What's important things when you wanna start YT game channel?

So you want to start your own gaming YouTube channel? Considering the high number of viewers YouTubers are getting in this niche, you’ve chosen a market that’s clearly popular.

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According to Statista, the following gaming YouTubers are the most popular in 2022, and their channels are growing by the hour! But you’ll also find that starting a new YouTube gaming channel in 2022 is a lot more competitive than it was several years ago. So what can you do to increase your viewership and grow your success in this exciting, but saturated niche?

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When looking at successful gaming YouTubers, one can learn a lot about what audiences like, how they respond, and what a new YouTuber can do to appeal to them. We analyzed some up-and-coming YouTubers and got some guidance from them. 

Be Realistic About Time and Energy

The one piece of common advice from YouTubers is that being a gaming YouTuber is a huge commitment. Minecraft YouTubersexplain that creating one 20-minute video can take 6 hours of play time, and at least 3 hours of editing time.That’s at least 9 hours to create one video! Sounds like a fulltime job, right?

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It’s wise for YouTubers to budget a sensible amount of time and energy for their videos and be sure they are realistic about how many videos they can publish in a week. Since weekly videos create a sense of consistency with audiences, figure out how much time can actually be dedicated to please fans. 

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Be Different by Identifying Your Niche

There’s often a temptation to copy an already-successful gaming YouTuber and do exactly what they do. This is a common mistake that many make. Instead, brainstorm a unique genre and run with it. This is especially true with sandbox games like The Sims, Minecraft, and strategy games such as Age of Empires or Supreme Commander. These games allow players to go in a thousand+ different directions, which makes for some entertaining videos!

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Some ways you can brainstorm your unique gameplay series are by considering the following:

- Create a series that aims to complete all game achievements

- Keep audiences hooked by creating a story around a said game series

- Test new concepts, expansions, or texture packs within the game

- Include streaming into a series which gives audiences an air of unexpected events

- Create tutorials for the game (more about this later)

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Write and Outline Your Story for Each Episode

People love storytelling. Tap into this by planning your video before recording starts. According to successful gaming YouTubers, this is an essential part to create a video that becomes popular in the long run.

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A 20-minute strategy session where a story is outlined should include:

- What you want to achieve (video goals)

- The steps you will take to reach those goals (systematic progression)

- What you will be saying (key narration points)

- Interaction strategies with your audience (appealing for likes, comments, questions and/or subscriptions)

- Choosing extremely hard levels and showcasing your skills (proving it can be done)

Include Failures

There is absolutely nothing wrong with showcasing your failures. Viewers love watching a let’s play series where the YouTuber is human, flawed and making mistakes. It makes them more relatable when they don’t claim to be an expert, but learn along with their viewers as they go.

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In fact, some YouTubers even compile all of their failures into a tutorial video, teaching viewers how NOT to do something in order to be successful. This makes for a great learning experience for anyone who wants to improve their gameplay.

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Set Your Viewership Goals

YouTuber Shubble, who streams live Minecraft videos and posts them on YouTube, keeps a Subscriber Goal Tab below her face while recording. What she’s done is include her audience in her viewership goals by encouraging them to share and subscribe while updating them on that progress.

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Not only should you be setting your own viewership goals, but you can also include these goals in your actual gaming video too. Another Minecraft YouTuber just starting out in the Minecraft YouTube arena has come up with a way to increase his views steadily by promising to plant one sugarcane for every view he gets. His audience will relish the updated growth of the sugarcane farm as the views increase over time and they will feel included in that project.

Please Your Fans by Uploading Consistently

Consistency is key to becoming a successful YouTuber. In fact, consistency is considered to be more important than the quality of the videos themselves. Audiences are more likely to relate to regular gameplay videos despite how well someone plays or edits those videos. It’s fun for game fans to watch someone play, but they are likely to lose interest if the YouTuber just stops uploading as often as they were, or if they simply stop for a long period of time.

Grow Your Viewership by Creating Catchy Thumbnails

The thumbnail of a video is the first thing to catch the audience’s attention when scrolling through YouTube. Creating catchy cover pages for each video will get them to stop, read the title, and perhaps watch the video. A good idea is to also include a title into that thumbnail, because a title (or even a subtitle) on the image of a video is way more likely to catch someone’s attention than the title itself, especially when trying to appeal to kids. 

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Help Viewers with Detailed Tutorials

As mentioned earlier, tutorials are a great way to grow your viewership on YouTube. A YouTuber may have one channel that shows their Let’s Play journey, but it’s always good to compliment that channel by including links to their own step-by-step tutorials.

Keep an eye out for game updates. These updates often prompt gamers to search for tutorials on how to adjust their gaming strategy according to the said update. If you can help your viewers play better, you’re sure to increase your fans over time.

Get the Right Equipment and Software for Editing

There are plenty of different programs and devices that will invariably increase the quality of your videos. Many of the most popular gaming YouTubers analyzed seem to, for the most part, use the same ones, so we’ll talk about the most commonly used software here.

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- OBS

For game recording, OBS Screen Recorderis a convenient and fast way to track everything done on screen. You can either choose to record your screen directly, or channel the software in such a way that it only records one specific tab. OBS works great for Minecraft, Steam games and emulators. It doesn’t take a lot of RAM, meaning it won’t hinder the speed of a game while recording.

- Wondershare Filmora

Filmora by Wondersharealso has a screen recorder built in, but it is predominantly an editing program. If you have a superfast computer, you can use Filmora to record and edit; but we found that recording with this program on slower PCs can eat up the memory and slow down the game. Filmora is one of the easiest programs to use if you want to edit your videos like a true professional. Taking some time to learn a program is well worth any YouTubers effort.

- Equipment

It’s highly recommended that you get yourself a good mic if you’re planning to record and narrate games for YouTube. There are several great headphones with built-in micstoo, which can help to eliminate background noise and offer videos crisp sound clarity. And unless you’re planning to stream while showing your face, you won’t even need a desktop camera to get started. That being said, it might be worth considering later on when you start becoming more popular.

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Enhance Entertainment Value by Roping in Other Players

Single player games are great, and many gamers have started their YouTube careers by going it alone. But the more we look at successful YouTubers, the more we find that community games get more views, likes and even subscribers. Games like Bloons TD6 have multiple single player options, but there’s also a fun co-op option where you can play with others. Recording these can expand your viewership because of the unpredictability of the game.

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Minecraft is by its very nature a community based game. It’s just more fun playing against, or cooperating with other players. Video series such as Hermitcraft and Empires SMPhave millions of fans because of the amazing sense of community these videos convey regardless of which player is being followed. So even if one starts out playing as a single player, consider expanding later on into a community based server or co-op. The stats don’t lie.

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Encourage Likes, Comments, and Subscriptions

As always, be sure to include an appeal to audiences to support a channel. Many viewers will watch videos without liking or subscribing, so be straightforward by including a request for them to like or subscribe as part of the narration. Encouraging comments is also a good way to increase visibility on YouTube. Asking a question might prompt viewers to give you advice or respond in some way. Holding an informal poll where viewers can vote on something will also encourage dialogue in the comments section.

Final Thoughts

As with most things in life, there’s no magic way to get a million subscribers overnight. Persistencey, consistency, and even a bit of failure are all part of the journey. Hard work pays off. But just imagine how much fun you’ll have starting a YouTube career playing your favorite game!

Are you the next big up-and-coming gaming YouTuber?

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