GMTK Year in Review for 2023 (Patreon)

Hello! It’s Mark here with my annual “year in review” post, where I look back at my last 12 months of work to figure out what happened, and what I can learn for the next year. 

Channel Stats

Let’s start with the big overview stats. I’m going to compare this year’s performance to the previous five years.

Subscribers first. GMTK received an additional 166,400 subscribers in 2023 - more than last year, but pretty much typical for the channel (outside of the anomalous 2020!)

Views next. This year, the channel received 24.3 million views across new and back catalogue video. Again, a little up from last year, but typical. Though, those stats are actually very good when you consider…

I actually made fewer videos than usual this year. I made 17 videos in 2023 - more than 2021, but fewer than 2022. So if we go views per video, it's a very strong year.

And finally - I don’t talk too much about money in these wrap-ups, but it’s obviously a very important stat. 

This graph (which naturally doesn’t show the actual dollar amount) is the estimated income from YouTube and Patreon combined. I don’t include additional sources like Itch.io, Nebula, Substack, and consulting/talking fees because they are pretty insignificant when compared to YouTube and Patreon. 

So I’ve had a slight drop-off in Patrons all year - which makes sense considering the rough economic climate (and perhaps other factors: such as a focus on game development over game analysis). But because I now put pre-roll ads on the videos, income has actually kept very steady. 

All of this is, to me, very heartening.

I try not to get obsessed with growth for the sake of growth. I think that mindset can get people in trouble: the idea that you must always be getting more views, making more money, releasing more stuff. It leads to bad decisions!

And for me, my goal is not to grow. Instead, my goal is to be able to sustain myself while doing the stuff I want to do. My income supports that, so these numbers look good to me.

This has been especially important as I’ve started to pivot to new types of content. It would be worrying if I suddenly saw my numbers drop because I was splitting my time between GMTK videos and game development. But no! The numbers have stayed the same (or in some cases, grown slightly), despite my pivot.

That works for me!

The videos I made

I try to maintain a nice mix of different video types. So lets see how I did this year…

I made four episodes of my devlog series, Developing. Things started really strong: I kicked off the year with a new video on puzzle making, and then followed it up two months later with another detailing my trip to San Francisco. But then… things fell off.

I got busy with GMTK videos, travel, consulting gigs, and the game jam… and completely lost momentum with the game. I ended up taking a six month break from it. 

But I managed to pick it back up before the year ended! I released two devlogs back-to-back, on plans and polish - and made loads of progress. I launched the Steam page, gave the game a name (hello “Mind Over Magnet”), and created a plan to finish the game. I also announced my intention to focus more time on the game… more on that in a bit.

I made four videos of the “topic analysis” type. Specifically, videos on MDA, playtesting, deduction, and cameras.

These are videos where I look at a broad game design topic, through the lens of multiple games. They are the bread and butter of the channel so it’s always important to make a bunch of these!

The “How to think like a game designer” video was an upgraded version of a university talk that I’ve given many times before - so it was good to finally get that to the entire GMTK audience. The video about Valve’s playtesting approach was interesting: I probably wouldn’t have made it if I hadn’t seen the value of playtesting during my own game development process. 

More proof that Developing is a net positive for the channel.

I made four videos where I look at a specific game or series. That’s the videos on Resident Evil 4 Remake, The Sims, and Jusant. Plus the Banjo-Kazooie episode of Boss Keys.

I really enjoyed making the video on The Sims - it was probably my favourite video to make this year. It was really interesting to research, and a challenge to explain the mountain of information to a general audience. It was also important to cover a game that you don’t normally see on game design channels. 

Banjo was also fun - I think Boss Keys will end up being a one-a-year series, where I may look at some recently-released Metroidvania (Silksong for 2024? A man can dream…), or some random surprise game from the archive. You never know!

I made two “GMTK Mini” episodes. Both on Zelda, funnily enough - one on Breath of the Wild, and one on Tears of the Kingdom. I’m pleased with both, but it’s not really what I was aiming for with the “GMTK Mini” thing…

Minis are supposed to be more newsworthy, as I react to new games or things in the game design discourse. Basically, a video version of a tweet. 

Neither of these videos did that, and just ended up being… normal GMTK videos but a bit shorter.

Maybe that’s fine? Maybe I’m just not much of a reactionary person. I also don’t like doing negative content, which a lot of reactionary stuff tends to be. For instance… I did make an entire mini about how I thought the Dead Space remake was pointless… but it just felt like a weirdly mean attack.

In the end I just shelved it, and ended up reworking it into a more positive video about how much I enjoyed the RE4 Remake.

Anyway, I’ll see how I feel about these videos in 2024.

I made two episodes of Weekender, a new series where I recommend innovative indie games you can play in less than 10 hours. That was Chants of Sennaar and Mosa Lina. 

Maybe this is the better way to do GMTK Minis? I was able to use the fact that these videos are short and quick to make in order to recommend indie games while they’re still new and noteworthy. That perhaps feels like a better use of my platform…

So, with the Game Jam video included, the split looks like this…

Which I think is pretty good. A nice mix.

How they performed

So how did those videos do? Let’s look at how each video performed.

So, this is using the numbers that each video received in the first week of release. That makes it more fair to videos that haven’t been around for very long, but it doesn’t account for videos that spike up later. Then again, on the whole this is a pretty accurate picture of each video’s relative performance. 

So, as we can see, Developing and Weekender have smaller view counts. That isn’t surprising to me! 

Indie-specific videos have never done well on GMTK, and my dev logs are very different to my usual content so struggle against the YT algorithm. I’m fine with that - Weekender is so quick to make that the effort is still rewarded. And the dev logs have a different goal than my usual videos. 

GMTK videos generally did well. I’m really pleased that the video on The Sims was well received - I was worried that my audience wouldn’t care about that franchise, so it was heartening to see it get a lot of views. And the video on Zelda BOTW was a mega hit - it reached a million views in just five days, and two million in just over a month.

I think it was a combination of timing (just before Tears of the Kingdom), and people appreciating the effort to revive a lost talk. It was actually a very short video to make - about 3 days total work - which is proof that effort in doesn't always equate to effort out. 

Then again… I tried to replicate the success later in the year with a video on Tears of the Kingdom’s Ultrahand - again, putting together quotes from Nintendo - but that one had a more muted response.

Back catalogue

Not all views went to my latest and greatest videos, of course. With nine years worth of videos on YouTube, it’s nice to see that my older content is still bringing in views, subscribers, Patrons, and ad money. 

A notable video to point out: last year I released the Unity tutorial to a muted reception. 

Understandably, it wasn’t going to be interesting to much of my core audience and so it suffered with the YouTube algorithm at launch. But it has since picked up steam in a big way, thanks to people searching for this topic. In 2023, it added an additional 2 million views, making it the second-most successful video of this year!

No signs of it slowing down, so it should be another hit in 2024.

What else I did this year

GMTK is more than just a YouTube channel! So I wanted to take a moment to share some notable things I did work-wise this year.

In January, the BFI announced its list of the best video essays of 2022 - and I was thrilled to see than Platformer Toolkit was included three times over, as an example of rethinking the video essay concept in an interactive way. Super flattering - thanks to all the voters. 

Speaking of Platformer Toolkit, at one point this year it was in the top 50 rated games of all time, on Itch.io. It's sitting at 51 as of writing, but it was higher at one point! Promise!

In March I went to the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco. I’ve talked about it before, so I’ll just say it was a truly amazing experience - it was so much fun, and so inspiring to talk to loads of game developers. It’s a bit too pricey to go back every year, but I’m aiming to return in 2025.

In April I went to Norwich in the UK to give a talk at the university there. And then in May I did the same at a university in the city of Kortrijk in Belgium.

In June, I went to Espoo in Finland to visit Remedy and provide consulting advice on Alan Wake 2. I can’t talk about that experience, but it was certainly an interesting experience and great to peek behind the curtain of AAA game development.

In July, I went to Brighton for Develop. It’s a lot smaller than GDC, but still fun. I met lots of GMTK viewers and many fellow video makers and game developers - including Chris Bratt from People Make Games. It’s a nice show and - compared to GDC - it’s basically on my door step. So I’ll be going to this one every year I can. 

July was also the month for this year’s game jam. It was, once again, more popular than ever before - which is exciting, even for a guy who doesn’t care about growth!) Things went pretty smoothly, the theme (Roles Reversed) was well received, and the resulting video was a hit. There was a little argy-bargy regarding the rules on AI - but I got there in the end. I’ve got some time to consider how to approach that topic in 2024.

In October I went to EGX in London. This is a shadow of its former self, as far as I can remember the old EGX at Earls Court. But it’s still a nice show and I met a handful of GMTK viewers. I’ll probably go back to this one in 2024.

Later that month I visited the BAFTA office in London to give a talk for its annual “Guru Live” event. 

In November I launched the Steam page for Mind Over Magnet, which was an exciting milestone. It also means new stats, as I can track the game’s wishlists (and, eventually, sales). So in 2023 the game received 23,200 wishlists which is an incredible number, though obviously hugely inflated thanks to my existing audience. I’ll talk more about this in future episodes of Developing. 

A few years ago I joined a Discord with a bunch of fellow UK YouTubers - like The Gaming Brit and Writing on Games. We’ve become good friends and regularly meet up. This year we got together for darts (March), bowling (July), EGX (October), and a Christmas party at the Loading Bar (December). It’s a great group, and the closest I’ll get to having “colleagues”.

What an amazing year! And that doesn’t include all the fab stuff I did in my personal life, including trips to Lisbon and Ireland, and many other lovely memories with friends and family. I’m a very lucky person!

Goals

Last year, I mentioned that my only goal for 2023 was to release my Magnet game. I had one job… and I messed it up! Oh no!

Sadly I’ve just really struggled to juggle game dev with other things in my life. But I really cannot stretch this game any further, so 2024 is genuinely going to be about getting Mind Over Magnet finished and released. I can see the ending in front of me - i just need to make sure I can focus.

So as I’ve said before, I’m going to be shifting my attention to game development for the next few months so I can focus!

That doesn’t mean there will be no episodes of GMTK. It just might be a little spotty for releases in the first chunk of 2024. 

Conclusion

So there we go.

2023 was actually a huge success for the channel - all of the stats are strong, work on the game is going well, and I’m just incredibly happy and fulfilled by my work. I can’t thank you enough for your financial support this year - you are making a dream come true, every single day. I hope I can count on your support in 2024.

Which is going to be a big year for GMTK! Not only will Mind Over Magnet be released (if I keep saying it, it has to come true), but it will be the 10 year anniversary of the channel’s launch. I’ve got some ideas for how to celebrate, but it’s not until November so I have plenty of time to plan.

Well… almost. Because right now there are 199 videos on my YouTube channel. So I should probably do something a little special for 200! I better start thinking…

See you next year,

Mark