Let's talk YouTube ads (Patreon)

Hello Patreon people! I wanted to check in and talk to you about YouTube ads. There's a TL;DR at the bottom if you're in a hurry.

GMTK has historically never had YouTube ads enabled, almost exclusively because I don't like how adverts disrupt the viewing experience. I'm sure we've all watched a video where it cuts to an annoying unskippable advert just one minute into the vid. It's so annoying! I pride myself on not having that stuff, and appreciate that many Patrons support GMTK because it's ad free.

But, I also can't deny the allure of putting adverts on my videos. From an experiment I ran last year, not putting adverts on my videos means giving up tens of thousands of pounds a year. And, as life gets harder and games get more expensive, it's like - am I just shooting myself in the foot for no reason? Am I giving up a really good revenue stream, and thus jeopardising my business, for extremely high standards hardly anyone is actually holding me to?

It's a tricky decision that I keep flip flopping on.

Recently, however, I came to the realisation that there might be a way to put adverts on videos... that isn't really disruptive to the video at all. 

In my latest video (on the heads-up display) there are no adverts at the beginning of the video or anywhere throughout. But at the end - sandwiched between the main content and the credits / indie game recommendation, there's a YouTube ad break.

To me, this actually works quite nicely. Adverts are annoying because you've got to watch a commercial before you even know if the video is any good. But with this system, you've got all the way to the end of the video - which means you enjoyed it - and now you can support the creator by sticking around for a few seconds. It's like leaving a little tip.

From the experiment, it worked really well. Even though only a portion of people get all the way to the end, the revenue on the video was really good. And while I had two comments asking why ad-free GMTK suddenly has ads, when I explained what was happening, both people liked the idea and appreciated being able to support the show.

Going forward I will probably explain this ad break with a quick message at the end of the video that says something to the effect of "thanks for watching, if you want to support what you just saw please watch these adverts...". 

So yeah, just wanted to give you the heads up - I'm all about transparency here at GMTK - and a chance to offer any thoughts, suggestions, or complaints.

Unfortunately it's not really possible to offer Patrons a version with absolutely no ads (that means uploading a separate video, and that's not really tenable) but as a compromise, I could put the indie game recommendation in the Patreon post about the new video so you don't need to see ads for this bit of the video. 

And also I'll try to post the videos on Patreon earlier than the actual release time and only enable ads just before the video goes live to the world. So if you get in early, no ads!

Anyhoo. Hope that all makes sense. I'll be back soon with some new exclusive content - I want to do a behind-the-scenes on the motion graphics for that HUD video. But until then, thanks for all your support! 

TL;DR version - I'm putting a YouTube advert at the end of videos. This shouldn't disrupt the video-watching experience, but provides a nice additional revenue stream to the channel.

Mark