Friday, October 16, 2009

10/16/09

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here!

For today's entry, I'll be doing a special update to celebrate my now-completed LP of The Simpsons: Hit and Run, an LP I've been doing for the last month and a half, but a project that has always had a special place on my channel. I had a good time working on this project, but now it is time to see it go. This may be far from the end of my channel, but this was definitely the end of a very influential project.

Back in 2007, I decided I was going to do a Hit and Run walkthrough shortly after completing my first walkthrough, which was Kirby Super Star for the SNES. It was a game that I really enjoyed from the moment I bought it, and felt that the game was definitely a sleeper hit (a game that is given high marks, but is overlooked by other major titles that are released during the same time) of 2003. Because of this, I wanted to share my enjoyment of this game with the Youtube public, and since the Simpsons movie was due to come out around the same time, it felt like a good idea and try to push the project based on that.

After finishing the project (since I didn't feel like having an update schedule back then), I started to notice that my videos were periodically getting a high number of views. After only a few months, the first video soared to 10,000, 20,000 and eventually, 30,000 views. Of course I don't think the reason was due to my walkthough, but rather the Simpsons name being attached to it. It did feel nice getting noticed, even though it didn't really bring a big # of subscribers with it.

The game quickly became the most viewed project on my Youtube channel, for pretty obvious reasons. As time went on though, and as my video quality improved, the major focus of my channel shifted over to better quality video projects, Mario Party videos, and other Let's Plays. Videos of my old project still managed to stick around on the most viewed list regardless of that, which was still a pretty imprssive feat. The first video, "Episode 1: The Simpsons Go GTA!" remained the most viewed video on my channel until it was surpassed during the Summer of 2009 by the first Mario Party 3 video, and #2 until recently when it was surpassed by the first video of the new project, but before its deletion.

The decision to redo the project occurred in Early 2009, but I was unsure if I wanted to do the game right away, or if a redo was even necessary. I decided that the redo was going to officially happen, along with the other old walkthroughs on my channel, after the deletion of the classic versions of Mario Party 1 and 2. However, if you were subscribed to me back then, you would know that I was definitely a fan of postponing the project longer than intended, due to the fear of copyright claims and putting my channel at risk.

I finally decided, in August, that the project would come into fruition, and decided I would upload the first video on the first day of September. I was worried about my standing in college, but after looking over my schedule and class load, and scheduling recording sessions, the wheels were finally put into motion.

My idea of a schedule was basically to record every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night. On all of these days, I didn't have to wake up early the next morning for classes, and could pretty much stay up as long as I wanted, assuming that I could get my work done. These made perfect openings for recording, and I would only be getting 2 or 3 videos ahead of myself. Also, Friday night recordings would mean less things to worry about during the weekend. =)

I think the new project went very well with my viewers. If I had to make a rough estimate, I gained approximately 1,500+ subscribers during the course of this project, which is actually quite amazing since it took me almost 2 years just to get that many originally. Videos from the project are already approaching the top of the Most Viewed charts, and my Youtube Insight graphs have never been this high. Clearly it was due to Hit and Run, and only Hit and Run, that this data was able to come into view. Either way, the main point of this is I am really glad you guys enjoyed this project, because I had a fun time making it.

Downsides? Well, besides a few glitches, and recording software glitches and oopsies, I'd say the project definitely had more ups than downs. There were a few episodes where I felt the commentary could have better, and the audio levels may have been a bit inconsistent and not as balanced, but many LPers struggle with those problems. I felt the viewer polls went pretty well, although the numbers for a few of them were insane, and as I said near the end, the last viewer poll crashed Microsoft Word when I tried to copy and paste the comments. I really did enjoy getting the viewers involved in the project, even though I found that the majority of my viewers like to see a grown mid-30-year-old in his underwear.

So yeah, this was a fun project to work with and Im glad I decided to it. Not only was it a tribute to a great game, but it was also a tribute to my old Youtube days as well. =)

- SlimKirby

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