September 7, 2016

How To Become A YouTube Gamer

how to become a youtube gamer

How to become a YouTube gamer

Here at Grin, we cover a lot of topics related to YouTube, including gaming YouTubers. In this article, we’ll help you learn how to become a YouTube gamer, but before we do, let’s talk about what a YouTube gamer is.

What’s a YouTube gamer, exactly?

Gaming is a diverse medium with all kinds of different ways to play- therefore, gaming YouTube is a diverse group of creators making content in different ways. The way you may want to make gaming content, or what you want to make it on, can be massively different compared to another YouTuber. In this article, we’ll be discussing the different ways you can create gaming content on YouTube, as well as how to improve while you’re doing it. Let’s begin properly.

The Steps

Step 1: Choose Your Area

If you want to know how to become a YouTube gamer, you first need to choose what games you’ll be playing. Many prefer variety/indie, but some may choose to focus on games of a particular series/from a particular developer/of a particular genre. For instance, many big gaming YouTubers focus almost solely on one game (i.e. TF2 YouTubers play mostly TF2), with occasional videos from other games on the channel as well. Once you choose what game(s) you want to make videos on, it’s time for you to decide what kind of gaming channel you’ll have.
  • Tutorial Channels. These channels create tutorials on game mechanics, or improving at a game. This category crosses over often with the others, but overall the goal of channels like these are to help their viewers get better at the game than they already are. This kind of channel is particularly popular within a game’s community, especially online multiplayer titles like Valve’s Big 3, FPSes or MOBAs.
  • Informational/Trivia Channels. These channels will make videos on gaming trivia. This trivia can be about either the games themselves or their development, and oftentimes this kind of content can creep onto other channels, too. In the gaming circle, Did You Know Gaming is popular for this: not only because of the gaming trivia, but because of how it uses people from all over the YouTube gaming scene for its videos.
  • Commentary Channels. Commentary channels typically take gameplay footage (with some editing) alongside the player’s commentary. This commentary can crossover with tutorial/comedy categories and usually talks about the game being played, but YouTubers telling personal stories instead is also popular.
  • In-Game Comedy Channels. These manifest as funny highlight clips and often crosses over with commentaries. These creators create skits within a game/tool’s constraints, and it’s extremely common for open-ended titles like Garry’s Mod, GTA and TF2 to have videos like these made for their respective games.
  • Show Channels. Show channels focus on a personality and have episodes with common themes. There’s some crossover with other genres here, but what matters is that these channels have one or multiple series. Good examples include Super Bunnyhop, with his series of journalistic gaming videos, and Angry Video Game Nerd, who basically founded this genre.

Step 2: Start Building Your Channel

Once you know for sure what you want to do (it’s also okay to experiment in early days of your channel), it’s time to start building your channel. This means getting good-looking channel art and a profile picture. If possible, you may also want to create/commission video intros/outros, logos and other designs. It’s time to start actually making videos. It’s important to start building a backlog of content before you start monetizing or looking into a network. Creating content also means that you’ll be getting viewers, who can tell you what’s good, what’s not and what you can change.

Step 3: Take Appropriate Feedback

Learning how to become a YouTube gamer also means learning how to handle feedback. To grow as a creator, you need to be able to learn from your mistakes, so listen to the criticism that your videos receive and work earnestly to improve them. Getting advice from more experienced gaming YouTubers can also help you in this situation.

Step 4: Look Into Networks Or Learn How To Be Indie

Once you’ve gotten the hang of making your content and you’ve found the “voice” of your channel, it’s time to start making some money. Get partner status if you didn’t have it already and either enable monetization on your own or start looking into an MCN (YouTube Network). If you’re going to take the path of independence, however, it’s important that you know the rules of Fair Use and Copyright inside and out. For more on YouTube networks, read our article.

Step 5: Do Some Research

Once you’re monetized and making content, do research. Look into SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and how to make your videos/your channel more attractive to Google/YouTube searches. Keep in touch with the latest releases in gaming and how they might pertain to your channel, and of course research ways to improve your videos as a whole.

Step 6: Work With Other Gaming YouTubers

Last but certainly not least, be sure to work with other gaming YouTubers. Now that you’ve learned how to become a YouTube gamer, you’re a part of a massive community that’s much bigger than you are. Because of that, you need to reach out to other creators to learn from them, get shoutouts and perform collaborations. Rising to the top on your own is nigh impossible, but catching the attention of other creators with your content and working with them on even greater content is a surefire way to grow your audience and your channel as a whole.

How Grin Can Help You

Finally, let’s talk about how we here at Grin can help you. We’re named after our app, and our app can be used to find other creators like you, who are also looking to collaborate and grow their channels. In addition to our app, we also offer our Grin Platform, where you can pay directly for things like shoutouts, channel art, intros/outros, collaborations and more. Of course, you don’t have to go through all of that to benefit from us. We want to help YouTubers grow, and we want you to learn how to become a YouTube gamer, too. For more on YouTube, gaming on YouTube and related topics, stay tuned to our blog!