A Refocus on Retro Gaming

Hey guys!

So, I’ve been thinking—building an audience on YouTube (or on any platform) is hard. Not exactly newsworthy but still an important fact to keep in mind, whether you’re at 100 followers or a million.

I’ve always prided myself on being a variety gamer who creates variety content on the GamerZakh channel but I failed to understand a fundamental aspect of community building. Day9 recently talked about how to build a community and he set 3 rules:

Be consistent
Learn the technical skills required
Actually make content

Additionally, he insisted that you are simply not allowed to be a variety content creator until you already have a strong community who supports you.

Now, I’m not saying that my channel hasn’t grown over the years but it’s not gaining momentum either. I’m thinking it’s because my attempts to be ‘variety’ might be coming off as ‘unfocussed’. I proceeded to skim through all my videos’ basic stats to see which ones actually got the views and likes. Turns out, besides my ‘Top 10’ lists which do exceedingly well, the rest is all retro content—Age of Empires 1, city-building, Battle Realms, Theme Hospital, Populous, and even abandonware. People have repeatedly asked me to return to older titles and often tell me that they subscribed to me in the first place because of those games. I should start listening to them.

It wasn’t just that—I enjoyed making that content more than exploring the newer stuff, so from now on, I’m going to try and focus a lot more on covering old games. Not just as is though! I also happen to pride myself on taking old gaming experiences and modernising them with mods, HD versions, and refined editing such as Fallout 2’s Restoration Project, Morrowind Overhaul, and Age of Empires 1 in widescreen.

Age of Empires 1 in HD widescreen

Exploring the occasional new game will still be happening through the Gamer Encounters format of first impressions, but aside from that and Top 10 list stuff, it’ll be more retro content from the 90s to early-2000s.

All in all, this refocussing on retro content should actually be what the community wants and newcomers who stumble across my channel will have a clearer idea on what I’m all about.

Perhaps someday in the future I’ll be able to get back to being more of a variety creator in a stronger way?

Either way, thanks for reading and I’ll see you in the next video!