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What You Need To Know About YouTube Coverage - In 30 Seconds
What are some common mistakes developers make when contacting Youtubers? What do YouTubers have in common with devs? Why is your game doomed to get little to no coverage?
The first in a series of posts about getting Youtube coverage for your games.
3 Min Read
Want more details about certain bullet points, like the reasoning behind them? Ask me on Twitter, @xaviersythe. All points in this post have been verified as "fairly accurate" by multiple YouTubers with 50K+ subscribers.
What are some common mistakes developers make when contacting YouTubers?
Spamming YouTubers due to high subscriber count
Contacting YouTube networks, like Polaris, Machinima, etc.
Neglecting to research the YouTuber they are contacting
Neglecting to watch the YouTuber's content
Granting "exclusives" to certain YouTubers
Requiring more than 10 seconds to begin downloading their game
Requiring YouTubers to respond to/contact them for a press code
Expecting YouTubers to play their game
Offering to pay YouTubers to play their game
What do YouTubers have in common with indie devs?
They are independent content creators with passionate audiences, opinions, who know what content they want to produce
They have very little free time
They work extremely hard
They love what they do
They are concerned about a content platform with too much influence (YouTube/Google and Steam/Valve respectively)
They hate people who threaten their livelihood on said platform (Copyright/ContentID trolls and Early Access scams respectively)
They love games
They want their content to be unique, to easily differentiate from the competition (generalization)
They create experiences for their audiences
They want to interact with their audiences (generalization)
There are genres of games that they play, and genres that they don't play
Expecting YouTubers who play FPS games to play your retro RPG is like expecting Blizzard to produce a Japanese dating sim
When is your game doomed to get little to no coverage?
Your game advertises local co-op as "MULTIPLAYER"
Common recording software doesn't work with your game
Your game is hyper-niche, mediocre, or it resembles a clone
Your game doesn't have enough content
Your game is the same for every playthrough
Your game is just a movie (and not made by Telltale)
Your game is an MMO
Your game SFX/music volumes can't be changed (Didn't Nuclear Throne suffer from this at one point?)
You licensed copyrighted music to use in your game
Your game is matched by Youtube's Content ID system
Your game doesn't have sufficient settings (different YouTubers with different PCs need to be able to customize settings to record well)
Your game's advertising is misleading/deceptive
Your game sucks, but not in a humourous or unique way (Yes, Goat Simulator sucks, but in an amusing way)
So, assuming you've followed these instructions, how do you actually contact YouTubers? Email them, or contact them via their favorite social network -- if you've done your research, you'll know which ones they use the most.
Thanks for reading! Remember, this is just the first of my series of posts about gaining YouTube coverage for your game! Follow me on Twitter to get notified of future posts! And please, leave me feedback about this post! I'm trying to avoid writing large blocks of text, in hopes that more people can read a shorter article.
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