Some content instantly connects with people while other content falls flat. I’m fascinated by identifying patterns to determine the difference.
Specifically, today I’m curious about YouTube videos. I create a bunch of different content for the Stonemaier Games YouTube channel, including a long-form weekly video that premieres on Sunday. It’s usually a top 10 list or a deep dive into a specific subject.
Out of curiosity, I looked to see my top 5 videos from the last year, and here’s what I found:
Note that I did not include one video that was filmed and posted prior to the last 12 months.
In case the font in the graphic is too small to read, here are the titles of those videos (and links to each):
- My Top 10 Favorite Heavy Games
- My Stonemaier Games Top Design Regrets
- My Top 10 Favorite Games as of March 2022
- 10 Things I Learned from Ark Nova
- My Top 10 Favorite Games of 2021
These videos range from 21 to 32 minutes, and combined they’ve been viewed over 140,000 times. There’s a pretty big gap in views between these and the next-most-viewed video. So clearly there’s something about these topics that has connected with people. Is there a pattern? Or perhaps an indicator of content people want to see more of?
The main pattern I see here (and among other well-viewed videos) is that they’re inherently positive. I’m not a reviewer, so my role isn’t to share my likes and dislikes–I only focus on things I LOVE about games. Nor am I at all interested in spending extended time on games I dislike or leveraging negativity for views. Views are a metric, not a goal. My goal is to spread joy while hopefully offering some game design insights to my fellow creators.
The other primary pattern is that most of these videos are top 10 lists. Perhaps that’s simply because most of my long-form videos are top 10 lists, but I also think that format resonates with viewers. I mix it up on occasion based on the list–I have some top 5, 8, 12, and 15 lists too.
In addition to patterns, I think these particular videos indicate the following:
- The types of people who watch 20-minute videos about game design are more likely to enjoy heavy games.
- People appreciate vulnerability (regrets, mistakes, etc). I always try to keep this in mind when I’m creating any content. I think it’s so much more powerful for me to share an example of something I learned the hard way instead of simply telling people what they should do.
- If there’s a really hot game like Ark Nova, people want to watch content either to learn from it or get excited about it.
What do you think I should learn from this top 5 list? What type of videos do you want more of (in general or specifically from me)? The other videos I post are about my favorite mechanism in a specific game, livestream Q&A discussions, Rolling Realms liveplays, crowdfunding/entrepreneurship, and Stonemaier Games-specific videos (trailers, how to teach, etc).
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Also read:
- Everything I’ve Learned as a YouTuber
- How (and Why) I Blurred My Recent YouTube Video
- 5 Low-Tech Tips for YouTube Creators (2020 Edition)
- What’s the Most Eye-Catching Format for YouTube Thumbnail Images?
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14 Comments on “Top 5 Videos from the Past Year: Is There a Pattern?”
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I’d love to see a small series of videos about playtesting, primarily involving current playtesters in a discussion format, and primarily sharing the playtesters point of view. Maybe “Top 10 Things Playtesters Should Do”, “Top 10 Things Playtesters Should Avoid”, “5 Tips for better Playtesting”, etc.
Good idea! For now, check out this blog post: https://stonemaiergames.com/kickstarter-lesson-236-select-the-best-testers/
You make a good point about views being metric, and not necessarily a goal. There are a lot of places where a certain piece of media can have an outsized impact compared to its peers. There’s a famous quote about the 1960’s rock band Velvet Underground and how it managed to have a huge impact on the world of rock music despite reaching few people directly, the quote going something like, “Velvet Underground’s first record may have only sold 30,000 copies, but everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band.”
People could engage with your content in a variety of ways. People might be entertained for the duration of a 20-minute video. They might buy a game on your recommendation and spend several hours enjoying it with friends. They might discover a game that allows them to introduce a new friend to the hobby, serving as the gateway experience for someone who goes on to experience hundreds of hours of enjoyment with friends. Or they might decide to get involved in board gaming as a designer or playtester. And, downstream of all of these short-term impacts, there’s also the X-factor of the human experiences and relationships that they experience along the way — I’ve formed (and fostered) lot of friendships through board games, and personally know at least two married couples who met through the gaming hobby.
To the extent that it’s even possible to measure the “joy” that these different people experience, the levels of “joy” they experience aren’t really reflected in the “view” count. For example, your video “10 Small Box Games for Big Gatherings” has a lower view count than any of the other games on this list, but from my perspective it has had a much bigger impact than a lot of the other videos I’ve watched on your channel, because it not only got me to purchase multiple new games, but those are also games that I intend to share with a large audience of people on a regular basis. (For a frequent gamer like myself, discovering a new game isn’t really an “event” in the same way it might be for someone who plays comparatively fewer games.)
You’re in an especially unique position to create content with a potentially outsized impact, because you talk about game design in a way that may open people’s eyes to the possibility of becoming more than just players or consumers. Your video “10 Steps to Design a Tabletop Game” is the most-viewed video on your channel, but even if it had a lower view count, I’d still say it’s among the most important videos (or blog posts) you’ve made, because the new experiences that it could unlock for someone go far beyond what you’d cover in a typical video. Not only that, but it’s the kind of content that is much rarer to find elsewhere on YouTube, with remarks and advice that a relatively small number of people are qualified to offer.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there are people on your staff (or people that you professionally collaborate with) whose decision to reach out to was (at least in part) informed by the content that you put out. I’d be curious to hear what kind of response you’d get if you asked your teammates if there were any specific videos or blog posts of yours that had an especially big impact on them.
Thanks for sharing this, Justin, and I think you make an excellent point that views aren’t necessarily the best metric for measuring impact (just one of several metrics, some of which are difficult to measure). I’m glad my small-box video had a positive impact on you and your group!
Copied from FB posf for ease.
Time of video release could be a factor weekday vs weekend and around holiday/time off. Also time of day sometimes I get notifications early in the day but by the time I get to the part of the day I can view it I forgot. It may show up in my analytics results later though.
Lastly were they all marketed with the same options no added costs for priority type things.
1. People value “roundups” (overviews, best of’s, etc.) from people they acknowledge as experts. You have three such videos in that list.
2. Positive or not, people love content that has the potential for being controversial, surprising, or open for disagreement (and even agreement, when it is seen as justifying their own opinions). You have three of four videos in that list that meet this.
3. People like videos with insider info they are unlikely to find elsewhere. Your “design regrets” video satisfies this.
4. When a game is super-popular, people will seek out experts for insights into it in case the expert has an unusual take on it they have not heard elsewhere. Your “Ark Nova” video meets this.
5. Industry insiders who have an open communication style and make themselves accessible will always get a boost. Zev, Looney, Buonocore, Trzewiczek, Crapuchettes, and Dauch were/are great at this—and so are you. You and Buonocore are two of the best when it comes to talking about the business side of gaming. That helps attract the most dedicated of all followers, folks who are not just interested in playing games but in making and selling them.
People respond to Top 10 lists. Letterman made a career out of it. Simon Whistler has a popular YouTube series TopTenz as well.
These are great observations about insider info and topics that are good for discussion!
I do enjoy the slightly longer videos like the top 10’s because I’m able to put one on and accomplish something else while I watch/listen (a little cleaning, relatively mindless paperwork, brushing the dog, painting a mini, etc.) and don’t have to restart a new video too often. It’s a good chunk of time to spend thinking about games, for me.
I really appreciated your latest top 10 heist games where you included a top 10 heist FILMS as well… I would enjoy seeing similar pairings with films/shows, books, food, etc.
Thank you! It was fun to explore both types of lists in the same video, and that’s a good point about how long videos pair well with other activities (while a short video will probably end in the middle of the activity, and then you have to find something else to listen to right in the middle of the activity).
For the SM CEO telling his board or shareholders what has been learned from the top 5 videos of the last year, these thoughts are adequate Id say. The vidoes are about “Positive” and sometimes “Negative” occurances. A top 5 means there is also a bottom 5 🤔.
Your youtube videos are one of the “How”s to your “Why”. I believe that if you are able to articulate a vision, or what Simon Sinek tries to describe as “The Just Cause” you will further hone your “How”s. Your favorite game mechanism videos are really about and could be better defined as “How did this game bring me joy”. Maybe the game is simply “finally off my shelf of opportunity”.
The videos I love and would love to see more of are the videos where you exhibit possibility. This is what I think all 5 have in common. The vidoes show us what is possible as you are talking through them. Possibility is magical in that it doesnt look at good or bad, but rather your life has simply changed by interacting with the thing. As for “will others watch these videos” I believe that if you are able to offer a glimpse and invite others into the vision of SM games, even if they have their own “why” that isnt “Joy” they can join you.
Can you provide an example of a video of possibility you would like to see?
Also, just to clarify, there is no CEO at Stonemaier Games (it sounds so corporate, and that’s definitely not us). I’m just Jamey. If you need to give it an official term, I’m the co-founder, lead designer, and president of Stonemaier Games. We don’t have a CEO.
not the op and I think that you have done this to some extent in blog posts but I think an engagement interaction (video, blog post…other?) where you talk about an interesting mechanic in a game you have recently played, then look at why you find that iteration of the mechanic interesting, then spitball and theorycraft about how that would have changed the design of one of your games? Perhaps Ark Nova sunk it’s hooks into you good and you think about how it and Rajas of the Ganges had end games triggered by having two tracks meet, where the end game has at least the illusion of control for players but the expectation that a reasonable group of players is going to trigger end game in X-Y turns. Then spitball ideas on how that would work, what would Euphoria look like if there were two advancement tracks that players had to intersect to trigger an endgame? What if In Tapestry there was still the four tracks could you do something similar where if any two of the four tracks intersected would trigger an end game? Would you need to extend tracks, maybe it wouldn’t work, how do you think the tone of the game would change with that “race” element? Maybe it wouldn’t work and you can highlight problems you would see in shoe horning that design into the space.
I think that this type of interaction captures a number of what you highlight as drivers of engagement, it allows you to pull the curtain back on game design without introducing a potential new game design too early (see your Charterstone post from recently). It allows you to have an audience for the creative process (same blog post comment idea), highlight a new popular game/design feature, and allow critical thought on why sometimes you could be wrong (demonstrate humility and understand that you can’t make all ideas work).
Adam: Thanks for sharing this idea! I think there’s probably some version of this that I can explore (and if you look at my design diary posts, there’s a lot of content like this that isn’t just hypothetical).