April Round up

Hello friends, welcome to the roundup of the month of April.

Last month I called March a "5 Star Month" - if that's true then April, by comparison, would be a 7-8 star month. I've really tried increasing the production quality this time around, and I think it's paid off pretty significantly. Rimworld blew up, CK2 Game of Thrones continues blowing up, and the new CK2 series seems like it's doing well also!

For the month of April 2019:

- 91 videos (2 less than last month (Blame Imperator Rome))

- Approximately 3,640 minutes of video time uploaded! (We had some slightly longer running videos)

- In April, my content was watched for a total of 16.3 million minutes around the world - by far the highest it's ever been (10 million last month). To put that into perspective, the channel wasted 30 years of mankind's time.

- Revenue was... well I honestly don't know because Youtube lost all the data! This wasn't just me, luckily, but a lot of creators have reported their earnings just disappearing. Suffice to say, without Patreon, I'd be probably looking for a new job about now.

- 3 sponsorships, all of which I once again declined due to the nature of them - One, in particular, was very noteworthy, I'll be talking about that in detail later!

This month has been, without a shadow of a doubt, the best month the channel has ever had on Youtube. Now I know I say that every single month, but in retrospect, that's exactly what I want to be saying every month. Not out of braggadociousness or Logan Paul-esc ambition, but because if the channel isn't constantly outperforming last month then that's a clear sign the content needs to change. But, luckily, things are still on the up and up, so that indicates to me that I'm doing something right!

Series A had a rocky start this month. We began with the Game of Thrones White Walker campaign, which I thought would be perfect - a unique, never before seen, start with a recognisable cast and crew that ties nicely into the release of Game of Thrones Season 8. Unfortunately, it was a little too ambitious and I expected a little too much of the game. The White Walkers did nothing, posed no threat, and then the AI managed to mop them up before we'd even so much as managed to get off of Essos. At that stage, when it was simply us VS Aztecs for the dozenth time, I thought that was a good place to head back to the drawing board and try again.

I thought back on what had been successful in the past. I knew I still wanted to do Game of Thrones seeing as it was a massive talking point and would hopefully perform pretty well - plus it's my favourite CK2 total conversion mod. There is a clear trend amongst most of the Game of Thrones series - the weird/wacky parts of the SOIAF universe but whilst also having that good character base. Topbog worked because he was a good character, the other subsequent series worked also because of Topbog. My hunch was that the Storm Kings, or any of the weirder Westerosi stuff, would work quite well because you have the character from the show coupled with the regular CK2 mediaeval feudal gameplay. 

Rimworld started out extremely strong, but I think at this point people are as sick of Jilp as I am. Understandable really, considering it is a series built around frustration. Unfortunately, it's gotten to the point where the frustration for the audience has grown to the point that the payoffs really aren't worth the wait, hence why for May I'm renaming it the "Final Jilp" so that there are more stakes to it other than simply starting again. Plus, even if the whole marketing ploy doesn't work, it means we can move on to something a little different instead.

One thing I've been pretty adamant about doing this month is the fancy intros to each series. It's a pretty common trend whereby the first episode gets 50% of the views of the whole series (Jilp Ep.1 is at something like 80k right now), then subsequent episodes drop off more and more until it stabilises to a relatively decent level. So I thought that making the first episode as high value and interesting as possible would hopefully give the series a little more a retention rate. 

Now, maybe the episodes have just been better overall, maybe the algorithm has just been favouring my content a little more as of late, or maybe the intros actually worked. Either way, one of the biggest things I wanted to draw attention to was the gigantic subscriber gain over a relatively short period of time. With Youtube, it's all well and good gaining a 1000 subs a month, the problem is by the time the next 1000 subs have rolled in, the previous 1000 subs have stopped watching considerably. But, 25% of the current channels subscriber base subscribed during last month, taking up to 20k. Getting that many, so quickly, is generally better for the channel than gaining say 2.5k over two months, but ending up with the same viewers overall. The analytics and algorithms are going to love seeing such a massive boost and in turn, it may even lead to bigger boosts in the future. With that all said, subscribers really don't matter on Youtube in 2019, they only care about watch time and views.

I mentioned earlier I wanted to talk about one particular sponsor that came through, technically it began last month and really became a problem only yesterday. I won't mention this particular sponsors name, I have done before, but seeing as this is a permanent post, I'll do it to be fair and ambiguous to them - I'm not here to make enemies though I'm pretty damn sure that they are.

A particular unnamed company emailed me last month asking if I was interested in partnering with their app/website which allows "influencers" to have a dedicated phone that fans can call - fans are charged at $3 a MINUTE to be able to talk to you, and you and the company split the money. Now I'm sure if you're a Pogan Laul, a Pake Jaul, a Loezella or whoever else is massive on Youtube, and a corporate shill, this would be an absolute gold mine. As someone who considers myself to have some, vague, morals and an understanding of the Streisand Effect, I was appalled by such a damn stupid idea. Luckily, my audience is smart enough to recognise a scam, but for some of the aforementioned Youtubers who have very young and impressional audiences, it seems like an absolute ethical nightmare.

 I didn't reply to their original email - and I try and reply to all sponsors to keep a modicum of professionality to the channel and to discuss with them why I wouldn't do it. Takes very little time, and keeps me in their good books, especially as companies that work with "influences" are incredibly interlinked and will almost certainly share around blacklisted Youtubers.

 Having not replied, in hindsight, as a bad idea. This nameless company apparently took my absolute radio silence as a "Yes" and went about setting up a page on their website dedicated to me, my channel, and offering my fans a way to get in contact, all I needed to do was set things up on my end and I was ready to go! Suffice to say I politely asked them to get fucked and explained why their website is a garbage idea.

Attached to this post are the emails back and forth, with name and identifying points redacted.

So that was an interesting experience. I especially liked the part where they justified using me on their website as "free publicity". 

Another company got in touch with me asking if I wanted to promote their gaming headset range, and said I could give the products away to the audience. Honestly, that tempted me - I get nothing out of it besides a chance to look professional and appeal to sponsors, and in return for a fairly garbage video the audience gets some free, budget but okay looking, peripherals. Unfortunately, after not replying for a couple of days, they emailed me multiple times asking how much money I wanted to promote them, at which point I decided against it. I know that the headsets weren't going to be good, but someone would appreciate getting a free headset if they don't have an alternative. A video, that is a radical departure from my usual stuff, in which I accept a low payment to lie on camera, that will be met with (hopefully!) disappointment from the community is not really on my list of things to do.

It's a shame that the minutia of online business is fairly shady, backhanded, and exploitative, but outside of all that the month has been great. I don't need to worry about that garbage thanks to the generosity of you guys on here, and I can only feel sorry for YouTubers out there who out of desperation, frustration, or greed, feel the need to cosy up to these companies and take their fans for a ride.

On a positive note, the Patreon campaign has never been better than before. We've finally gotten past the full-time goal! Yes, I have been doing youtube at full time for some time now on a pretty small amount, however, this value means that I can do Youtube without worrying about whether the revenue I will get will be enough to live. As I said before, thanks to you guys I'm not forced into sponsorships, or eight ads per video, unlike certain other famous, ex-gaming, Youtubers. We can just keep doing what we're doing and enjoy the ride.

On the subject of Patreon goals, as a little extra incentive for the both of us, I added a PO Box, only because the Discord asked for it (I actually got the PO Box before we hit the goal because people seemed to want it that badly). I don't imagine to get much/anything from people through the PO Box, nor do I expect to 'break-even' on it or anything like that. All I expect out of it is a bit of fun and hopefully some garbage videos that will hopefully be happening very very soon.

As usual, thanks for all your support. Let's see whether we can double our monthly subs again, huh?

Love Sam xx

- Roll1D2Games