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Are YouTubers Ruining Retro Gaming?


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I have actually found that YouTube re-ignited my passion for retrogaming. My last active gaming console was the N64 until my wife bought me the Wii in 2009. I started turning to the internet for game reviews and found an awesome community here at Atari Age and on YouTube. There is so much knowledge and expertise from enthusiasts willing to share with everyone.

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Atari Leaf,

 

Ive been following you on youtube for years. I have to say you have a nice channel. It doesnt feed to the money hungry masses who see something and try to capitalize on it. Your just a cool guy with games and shares his passion for games. THIS is what youtube should be. I always look forward your videos cause its just a gamer having fun. No fluff ,hype or monitary gain to be had like bigger channels. Never change man. Your impact helps us true gamers enjoy our stuff even more.

Atari Leaf is awesome!

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I only watch Pickup videos to find if they got anything interesting that's maybe a title I haven't heard of.

 

Other than that... I kinda like the "Goodwill" style of pickup that LGR (Lazy Game Reviews) does. I think it's cool to see these things in the wild... I just don't have a lot of accessible thrift stores / junk shops in my area. The few I do see rarely have anything worth putting the effort into. The only thing I found in the several years that I tried was a Complete in Box Dragon Warrior IV.

 

I like the idea of pickups if they go into details and show off individual games so I can find interesting titles.

 

LGR's "Thrifts" videos are great! Good mix of humor and cool stuff that he finds. And he must live in thrift heaven, because he hits up 5-6 stores per episode and they ACTUALLY HAVE STUFF. :-o

 

On another note...

 

A friend of mine from way back decided to start a channel earlier this year called Smash JT. He's been into games since we were kids, and he decided earlier this year to make his own channel. He doesn't have a lot of subscribers (yet), but he's having tons of fun with it. One thing that he's noticing that he didn't anticipate is the amount of negativity that he's encountering just for his channel existing. He's had people randomly threaten his life, threaten his kids' lives, and more. Yesterday, he got this lovely message:

 

 

 

"I think your content is good, but you're in an oversaturated field. There are hundreds of channels who do what you do but have a stronger fan base and more resources...."

 

So, since lots of people are doing it, he should just give up. :?

 

He's definitely not ruining retrogaming. :lol: He's just trying to have more fun with it. Aside from the negativity, he's having a blast with the channel and meeting all sorts of new people that share the same interests in old games that we do.

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I suppose, then, I wouldn't mind a pickup video. As long as it doesn't ramble on and on. A couple 2, 3, panning shots of a pile of carts would be alright and can be done in 20 seconds. Put the exact items in the text/comments. It's always nice to know what's out there and what is actually trading hands.

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Is Youtube ruining retro gaming? Nah. Youtubers make the content they want to see themselves (or see themselves in.)

 

There are LP's with commentary, LP's without. There are people who enjoy the hardware or the feelies, and people who just want to document/archive how the game is supposed to work for that day someone wants to re-release it or reboot it for a new audience. I can't explain how many times I found out there was X version of a game and wanted to see it or try it on an emulator only to discover that either there is no emulator or that it has a notoriously difficult setup process or language barrier.

 

Some of the content I have on my Youtube channel is just commentless playthroughs of games with the emulator tweaked for video capture so that it can be watched on a HDTV/4K TV in the right aspect ratio and less audio noise had it been captured from the real hardware or stock GOG install. Some licensed games are simply not available anymore and there will never be any way for people who didn't buy it when it was new to play it. The largest justification for people to record video of games can be seen by how the VCR made archiving all sorts of media possible, from trailers and commercials to TV shows that later got released on DVD with all their licensed music stripped out.

 

I also have to say that having the game play in the background while you do work is a great way of staying focused when there is no rambling over the music.

Edited by Kismet
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I suppose, then, I wouldn't mind a pickup video. As long as it doesn't ramble on and on. A couple 2, 3, panning shots of a pile of carts would be alright and can be done in 20 seconds. Put the exact items in the text/comments. It's always nice to know what's out there and what is actually trading hands.

 

I suppose I don't so much mind the type of content but they tend to be the longest videos on channels that do them. It also seems to complete the cycle of pickups, stuff fans sent me, let's plays, and top x list videos major channels seem to largely settle on. Channels that do extensively researched treatments of consoles or games seem to have much lower subscriber counts which doesn't make the cost to benefit look good if you're trying to offset cost of time / equipment through viewership. And it can just be demoralizing, I imagine.

 

It seems to be more that youtube ruins retro youtubing more often than retro gaming itself. Of course, it can be tiring to search through channels for good regular content so maybe I'm just unlucky.

Edited by omegadot
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It seems to be more that youtube ruins retro youtubing more often than retro gaming itself. Of course, it can be tiring to search through channels for good regular content so maybe I'm just unlucky.

Yup this ^^

 

Youtube cycles popular videos over better videos which have to do with subscriber count, views, and partnership. Also its important to tag videos and some folks have that down altogether.

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Channels that do extensively researched treatments of consoles or games seem to have much lower subscriber counts which doesn't make the cost to benefit look good if you're trying to offset cost of time / equipment through viewership. And it can just be demoralizing, I imagine.

 

 

I'll address this since I think it applies to me. It can easily take over 100 hours to make one of my videos, but I don't do it for the money or number of subs/views. I do it because it gives me a new way to enjoy my hobby. Is it "demoralizing" that certain people's cookie cutter LE HIDDEN GEMZ videos complete with guest gamer chick, or dude pacing back and forth in front of a camera cussing up a storm talking about The Legend of Zelda get more views than a lot of my videos? No. Because if that's what it took to put food on my table, I'd rather go get a "real" job.

 

Honestly, imagine if you were a writer/producer/director working in Television, and you worked on a show that you thought was really high-quality, well-written, well-shot content and you were getting 25% of the ratings that The Bachelorette was getting. Is it demoralizing? I guess it depends on your point of view. Personally, I would rather make the kind of content that I can be proud of and would want to watch myself, and I'll leave the production of the YouTube gaming versions of Big Brother or Honey Boo-Boo to people who weren't burdened with a sense of personal pride.

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I'll address this since I think it applies to me. It can easily take over 100 hours to make one of my videos, but I don't do it for the money or number of subs/views. I do it because it gives me a new way to enjoy my hobby. Is it "demoralizing" that certain people's cookie cutter LE HIDDEN GEMZ videos complete with guest gamer chick, or dude pacing back and forth in front of a camera cussing up a storm talking about The Legend of Zelda get more views than a lot of my videos? No. Because if that's what it took to put food on my table, I'd rather go get a "real" job.

 

Honestly, imagine if you were a writer/producer/director working in Television, and you worked on a show that you thought was really high-quality, well-written, well-shot content and you were getting 25% of the ratings that The Bachelorette was getting. Is it demoralizing? I guess it depends on your point of view. Personally, I would rather make the kind of content that I can be proud of and would want to watch myself, and I'll leave the production of the YouTube gaming versions of Big Brother or Honey Boo-Boo to people who weren't burdened with a sense of personal pride.

 

That makes sense. I appreciate the first hand perspective on it. I enjoy your videos and the work is clearly evident in yours and probably 3 or 4 others that I actually pay attention to while watching as opposed to just gaming content so work feels less like work some days. I guess I just wish it was more balanced. I think the overall retro youtuber community would get less nauseating if it wasn't so heavily homogenized to the gaming shelf and antics. But eh, that's just one little consumer.

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I'll address this since I think it applies to me. It can easily take over 100 hours to make one of my videos, but I don't do it for the money or number of subs/views. I do it because it gives me a new way to enjoy my hobby. Is it "demoralizing" that certain people's cookie cutter LE HIDDEN GEMZ videos complete with guest gamer chick, or dude pacing back and forth in front of a camera cussing up a storm talking about The Legend of Zelda get more views than a lot of my videos? No. Because if that's what it took to put food on my table, I'd rather go get a "real" job.

 

Honestly, imagine if you were a writer/producer/director working in Television, and you worked on a show that you thought was really high-quality, well-written, well-shot content and you were getting 25% of the ratings that The Bachelorette was getting. Is it demoralizing? I guess it depends on your point of view. Personally, I would rather make the kind of content that I can be proud of and would want to watch myself, and I'll leave the production of the YouTube gaming versions of Big Brother or Honey Boo-Boo to people who weren't burdened with a sense of personal pride.

If it isn't Mario or Sonic it's a hidden gem. "Hidden Gems on N64, F-Zero X and Conkers Bad Fur Day" Those videos take little effort, and a big payout.

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I'm glad that you put so much time and effort into your content, CGQ, it makes for much better videos than all those cookie cutter channels out there. :)

 

As for my channel, I used to put a lot of time into game reviews doing research, writing, etc. Not like 100 hours per video, but a decent amount. The view count did bother me a little bit sometimes, but I actually found it more annoying how unpredictable it could be. I've got reviews for some really obscure and also some really popular games that have barely cracked 100 views, but then there's stuff like Grandia 3 that is approaching 7,000 views (which is a lot for me) in about 1 years time. While I do find the lack of views demoralizing, I try not to dwell on it too much because the other videos will bring new viewers to the channel.

Edited by BawesomeBurf
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  • 2 weeks later...

I think they might be saving it? How many teenagers/twenty somethings would go out and investigate this stuff on their own? Without any free advertising on YouTube I’m not sure very many of them would want to go retro. It might be seen as an old man thing and disappear.

Edited by adamchevy
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  • 7 months later...

If you'd like to watch the process of YouTube induced price inflation happen in real time then keep an eye on this price charting page over the next month or two: https://www.pricecharting.com/game/gameboy-color/project-s-11?q=project+s-11#

 

The game in question is Project S-11, a quite good but very obscure and little known spaceship shooter for the Game Boy Color. This game had received almost nothing in the way of YouTube coverage from major channels up until 2 weeks ago, when a channel with around 462,000 subscribers did a video review of it. The current average eBay sold price for Project S-11 is right around $15, but if you check on it periodically over the next couple months I'd predict that you'll see it go up to around $30 or so now that it has received coverage on YouTube.

 

It's been almost a year since I speculated that due to YouTuber coverage the game Project S-11 would go up from the $15 it was selling for last year to around $30, so let's take a look at the most recent sold listings for loose carts of this lovely yet obscure little game...

 

ouJSpMM.png

 

 

As expected, the game has almost doubled in price since the YouTube channel Classic Game Room reviewed it around this time last year. But wait, how do I know that it was a YouTube review responsible for this game doubling in price? Well, let's take a look a Pricecharting.com's handy graph feature to see when this game shot up in price:

 

DzugSwK.png

 

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You'll notice that the sudden price spike occurs in July of last year, and when was Classic Game Room's review of this game published?

 

P2OIqXo.png

 

 

 

I rest my case.

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It's been almost a year since I speculated that due to YouTuber coverage the game Project S-11 would go up from the $15 it was selling for last year to around $30, so let's take a look at the most recent sold listings for loose carts of this lovely yet obscure little game...

 

ouJSpMM.png

 

 

As expected, the game has almost doubled in price since the YouTube channel Classic Game Room reviewed it around this time last year. But wait, how do I know that it was a YouTube review responsible for this game doubling in price? Well, let's take a look a Pricecharting.com's handy graph feature to see when this game shot up in price:

 

DzugSwK.png

 

ZXfuhqh.png

 

 

You'll notice that the sudden price spike occurs in July of last year, and when was Classic Game Room's review of this game published?

 

P2OIqXo.png

 

 

 

I rest my case.

Unless the YouTube channel is buying all the copies, they aren't responsible. Collectors buying copies while simultaneously whining about the prices going up are to blame.

 

If you're gonna blame youtube reviews, might as well blame EGM, Nintendo power, newsgroups, forums or any other medium over the past decades for reviewing or talking about games.

Edited by keepdreamin
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I want you all to subscribe to my mediocre channel so I can boost my income so I can buy more Atari carts and valuable retro material. I almost have a dollar earned and can't wait to spend it on a valuable wanted title so then I can show it off in yet another mediocre video. So get out there and give me money.

 

Oh wait and no YouTube only ruins the souls of greedy show offs for retro gaming and folks who opinion for click bait. So with that said.

 

tenor.gif

 

Do you unbox the carts on video? If not, there's no reason for me to watch your channel! :P

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I rest my case.

 

What about the first price spike? It doubled in price in February 2015, but there's no corresponding YouTube video that I find. I don't doubt there is some effect from YouTube, but I think it's an extreme version of what I call the 'Princess Tutu effect'.

 

Years ago, rightstuf.com was clearing out ADV's old stock while they legally could, at $4-5 a DVD (but you had to buy in chunks of 10 or 25.) One of the series in the run was Princess Tutu, volumes 2-6... so everything but the first one. Fine by me, I got that one as a Christmas gift a few months prior. Fast-forward 6 months... the other missing volumes from other series remained cheap, but Princess Tutu volume 1 was over $100. Why? Becuase people bought it cheap, and then realized it was a really, really GOOD show with a really, really BAD name! I mean, it sounds like girly garbage, right? If you give it a chance though, you discover it's a really nice fairy tale... not a Disney one, a proper one. Like how in the original Cinderella the stepsisters cut off their toes & get their eyes pecked out by birds. People weren't scrambling to complete the filler series they got cheap, but this one was worth it once word got out. (Of course, it then saw a couple boxset releases and the individual volumes plummeted again.)

 

I think it's the same thing here- it was $5ish or less for years, so people bought it cheap. Word got around it was good. The cheap ones sold out, so the price jumped & the sellers who found more stock kept the numbers up. Meanwhile, the YouTube creators catch wind of it & the first videos come out- so prices go up again. But they STAY up because the game is worth it. If there was no YouTube coverage? Prices go up anyway as people continue to share amongst themselves that's it's good & stock sells through. In a way, it's almost better that YouTube accelerates the process, so people don't throw away broken copies without trying to repair them becuase it's too cheap, or gut the games for homebrews- it makes sure there's plenty of supply for increased demand so the prices don't spike higher later on.

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I miss cheap games for sure but then again I have not bought lots of games in a long time. I am willing to support my local retro shops when I can and they tend not to fluctuate as much as price charting or other video game estimators. So their prices do not reflect the fact it may be in a YouTube review video or not. I asked once how they got the number they sell at and its a factor of what they pay and sales on ebay plus average value from a few sites.

 

In the end though my plot to ruin retro gaming will have to wait until I can incorporate shapchat, worthless meme's, and random animal's or crying babies......wait sorry that's Facebook right? So are they to blame now for the fiasco of games and their value?

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