorithm. And then, the second I hit the million subscriber milestone… I lost all interest.

Seriously: just vanished. Poof. Gone. In an instant. It was weird.

But I'm actually quite glad. I talked about this before, but one of the problems with reaching a goal is that it's easy to move the goal posts the second you achieve it. I could have said "okay, now let's do 2 million!". But I'm not bothered anymore. That doesn't drive me.

Instead, I want to focus on quality, I want to focus on the videos I really enjoy making, and I want to tackle some bigger projects that I have been putting off. Something that happens a lot with GMTK is that I think about a video topic that would take a lot of time to make (because it involves considerable research, or developer interviews, or just playing lots of big games) and I don't do it because I don't want to have a big gap between videos, and I don't want to disappoint or rip off you lot, the patrons. 

But… if I want to make these videos, I should make these videos! So in 2021, I'm going for quality over quantity. Yes, my total number of videos per year has slipped (28 in 2017, 24 in 2018, 23 in 2019, 21 in 2020), and I'm sorry about that - but it's both a sign of a better work-life balance, some uncontrollable issues (2020 continued to be a struggle when it comes to family and health), and a focus on quality. 

To help make sure 2021's videos are of the utmost quality, I've prepared a list of principles that I want GMTK to follow in the new year. So, GMTK should be…

INCLUSIVE

• Continue coverage of accessibility
• Keep up strict moderation of comments and the GMTK Discord
• Ask more women, LGBT+ people, and POC to be interviewed
• Avoid gore, nudity, bad language, etc (or provide clear warnings when necessary). 

ACCESSIBILE

• Continue providing full English subtitles at launch, and community contributions for foreign languages
• Check graphics for size and colourblind readability. 
• Check transitions for motion sickness.

BALANCED

• Provide opposing viewpoints, and consider both pros and cons for things.
• Consider, challenge, and disclose my personal preferences and biases.

FACTUAL

• Reach out to (more!) experts to fact-check and clarify claims
• Continue providing sources for stories, trivia, facts, etc in videos
• Avoid annoying mistakes like pronunciation errors

RESPONSIBLE

• Avoid promoting game design that is unethical, such as loot boxes
• Avoid promoting game design that is unnecessarily exclusionary, such as not having difficulty settings
• Avoid only promoting game design that is exclusively available to companies with enormous budgets
• Mention if a game was made under crunch conditions, where relevant

UNBIASED

• Avoid conflicts of interest by not having adverts or sponsorships
• When these conflicts do arise (such as when I consult on a game, or receive a free copy, or am friends with a developer), be transparent about this

And there we go. Thanks once again for indulging me. Hope you have a wonderful New Year and I’ll see you in 2021!