I have always liked the idea of making a YouTube gaming channel. How hard could it be?
I play most of the games anyway, surely that’s the hard bit or at least the most time-consuming part.
I’m going to show you how to make a gaming video from scratch.
So you can follow along if you wish or adapt it to suit your needs.
The plan is to make a video using my PS4, a PC and a microphone (most likely my mobile phone) then edit it using free video editing software.
What are the steps that I’m going to follow to make the gaming video?
The goal is to make a somewhat professional-looking YouTube video. This is not the only way to make a video for YouTube and it’s probably not even the best way to start.
But when I do something I like to go all-in.
But the first thing is first. I want to do a bit of research on what needs to go into a video, What type of videos are there?
I am going to be to follow this workflow.
- Research, what do the big boys of gaming do for their videos?
- Plan (if I was making a gaming channel, I would need to think about branding and colors, etc) Should I collect my thoughts or footage first for example?
- Narration (Just how scripted should the video be? or should I just wing it?
- Get the Footage
- Video project set up, what setting do I need for YouTube?
- Editing the video
- Make a thumbnail
- Upload video and thumbnail to YouTube
- Social media or just tell people about it
What youtube gaming video should I make?
The plan is to make a review video for YouTube. Why a review you ask? It is mainly down to the fact that most of you, like me, don’t get early asses to games early enough to make a first impression or a preview video. So it is safer to stick with a review video.
Don’t worry too much if you want to make other types of videos for YouTube because the processes will be the same.
Research into top youtube gaming videos
I’m going to compare two YouTube gaming reviews, one from IGN and one from Eurogamer. I want to see what are the common parts that make up a good gaming video that would be suited to YouTube.
The goal of part 1 is to answer questions like: how long should my video be? How much should I talk? And what should I talk about?
Part 1: Youtube gaming video analysis
First up is watching a review of Far Cry 6 by IGN. I’m going to have to watch it a few times to try to answer a few questions.
I will be looking for a few things such as how many graphics are used. Things like logos, custom text, Basically anything that is not captured from the game directly.
I also need to see how long is the video? How much narration is there? And how is it edited together? Basically to get a general idea of the flow of the review.
Ign review analysis
Ign review break down and takeaways
I learnt so much from just breaking down the IGN review of Far Cry 6. I have tried my best to put as much as I could into the graphic above. But here are some of the takeaways that I will have to think about going forward with my own YouTube video.
- Music didn’t play a big part in the video until the end, where it was used to wake us up and pay tension to the quick-fire summary.
- There were way more cuts than I thought there was going to be. It’s a little scary, I’m not going to lie. But you don’t see most of the cuts. You feel them. I think this helped keep the energy levels really high for the full 7 and a half minutes. This is going to make editing a lot harder.
- The narrator kept a quick pace, delivering a lot of information. I just don’t know if I could talk that quick without a script. I’m going to need alot of takes.
- The video was spoiler-free, but the video didn’t stress that to the viewer.
- Didn’t show much of the story just the sandbox nature of the game, maybe it was all from the first part of the game.
- Showed an example where possible when talking about something, This means I will need to capture more footage, so I can show the right clip when im talking about it.
Next, I think I will break down a different review. One from Eurogamer, maybe even a game in a different genre. That way my data won’t be ‘Far Cry’ or FPS specific.
The goal is not to copy one of these videos, but to make my own. I am looking at the way they flow and the types of things they have in common.
After all, they are at the top of their game so why should I learn from the best.
Eurogamer review analysis
So for the Eurogamer review, I chose ‘Hitman 3’. I expect it to be very similar to the IGN review.
Eurogamer review break down and takeaways
The Eurogamer review of ‘Hitman 3’ couldn’t have been further away from my expectations after watching the ‘Far Cry 6’ review from IGN. The IGN review felt like an action film compared to this more indie film.
The Eurogamer review lingered longer on the gameplay, this was backed up by it having less cut while being nearly twice as long.
- Slow more natural delivery of speech. With jokes throw-in.
- The video only showed off a few levels, but I felt like I saw a lot of the game, maybe too much.
- Less graphic used.
- Slow introduction. Nearly one minute in until the review started.
- Seamed to jump around with the delivery of information. It wasn’t broken down into many clear sections. (other than the VR segment.)
- No score at the end.
There is a lot of great information I can use to make my own YouTube gaming video. Even at this early stage I know I’m going to need a lot more footage than I thought I would need. And I’m still undecided on the length of the video. Also, the amount of narration is going to take some planning. In the IGN review, the guy was firing information out like a machine gun.
The next step will be to plan out my video, what game am I going to review and how am I going to do it.