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10 Tips for Writing for Retention
🕑 Added 2023-02-20 07:14:45 +0000 UTCHi everyone!
My most recent video, "How to Steal Like a Game Designer", is receiving lots of views, which is always good. But more than that, the stat I'm really pleased with is "Average percentage viewed", which is currently sat at 58.4%.
When it comes to the almighty YouTube algorithm, the two things it cares about the most is how many people click on the video, and how long those people stay watching. It's not enough to make a video with a clickbait title or thumbnail - you need to keep people engaged.
This is something I work hard on with all my videos, but this most recent episode has done particularly well in this regard. 58% might not sound astronomically high, but that's a good stat for YouTube (not to mention a world where everyone's attention span has been reduced to dust).
So in this Patreon-only post I wanted to share 10 techniques I use to keep audience retention high. Let's jump in.
You can read the whole script here, if you want a recap.
Tell a story
I begin the video with a story about a game everyone's heard about: Alien Isolation. Humans are naturally drawn to stories and want to stick around to hear more. And I think a real life tale is more interesting than a fictional or hypothetical situation.
A previous version of this video actually started like that - something like "imagine you're making a game...". But I felt a real narrative from the world of game development would be more interesting, and would also make the video's point stronger ("see, even a massive studio like Creative Assembly can make this mistake!").
The cliffhanger
I start with the story... but I don't actually tell the whole thing there. If you want to hear the complete tale you'll need to keep watching until almost the very end. I make sure to reference Alien a few times throughout, either in my words or in the video clips, to remind people that the story isn't finished.
Now you might think I'm just being a jerk - withholding the ending of the story until later just to keep people watching. But I think it's done in a justified way. And that comes down to the next part...
Structure
I think the most important thing to get right in a video is the structure and the flow. A random collection of thoughts can be hard to follow, but a well forged essay is much easier to understand.
The structure for this one can be broken down into a few key acts:
In act one, I establish the problem. Alien Isolation borrowed a mechanic from other games, but it didn't fit the game they're making.
In act two, I offer a solution. This is split into four sub-acts:
First, I introduce the idea of MDA.
Second, I show how it can be used to analyse mechanics, using Zelda.
Third, I show how to match those mechanics to a vision.
And fourth, I present some caveats and other considerations.
And in act three, I go back to the original problem and show how it was solved - this time, using a mechanic that changed the player's behaviour and feelings in a way that suited Creative Assembly's vision.
By thinking about the overall structure of the video in broad terms like this, I can make sure every paragraph is working towards the point I'm trying to make.
Catch up segments
I've definitely found myself leaving YouTube videos because I got distracted or lost the plot, and now I'm not entirely sure what the host is even trying to say. So my way to help that is to regularly remind people of what we're already talked about.
After I introduce the idea of MDA, I say...
"So, this MDA framework takes mechanics - and then puts them into a wider context, which asks 'how do they make the player act, and how do they make the player feel?'"
After I show how MDA is used, I say "So MDA lets us see game mechanics as powerful vessels for delivering emotions to players".
This is often paired with a repeated graphic of Mechanics > Dynamics > Aesthetics, to hammer it home.
Don't leave, Mark!
If there's one thing I know kills video retention, it's suddenly switching to another presenter. In my video on Rollerdrome, engagement drops from 65% to 57% in the space of just ten seconds. Why? Because I cut to interview footage with one of the developers.
I totally get it, of course. When I'm talking it's tightly scripted, sharply edited, and performed clearly using a good microphone. An interview is, naturally, a bit waffly and compressed like hell over Zoom.
So, ultimately I use these interview quotes sparingly. In many GMTK videos, including this one, I talk to developers but never show the actual interview footage in the video.
I also think about this with quotes. I've watched YT videos where the host reads an entire paragraph from a book, which just sends me to sleep. In this video I have lots of quotes - eight, in fact. But every one has been cut down to just the most important words.
Wake up words
Sometimes I get sniffy comments about me starting bits of the video with "useless" words like "so" and "alright" and "anyway". Why not just get to the point?
Well, I've found these little phrases to be good at getting the viewer's attention. If their mind is starting to drift, these snappy words can wake people up and say "listen, this next bit's important!" or "come back, we're onto a new thing now!".
Remove waffle
I've also found myself leaving YouTube videos because the whole thing has ground to a halt... because the host has gone on some wild, five minute tangent.
I try to avoid this by always picking my words carefully to avoid waffle. And by trying to balance the length of each part of the video, so I never get stuck on one part for too long.
For example, here's the word count for each part of the video:
- Introduction - 251
- Intro to MDA - 321
- Analysing with MDA - 240
- Using a Vision - 579
- Further Considerations - 417
- Conclusion - 237
It's pretty balanced, though the section on using a vision is perhaps a little long.
Motion graphics
A big part of GMTK's appeal is the fancy motion graphics. But they're not just there to make the videos look nice! They're all about making it easier to understand what I'm saying. If you don't follow my point then it becomes easy to get bored and click elsewhere.
For this video, the main graphics were these:
Here, I assign mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics their own little icons, which should hopefully hammer home what each word means.
And here I put MDA in a stack to show how one cascades down to the next. I can then bring this exact image back later in the video to remind people how MDA works, and what I'm talking about.
Keep clips short
I was watching an interesting YouTube video the other day, and listening along to the host's words. But then I realised my mind had drifted and I completely lost what they were talking about. What happened? Well, they'd used an interesting cutscene from Super Smash Bros to fill a gap in the video and I ended up just watching the cutscene and not paying attention to the narration! Whoops!
In this video, the longest clip is a 14 second demonstration of using a save station in Alien Isolation. Almost every other clip is less than 10 seconds. I'm constantly switching between clips and games (this video features more than 60 different games) to keep you engaged, and to focus on what I'm saying rather than what I'm showing. The clips should compliment my narration, not overpower it.
A bonus tip - when I edit my voice, I cut the spaces between sentences by a few milliseconds. It still sounds like natural speech, but it's trimmed for better pacing.
Test audiences
And finally, I try to get my videos in front of test audiences before it goes live on YouTube. That includes pro game designers, family members, and Patrons on the early access tier. This helps me find places where a viewer might be confused, so I can rewrite that chunk for clarity.
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So, those are my tips. Of course, all of this can be taken to the extreme. I'm sure Mr Beast has an incredibly high retention rate, thanks to the fact that when you click one of his videos you're immediately met with a barrage of yelling, split second cuts, and giant subtitles for every spoken word. It's like being punched in the face.
That's not what I'm going for. And so I never make these choices at the expense of information or video quality. Instead it's more of a guide to make sure I take the video I want to make - and deliver it in a way that is as engaging as possible.
Besides, if someone doesn't see my entire video, then I haven't really done my job!
Anyway, hope that was interesting or useful. Lemme know your thoughts in the comments. And I'll chat to you soon!
Comments
ignosis.co
@GMTK I REALLY loved this article as it's soo applicable to soo many fields. I wanted to share this article within my newsletter. Is there a version that I can link to for non-patrons to read? I can include a call to action for people to check out your channel and to consider subbing to your patreon?
游戏游牧人
Awesome, it's really helpful. I like this kind of "video design". It's really like game design, think the viewer's experience first (aesthetics), then design the content, animation, voice (mechanic). And how we use and analyse the data and design the content structure, it's like rational game design.
Malcolm
Such a crazy amount of editing and planning to keep people's attentions. I'm awed by your patience
mhogar
Very insightful post! I started thinking about how this relates my own videos (I'm still pretty new at this youtube stuff) and I believe another really important thing to setup in the first act is the video's tone. I have definitely clicked off a video before because it suddenly changed its tone midway and I quickly lost interest. In a way the opening act is a promise to what the rest of the video is going to be like. If it doesn't live up to that promise, a viewer may feel cheated and that's why they lose interest. I originally read about this concept when learning how to write novels. The idea is that the ground rules for the world must be introduced in the first act. For example, of the story involves magic, it must be setup in the beginning. This is the only place in the story where the reader will believe anything since their understanding of the world is still a clean slate. If the story were to instead introduce magic at the midpoint, it feels like a hack since it breaks the world's conventions and readers may just end up putting the book down. I think we can all relate to this some form. Applying this concept to one of your examples, you mentioned the developer interviews and how retention would drop. Maybe that's because the video setup the impression that you were the only presenter, but when a developer starts talking, it breaks that promise. The viewer feels cheated as the video never implied that there would be other presenters and the viewer didn't commit to watching one of your videos just to watch other people talk. Of course this whole thought process usually happens subconsciously, but the point still stands. If you wanted those interviews to work, maybe try hinting at them in the opening act to make it clear they are part of the video. Perhaps play a short incomplete clip (build up that suspense), or play a muted version with regular voice over on top, or of course anything else you can think of. If you were you already doing this, sorry I can't recall.
This is great general advice for a presentation (depending on how you want to present it)!That's why I was able to watch the MDA video all the way through; it wasn't exactly clear during the video that there was indeed a solution to the Alien Isolation problem or they just left it alone; glad I stayed to see there was indeed a solution.
Zeeeeelda
Very enlightening analysis. I also recently ran a game design video channel since last year (deeply inspired and influenced by GMTK, of course), and since my average view length has always been around 35% (still longer than half of the similar creators on the platform, I may add), I can attest that 58.4% is definitely an impressive achievement. There are a lot of interesting details in this breakdown, such as the fact that I knew the video should "start with a story and leave a suspense till end", but I never thought to "remind the viewer of the suspense several times in the middle of the video". I also saw a lot of hard work, such as more motion graphics and shorter game clips, which only someone who has done video knows that it takes a lot more work to do than it sounds. All in all, respect! And thank you for sharing such detailed insights.
Will Kommor
Amazing breakdown!
Joe Morris
Fascinating breakdown and explanation of your process! I’m sorry you have to work that hard on it, and even “gamify” it to some degree, but I can report as a layperson (in video creation / editing) that your friendly and knowledgeable presentation style is one of the main reasons you are one of my favorite YouTube creators. So it’s obviously working! 👍🏻😄 And as I peruse your older videos, it is clear to see how your skill as a presenter has increased over the years. Thank you for all the work you put in, and sharing it with us! 😊
Gamer Vane
Thank you for explaining this! The creator side of YouTube is rather unknown to me (and undoubtedly even more so to most viewers), and behind the scenes stuff like this helps the user understand what's going on too. I never would've thought of subtitles as a device for keeping the viewer's attention, for example. I believe HAI/Wendover has done a few of these "YouTube behind the scenes" sort of vids, as well as Tom Scott and Hank Green, and they're pretty interesting. Thanks!
Derek Lieu
This is a fantastic breakdown, Mark! I’m saving this one for future reference 😃
Very interesting, thank you!
One thing that really turns me off in videos is when the creator keeps repeating themselves, in what I can only assume is a desire to add length. As you say, referencing what you said earlier is fine, but you've got to progress the story to keep my interest. As this video does well.
Mickaël Godard
That was a very interesting dive in your method, thanks a lot for taking the time to share this.
Tom Barber
You're a legend for sharing this stuff Mark! Thanks!
Game Maker's Toolkit
I use Audacity to prepare the audio before eve bringing it into Premiere. You can get really specific with cuts in Audacity, and it also has a good "truncate silences" button to do it automatically (though I do it by hand, as I want more control)
Dominik Bartsch
Thanks for sharing this! That was very interesting. I also think the motion graphics are so important. If those weren't there in order to enhance what you're saying I don't have to watch a video but rather want to listen to a podcast. Your doing this awesomely good :) I'm a premiere pro newbie but sometimes it feels like I can't cut the audio at small enough steps to cut out silences. Do you use something else like audacity for audio production and add it afterwards to premiere or do you handle all that in one tool?
Ruyxi Sylpheyes
I can't wait for passionate game developers to be able to use AI to help make games that take the poorly executed ideas in most modern games and turn them into masterpieces.
