The Future of VGA Chronicles: YouTube Concerns

There has been some news of YouTube changing some of its privileges for smaller channels, namely the ability to monetize and upload custom thumbnails. Unless a channel has 1000 or more subs, and 4000 hours of watch time in a year, these privileges will be revoked from a channel, effective by next month.

So what does all of this mean for VGA Chronicles? Well, nothing and everything. I don't monetize my videos and I never intended to. I do this as a side project and an opportunity to hone several skills, such as my comedy, video editing, and social skills. The ability to rake in ad revenue was never something I intended to take advantage of, as I myself hate ads and would rather them not be on my own videos. However, I enjoy making my own custom thumbnails. It's art to me and also a way to brand the video. Losing this is enough to spark some changes.

As of now, I have somewhere around 150 finished videos that have never been uploaded to my channel. The bulk of them are stream-related (full streams as well as segments of streams) whereas a fair fraction of them are original, unreleased, classic-style VGA Chronicles videos. Why are these videos not released? Like I said, VGA Chronicles is a side project for me. I can't be bothered with it 24/7, as it doesn't pay the bills and it is largely just an experiment. I love it, though, and I intend to do it forever, if possible. But even if I released a video a day, I wouldn't gain anything from it but exhaustion from putting time into a hobby that is supposed to be fun. Because of this, I decided to reserve my content rather than put it all out instantly. That way, I would be able to build a surplus of content to upload when I was running short.

Now, the issue with all of that is I never foresaw myself switching over to mainly recording live streams. The streams produce more than enough content for my channel. I know they aren't of the classical nature of my older videos, but lately I'm finding less motivation to do classic VGA videos and more excitement to do the streams, probably due to the added social factor. With that being said, I think it might be time to mass-upload all of these classic VGA videos while I still have the custom thumbnail option. Because at the end of the day, none of this holding back matters. I'm not gaining or losing followers from uploading too much or uploading too little. And even if I did, I'm not going to see any money from it, as I have under 100 subs on YouTube and I'm still not interested in enabling ads. If I ever open VGA into the concept of money, it'll be through dedicated fans who are willing to donate to the project. And even then, I don't feel like the project is at that stage yet.

But what is all of this building up to? Well, a few things. For one, YouTube will no longer be my primary platform for video uploads, as I'll be switching to Twitch. But if you're worried about me leaving YouTube, don't. I'll still be on and upload to YouTube. I just won't care about the platform as much, as it is changing into something I don't like and want to get away from. Also, just as I like to support indie games on Twitter, I will be supporting the smaller channels instead of the big ones.

Another change this brings about are the streams themselves. I already stream to Twitch to begin with, but until my saltiness about YouTube wears off, the Super VGA Chronicles Show will temporarily be dubbed "YouTube Is Trash" and include a special segment where my co-hosts and I all trash YouTube. Actually, it may not even be a segment. We may just casually mention it throughout the stream as a meme.

Lastly, going back to the unpublished classic videos, another reason that I would rather publish all of these right now is that the thumbnails on those videos have been created already, whereas I am still working on the streams. The classic videos are works of improv in the early days of this project. If the streams can't have thumbnails, fine. I won't like it. I won't agree with it ever. But at least I can get the classics up and branded. And, if YouTube takes all of my thumbnails away that are already in place, well, the "YouTube Is Trash" series will never end.

Thank you for taking the time to read the future of VGA Chronicles. Whoever you are, I hope to play more games and make you laugh in the near future.