Anatomy of a video's views

Game Maker's Toolkit

Haha, i meant it sincerely - i have thought about trying some game maker stuff myself for a while now. i'll check out your channel if i ever make the plunge!

Arend Peter Castelein

Anyway I liked the stats, only thing is that the game maker jab stung a little :P. I've actually been making game maker tutorials on my channel (Arend Peter Teaches) for years. I really like game maker and it has gotten a lot more powerful over the years. I'm sure it could handle making games at the caliber of shovel knight.

Game Maker's Toolkit

Hey Arend! Thanks for your support :) I guess I should talk more about the perks at the end of episodes!

Arend Peter Castelein

Hey I'm a recent patron, and I'm really liking all the content here (watched 2 playlist episodes so far and I'm looking forward to watching the rest). I've been watching your videos for a while but only recently decided to donate. If I would have known about the extra content earlier, I probably would have started donating sooner. I suppose that's my fault though for not checking out the page until now.

Jakub Wasilewski

"The video "What Capcom Didn't Tell You About Resident Evil 4" is one of my only videos that's made a comeback. " - Maybe because it's the only clickbaity title among all the GMTK videos ;).

Cool stats! When you said it was "progressive", I laughed at how hard you were dissing the game. After a little more, I figured you didn't really understand what you had said.

Very interesting stuff, thanks for sharing :)

I wonder what the comparison between game devs/consumers looks like... no easy way to find this out, but it makes a huge difference! Devs (or fledgling devs) watching your videos has a huge positive impact on the community. As you grow I would imagine your demographic will shift toward consumers. You've done a fantastic job so far of keeping pretty deep discussion of systems entertaining and approachable. But as you grow don't get swayed by the masses. Keep the "Toolkit" the most important part of GMTK ;)

Game Maker's Toolkit

Yeah - I didn't do much. A few cheeky Reddit posts (blatantly against Reddit rules :p) and was lucky to have a nice bunch of Twitter followers to help me out. it's tough - and podcasts might be even harder. Share a link here though! I'm sure Toolkit fans will be interested

Game Maker's Toolkit

Hm, I'd rather keep it for Patreon people as you guys are super special and team GMTK! - but I don't mind if you share stuff with a few friends. I guess just copy and paste it into an email or whatever

Daniel Haas

This is really cool - could you post it publicly? I'd like to share it around with some gaming+stats/analytics nerd friends

Wait, there's YouTube Gaming o.O?

Jon Gill

Great stats! Could you elaborate on what you did to grow your audience sometime? My friends and I have been putting out a design-focused podcast for the last year (inspired in part by GMT), but we've had a hard time expanding beyond our core group of friends, coworkers, and the one subreddit that seems to put up with me posting there each month. It would be interesting to hear what strategies worked (and didn't work) for you in the early days of GMT.

Pretty sure YouTube thinks I'm a guy, but woman,37, viewer here. Love your videos.

Game Maker's Toolkit

It was for ages but Resident Evil 4 has recently overtaken it.

Gabriel Henrique Dalposso

"Plenty of views from Brazil" I'm satisfied with those numbers :) Also, I thought your "4 step level design" was your most watched video... It seems that it was in more places than the Resident Evil one

I add up to the crowd, Spanish guy living in sweden now that usually sees your videos when they pop up in the sub box or when I receive your emails. Love this kind of anatomy blogs, it's nice to know how everything works under the cortina!

Pretty nice stuff. Thanks for allowing us to see what's behind the curtain. I think this activity is essential for channels to widen its audience. One thing I heard on another channel, speaking about subs boxes and notoriety on YT, is to mix the topics/games that you cover in your videos. It's important that after a particularly exhausting episode (both for you and the viewer), you include lighter stuff that appeals a wide audience. In that regard, I think Boss Keys is an excellent addition. Just my 2 cents. Cheers !

These kind of statistics are super interesting! You don't need to show us every video statistic, but a "recap" in perhaps half a year or after you reached your next Youtube-Milestone would be really nice.

PrimeSonic

Well, those statistics won't give you everything. ;) I watch GMTK with my wife every time it's in my sub box. It just usually goes into my Watch Later playlist for viewing during dinnertime.

Oskar van Velden

Interesting post, Mark. Like seeing some of the numbers and the explanation behind it. And it's quite the eye-opener to see what detailed stats you can track based on your viewers. When they stop watching the video for instance, had no idea that was tracked - although I could have known, since almost everything is tracked nowadays :D

Game Maker's Toolkit

Yeah, I'm definitely interested in this subject. My only hesitation is that I like to come at things from a design angle (mechanics, systems, etc) and when diversity is done well it shouldn't matter to the gameplay what race / gender / etc the character is! I'll keep thinking on it, cheers for the suggestion.

Seliel the Shaper

If I can offer a suggestion for attracting more diverse viewers: why not a couple videos on diversity in games? Games that have believable female characters, or that don't fall prey to generic racial stereotypes. How about an analysis of which games handle diversity and inclusion well, and which handle it poorly. I know I would like to see more discussion in this vein.

Ossian Olausson

This is great, do more analysis like this Mark!