Video games always made one of the most important pieces of pop culture. Even if we go back to the good old days of Atari and NES, long before people had an opportunity to consume video game content online, speed runs and local multiplayer made an incredible form of demonstrating gaming skills and past-time for observers.
So, it was only natural that when streaming became a very popular corner of the entertainment landscape, gaming channels and gaming content blew through the roof. According to a recent survey, the gaming content market currently sits at $10.81 billion. By 2028, this number is expected to surge to $44.76.
So, if you ever wanted to put your gaming public, entertain people, and earn some money along the way. Let us take a couple of tips to help you along the way.
Choose the niche and find your angle
For a start, you will need to make a decision about whether you are going to stream PC or console game content. Even though the fine line between these two markets is growing thinner with each passing day, their audiences still have distinct sensibilities you can opt to lean into. Also, you should decide whether are you going to cover specific genres, retro gaming, or do deep dives in one specific series. The things you are most interested in doing don’t necessarily need to be what you are best at. So, be sure to sort these things out before the launch. This market is very competitive and users will see through the slacking.
Make the list of tools you will need for the job
Even if you are done with these, you will still need to make thousands of adjustments and learn new things as you go along. But, nevertheless, you will need some starting point you will use to take off and branch out. That is why you should start making the short-lists of shooting and video editing tools as soon as possible and getting yourself familiar with all of their options and unique advantages. The same thing can be said about physical tools like mics, headphones, and gaming equipment. If you want to make your videos professional, add to this list the items like stative, gimbals, and ring and strip lights.
Work on your shooting schedule
Producing video content looks like a very easy and enjoyable task. But, each of these fun videos takes hours of hard work before they are finally uploaded. If you ever want to deal with such a heavy workload, you will need to have an incredibly tight schedule and excellent time management skills. So, start working on those things as soon as possible. Also, it would be a good idea to see if you can buy gaming laptops online and perform at least a portion of the shooting on the go. This level of flexibility will make your life far easier, and allow you to commit to other important tasks at the same time.
Create a deep content strategy
Playing to your strengths is a great way to build your initial fan base. But, much like all other forms of entertainment, the key to long-term success lies in variety. So, the readiness to come out of your comfort zone and produce different types of gaming content can only keep bringing new followers under your wing and making the ones that already watch your videos stick around. Speaking in terms of gaming content, some of the most popular options you have at your disposal include the likes of:
- Speed rungs and breaking records
- How-to-s, walkthroughs, and guides
- Lists, roundups, and head-to-heads
- Deep and insightful retrospectives
- Humor
- Livestreams, chatter, and free-form podcasts
Set tangible and attainable goals
When it comes to gaming videos, very few strategies guarantee instant success. Your videos, for lack of a better term, click with the wider audience to gain momentum. But that doesn’t mean you can’t set some long-term channel development goals that will cover the topics like marketing, content, outreach, engagement, and retention strategies. Once you set up these foundations, you will be able to easily break down these long-term milestones into more attainable goals and objectives. They, in turn, serve as a great tool for giving your efforts more focus and ensuring more predictable results.
Give your community some sense of personality
This strategy will, to a large extent, depend on your personal charisma, hooks, memes, and ways you interact with your flock. But, even if you nail this thing down, you can’t remain superficial for too long so you should start rallying people around some deeper and more meaningful opinions, values, and topics. Even if that means alienating a portion of the followers, the ones who stick around will grow an even deeper personal attachment with your channel. These engaged followers will also have much better chances of luring in new flocks of followers through shares, comments, and recommendations.
We hope these couple of tips helped you get a better idea about the strategies you can use to make your future gaming channel an instant success. The video game industry and video streaming sound like a match made in heaven. So, it’s really no wonder that thousands of young people are trying to make a career in this arena. That, however, doesn’t make it any less taxing and competitive. The tips we gave you above should still be able to set you on the path to success.
