What's been missing in the conversation is the other side of that conversation, how content creators could be improving.
We want to build a relationship with video creators. But a healthy relationship is never one where one person keeps saying, "It's your fault."
Sometimes it will be our fault. Absolutely. But not always.
We want to work with fans of our game. People who are passionate to play it, and to share it with others. So let's start with a bit of air clearing.
Toxicity
Running down other video creators in the community is straight up stupid. Dumb as hammers stupid. It's also arrogant and selfish, and destructive. Almost everyone here is creating video content because they love the game, and want to share their passion. So why hate on that?
It's fine to think you're the best caster in the world. Own that. Shout it from the rooftops if that's your style.
But what do you gain from calling other people names? They're working hard, just like you, to create something they care about. Does it make you feel bigger to make them feel small?
If you have a personal beef another video creator (active or retired), then work it out offline and not in public. What you don't do is stream for a few hours to insult them, scan through their Facebook profile and insult their friends and family.
That is fucking bullshit.
This community of CoH content creators isn't big enough for this. It's small and it should be mutually supportive, with everyone working to make things better and attract new viewers and new casters.
If you're worried that show X is getting more views than you, and so you run them down, you're 100% doing it wrong.
The more great content that the community makes, the more people are going to show up to watch it. Running down others only encourages more people to leave casting. Nobody is going to have a perfect show to start, this is a growing process for all of you.
All of us.
So grow together, help each other.
Because when a new viewer comes and sees that our casts are filled with petty infighting, they're not sticking around and they're not going to tell their friends to come and watch.
Anyone who wants to help this community grow needs to be on board with this. Going forward Relic will not support or promote any content creator who uses their reach to be destructive to other fans and the community.
If you get frustrated and accidentally call someone a jerk, fine. We'll deal with you on that and move forward. But there's a slip of the tongue in a moment of frustration and a long drawn out rant. Like pornography we'll know when we see it. Unlike pornography we won't enjoy seeing it.
Edit/Update: People have been asking for specifics on this one, because we all like to gossip. It's not one specific incident, it's a series of them that go back quite some time. It's not with one specific person, or group.
The Standard Rich and Famous Contract
Now that this one post has absolutely cleared up all toxicity from the community we're all going to be famous right? Relic's handing out careers as eSports broadcasters and everyone is being fitted for gold pants.
Right?
Sadly nope. Let's be honest it's the case that currently the audience for CoH broadcasts isn't enough for anyone to be owning gold pants. If you're in this to make a career for yourself then there are other games you should target.
If you're here because you love the game and want to share that, then let's get to work.
Maybe we'll all work really hard and not get rich and famous.
But we can work really hard and make cooler shit, and better stuff. We can grow this viewership together, as partners. Neither of us are always going to be right, and neither of us are always going to be wrong.
And it'll be hard. And take awhile. It may never happen, who knows.
But come on, let's give it a shot.
We'll listen to what you want. Sometimes you won't always get it. Sometimes it may even seem like we're doing the opposite, but that we'll always listen.
Step #1 Make Cool Shit
So how do we go about this? We're happy to talk about how we can support you, but you need to decide how best to express your passion for the game.
Is that by running and casting a tournament? Is that by doing your own stream? Is that by doing a tutorial stream to help new players learn how to play, thus helping grow the competitive community? How about doing the rap? Or a live action recreation? Or mime?
Go wild.
But okay, maybe no mime.
Step #2 Iterate
If you want to grow a following and a viewship then every cast should be a learning opportunity. If you're phoning it in, and find your own casts boring to watch, then so will the viewers. Or former viewers, because nobody wants to watch something that even the host finds dull.
Each piece of art you do, whether it's a broadcast, a tournament, a drawing or podcast should be the best one you've done. Then you should look at it and critically tear it to pieces and start fresh.
What did you like about the last thing you did? Figure that out and do that better next time, include more of it or hone it.
What did you hate about the last thing you did? Figure that out and either stop doing it, or do it in a new way. Examine every thing you do. And while it's important to be proud of the work you do, it's better to be proud of the improvements you're making each time you do something.
Step #3 Do Something New
As a chubby white guy who has been doing some Twitch.TV casting on the Relic channel, I am well aware of the fact that there's a lot of chubby white guys doing Twitch.TV streaming. Me plunking myself down in front of a camera isn't interesting to anyone, and the only thing that is interesting is that I work for Relic.
So internally here we're looking at how we can take our Twitch channel to the next level. How can we prevent it from just being one or two dudes staring at a screen and playing a game? That's cool, and there's a lot of people doing that, but we want to be something new.
We want to do something that people want to watch because it's good, not just because it's Relic.
If you look at the people who are growing big audiences, a lot of it is luck. They happened to be fans of the right game at the right time. You can't control luck. But there's also a lot of people who are making their name by being different.
It's not just about having a gimick, it's about standing out from everyone else doing the same thing. Sometimes it can be about quality. Doing the same thing that everyone else does, but doing it not 10% better but 200% better is one option.
Another is finding a way to express your unique voice. If you still have to discover what that voice is, that's okay. It's a hard thing to figure out, and it'll take time.
Time for a video intermission.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eetGJMLrFwE&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]
That video is amazing. I'm not saying go out and make that video, but it's amazing in that it captures what's great about StarCraft and shares this guy's excitement and love for the game.
We will come back to it later, but for now it's worth pointing out that it's different than what other people are doing for SC. SC has lots of streamers and casters and eSports do-dads and it's hard to rise above that. This video did and caught the attention of an audience that goes beyond the SC competitive scene.
Because it was cool and it was different. It it had been the 10th video like that, nobody would have cared. If it had sucked, nobody would have cared.
It was cool and it was different.
Maybe there's new stuff to do with streaming. The Learn to Play 1v1 Stream going on as I speak is a great example of targeting a different audience than most other casts.
Step #4 Work With Us
We've been focusing a lot of our resources towards supporting a specific site and a specific broadcast team. The great thing about recent events is that the decision to free up our focus to be much broader has been made for us. It's an exciting time.
If you've been working in the trenches and didn't feel you have been getting enough love from us, then get in touch with us again. If you're just starting up, let us know and we'll do what we can to support you.
We've got some plans on how we can better support our content creators as we move forwards.
Step #5 Set (Realistic) Goals
Deciding that you're going to triple your viewership is great when you have 3 viewers, but harder to do as you get larger. Setting achievable goals is a good idea, so that you know what success looks like.
So you have a target to work towards.
Now your goals may not be based on how many viewers you have.
Maybe your goal is to snag that exclusive interview with the handsome Noun.
Maybe your goal is to make a really good show that you love.
Maybe your goal is to say "farts" 100 times every time you stream.
Maybe your goal is to have someone you really respect love it.
Set a goal and then ensure that all your decisions are in service of achieving that goal.
But allow youself to fail too. Forgive yourself when you don't hit it, and forgive others too. Just try again, making sure that you're doing step #2.
Everything Noun Knows About Social Media and Viral Stuff That He Can Fit Into One Post
Virality:
After the recent Sunday Night Fights art contest a few people contacted me and said that I should feature the winner on our Facebook page. Here is that bit of art.
It's a great piece by Ginnungagap. But I didn't share it. Why not?
Platforms like Facebook and Twitter are fantastic because it allows us to talk to hundreds of thousands of fans and with the right content it allows us to reach potentially millions.
But to reach that audience the content has to be interesting to that audience. The above piece of art is very interesting to the people who watched SNF Season 5. It's kind of interesting to COH2.ORG users who didn't watch SNF. It's not interesting to anyone else.
Compare that to this bit of art.
Thankfully it's the same artist, otherwise I'd be spending a paragraph apologizing.
So here we have a piece of art that anyone who plays CoH or CoH2 can relate to. We know how units vet up, and it's a pretty funny piece based on a core feature of the game. So rather than being a bit of art for just SNF viewers, it's a bit of art for all CoH players.
We shared this and it was one of our best performing posts on Facebook in 2013.
Which piece of art is better? Neither. They're both great, but one has a wider appeal.
This is why it's important to have a goal set in mind for what you're trying to achieve. If Ginnungagap wanted to achieve the highest number of views, then the second picture was the one that achieved that. If he wanted to make something that really spoke to a certain group of people, and views weren't as important, than the first one was best.
Think of the content that you LIKE, SHARE and COMMENT on in Facebook. It's stuff you're excited about. If your friend posts something about a game that you don't know, you like it only if something about it catches your attention.
When creating content consider what's going to catch people's attention. If you want to get past just a COH2.ORG audience, then how will this appeal to the average CoH player? If you want to get to a larger gaming audience, then you need to make something that anyone who plays games will understand and want to engage with.
If you want to go beyond the gaming audience, then like the SC2 video I shared up top, you need to explain why people should care about what you're sharing with them.
Consider Short:
30 minute to 2 hour streams are great if you're targeting the small audience of hard core players that exist. However even then people only have so many hours a day, and with a number of broadcasters working it would be impossible for a fan to watch all the video content being put out.
Further 60 minute content doesn't get shared well, because the only people who will invest that amount of time in watching something are fans already or the elderly while they wait for Jeopardy to come on.
So when I post a 60 minute stream video to YouTube people don't tend to watch it, because most people don't have that much time to spare. There is an audience for that, and we're going to grow it with you, but it's still pretty small.
However when I post a 60 second clip to YouTube, people watch it.
So what to do?
Again that's up to you. But shorter works better for social networks and virality.
Maybe instead of a 1 hour cast of a replay do a 10 minute highlights cast of one. Or to help advertise your 60 minute YouTube video you create a 30 second clip of something awesome happening in the game, with a link that drives to the full video.
That we could share on Facebook and fans would engage with it, meaning more potential views.
Again going back to the StarCraft video, it's just over 2 minutes. When I saw it on Kotaku I watched it because I had 2 minutes to spare. If it had been 2 hours I'd never have clicked on it.
Again this ties into what your goals are. If you don't care about views, and just want to make six hours of video content then this shouldn't matter to you. But if you are worried about views, if that's your goal, then this should be a consideration.
So That's All You Know?
No, but I've run out of time and after a Chrome crash and having to type this in a second time I've got to go do other stuff.
TLDNR
We're proud of the game we made in Company of Heroes 2. We're excited for it's future. If you love it as much as we do and want to make some cool stuff to show off your passion, then we're here to help if we can.
The future is about enjoying what we have and working together to make it even better.
That's what we want to work on.
How about you?
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