Content Creation

Thoughts on YouTube and Blogging

Meta

This post comes against my better judgment, but there are a few things I want to say before I get a ton of questions or sarcastic responses. Here it goes.

YouTube

As you know from yesterday’s post, I have started a YouTube channel. I upload games once a day on there.

If you subscribe and look closely, you’ll see that I actually have two replays going on at once. I’m going to start posting about the second replay soon on this blog. I wanted to wait until I was done with April, but the replay is simply too good for me to ignore.

It’s not completely out of the ordinary for a baseball replayer to have multiple projects going on at once. For the moment I want to limit myself to two projects. That might change in the future depending on how things go. As I’ve said before, I have big plans for this blog — and I really think you will enjoy what is coming.

But doesn’t it take a lot of time to make YouTube videos? Am I dividing my focus too much?

Honestly, I don’t think so. It takes me about as long to play a game with Diamond Mind on YouTube as it does without using YouTube. Now, if you’ve watched any of my videos, you know that I play at a very fast pace. I do like thinking about what I’m doing; however, I have the ability to read quickly, I’ve played enough games with this engine to know for the most part what will happen based on a few quick play by play lines, and I know I can get most games knocked out in 30 minutes or less. It is a bit of a stretch to play multiple games in a day; however, with a little bit of organization, it certainly is doable.

And it’s a ton of fun, too.

I mean, it really is fun to record these games. Even if only one person watches a minute of what I’ve created, the thought alone that somebody else can enjoy this replay with me makes it all worthwhile.

Sharing

We live in remarkable times. It’s far easier for us to share our replays today than it’s ever been in the past.

Not many of us think about the history of these simulation games. It wasn’t that long ago when the only way we had to share our projects with one another was writing long articles for publishing in publications like the APBA Journal. You know — things sort of like this:

From The APBA Journal, November 1975

Now, Ron did a great job with this replay writeup. I particularly like how easy it is to compare his statistics with the real life statistics. You can see some of the strengths and weaknesses of APBA’s 1967 set right here: the batting average was a hair too low, home runs were a hair too high, but ERA and the overall run environment were right on. There were too few walks and too many strikeouts, but it all came out in the wash. And, oddly enough for an original APBA season, the “right team” didn’t win this time around.

But we’re missing something here, aren’t we? There’s nothing that makes this project personal. Nothing here tells the story.

I mean, think about it. When did Detroit capture the pennant? Was there tension during the final series of the season, with three teams within reach of first place? Was Ron upset that the White Sox weren’t closer to first despite almost exactly replicating their real life record? And what in the world happened to the Angels?

Now, I guess Ron could have written all of this up on another page.

But wouldn’t it be even better to experience the season directly with him?

Wouldn’t you like to be able to go back and watch Ron play some of those clutch games after the fact? Wouldn’t it be interesting to come back to this replay a few years later — or, heck, 48 years later — and watch him play the games live? Wouldn’t it be fun to read his daily update on the replay in a sort of online diary?

Now you understand why I’m doing what I’m doing.

Audience

I know what you’re thinking before you write it. There’s simply not an audience for this, you say. Nobody cares about these simulation games. It’s all stuff for a bunch of old guys who remember playing these games as teenagers.

I think you’re wrong.

Look — I don’t want to argue against the obvious. It is true that most of these simulations are played by people older than me. I’m not all that young myself — I’ll be 40 next year. We seem to be a dying breed, and I do worry about the future of this hobby.

But I don’t really worry that much.

During the pandemic I found myself playing a lot of Football Manager 2021. By “a lot,” I’m talking about playing for 8 to 10 hours a day. I was addicted, and addicted in the worst possible way. I used the game to take out my frustrations, to try to compensate for problems in my life. I don’t recommend doing that, and I’ve worked hard to mend my ways.

But good came out of that in the end.

As I became more interested in the Football Manager game and culture, I started to discover other content creators. In particular, I discovered an entire world of content creators devote to the game.

And, well, some of them hooked me.

I was particularly interested in the work of Lollujo, a man about two years older than me who just so happens to be the most popular of the Football Manager content creators. His work is great because he uses the game to tell stories — stories that really hook you, stories that make you want to know more about the players.

My favorite YouTube series of all time, regardless of channel or genre, is Lollujo’s 2021 Holme series. If you haven’t watched it, you really need to — from start to finish. His work is simply amazing here. You can’t watch this without rooting for the team, and you’ll find yourself screaming at the videos in agony as they work their way through the Championship up to the Premier League the hard way. It’s a great achievement, and Kev deserves every bit of praise that he’s received for his creation.

Now, I know that Football Manager has better animations and visuals than our baseball games. But that really doesn’t matter. I’m not watching this for the graphics; in fact, I usually will put Lollujo on while I eat lunch, or while I do desk work for my real job.

The thing that keeps me coming back is the storytelling. And we can tell stories with our replays.

There’s a reason why people like watching other people play single player games. We don’t watch Taureor play Hearts of Iron IV because we have thoughts of world domination ourselves, or because we want to watch high end graphics or something silly like that. No — we watch it because we know he’s going to do something silly, like using Japan to turn major western European nations into puppets. It’s the story that we care about more than anything else.

Now, we can tell stories through our replays. In fact, without the stories we wouldn’t bother to play these games ourselves.

Content Magnet

This Substack has been quite successful in a small amount of time.

I’m actually embarrassed by the attention and success I’ve received so far. I had no idea that I would have nearly 100 subscribers before a month and a half had passed. I feel humbled by the process, and worry every day that I’m going to write something silly that destroys the magic.

However, I think we can still do better.

Substack isn’t exactly the best platform for search engine optimization. It does work after time, but you’ve got to give it months, if not years, for Google to start really picking up on what you’re doing. Substack does this deliberately, mostly to stop scammers and sketchy people from taking advantage of the fact that it is a free blogging platform to use it to generate endless spam.

YouTube, meanwhile, has similar issues. Though you might have visions of grandeur as you start up a new YouTube project, you’re going to have to wait a while before you really start showing up in search results. My Football Manager channel, for example, is still hard to find on basic YouTube searches, even after about a month of existance. You’re not going to get rich overnight; in fact, the algorithm is specifically designed to prevent you from doing so.

Now, my idea from the start was to combine the two platforms.

I told you about Lollujo and Holme. Back in early 2021, I wished that there was more information about the fictional Holme team available online. The daily videos weren’t enough to satisfy me. I wanted to find statistics, to read stories that weren’t part of the videos, to play around with save files and to try to make the adventure my own.

My idea for this project, my Football Manager project, and over on my Action! PC Football project, has been to do just this. I want to create a combination of the two platforms: a blog where you can watch the project if you choose, as well as a channel where you can find out more information about the project on a permanent website.

I’m not going to get a ton of attention from these respective communities overnight. However, if I do wind up striking gold and getting some followers, I want to make sure that there is additional content for them to consume.

In other words, I really want to turn this into more than a restart of the old APBA Journal or a companion to the various baseball simulation forums. I want this to be a living document — a blog complemented by videos, as well as a video channel complemented by well-written blog posts.

Growth

Now, if we keep growing, we just might have enough success to get attention from those who do not play our games.

I’ve mentioned in passing before that there is a market out there for these games. There are many people who love simulation games, from Hearts of Iron IV to Victoria III to Cities: Skylines and all the other Paradox games. Millions around the world play Football Manager, and, if you look close enough, you’ll find people complaining about the paucity of high quality basketball and hockey simulations.

We know that there are fans of these sports. Even the much maligned sport of baseball has quite a few young fans. Don’t believe me? Go hang out on /r/baseball on Reddit and see all the young fans — millions of them — share their memes and their advice.

I mentioned just a few days ago that most simulation seekers on these forums end up playing OOTP. But what if there is a way for them to find out about the other simulations? What if we can show them what is possible with games like Replay, NPIII, the card-and-dice version of Strat, or even “ugly” games like Diamond Mind and Action?

I firmly believe that there is a potential market out there for this sort of thing, just as much today as there was when J. Richard Seitz discovered it back in the late 1940s (more on that later). And I firmly believe that it is our duty as a community to create a welcoming and engaging environment for these potential new fans.

That is the chief reason why I’ve created this setup.

Anyway, enough about this for now. As always, please let me know what you think.