So I was chatting with a few folks on Reddit recently, regarding the level of gaming discourse on Youtube. Specifically we were talking about coverage of “Starfield”, but other games as well, and how negative videos about certain games do better than positive ones.
It all comes down to the algorithm, which favors videos that enflame passions in the viewer, so negative videos tend to be favored by Youtube. It’s complicated, but it has to do with driving eyeballs onto ads, and I expect negative videos may keep viewers watching longer, thus more ads will be seen, etc, etc.
Like I said, it’s complicated. It is also very, very stupid.
When I started my podcasting career on Youtube, I did a mostly-positive show focusing on Massively Multiplayer Online RolePlaying Games (MMORPGs) like “Lord of the Rings Online”, “World of Warcraft”, and so forth. That did okay, but it soon became apparent that my videos where I would rant about this or that did better than the rest, and so “The MMO Troll” was born. I have since wiped all of my old videos off of Youtube, but my show “The MMO Troll” did much better than my earlier attempts, which led to its own website and blog, and some small level of notoriety in the MMORPG space.
I regret that now. Being mad for clicks and views wasn’t who I am, but it did get my message out there. I was being sarcastic, and pointing out dumb things MMO devs and publishers were doing, but it was still my being negative for clicks and views, and that isn’t me.
But what if I were able to go back to positive content?
“Starfield” is a fine game, despite what many Youtubers will tell you. It has a horrible reputation which is completely undeserved, as the game has improved significantly since it was released in September of 2023. Most Youtubers who posted negatively about “Starfield” have since moved on to complaining about other so-called “Woke” games like “Avowed”, but there are still a few Youtubers that support the game. Their positivity has helped “Starfield” maintain the community that it has, and kept the game relevant much longer than it would have, because of how savagely the game was treated in the months after it was released.
So my question is this: Is it time that I step back into the Youtube ring, and start posting positive videos again?
I am mostly playing on my Xbox Series X nowadays, so there is the built-in video capture feature, but that is limited to how much space you have available for storage. I have an external SSD for videos and screenshots which has some space, but I expect I’ll be having to clear it off a lot, should I get back into video creation for Youtube again.
Based upon my previous experience with the platform, I would say it won’t be worth the effort, but maybe it would be, to have one more positive voice in the gaming sphere on Youtube?
