2018 Blog Blowout Bonanza

MERRY [GetHolidayName(currUser).ToString()] TO YOU!

I've been on holiday this past week, which has involved a load of sitting around, sleeping in, playing MSGV, and generally not working on the channel at all. Lovely to get away from it all, eh? Will probs start doing things again at some point next week, possibly with renewed vigour, or more likely just annoyed that I'm being forced to play games for money again.

Anyway, since I kind of already looked back at the gentle disaster that was 2018 in the previous blog post, today let's rant about my thoughts and dreams for so-called 2019.

Goal 1) GET EVERY SUBSCRIBER

Goal 2) MAKE VIDEO?

Okay I don't actually have any specific goals. One milestone I need to aim for is 30k subs, because at that point I can become a Youtube super-partner or something, which unlocks the ability to have channel memberships (the paid subscription thing you might have seen around the place). This membership program primarily focuses on giving you special treatment in livestreams, which kinda sucks for my channel eh? I wish it let you view that channel's videos with no ads, or download them, or just something more tangible, especially because the price is set at 5 currency units. For UK people that sucks, since £5 a month is a descent amount more than $5 a month!

The only reason I was looking into this membership thing is because a fair few people have written to me asking if I can offer something that isn't Patreon for recurring donations. Supposedly it's because patreon Did A Bad Thing, but I didn't actually hear about what it was, nor can I actually be bothered to go investigate. I think having something that isn't patreon will be good anyway, both for giving people more choice, and for breaking their big, orange monopoly on modern creative endeavors. I've heard there are services that are identical to patreon out there, just need to pick one and offer the same terms for pledges there, if possible. I would do it now but I'm on holiday you see...

Another possible goal for 2019 will be the creation of a second channel: THIS IS CONTENT! I need to decide what to do with that series, with 'nothing at all' being a potential option. What I decide is somewhat based on the outcome of the no-content experiment running on the channel right now. Looking at analytics, the preliminary results are: it made no difference whatsoever. Click Through Rate seems to be the same, and overall views are obviously down, however there is another factor to consider alongside that - since I am not near the start of any main series anymore, views just drop continuously. November was a lot worse than October (like 50% worse, hey, watch my damn videos!) and now December has been worse than November, so TIC ending Dec 11th can't be said to have bucked any existing trends.

What I don't really want to happen is for TIC to go the way of the 'Of Truth' series, in that it's fun to make and is my favourite of my own videos, but they never get much attention and must be ignored for sanity and business purposes. Making TIC its own channel with a separate audience might be a way to achieve this, although building up a second channel is unlikely to be all that easy. OR MAYBE IT WILL BE REALLY EASY?! You just can't tell with the Algorithm (praise be upon it) controlling things. I just don't know, and right now I need to see if I can get any data from the analytics before I decide anything; perhaps more shall be ranted on this next month!

Now I have to face the winter-drought where youtube does a lot worse in general for Jan/Feb time, and the money for ads disappears. Look, youtube sucks, alright? So let's talk about a couple of other things scheduled for 2019.

One this is the likely completion of the alpha-version of the world's premier future video game, Godless Tactics! I've fixed so many issues and made so many improvements this year that I think it's very much functional now, although detailed balancing remains to be done. Getting to the point when I need other people to play it to direct future improvements, aka, the alpha! When will this actually happen? Well right now there are lots of planned graphical changes, so kind of waiting for those first since how it looks gives so much of an impression right away. Here, look at this pretty picture from the brand SPANKING new opening cutscene:

2 bugs left on my current list of known things, then I'll have a fresh stable build to test and play with. Oooooo! I'm too in deep to tell if this game is actually any fun or good anymore, but hopefully people will like it once they finally give it a go. If it turns out to be amazing, I may be able to get some money from it and then I promise I'll stop complaining about not getting any money from youtube on this esteemed blog - yes, both of these events may seem unlikely, but sometimes you just get lucky! If it sucks, then I'll just have to make a sequel that's better but sort-of the same and just release that instead, like how Mount and Blade didn't do well, but then Mount and Blade Warband, the same thing but 10% better, is very well known.

The other thing I'll be hanging on to in 2019 is being the voice of Kings of Generals, the outrageously successful history doc channel. They've managed to rake in nearly half a million subscribers in the 15ish months I've been there. Could it be the magic of Offy D's voice is just too hard to resist? Well I guess I'd get some subscribers myself if that were the case, but anyway, it's been special to be even a small part of something that has been so successful out there in the harsh world of youtube.

Just saying, look at this:

I am basically Laurence Olivier, the guy who narrated the documentary series 'World At War'. Earlier on I was trying to emulate him by sounding really stuffy, but now those earlier videos are cringey for me, so I speak a bit more normally while still trying to tone things down, which I think suits the fact-barrage nature of the scripts. Anyway, I hope they get a billion subscribers and I can be somehow catapulted to fame from it, although actually I get so many random questions asking why I 'sound like' the K&G guy, that clearly my presence on the channel is surprisingly secret even to viewers of both mine and theirs. On the flip side there are those who seem to believe that I run K&G myself, so at least there's that stolen glory!

So, 2018 summary: started off good, got continuously worse, now I have to hope that making Three Kingdoms videos in 2019 gets things back on track (side note, this sucks because normally it would be a game that I look forward to a lot, but now it's more of a 'reckoning' that I secretly want to not happen. [The Waaahhhmbulance arrives]). TIC's fate is to be confirmed.

I guess that'll do for today. I would rant about the games I've been playing recently, but I think that'll take a long time, and I'm burning precious holiday time writing this trash so I'd rather get on with things!

GO AWAY AND NOTE THE CHANGING OF THE YEAR NUMBER, PATHETIC HUMANS!