Watch This!
How did watching videos go from this,
to this?
I mean, why are we the vast majority of people turning to TikTok's "For You"
page for video content rather than YouTube for what I would consider a more
"wholesale" video rather than a "Part 5" video in a twenty-two-part series?
Well, it all has to do with our attention and the need to satisfy our attention.
After reviewing the performance found across the internet, I've developed a link
between how you can satisfy your viewers based on the type of content-creator
you are. After analyzing two channels/creators, Game Theory and TheRussianBadger
across social media platforms, I think there's a clear way for creators to mark
their contents upload and length to best grab and retain attention within their
videos.
I’ve watched both channels for years and even though both channels offer vastly different content and market themselves on completely different board games, their careers are greatly similar as they both began within the same time frame, and hold the same values of trying to give the audience and viewers what they want with unwavering quality – they just chose separate paths in achieving that goal. It’s this difference that led me to the conclusion regarding how much content you put out, should influence the length of the content uploaded.
Game Theory is a channel that prides itself on consistent uploads of semi-educational analysis of games and pop culture. Whether it be "Undertale" or the latest "Spider-Man 2" game by Insomniac, Game Theory covers it all. Game Theory was created by Matthew Patrick (MatPat) and it, as well as the adjoined three channels, are currently owned by a company called LunarX. Game Theory "officially" launched in April of 2011, with its sole proprietor being MatPat, and now as of 2024 Game Theory has evolved into four channels: Game, Film, Food, and Style Theory amassing a whopping 40 million followers. What's interesting to note is that the expansion of channels seldom holds this level of success across other channels. More often than not, when a channel makes an additional channel, that channel is typically to upload content not directly related to their main audience, for behind-the-scenes work, in collaboration, or to keep engagement between uploads. Yet, MatPat was able to replicate his success of Game Theory not once, not twice, but three times and each one still standing sturdy on their feet even after his retirement in March of 2024.
So how did he do it? Well, looking besides his own "theory" videos regarding algorithm-matching and the “ideal” YouTube video, there is something integral between all of content creators that Game Theory, MatPat, and all his subsequent channels have figured out – and that’s “watch time”. Watch time can best be described when the audience (on average) being watching a video versus when they click off. The retention rate of a video is the ratio between the length of a video and the watch time of a video. [Video Length: Watch Time] So, if a video is twenty minutes long, and the watch time is fifteen minutes, the retention rate is 75 percent. The average across all of YouTube is anywhere between 40 percent and 65 percent. However, this isn’t exact, as the range of video lengths goes from literal one second clips to twenty-five-day video length. Luckily MatPat himself used this average in his own video when analyzing the success of his own channel. The average time of a Game Theory Video is under or about twenty minutes, with more “important” videos being capped off at twenty-five minutes. These “important” videos are being exempted as they typically are announcements or big news that needs explanation and doesn’t usually involve actual content for the channel, with the rare exception of Five Nights at Freddy’s videos being exceptionally long as it brought the most attention to Game Theory (e.g. MatPat retirement video, announcing LunarX buying the channel.) With this in mind, some of Game Theory’s most popular videos share one thing, besides being FNAF related, and that’s an exceptionally lower video length. Looking at Game Theory’s top ten videos (once again disregarding any “important” videos [important videos are being based on whether or not there was an announcement prior to the videos upload for its arrival]) we see that every video is just beneath the twenty minute mark. This is due to the correlation of Retention Rate, following the ratio and average, if you click on a 20 minute video but only stay around for 65 percent of the video, you’re still staying around for over 10 minutes which is advertisable and capable of drawing your attention deeper. However, if you try to increase this number, lets say 30 minutes, the audience is scared away as to dedicate what appears to be half an hour of their time to this one piece of media. As you scroll down and look through the videos that had an “ok” performance, you see that the times are fluctuating drastically and there’s less correspondence between views and length. It helps that the highest grossing videos were usually covering the same game, but what’s also to note is that MatPat has stated that working with this game so long has given him the time to learn how to present the information as appealing as possible. Meaning the best approach he found for these games relate to his best approach to all content.
This analysis goes deeper as we look to the other aspect being strongly forced onto us, YouTube Shorts. YouTube Shorts was launched September 2020 as a response to the massively growing platforms, TikTok (launched fall of 2015) and Instagram Reels (August 2020.) The goal? Simply, to have a market of short clips that can be uploaded along side a channel as opposed to outsourcing these clips to pre-existing Instagram or linking to a TikTok page. This is where the trouble begins. If you look at the highest viewed and most popular videos on the Game Theory account that the most recent video posted after the introduction of Shorts is forty-third – however if we choose a video not related to pop cultural games like FNAF and Poppy Playtime, (which are bound to get viewed) that number extends to sixty-two as an analysis of the hit COVID-19 game Among Us and PowerWash Simulator at sixty-seven. This is out of 686 videos, so overall good, but when you consider that since Game Theory has sold to LunarX 72 videos have been made and since Shorts was launched 200 videos have been made regarding hit and popular games, you would think that these videos would be more prevalent in the higher performing videos. I mean the videos I excluded were huge announcements regarding FNAF updates and those were still made prior to Shorts, so what gives?
The answer is oversaturation of content – i.e., too much of a good thing. Game Theory uploads weekly videos without fail for over a decade, with teams of editors, theorists, audio crew, and managers they’re a well-oiled wheel. You didn’t have to wait long for new content and had a multitude of content to always dive back into. With the introduction of Shorts this changed, according to an article by Jui Zaveri, psychologist have agreed that consuming large amounts of media (like Tik Tok and Shorts) poses the same interaction as Skinner Experiments with positive-reinforcement. As we scroll through our feed, we’re rewarded with content we want to see. As we engage more with the content we want, that content pops up more, and more, and more, and more. Eventually we become adjusted to just scrolling in hopes of finding videos that rewards our scrolling. Game Theory, being the content-engine it is, also stuck to uploading Shorts on a consistent basis as well, and what you’ll find is, the older Shorts have the highest view count save for a few exceptions. The Shorts uploaded originally related a great deal to the videos that were being uploaded, however these shorts were being seen first on the home page of YouTube. When presented with the two options, a one-minute video covering the same topic as a 20-minute video, the option is obvious, and from this option the 20 minute video loses. If the Short is bad, you have no inspiration to watch the longer video since the topic has lost interest. If the Short is good, then you most likely have fulfilled your question and instinctually scroll down to the next Short rather than clicking back to watch the video.
Going onto our next channel (and honestly much briefer) TheRussianBadger (TRB) is the opposite of everything I just analyzed. Granted he is a much smaller channel (3 million subscribers versus the combined 40 million subscribers of Theory channels), he still is able to make YouTube his sole career and support over the last five years. A quick glance will show the first disproportion between channels in which TRB does not have an upload schedule. He films when he wants, uploads when he can, and does things in-between that we don’t exactly have access to too. Yet looking at his videos they have a consistent view count between 4 – 7 million and his more successful videos breaching the 10 million viewer count. If you look to his most popular videos, you’ll see the inverse of Game Theory. A lot of recent video additions scoring higher than older videos, or at least being a better mix between both subjects. The mark of older and newer videos you ask. Three years ago, May 2021, when TRB launched his TikTok account “shortbadger.” From his TikTok, TRB uploaded clips from behind the scene work he did (the very first TikTok in fact) and snippets from his older videos. It’s also interesting to note that videos that had clips taken from have higher viewership, sadly however I am not able to access if that is post/prior the TikTok. You see the issue that TRB was facing, was that he was a one-man ship running his own editing and creation. He shared his content with his friends (fellow creators) thus his uploads would typically just be another perspective of a gameplay that he and his friends commentated over. As the one doing everything, he added his unique flair to it by adding motion-capture to his videos and recreating scenes and creating new scenes in blender himself. Adding even more time between video uploads. Eventually he hired an editor around summer of 2022, but it still took a significant while to create the motion capture segments and record them as well. The overall problem was no longer and oversaturation of content competing with each other, but a lack of content to retain the attention for future videos. With the addition of his TikTok he was able to add more content, albeit still inconsistent to retain some attention for his main content. By mixing in new content through small snippets and bits (like his PHONK TikTok that went viral) as well as combining older content, audiences get reminders to his main content and are left in anticipation for a large meal, which they will get. Most of TRB videos are well over the 2o-minute mark and the longest non-compilation video is 40 minutes, with the longest video on his channel approaching the two-hour mark. There is a section on his video history where he attempted to upload consistently, these videos performed on average drastically lower (2 – 3 million views) but were uploaded almost every one-to-two weeks. Each thumbnail has the same look and feels bland, the quality of motion capture is severely lacking and overall contains less energy. The product that TRB had created could not be made in a procedural manner of which time was an ally. There was no schedule or abundance of content to access like with Game Theory, and in trying to take this approach the channel suffered greatly. In almost direct correspondence, the lower the video length, the lower the view count.
Now obviously I’m no Youtuber, nor do I plan to be one, however it seems abundantly clear that the manner in which you upload and create you content in any field is important. As an aspiring teacher I know that throwing a bunch of work at students in a short period of time will result in lower quality work, versus giving them more challenging and meaningful work to complete over a period of time will result in higher-quality work. The same principles from these two channels apply here. If I want to give work to my students daily for completion but also want them to retain what they learn, I need to give them smaller work loads with less content. If I want a weekly assignment that work needs to be moderate and hold a little more content. How the students hold and retain their information is no different than how a video and all of social media holds your attention. So, however you watch your videos is the same way you learn best.
I’ve watched both channels for years and even though both channels offer vastly different content and market themselves on completely different board games, their careers are greatly similar as they both began within the same time frame, and hold the same values of trying to give the audience and viewers what they want with unwavering quality – they just chose separate paths in achieving that goal. It’s this difference that led me to the conclusion regarding how much content you put out, should influence the length of the content uploaded.
Game Theory is a channel that prides itself on consistent uploads of semi-educational analysis of games and pop culture. Whether it be "Undertale" or the latest "Spider-Man 2" game by Insomniac, Game Theory covers it all. Game Theory was created by Matthew Patrick (MatPat) and it, as well as the adjoined three channels, are currently owned by a company called LunarX. Game Theory "officially" launched in April of 2011, with its sole proprietor being MatPat, and now as of 2024 Game Theory has evolved into four channels: Game, Film, Food, and Style Theory amassing a whopping 40 million followers. What's interesting to note is that the expansion of channels seldom holds this level of success across other channels. More often than not, when a channel makes an additional channel, that channel is typically to upload content not directly related to their main audience, for behind-the-scenes work, in collaboration, or to keep engagement between uploads. Yet, MatPat was able to replicate his success of Game Theory not once, not twice, but three times and each one still standing sturdy on their feet even after his retirement in March of 2024.
So how did he do it? Well, looking besides his own "theory" videos regarding algorithm-matching and the “ideal” YouTube video, there is something integral between all of content creators that Game Theory, MatPat, and all his subsequent channels have figured out – and that’s “watch time”. Watch time can best be described when the audience (on average) being watching a video versus when they click off. The retention rate of a video is the ratio between the length of a video and the watch time of a video. [Video Length: Watch Time] So, if a video is twenty minutes long, and the watch time is fifteen minutes, the retention rate is 75 percent. The average across all of YouTube is anywhere between 40 percent and 65 percent. However, this isn’t exact, as the range of video lengths goes from literal one second clips to twenty-five-day video length. Luckily MatPat himself used this average in his own video when analyzing the success of his own channel. The average time of a Game Theory Video is under or about twenty minutes, with more “important” videos being capped off at twenty-five minutes. These “important” videos are being exempted as they typically are announcements or big news that needs explanation and doesn’t usually involve actual content for the channel, with the rare exception of Five Nights at Freddy’s videos being exceptionally long as it brought the most attention to Game Theory (e.g. MatPat retirement video, announcing LunarX buying the channel.) With this in mind, some of Game Theory’s most popular videos share one thing, besides being FNAF related, and that’s an exceptionally lower video length. Looking at Game Theory’s top ten videos (once again disregarding any “important” videos [important videos are being based on whether or not there was an announcement prior to the videos upload for its arrival]) we see that every video is just beneath the twenty minute mark. This is due to the correlation of Retention Rate, following the ratio and average, if you click on a 20 minute video but only stay around for 65 percent of the video, you’re still staying around for over 10 minutes which is advertisable and capable of drawing your attention deeper. However, if you try to increase this number, lets say 30 minutes, the audience is scared away as to dedicate what appears to be half an hour of their time to this one piece of media. As you scroll down and look through the videos that had an “ok” performance, you see that the times are fluctuating drastically and there’s less correspondence between views and length. It helps that the highest grossing videos were usually covering the same game, but what’s also to note is that MatPat has stated that working with this game so long has given him the time to learn how to present the information as appealing as possible. Meaning the best approach he found for these games relate to his best approach to all content.
This analysis goes deeper as we look to the other aspect being strongly forced onto us, YouTube Shorts. YouTube Shorts was launched September 2020 as a response to the massively growing platforms, TikTok (launched fall of 2015) and Instagram Reels (August 2020.) The goal? Simply, to have a market of short clips that can be uploaded along side a channel as opposed to outsourcing these clips to pre-existing Instagram or linking to a TikTok page. This is where the trouble begins. If you look at the highest viewed and most popular videos on the Game Theory account that the most recent video posted after the introduction of Shorts is forty-third – however if we choose a video not related to pop cultural games like FNAF and Poppy Playtime, (which are bound to get viewed) that number extends to sixty-two as an analysis of the hit COVID-19 game Among Us and PowerWash Simulator at sixty-seven. This is out of 686 videos, so overall good, but when you consider that since Game Theory has sold to LunarX 72 videos have been made and since Shorts was launched 200 videos have been made regarding hit and popular games, you would think that these videos would be more prevalent in the higher performing videos. I mean the videos I excluded were huge announcements regarding FNAF updates and those were still made prior to Shorts, so what gives?
The answer is oversaturation of content – i.e., too much of a good thing. Game Theory uploads weekly videos without fail for over a decade, with teams of editors, theorists, audio crew, and managers they’re a well-oiled wheel. You didn’t have to wait long for new content and had a multitude of content to always dive back into. With the introduction of Shorts this changed, according to an article by Jui Zaveri, psychologist have agreed that consuming large amounts of media (like Tik Tok and Shorts) poses the same interaction as Skinner Experiments with positive-reinforcement. As we scroll through our feed, we’re rewarded with content we want to see. As we engage more with the content we want, that content pops up more, and more, and more, and more. Eventually we become adjusted to just scrolling in hopes of finding videos that rewards our scrolling. Game Theory, being the content-engine it is, also stuck to uploading Shorts on a consistent basis as well, and what you’ll find is, the older Shorts have the highest view count save for a few exceptions. The Shorts uploaded originally related a great deal to the videos that were being uploaded, however these shorts were being seen first on the home page of YouTube. When presented with the two options, a one-minute video covering the same topic as a 20-minute video, the option is obvious, and from this option the 20 minute video loses. If the Short is bad, you have no inspiration to watch the longer video since the topic has lost interest. If the Short is good, then you most likely have fulfilled your question and instinctually scroll down to the next Short rather than clicking back to watch the video.
Going onto our next channel (and honestly much briefer) TheRussianBadger (TRB) is the opposite of everything I just analyzed. Granted he is a much smaller channel (3 million subscribers versus the combined 40 million subscribers of Theory channels), he still is able to make YouTube his sole career and support over the last five years. A quick glance will show the first disproportion between channels in which TRB does not have an upload schedule. He films when he wants, uploads when he can, and does things in-between that we don’t exactly have access to too. Yet looking at his videos they have a consistent view count between 4 – 7 million and his more successful videos breaching the 10 million viewer count. If you look to his most popular videos, you’ll see the inverse of Game Theory. A lot of recent video additions scoring higher than older videos, or at least being a better mix between both subjects. The mark of older and newer videos you ask. Three years ago, May 2021, when TRB launched his TikTok account “shortbadger.” From his TikTok, TRB uploaded clips from behind the scene work he did (the very first TikTok in fact) and snippets from his older videos. It’s also interesting to note that videos that had clips taken from have higher viewership, sadly however I am not able to access if that is post/prior the TikTok. You see the issue that TRB was facing, was that he was a one-man ship running his own editing and creation. He shared his content with his friends (fellow creators) thus his uploads would typically just be another perspective of a gameplay that he and his friends commentated over. As the one doing everything, he added his unique flair to it by adding motion-capture to his videos and recreating scenes and creating new scenes in blender himself. Adding even more time between video uploads. Eventually he hired an editor around summer of 2022, but it still took a significant while to create the motion capture segments and record them as well. The overall problem was no longer and oversaturation of content competing with each other, but a lack of content to retain the attention for future videos. With the addition of his TikTok he was able to add more content, albeit still inconsistent to retain some attention for his main content. By mixing in new content through small snippets and bits (like his PHONK TikTok that went viral) as well as combining older content, audiences get reminders to his main content and are left in anticipation for a large meal, which they will get. Most of TRB videos are well over the 2o-minute mark and the longest non-compilation video is 40 minutes, with the longest video on his channel approaching the two-hour mark. There is a section on his video history where he attempted to upload consistently, these videos performed on average drastically lower (2 – 3 million views) but were uploaded almost every one-to-two weeks. Each thumbnail has the same look and feels bland, the quality of motion capture is severely lacking and overall contains less energy. The product that TRB had created could not be made in a procedural manner of which time was an ally. There was no schedule or abundance of content to access like with Game Theory, and in trying to take this approach the channel suffered greatly. In almost direct correspondence, the lower the video length, the lower the view count.
Now obviously I’m no Youtuber, nor do I plan to be one, however it seems abundantly clear that the manner in which you upload and create you content in any field is important. As an aspiring teacher I know that throwing a bunch of work at students in a short period of time will result in lower quality work, versus giving them more challenging and meaningful work to complete over a period of time will result in higher-quality work. The same principles from these two channels apply here. If I want to give work to my students daily for completion but also want them to retain what they learn, I need to give them smaller work loads with less content. If I want a weekly assignment that work needs to be moderate and hold a little more content. How the students hold and retain their information is no different than how a video and all of social media holds your attention. So, however you watch your videos is the same way you learn best.
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