Are YouTubers Ruining Retro Gaming?

[Flojomojo]

So, wait a minute. You're saying that gamers who are trying to make money on YouTube need to "get a real job", but you're building arcade sticks and selling them on Etsy in your spare time? Is that cognitive dissonance or just a joke?

 

How is that cognitive dissonance? "Follow your passion, but don't quit your day job" seems like decent advice to me, and it's what KS is doing. Follow the link and it goes to the page where he's saying he has to juggle the real job, his family, and his Etsy hobby.

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

 

So, wait a minute. You're saying that gamers who are trying to make money on YouTube need to "get a real job", but you're building arcade sticks and selling them on Etsy in your spare time? Is that cognitive dissonance or just a joke?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

 

 

How is that cognitive dissonance? "Follow your passion, but don't quit your day job" seems like decent advice to me, and it's what KS is doing. Follow the link and it goes to the page where he's saying he has to juggle the real job, his family, and his Etsy hobby.

Thank you.

 

To address CGQuarterly for a moment, I'm building the sticks to try and give something back for the community. I wont be making much off them, certainly not enough to pay bills, but it's a hobby. If I charged minimum wage for the hours spent working on them, I'd price myself out of the market. So if I can break even selling arcade boxes, I'll be doing good.

 

It's like homebrew programmers aren't making games to pay the bills, they are making games because they enjoy making games. If other people want to pay for carts releases of said games and the developer gets paid a pittance in royalties, that is great, but should never be the primary motivation for developing them. Otherwise why give your ROMs away for free?

[CGQuarterly]

How is that cognitive dissonance? "Follow your passion, but don't quit your day job" seems like decent advice to me, and it's what KS is doing. Follow the link and it goes to the page where he's saying he has to juggle the real job, his family, and his Etsy hobby.

But that's not what he said. He said "Want money to support your gaming hobby? Get a real job already!" Except that he's supporting his gaming hobby by doing something creative in exchange for money. Which is the same thing that a lot of people on YouTube are doing.

 

Edit: And let me just say that what he's doing with the arcade sticks looks awesome. But don't be a hypocrite and tell others that they should "get a real job". If that arcade stick gig hit it big and you were being bombarded with enough orders that it could support you full-time, don't act like you wouldn't quit your "day job" to turn it into a full-time business.

Edited July 26, 2017 by CGQuarterly

[CGQuarterly]

To address CGQuarterly for a moment, I'm building the sticks to try and give something back for the community. I wont be making much off them, certainly not enough to pay bills, but it's a hobby. If I charged minimum wage for the hours spent working on them, I'd price myself out of the market. So if I can break even selling arcade boxes, I'll be doing good.

It's a hobby that you're making some money off of though. Minimum wage has nothing to do with anything because you aren't working for someone else. I doubt that I make minimum wage on YT, but so what? That doesn't mean that I am not, by design, making money. And having a blast doing it.

 

Having a passion for doing something and making money doing something are not mutually exclusive concepts. A combination of the two is generally found in most successful entrepreneurs.

[DJ Clae]

CGQ, I just wanted to mention I'm a big fan of both your channels.

 

Since starting our channel, my brother and I have grown disillusioned with Youtube's algorithm. I worry I'm not seeing all the content I would really enjoy.

[Keatah]

By that logic no one should ever work under pressure because the work suffers. That sounds great in theory but doesn't work in the real world.

 

..and that is why YT is so full of junk - pressure to get the next video out. Churn'em over peeps!

Edited July 27, 2017 by Keatah

[BawesomeBurf]

 

 

Absolutely. Just look at what happened to Classic Game Room. He went from making a full-time income off of ad revenue and a little bit of merch sales to almost shuttering the show (while steadily increasing the size of his channel) until someone told him about Patreon. Ad rates on YT have dropped a lot over the years.

The change in copyright rules also hurt Mark quite a bit. So many of his vids got de-monetized that he decided to not release any new reviews on YT for a while, and made those exclusive to his website. Of course, he did come back eventually though.

[vidak]

Classic Game Room has shown me so many cool games that I always wondered about but could never afford. It sucks that copyright ruins people's projects like that.

[xenomorpher]

Classic Game Room has shown me so many cool games that I always wondered about but could never afford. It sucks that copyright ruins people's projects like that.

Mark can always fall back on reviewing Peppermint Patties. He could do frozen, cold, warm, hot, melted, and much more. But seriously, I was a big fan of pre-Peppermint Patty CGR. He has a good radio voice and off beat humor, and it just seems wasted. If he's happy, then good for him. I just don't know how long it will last.

Edited July 27, 2017 by xenomorpher

[AtariLeaf]

It's all about personality. Mark has it in spades and I can understand his popularity. Others though boggle my mind. AlphaOmegaSin is a prime example. He jumps around yelling and screaming like a tiny child on speed with tourettes syndrome. He looks and acts like a buffoon and I don't get why people like him.

[BawesomeBurf]

It's all about personality. Mark has it in spades and I can understand his popularity. Others though boggle my mind. AlphaOmegaSin is a prime example. He jumps around yelling and screaming like a tiny child on speed with tourettes syndrome. He looks and acts like a buffoon and I don't get why people like him.

I used to watch his stuff. What I liked about it at the time was that he was bringing awareness to crappy things in the game industry. It got really old after a while though, because every video is pretty much the same as the one that came before it.

[Professor Gull]

So at the end of the day maybe we should categorize youtubers for their destruction of Retro Gaming on Youtube.

 

You got the people who have been there long enough and rode the waves of success and then get shafted by new metrics and now struggle to continue to do what they were doing for a career.

 

Then the folks who beat hard and fast on the trend train producing loads of clickbait snarky bits under the 5 minute YouTube rule to get the most views and hits pulling revenue from other quality shows. ( yeah these folks suck in my opinion)

 

Lastly you have new blood trying to infuse the collaborative YouTube toilet swirl with decent stuff but getting lost in the shuffle nearing no chance of ultimate success as to make it a career. ( still go and do it I say though damn the silliness and choose your own path maybe branch to Amazon or create a webpage to locally house your stuff and social media connect it all.)

 

I put ads on my stuff because I am making millions. ( $1.87 to be exact but do you know how much that will be in interest rates over the next 1,000,000 years? hell yeah I will be rich in the future) I just do it because I can but reading these statements it seems to be a huge turnoff so perhaps my monies will have to wait.

[HoshiChiri]

It's all about personality. Mark has it in spades and I can understand his popularity. Others though boggle my mind. AlphaOmegaSin is a prime example. He jumps around yelling and screaming like a tiny child on speed with tourettes syndrome. He looks and acts like a buffoon and I don't get why people like him.

 

Because there's absolutely a group of people who'd willingly and happily watch a tiny child with Tourette's on speed yelling & screaming.

 

In all seriousness tho'- yes, personality is king. Have something that appeals to enough people, and you'll find an audience. Appeal to the middle school-college crowd and you'll find a bigger audience... even if you're following the exact same formula as everyone else. You can see it really well in the most popular let's players- PewDiePie is Teen-Edge, Markiplier has a 'this is Jackass' kinda thing going on, JackSepticEye has a cool accent. Actually, Game Grumps is a better example- note the difference in tone between old episodes with JonTron and newer ones with Danny... swapping out a screamer for a stoner (lacking a better way to put that) has a notable effect on things. I imagine an Arin/JonTron run of Battle Kid would be a lot less entertaining & a lot harder on the ears.

[Gamemoose]

It's all about personality. Mark has it in spades and I can understand his popularity. Others though boggle my mind. AlphaOmegaSin is a prime example. He jumps around yelling and screaming like a tiny child on speed with tourettes syndrome. He looks and acts like a buffoon and I don't get why people like him.

I find it amazing what people find entertaining. During a potluck my IT department had, the new big screen TV in the conference room was tested out. People tossed out ideas for what to see on YouTube. Majority: people getting the crap beat out of them using a motorized treadmill. Bone fide sketch comedy got some chuckles but all out laughter came from the treadmills.

 

So yes, peopke screaming, hollering and acting like spazzes seem to attract people of all kinds.

[Eltigro]

CGQuarterly, keep making the Let's Read vids. Love those. They actually stir up more nostalgia than any of the actual game videos I've seen. I was glad to see that people sent you more magazines so you have plenty of material.

 

People talking about youtubers affecting prices of games, Pat Contri brought up that idea about a relatively common game that was featured on a James and Mike Mondays video (Cinnemassacre, AVGN...). I don't remember what the game was now, but there were tons of views because of how big the channel is (about 2.3 million subscribers). Anyway, he talked about how the price jumped after the video. (Not much, but it did increase.). It has since come back down, but still. And yeah, there could have been other factors, correlation does not necessarily imply causation, but the timing was right. Anyway, I don't see that happening a lot. What does happen is that more people are informed about which games are rare which is something that wouldn't have been necessarily widespread knowledge except among collectors. Now it seems even casual game players will have heard of Dinosaur Peak or Stadium Events or whatever.

 

I watch a lot of youtube. There are some I like and some I don't. There are some I watch every video and some that I only watch when there is something newsworthy or interesting happening. As far as the money goes, I'm not in a position financially to give to anyone's Patreon, but I don't mind that people do it. Especially if it's someone who I think produces quality content. I also think it probably helps with the "I've gotta put out a video today even if it's crap" problem.

[JustinMSalvato]

[mbd30]

Some of my favorite video game related channels: Lazy Game Reviews, Gaming Historian, Game Sack, Nostalgia Nerd, Larry Bundy Jr, Cinemassacre, Pat the NES Punk, Rerez, 8-Bit Guy, Adam Koralik, the Mexican Runner

 

Least favorite: Anything that revolves around boring modern gaming. Not a fan of watching someone play Call of Duty or whatever.

[Flojomojo]

Modern games are better suited to Twitch, in my opinion -- there's typically more to see and they don't lend themselves to the presentational style of a Let's Play type show. Especially the social/competitive "forever" games like League of Legends.

[Tanooki]

People talking about youtubers affecting prices of games, Pat Contri brought up that idea about a relatively common game that was featured on a James and Mike Mondays video (Cinnemassacre, AVGN...). I don't remember what the game was now, but there were tons of views because of how big the channel is (about 2.3 million subscribers). Anyway, he talked about how the price jumped after the video. (Not much, but it did increase.). It has since come back down, but still. And yeah, there could have been other factors, correlation does not necessarily imply causation, but the timing was right.

I think crazy there was talking about Guardian Legend. You could sell it for $2-3 on ebay as no one wanted it. Once it hit video it shot up to like $20-25 paid but nitwits trying to squeeze upwards of $50 on it putting the usual troll crap of L@@K RARE! Guardian Legend all over it. It had a backlash on it where it fell back pretty hard quickly after but still double what it went for, and then push went to shove right after that and it popped back up some around the $10 mark and all this in a 12 month window. These days is still rolls around an average of like $15-20 for the game with the +/- $5 outliers on it.

 

Sure it's not troll 'gem' one like the damages caused to those SNES games like Run Saber, Hagane and the rest in that infamous video early resellers used as cannon fodder, but it is a low price easy to grasp gut punch.

[NinjaWarrior]

When you become a Nintendo Partner, How much does Nintendo take away?

 

Like if a Streamer or someone just Plays Nintendo's IP's like Super Mario Maker?

[Austin]

When you become a Nintendo Partner, How much does Nintendo take away?

 

Like if a Streamer or someone just Plays Nintendo's IP's like Super Mario Maker?

 

I don't remember the exact numbers, but I think Nintendo pays something like 75% after the cut Google already takes. So, you're getting a cut of a cut. Also, you have no control over where ads are placed in that situation. This of course only applies if you submit a Nintendo copyright claimed video to the Nintendo Creator Program and it gets approved there. If you don't, then you get nothing of that claimed video and all revenue from that video goes straight to Nintendo.

 

If you do a Nintendo gameplay video and it doesn't get hit by the YouTube Content ID system, then you retain full monetizing control over the video as usual. Examples of this (speaking from personal experience) would be F-Zero, F-Zero X, and Donkey Kong Country. Do just about anything related to Mario or Zelda though and they will probably be hit by copyright claims (assuming you're not doing short reviews--they usually manage to dodge the bullet).

Edited July 30, 2017 by Austin

[CGQuarterly]

CGQuarterly, keep making the Let's Read vids. Love those. They actually stir up more nostalgia than any of the actual game videos I've seen. I was glad to see that people sent you more magazines so you have plenty of material.

 

People talking about youtubers affecting prices of games, Pat Contri brought up that idea about a relatively common game that was featured on a James and Mike Mondays video (Cinnemassacre, AVGN...). I don't remember what the game was now...

 

 

Thanks!

 

Wasn't it Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat?

[mbd30]

 

 

Thanks!

 

Wasn't it Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat?

 

It was Sky Kid. I just checked and the price must have gone back down.

 

I paid less than $10 for Palamedes last year, and now it's at least $40 for a loose cart from Ebay and Amazon thanks to Mike Matei.

[Eltigro]

Heh... I was just about to come back and say that I had originally thought it was Balloon Fight, but looked at the James and Mike videos and figured it was probably Sky Kid.

[Tanooki]

I wonder if any of these youtube clowns who know they're messing up prices on games in part by their actions ever look over their shoulders out in public ever at all, or at the least at trade shows. All it takes is just one unhinged person to ball up a fist. I keep seeing for years now a select small pool of names of the guilty so it's not that large of a stretch typically with Matei taking the lead.