Videochat May 2017

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More videochat. I was more coherent this time, but still rambled. New videos coming very soon! The next Game Dungeon should be up within 24 hours, a bonus one afterward, and expect another Freeman's Mind this month.

COMMENTS

well this video started out strong

Is there a question that feels like a bother for you to answer during the videochats? (barring weird personal inquiries/troll questions, of course)

My suggestion with Moon Gaming wasn't so much "be identical to the April Fool's episode" but to use a similar theme.

5-15 minute video for a game that's interesting but wouldn't warrant a Game Dungeon. Good place for fan requested games. Heck, good place for fans.

Talk about the game, but with a few lines cut in for prescripted story.

Fake background/avatar for the guest. Guest should be supplying "not laptop mic" audio and that's it unless they have a recording studio.

This would be a fantastic place to have third party editing.

Think Space Ghost Coast to Coast. One of the better ones.

Is there a question that feels like a bother for you to answer during the videochats? (barring weird personal inquiries/troll questions, of course)

"When's the next Freeman's Mind episode?"

lol

My suggestion with Moon Gaming wasn't so much "be identical to the April Fool's episode" but to use a similar theme.

 

5-15 minute video for a game that's interesting but wouldn't warrant a Game Dungeon. Good place for fan requested games. Heck, good place for fans.

Talk about the game, but with a few lines cut in for prescripted story.

Fake background/avatar for the guest. Guest should be supplying "not laptop mic" audio and that's it unless they have a recording studio.

This would be a fantastic place to have third party editing.

 

Think Space Ghost Coast to Coast. One of the better ones.

I like the idea of having a fan interaction going on, although it might be really hard to police the quality of the guests (no offense to anyone, since I apply that concern to myself as well), and may lead to some weird fan interaction problems. Working with someone on a video is a not insignificant commitment, and I recall Ross having troubles with that before.

I still think Ross just needs to get a few more guests involved. Like an LGR, for instance. It would probably help everyone involved reach wider audiences, and may help to form a broad base between all the different video makers in this space who are at similar popularity levels to Ross.

I knew once I did the Begathon video, I felt like I had to do, I had to continue it, because you know, with that kind of support from fans, I felt like I owed it to everyone.

You are operating under the assumption that people who begged you to continue Freeman's Mind into Half-Life 2 are the same people who brought you the bulk of the donation money, which is not necessarily correct. It is entirely possible that all those 0.5M viewers who watched the first episode of FM2 actually brought you about 5-7% of all the money you got.

I, for one, became much more interested in Game Dungeon than in FM pretty much since the 2nd or 3rd episode of the former (despite coming to know you because of the latter). That was what, about 3.5 years ago? FM was at its prime back then. Even then I already knew that FM is your least favorite project that you started only to fill the gaps between the CP episodes with something easier to make (oh the irony). So when you asked for help, I eagerly supported you because of your GD episodes first and foremost, because compared to FM they felt like something you actually enjoyed to do.

I am sure that I am not alone with these thoughts of mine.

The thing is, I tend to believe that your audience consists of two distinct groups: hundreds of thousands of people who don't care about anything except Freeman's Mind - those are the same kind of audience that most YouTubers have (like PewDiePie); and a very small, but utterly devoted group of people who is interested in you as a creator, above all else. These are the people who eagerly watch your Twitch chats, beg you to play multiplayer games with them, who print tokens from old arcade games on a 3D printer for you... And also bring you the vast majority of your donations.

Of course it's your call which group you are going to target. I just thought that after you said about becoming practically independent from YouTube income, you will finally be able to focus on projects that you wish to do, instead of returning to that monotonous grind that FM is.

You are operating under the assumption that people who begged you to continue Freeman's Mind into Half-Life 2 are the same people who brought you the bulk of the donation money, which is not necessarily correct. It is entirely possible that all those 0.5M viewers who watched the first episode of FM2 actually brought you about 5-7% of all the money you got.

That would not be surprising.

I like the idea of having a fan interaction going on, although it might be really hard to police the quality of the guests (no offense to anyone, since I apply that concern to myself as well), and may lead to some weird fan interaction problems.

Yes, that was why I said it'd be a good idea to refuse "laptop mic callers".

My idea here is that by saying "no integrated audio" you keep out 95% of the riff-raff*. Asking that a potential guest put down fifteen bucks for a bullet mic or something means you'll get people who are willing to commit somewhat to being worthwhile. In other words, people who are willing to put their money where their mouths are will also be the types to, say, play the game beforehand and come up with interesting things to talk about.

This was actually the solution to a Kingdom of Loathing meetup problem. They had serious problems when saying "Who plans to come, we need to plan venue size." They'd get 400 signups and 300 no shows. BUT, if they said "Ten bucks to register." they got 200 signups and 10 no shows. They talked about that being the reason for the fee quite a few times.

*This is not to imply that people who cannot afford a microphone are riff-raff.