Last week, YouTube opened up their video ad program to all partners. I’ve been waiting for this for over a year now, and have implemented video ads into about 100 of my videos. Unfortunately, video ads seem to be for on-YouTube views only… which means the 70% of my views that take place off-YouTube won’t have them.

If any of you have seen some of these ads appear since yesterday… what are your thoughts on them? Are they too intrusive? Will you still watch videos despite having to wait 15 seconds for them to load?

Ben Lowry is a friend of mine… he made Great Game 1/5 with me. He is also a giant ass who loves to be argumentative. He saw my long tail post as another opportunity to pounce, but of course I rebutted all of his attacks. He claimed that my long tail was a myth and that it really is the newly released content that is pushing my views.

My proof to the contrary:
-The 34% of total views from top 2% of videos vs the MUCH higher percent of other content providers.
-My top100 videos (19%) resulted in 105,000 views (80.7%).
-Of my top100 videos, 57 were 6+ months old.
-Those 57 videos totaled over 44,000 views.

As I did say in my previous post, releasing new content IS important. But the foundation of long-term success and growth is 100% about the long-tail.

The summer has been pretty good, business wise. Since June 1st, I’ve released 54 videos. I’ve done 11.3 million views. No individual day was under 85,000. And only 1 video released during that span has done 300,000 views. How is that good, you ask?

To me, my business is all about the long tail. The bigger my long tail, the better I’ll do. Sure, big hit videos give short term spikes in views… but it’s the long tail that keeps the ship afloat. Despite only having 3 videos over 500,000 views released in the past 6 months (out of 21 total, none of the 3 in my top 14), my long tail continues to increase. A few videos released over a year ago continue to bring in 1-2k views/day… and believe me, over 500+ videos, it all starts adding up.

It’s hard to judge the line between the power of the new release and the long tail, when viewing things as a whole… so it is important to keep releasing content. But some interesting tidbits for you… as per data publicly available on TubeMogel.com: Shaytards‘ top 10 most viewed videos for yesterday were 74% of his total views (622k/838k). VenetianPrincess‘ are 89% (282k/317k). Sxephil only had 280k views yesterday because he hadn’t released a video since Thursday. My top10, however, only resulted in 34% of my views (44.8k/130k). What does this mean? It means that if many of the top vloggers on YouTube stopped, they would instantly lose their popularity and daily views; I, on the other hand, have a nice long tail and will continue to get a solid amount of traffic for a long, long time even if I didn’t release another video.

So while I’ll never do the overall volume that the top channels do, I have the nice position of knowing that if I want to take a break, I won’t suffer that greatly in revenue, as opposed to many others who are bound to constantly release new content.

Things have been fairly busy since moving back 2 months ago. I’ve been wined and dined by family and friends to the point that I’ve gained 10+ pounds (to a whopping 150!). To balance that, I’ve been playing an awful lot of basketball with my father… who while is not the best competition, still provides a solid workout. And lots of bowling, of course… my league starts this Wednesday.

Also many members of Whorli’s family have visited. Her brother flew with us on the initial move, to carry a cat for us and help with things. Her sister was with us for 2 weeks while attending a summer program at a local university for high school kids. And her grandparents just left after being with us for a few days, headed on a cruise to Canada.

To top all that off, I still don’t have a car. Hopefully that will be fixed soon.

All in all, things have been fairly busy, plus work is going nicely. It’s a different pace from when I was in LA.

So today I have hit 50 million total video views. This is as per tubemogel.com, not what it says on YouTube, as YT’s view stats are lagged by 3-4 days. This is very cool stuff, especially given the time it took to go from 10 to 25 mil vs 25 to 50 mil (178 vs 209 days OR 11.86 vs 8.36 days/mil). This is almost a 42% increase in views/day, with an average of almost 120,000 per day over the past 209 days.

More stat milestones… This is the only level too broke 2 million, just edging Use Boxmen as my 2nd game to 2 mil; this also makes the 2 TITOL games #1 and #2 on my most viewed list all time. But to keep John’s ego in check, he still has less total views than his AG co-worker Joey (5.36 mil vs 5.39 mil)… barely.

Random other stuff: going to try and start posting daily again, if I can. This means not everything will be work related. Not sure if this is a good or bad thing.

From time to time I need assistance in creating the walkthroughs that I make. Either from lack of skill, time, whatever… reason isn’t important.

I have a large number of people who I trust that help me when all I need is a solution that I can duplicate after having it explained or shown to me. However, I only have a small number of people who are able to assist me should I need them to create raw video themselves.

That is what I’m looking for. To increase my list of possible assistants for whenever a project comes along that I need someone else to do the recording.

What you need to do:
-Email a resume to Tasselfoot@gmail.com explaining your gaming skills. Include accomplishments, badges earned, speedruns, etc. Examples of your videos are highly encouraged.
-Tell me a bit about yourself.
-You must demonstrate the ability to record both high quality video and in-game audio (not from a microphone).

What I’m offering:
-Sporadic paid contracted work. Either a flat per level fee or a CPM on the game’s video views.
-The chance to play games before they are released

Use the above email if you have any questions.

I was talking with my family over dinner about my process for walkthrough creation, and it dawned on me that there are 3 very specific steps in the process.

Step 1: Exploration. The first time through a level or game, it’s all about figuring out HOW to beat it. Whether it is a tricky level late in a game or a point and click adventure, the first step towards showing others how to beat it is to do so yourself. This is not always easy, and I often find myself trying many different methods in an attempt to find the correct one. For point and clicks, this usually involves randomly clicking everywhere in the game with everything in my inventory, along with trying to combine anything with something else… whatever I can do to progress in the usually linear nature of the game. In level-based puzzle games, this means trying every route available or clicking pieces in every possible combination or firing a projectile at many different angles/strengths. The goal is always the same… find a way to solve the level/game.

Step 2: Memorization. Once you know how to beat a level or game, you need to do it in a way that clearly shows others how to do it as well. In a level-based game, you want the solution to each level to be fluid. You do not want pauses, mistakes, backtracks, misclicks, or extra moves shown… this will confuse someone trying to copy you. The same is true in a full-game video. To do this, you need to run through the game or level multiple times until you have it memorized and can do it without making a mistake. I will often record my memorization playthroughs, as I will do them without a break to keep the solutions fresh in my mind. Then, when I have it down, I easily transition from memorization into the 3rd step…

Step 3: Optimization. This goes hand in hand with memorization, but merits its own step. Memorization has no specified number of attempts to it, but when it is done correctly, it IS the Optimized run that I will upload. It is also during the memorization runs that I will look to fine-tune my method, so that the final optimized product is as flawless and close to optimal as possible. A walkthrough should not just show the solution, it should be of a level of success and mastery that people strive to match or surpass it. Anyone can record themselves beating a game; a walkthrough should be something you’re proud of… an accomplishment of your victory over that particular game.

Well, that’s at least how I do it.

So crazy to think… amazing really. For a walkthrough to have so many views. This is the only level’s walkthrough hit 3 million views today. Yay!

Use Boxmen will hit 2 million very shortly as well.

Don’t think I’ll have any new 7 digit milestone posts for a while. Oh well.

Bidding ended last week, and the game is now LIVE on GamesButler.com. Big thanks to Dom for the sponsorship, quick payment, and quick add to his site.

PLAY DITLOID.

And, of course, if you need help… here’s the walkthrough. But be warned, you may accidentally see the solutions to levels other than the one you want.

MrRubix is a very good friend of mine. We chat almost daily. I’ve had the good fortune to meet up with him on multiple occasions. There is even a very long Tass Tips that features him. He is probably the single smartest individual that I know, and when motivated, the best gamer. When I am stuck walkthroughing a game, I turn to Rubix first.

Unfortunately, the Rubix of old has disappeared. He graduated college a little over a year ago, then spent about 6 months figuring out what he wanted to do with his life. Eventually, he settled on a high paying corporate gig in NYC that is worthy of his intelligence and schooling. Ever since starting this job, he has been rife with cbf (a fun little acronym that stands for “can’t be f*cked”).

The little psychology that I know leads me to believe he’s lost his drive to dominate in flash games because his time is limited. Why spend 6 hours on a game when he was just at work for 8+? Add to it a new girlfriend… and those of us in Impossible is Nothing have lost the Bix we’ve come to know and love.

So this is an open challenge to him. He started a thread on Kong a while back, and it has 20 incomplete challenges already. Here is the thread. Feel free to add HARD challenges to it for Rubix via the comments. Perhaps we can work together and get him out of cbf mode.