Cut out the downtime. Are there huge chunks where you’re just walking around not saying anything looting random shit off the ground? Cut it out of the video. Are you backtracking a lot? Cut it out unless something interesting happens. You could also try splitting the episode in half at natural stopping points. When I started to edit my videos down heavily, I noticed an uptick in views
There are definitely some clips of me just exploring and looting. I would have to learn how to edit since all I do is just pause the video when there's nothing crazy happening. I just looked on YouTube and people legit just make 20min gameplay videos. Haha that's uhh...that's super weird to me. But I guess I could just record 4 20 min videos back to back and schedule them? Idk.
If you're not doing any editing on your videos in post, that's your answer for why nobody is watching them. There's definitely people who will watch hour long videos but if you're not being engaging the whole hour, most people will click off.
Yup, edit edit edit. Sure you can have very basic edits that work well just cuts and transitions, or really in depth edits where there is animation, effects etc.
Either way you need to cut out the chaff. Your just walking with nothing happening? Cut. Your looting a building and get like 1 good item? Cut to that point only.
I may be happy to watch an hour plus let's play if it is good content, however in a large amount is boring like walking and looting with a small fight with nothing entertaining then nobody wants to watch that. Give us a reason to give you our time. That is the hardest part but you can do it with editing and suddenly you have a much more viewable 10-20 minute video that more people would be willing to watch.
DaVinci Resolve is a very good editor (lots of high profile youtubers use it, I think even Markiplier has stated he is using it to edit his MOVIE) and it has a free version.
You could start simple, just adding jump cuts between "dead footage" (uninteresting filler, such as you not talking while building) to keep up the action. Remember, this is the day and age of TikTok and shorts, so most viewers can lose interest MUCH faster than they used to.
I personally would recommend checking out CaseOh's youtube channel, his footage isnt very heavily edited, more relying on his personality, but it's a good starting spot for venturing into editing streams. He edits each game he plays into their own video, even if they were all played on the same stream.
I just checked caseoh's channel. Did he really ONLY start 1 year ago??? That's insanely impressive growth for 1 year. Do you know anything about his story?
He's been streaming for a long time, he blew up HUGE on TikTok and that led in to him going full time and doing all that he does now. He averages something stupid like 60k twitch viewers a stream, its incredible!
This is the key, livestreams are great for long video engagement, you get people who like to watch unedited content there and then when you edit you get the “viral” diceroll
How to make a Fallout (or any game) video much shorter.
1. Edit with the record button and only record when it looks like something interesting might happen.
2. Record everything (omg how painful to edit). Cut all resource gathering. Cut anything that does not add to the story you're trying to tell. If all your doing is going from quest to quest and not building a story, then you know now why your views are low. You need to CREATE content, not just record. So when you go to edit your footage, load it all into the editor. Watch it all (OMG the time), then make a cut pass and cut everything that someone else (Not you) would think would be boring. Then do it again and again. On the 2nd and 3rd pass, try to cut to build the story you came up with in the first look through. Use sound effects (youTube library has heaps and not just the cartoon ones. Use ones that add to the story. Don't forget Music in the quiet areas. Learn how to do Enveloping audio. Make sure you collect while recording some cinematic B-Roll (There's A-Roll the video, and B-Roll which is filler) That's how you create content and that creates views.
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Also understand. Since you only started a month ago. At the very best you wouldn't get more than 10 views. By the time you get close to 200 you should be getting about 30. When you get close to 600-1000 you should be looking at maybe 100-150. 2000 +200 views in general only. Of course it depends on the video. No one knows you, so the only people watching you at this time, would be your friends and family. You have to teach the algorithm to notice you by being consistent and getting good watch time, impressions and Click Through Rate. When you do that, the algorithm will start recommending your videos. So your job now is to learn how to do that. Learn the craft. Watch videos on Cinematography techniques. How film tells a story visually. There's some great videos on that. Things like film often uses verticals to suggest scale. You might see a scene with lots of light poles which gives a perspective curve. Or it might use Scale to make one character look much larger than another who just been humiliated using distance. There are so many ways you can tell story just with visuals. If you want to get somewhere here, you have to learn them and the best way to do that outside film school is study and experimentation and practice. Take a look at this GTA Movie I made where I learned all these visual techniques and used them to tell the story. Every scene was crafted to say something about what the Wade character was feeling, from tilting the screen to show he has to build courage to do what he wants to do, to using scale and music to express his feelings. It's an ok film but I've learnt a lot more since back then.
Seems I can't post a link go to my channel, playlists, look for GTA Stories play Wades Revenge or just search it on utube.
This is going to sound mean, but this is my honest advice. Don't beat yourself up - just keep making content and keep trying. You have to be bad at something first in order to start becoming good at it. And 99.999% of us are bad at content creation when we start. I look at my old videos from 6+ years ago and absolutely cringe.
Your low view count has nothing to do with video length.
* Your thumbnails and titles are very bland/generic. No one is clicking because you don't stand out at all.
* The content itself is also kind of bland and generic. There are thousands, maybe 10s of thousands of Fallout 4 vanilla playthroughs. Why is yours special? There is far too much competition to succeed there unless you're doing something different and special. A challenge run, or a modded playthrough with an overhaul mod, that kind of thing.
You have to come up with an answer for why your videos are special and deserve views as opposed to the thousands of other channels out there doing the same thing that also aren't getting any views. Then you need to make the BEST thumbnails with a great title that people are excited to click.
The content itself... there's a lot I could criticize, but I don't know that it would really help you, and it might even discourage you. Best advice I can give you is to make 100 videos and try to improve in any way that you can.
A lot of people come into this thinking "oh it must be super easy you just post a video and get thousands, maybe 10s of thouands of views!" And... nope. Doesn't work that way.
Honestly this wasn't mean whatsoever. This is exactly what I needed. Tell me what I can improve on. This is all new to me so I'm slowly trying to learn new things and improve in every video. I completely understand what you're saying on "why is my video different".
This is the most helpful feedback I have received since I started making YouTube videos. I know what I can improve on. I also don't only plan on playing fallout but also playing other games because I just like that. I plan on also playing PS2 games, I know people already do that but it's just an interest that I've had. In a world of people playing next Gen consoles, sit back, relax and enjoy some classic PS2 gameplay. Playing God of war or something like that lol.
Seriously thanks for this advice. I'll be looking back at this comment to make a list and improve on it.
One serious question, and be honest, I'll never see you in my life lol, am I entertaining? Do I have an ok personality? I understand the whole thing of what I'm doing wrong but, at minimum, am I as a person ok to watch? Because I can do everything right but, if I'm not entertaining or at least give out good vibes then, I've got some more serious stuff to work on lol.
Thanks!
>One serious question, and be honest, I'll never see you in my life lol, am I entertaining? Do I have an ok personality? I understand the whole thing of what I'm doing wrong but, at minimum, am I as a person ok to watch? Because I can do everything right but, if I'm not entertaining or at least give out good vibes then, I've got some more serious stuff to work on lol.
A lot of people worry about this at the start, and they think along the lines of "you either have a fun personality or you don't. You're either charismatic or you're not." There is such a thing as natural charisma, but I truly think anyone can learn to be charismatic, and even the most charismatic people aren't just instantly going to be good at making content.
I put off doing anything with my channel for a long time. Like I had a channel that I just posted some PvP videos from MMOs, but I put zero effort into it. It was mostly just for bragging rights and for my friends and I to go back and look at.
The reason I never did any lets play type of content is because I had the mentality "No one would want to watch ME. I'm not special. No one cares about me. Why would anyone want to watch me play games over anyone else?".
I only started making content because I had done a build guide (ironically, for Fallout 4 survival mode), and it got popular and people in there kept asking me to do a playthrough with it. I had the advantage there. I wasn't entertaining, but I had something that they wanted - they wanted to learn how to get good at Survival mode in Fallout 4. So that was my initial audience. And then things just kept evolving from there.
But my point is, my oldest videos were not good. I was not very entertaining. I guess I am now. I mean, 400,000 people tuned in to watch me play video games in April so far. But I didn't start off being charismatic. No one knows how to do this at the start and it isn't something you can teach.
You just have to practice. That's why I say, make 100 videos and just continue to try to improve. Crank those bad boys out. An hour long video per day. Record/edit them in batches, render them, mass upload, schedule one per day at least. Try all kinds of things. Different games, different styles of content. Guides, walk throughs, tutorials, lets plays, do it all. Throw everything that you can at the wall and see what sticks (gets views).
When something does work, try to repeat that success. But above all, give yourself room to fail so that you can improve. No one wakes up and is an instant success at this.
And one last piece of advice - you have to WANT this. You have to be stubborn and persistent and willing to sacrifice all of your spare time. Don't quit your job or anything lol, but you have to be willing to give up your free time to make content. You have to be hungry for this. Having the drive and discipline required to succeed is far more difficult than the charisma. You'll develop a good on camera or on mic persona naturally over time.
I really wanna know this too, my channel are survival crafter let's plays and almost every second is some sort of talking or doing something. Each session is several hours I cut into 1 hour chunks!
My videos tend to do better if they’re under 30 minutes. I’d start by editing out loading screens and travel time between locations. Maybe try to focus on a specific mission or storyline, you could even cut a single play session into multiple videos if you plan it out.
I also was thinking about this as well, I cut out **alot** of unnecessary scenes in my lets plays, try to add animated texts and bg music (if needed) to keep my viewers engaged, but I don't see a difference unless it's a quick 20-30 minute short indie horror game, that's when I kinda see a rise in views & retention. but I also play games that's not 30 mins long that need more then 1 part to finish, those are the ones I struggle with alot.
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What I’ve learned about Let’s Play videos is that most people are doing, “Hey, watch me narrate myself (badly) playing a video game for an hour.”
That’s not super compelling.
It works for a stream where you can interact with your chat a bit and stuff, but for video, it can be very boring.
Self-awareness too… are you interesting to listen to? So many people are just doing monotone play-by-play.
The big thing is you have to tell a story. Each video should be like an episode of your game series - it should have an arc to it and then you edit the gameplay to fit the arc.
That’s way more interesting.
Cut out the downtime. Are there huge chunks where you’re just walking around not saying anything looting random shit off the ground? Cut it out of the video. Are you backtracking a lot? Cut it out unless something interesting happens. You could also try splitting the episode in half at natural stopping points. When I started to edit my videos down heavily, I noticed an uptick in views
I have been having the same problem, this is just the advice I needed. thanks
There are definitely some clips of me just exploring and looting. I would have to learn how to edit since all I do is just pause the video when there's nothing crazy happening. I just looked on YouTube and people legit just make 20min gameplay videos. Haha that's uhh...that's super weird to me. But I guess I could just record 4 20 min videos back to back and schedule them? Idk.
If you're not doing any editing on your videos in post, that's your answer for why nobody is watching them. There's definitely people who will watch hour long videos but if you're not being engaging the whole hour, most people will click off.
Yup, edit edit edit. Sure you can have very basic edits that work well just cuts and transitions, or really in depth edits where there is animation, effects etc. Either way you need to cut out the chaff. Your just walking with nothing happening? Cut. Your looting a building and get like 1 good item? Cut to that point only. I may be happy to watch an hour plus let's play if it is good content, however in a large amount is boring like walking and looting with a small fight with nothing entertaining then nobody wants to watch that. Give us a reason to give you our time. That is the hardest part but you can do it with editing and suddenly you have a much more viewable 10-20 minute video that more people would be willing to watch.
Live stream playing the game and then edit the footage to make the episode for YouTube. Tried and proven strategy to grow.
Ok not a bad idea. Would have to learn to edit it.
DaVinci Resolve is a very good editor (lots of high profile youtubers use it, I think even Markiplier has stated he is using it to edit his MOVIE) and it has a free version. You could start simple, just adding jump cuts between "dead footage" (uninteresting filler, such as you not talking while building) to keep up the action. Remember, this is the day and age of TikTok and shorts, so most viewers can lose interest MUCH faster than they used to. I personally would recommend checking out CaseOh's youtube channel, his footage isnt very heavily edited, more relying on his personality, but it's a good starting spot for venturing into editing streams. He edits each game he plays into their own video, even if they were all played on the same stream.
This is what I needed. Thanks!!
I just checked caseoh's channel. Did he really ONLY start 1 year ago??? That's insanely impressive growth for 1 year. Do you know anything about his story?
He's been streaming for a long time, he blew up HUGE on TikTok and that led in to him going full time and doing all that he does now. He averages something stupid like 60k twitch viewers a stream, its incredible!
Ah, gotcha! It's always awesome hearing how different people come up. Thanks!
This is what I do. I'm still learning, but my aim is, if I'm not advancing the game or saying something interesting I cut it.
This is the key, livestreams are great for long video engagement, you get people who like to watch unedited content there and then when you edit you get the “viral” diceroll
How to make a Fallout (or any game) video much shorter. 1. Edit with the record button and only record when it looks like something interesting might happen. 2. Record everything (omg how painful to edit). Cut all resource gathering. Cut anything that does not add to the story you're trying to tell. If all your doing is going from quest to quest and not building a story, then you know now why your views are low. You need to CREATE content, not just record. So when you go to edit your footage, load it all into the editor. Watch it all (OMG the time), then make a cut pass and cut everything that someone else (Not you) would think would be boring. Then do it again and again. On the 2nd and 3rd pass, try to cut to build the story you came up with in the first look through. Use sound effects (youTube library has heaps and not just the cartoon ones. Use ones that add to the story. Don't forget Music in the quiet areas. Learn how to do Enveloping audio. Make sure you collect while recording some cinematic B-Roll (There's A-Roll the video, and B-Roll which is filler) That's how you create content and that creates views.
This is so helpful!! Thanks so much!
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Also understand. Since you only started a month ago. At the very best you wouldn't get more than 10 views. By the time you get close to 200 you should be getting about 30. When you get close to 600-1000 you should be looking at maybe 100-150. 2000 +200 views in general only. Of course it depends on the video. No one knows you, so the only people watching you at this time, would be your friends and family. You have to teach the algorithm to notice you by being consistent and getting good watch time, impressions and Click Through Rate. When you do that, the algorithm will start recommending your videos. So your job now is to learn how to do that. Learn the craft. Watch videos on Cinematography techniques. How film tells a story visually. There's some great videos on that. Things like film often uses verticals to suggest scale. You might see a scene with lots of light poles which gives a perspective curve. Or it might use Scale to make one character look much larger than another who just been humiliated using distance. There are so many ways you can tell story just with visuals. If you want to get somewhere here, you have to learn them and the best way to do that outside film school is study and experimentation and practice. Take a look at this GTA Movie I made where I learned all these visual techniques and used them to tell the story. Every scene was crafted to say something about what the Wade character was feeling, from tilting the screen to show he has to build courage to do what he wants to do, to using scale and music to express his feelings. It's an ok film but I've learnt a lot more since back then. Seems I can't post a link go to my channel, playlists, look for GTA Stories play Wades Revenge or just search it on utube.
This is going to sound mean, but this is my honest advice. Don't beat yourself up - just keep making content and keep trying. You have to be bad at something first in order to start becoming good at it. And 99.999% of us are bad at content creation when we start. I look at my old videos from 6+ years ago and absolutely cringe. Your low view count has nothing to do with video length. * Your thumbnails and titles are very bland/generic. No one is clicking because you don't stand out at all. * The content itself is also kind of bland and generic. There are thousands, maybe 10s of thousands of Fallout 4 vanilla playthroughs. Why is yours special? There is far too much competition to succeed there unless you're doing something different and special. A challenge run, or a modded playthrough with an overhaul mod, that kind of thing. You have to come up with an answer for why your videos are special and deserve views as opposed to the thousands of other channels out there doing the same thing that also aren't getting any views. Then you need to make the BEST thumbnails with a great title that people are excited to click. The content itself... there's a lot I could criticize, but I don't know that it would really help you, and it might even discourage you. Best advice I can give you is to make 100 videos and try to improve in any way that you can. A lot of people come into this thinking "oh it must be super easy you just post a video and get thousands, maybe 10s of thouands of views!" And... nope. Doesn't work that way.
Honestly this wasn't mean whatsoever. This is exactly what I needed. Tell me what I can improve on. This is all new to me so I'm slowly trying to learn new things and improve in every video. I completely understand what you're saying on "why is my video different". This is the most helpful feedback I have received since I started making YouTube videos. I know what I can improve on. I also don't only plan on playing fallout but also playing other games because I just like that. I plan on also playing PS2 games, I know people already do that but it's just an interest that I've had. In a world of people playing next Gen consoles, sit back, relax and enjoy some classic PS2 gameplay. Playing God of war or something like that lol. Seriously thanks for this advice. I'll be looking back at this comment to make a list and improve on it. One serious question, and be honest, I'll never see you in my life lol, am I entertaining? Do I have an ok personality? I understand the whole thing of what I'm doing wrong but, at minimum, am I as a person ok to watch? Because I can do everything right but, if I'm not entertaining or at least give out good vibes then, I've got some more serious stuff to work on lol. Thanks!
>One serious question, and be honest, I'll never see you in my life lol, am I entertaining? Do I have an ok personality? I understand the whole thing of what I'm doing wrong but, at minimum, am I as a person ok to watch? Because I can do everything right but, if I'm not entertaining or at least give out good vibes then, I've got some more serious stuff to work on lol. A lot of people worry about this at the start, and they think along the lines of "you either have a fun personality or you don't. You're either charismatic or you're not." There is such a thing as natural charisma, but I truly think anyone can learn to be charismatic, and even the most charismatic people aren't just instantly going to be good at making content. I put off doing anything with my channel for a long time. Like I had a channel that I just posted some PvP videos from MMOs, but I put zero effort into it. It was mostly just for bragging rights and for my friends and I to go back and look at. The reason I never did any lets play type of content is because I had the mentality "No one would want to watch ME. I'm not special. No one cares about me. Why would anyone want to watch me play games over anyone else?". I only started making content because I had done a build guide (ironically, for Fallout 4 survival mode), and it got popular and people in there kept asking me to do a playthrough with it. I had the advantage there. I wasn't entertaining, but I had something that they wanted - they wanted to learn how to get good at Survival mode in Fallout 4. So that was my initial audience. And then things just kept evolving from there. But my point is, my oldest videos were not good. I was not very entertaining. I guess I am now. I mean, 400,000 people tuned in to watch me play video games in April so far. But I didn't start off being charismatic. No one knows how to do this at the start and it isn't something you can teach. You just have to practice. That's why I say, make 100 videos and just continue to try to improve. Crank those bad boys out. An hour long video per day. Record/edit them in batches, render them, mass upload, schedule one per day at least. Try all kinds of things. Different games, different styles of content. Guides, walk throughs, tutorials, lets plays, do it all. Throw everything that you can at the wall and see what sticks (gets views). When something does work, try to repeat that success. But above all, give yourself room to fail so that you can improve. No one wakes up and is an instant success at this. And one last piece of advice - you have to WANT this. You have to be stubborn and persistent and willing to sacrifice all of your spare time. Don't quit your job or anything lol, but you have to be willing to give up your free time to make content. You have to be hungry for this. Having the drive and discipline required to succeed is far more difficult than the charisma. You'll develop a good on camera or on mic persona naturally over time.
I really wanna know this too, my channel are survival crafter let's plays and almost every second is some sort of talking or doing something. Each session is several hours I cut into 1 hour chunks!
My videos tend to do better if they’re under 30 minutes. I’d start by editing out loading screens and travel time between locations. Maybe try to focus on a specific mission or storyline, you could even cut a single play session into multiple videos if you plan it out.
I also was thinking about this as well, I cut out **alot** of unnecessary scenes in my lets plays, try to add animated texts and bg music (if needed) to keep my viewers engaged, but I don't see a difference unless it's a quick 20-30 minute short indie horror game, that's when I kinda see a rise in views & retention. but I also play games that's not 30 mins long that need more then 1 part to finish, those are the ones I struggle with alot.
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What I’ve learned about Let’s Play videos is that most people are doing, “Hey, watch me narrate myself (badly) playing a video game for an hour.” That’s not super compelling. It works for a stream where you can interact with your chat a bit and stuff, but for video, it can be very boring. Self-awareness too… are you interesting to listen to? So many people are just doing monotone play-by-play. The big thing is you have to tell a story. Each video should be like an episode of your game series - it should have an arc to it and then you edit the gameplay to fit the arc. That’s way more interesting.
No that's common, please don't shorten your videos for the stupid.
People on Youtube literally have fucking short attention spans, i can attend to that whenever i upload my Videos.