Not writing shop, this time. Not even parenting shop. I want to talk about my other creative outlet, of late. Sharing video games.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s put aside the question of whether or not playing video games and sharing the experience even is creative, and assume for the moment that it\u2019s been answered in the positive. Let\u2019s talk about hosting and sharing platforms. Let\u2019s talk about monetization. Let\u2019s talk about audience availability.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been uploading my gaming videos to YouTube<\/a> because that\u2019s where my vlog went. Everybody knows YouTube, and every social media, blogging, mobile, and console platform bends over backwards to make sure videos play and play well. They\u2019re huge, and despite their roots in small-time producers, they\u2019ve shifted focus to their subscription service (YouTube Red) and their live TV service (YouTube TV). This has, by necessity, changed their attitude toward advertising.<\/p>\n I\u2019d only heard of Twitch<\/a> in passing, and had considered it a place for more hardcore gamers than I\u2019d ever be. I started watching when a friend<\/a> (more so since I started watching, to be honest) returned to streaming as a job, and discovered that I\u2019d been really wrong. Twitch has streamers that are at all experience and intensity levels. They have competitive communities, communities surrounding fandom, and non-toxic communities, just to name a few. The only things they lacked were video archiving for viewing later, and an app that was anything other than frustrating. But I had YouTube for that, so I started live-streaming to Twitch, and exporting to YouTube for non-live viewing. And it was working great! I was even bringing in some pennies from ads on my more popular videos.<\/p>\n And then I logged in to YouTube\u2019s Creator Studio and got a banner notification that my monetization had been revoked. They had removed it from all creators with less than 10,000 total views. This would have happened earlier, but there had been a bug and I\u2019d slipped through the cracks. That was all the communication I received.<\/p>\n No grandfathering in of current creators, no heads-up emails, no appeal. Now, this is entirely within YouTube\u2019s rights, and makes sense with the business pivot I noted above. That didn\u2019t make it any less irritating.<\/p>\n So I started looking for alternative platforms, with no luck. Until I took a look at my past videos on Twitch. Some that I\u2019d thought deleted were back, all the way to August. There was a new option for collections, which is their implementation of playlists. The decision came down to this – was I ok with the trade-off of a less well-known platform and a problematic non-browser viewing experience for great communities and a business model focused on sharing gameplay?<\/p>\n Yes, I was.<\/p>\n So, I\u2019m going to be uploading and streaming through Twitch for all of my gaming stuff<\/a>. I\u2019ll still be putting my vlogs<\/a> on YouTube, and my blogging will stay here.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s see how this goes!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Not writing shop, this time. Not even parenting shop. I want to talk about my other creative outlet, of late. Sharing video games. Let\u2019s put aside the question of whether or not playing video games and sharing the experience even … Continue reading