How Did You Know Gaming has been able to survive the horrors of YouTube for the better part of an entire decade
Since its inception, just over a decade ago in existence, the YouTube’s channel Did You Know Gaming has provided easily-accessible video games and trivia to millions of viewers around the globe. It’s also launching the launch of a new board game called Do You Have a Feeling for Gaming?, now nearing its launch and the enduring YouTube brand will explain how important it is that creators break free of the restrictive Google platform to return to the real world.
It was initially an Tumblr website back in 2012 Did you Know Gaming was sparked by the increasing number of Facebook pages that were posting information for fans to read online. The site was founded by Shane Gill, the website quickly gained a following of thousands and a plethora of the knowledge of traditional games such as Super Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Pokemon (of course) and much more. In the following days, Gill met VG Facts co-creator and VG Resource owner Daniel ‘Dazz’ Brown who helped the company grow into the giant of video games that it has become currently.
“I joined the team in order to develop something that could collect trivia from the internet,” Dazz told us. “It was early in the development of information about video games and I wanted to think of ways for it to be able so that we could create a fully-fledged program that contained information that people did not necessarily have.”
Dazz joined forces with Greg Seago-Curl, an experienced video editor. The pair quickly started making video comprising minutes of less-known information. Dazz’s first video that is still available which was made available on 13 June 2012, an assortment of Pokemon information, has enlightened 450,000 viewers about the deleted Professor Oak battle in Pokemon Red and Blue and in addition to the fact that there were 190 specially designed characters from the original game and much more.
Since its beginning, Did You Know Gaming has formed partnerships with several creators of content. Some stem through the association with YouTube gaming giant Normal Boots. Game Grumps’ Arin ‘Egoraptor’ Hanson voices videos on subjects like Kirby or Mario famous Zelda fan Austin “PeanutButterGamer” Hargrave narrates his channel’s Zelda scripts.
Did You Know Gaming has turned into the go-to channel to for information about video games However, delivering information to its two and a half million viewers has become more difficult because of YouTube’s feature creep as well as constant changes to the algorithm. Although it’s never been straightforward, the company has had its share of peaks and valleys as it tries to adjust to changing conditions and riding on its constant success.
When YouTube altered its algorithm to reflect a preference for watching times, it began to create lengthy compilations of data using new YouTube-friendly titles like “2 hour of GameCube facts for you to sleep to” in the 2nd DYKG Channel called Clips. As YouTube adopted TikTok’s style of short-form vertical video, Did you know Gaming’s standard-length videos were removed from the algorithm, though they’re exactly the size YouTube was used to prefer.
“You’ll discover channels that have millions of followers and the only content they release is shorts. However, the level of engagement for the long-form content they put out is nonsensical,” Greg explained. “Shorts aren’t the only way to create followings. It wasn’t for us. particularly conducive.”
“I’ve had conversations with many others who’ve attempted to make short videos,” Dazz followed up. “The initial month the first shorts were released, they thought”Oh my god, I’m receiving millions of views. Before that, I got a few hundred thousand… it’s amazing. Then they’ll release an online video, but it’s not a single, but the video will fail, and be more difficult to fail because, in comparison it failed and won’t get promoted.”
Did You Know Gaming has been battling the ravages from YouTube’s rapid adjustments for more than 10 years now, in addition to the frequent “Adpodcalypses” which slowed down YouTube’s entire revenue. That’s why, numerous times, the channel moved away from YouTube. In addition, the company maintain a strong presence on different websites, the group has made numerous attempts to connect with the world of physical.
Region Locked was a crowdfunded book inspired by the video game series bearing the same title it was the initial Did You Know Gaming product to be released physically. A comprehensive guide to games that have never left their countries of origin, the Region Locked book was fully composed by the time that the team moved the crowdfunding campaign to Unbound however, problems with publishing caused delay by 3 years.
