Tag: video-games

How to be successful on YouTube: Grab your audience’s attention when they press play

 The beginning of a YouTube video is probably the most important part of your content. When you look at the analytics, it is clear that the beginning is where the drop off in viewership occurs; you need to pay attention to your hooks so that people stay throughout the entire video.

In the beginning of the platform, YouTube was emphasizing growth in the company. The view count was what mattered and that was the order of the day. However, when we get to the early 2010s, YouTube’s management began to change the rules.

Watch Time is the new baseline here.

This has been the main way for creators and filmmakers to get popular on YouTube.

You want the drop off in the beginning of the video to be quite small. What you want is people watching the video throughout the entire time so that they basically do not change the video to go to the recommended list on their apps.

The most ideal situation here is that they watch the entire video to its conclusion, and after the ad if they are not premium, get a list of your videos on autoplay or similar video from another YouTuber.

How to keep your audience’s attention:

Get the hook.

My advice is this here:

Get your audience’s attention just as you would writing a book or even making a video game.

Make sure that the audience knows what the video is about from the beginning. Do not just focus on endless elaboration.

Sometimes your hook can be something flashy or sometimes it can be something that provokes thinking in your audience. 

What is important to grab their attention. This is even more important with YouTube Shorts. You need to deal with a generation of kids who are not as interested in long-form videos. Getting that attention early not only helps viewership but creates trust among viewers. They keep coming back again and again.

Overoptimization can cause some creators to have burnout. Just be yourself and have passion for your projects. This way, you will have success and grow your channels.

Battlefield 2042 Breakaway Map: Adventure and War in the Antarctic

Battlefield 2042 has some truly interesting maps to play on. One of those maps is Breakaway, which is a map that takes place in Antarctica. I have always enjoyed playing on snowy and arctic maps since the Delta Force games.

There is something unique about snowy maps. The color in it is particularly amazing to see in these modern games. The full textures and the shapes can be full revealed in these engines.

This is a map that reminds heavily of Battlefield 2142 with its heavy emphasis on snow in the European theatre. Battlefield 2142 in many ways had some of my favorite maps in the Battlefield series. It’s bold willingness to embrace its setting in its map design gave it a unique style which I cannot see in the newer games.

One of the main issues with Battlefield 6 when I was playing the beta was that too many of the maps looked similar to each other. One of the reasons why Liberation Peak was on top for me was because it was able to combine a small town, hilltop fortifications and lots of mountainous terrain. Empire State was too interior oriented for me to enjoy. Siege of Cairo is better as it is more exotic being an Egyptian setting and I think that it seems better designed than what we see with Empire State.

That is why when Battlefield 6 comes out, I am sure to enjoy Liberation Peak as my favorite map. It is big enough and has some of my favorite geographical features of mountains and snowy peaks. That is what makes it so beautiful and enjoyable to play.

There are still some maps out there that have not been released but I believe that they will play to their own strengths.

Empire Earth and the importance of aesthetics in video games

The future ages in Empire Earth are my favorite parts of the game. All parts of the game, excluding the Modern Age receive my attention.

Take a look at the screenshot here. It showcases the Nano Age cities with its smooth lines and high-tech architecture.

In the screenshot above is bit more intimate than the other screenshot. It shows multiple Guardian soldiers standing in military formations near the sea. The Guardian soldier is the apex of soldiers in Empire Earth. In the Nano Age, they look more like astronauts with guns than soldiers we recognize.

The AA guns are also another great part of the game.

They are intimidating and look like air guardians waiting to smash any enemy airplanes that approach.

The towers of the Nano Age stand gleaming white alongside the snow and the sea.

This is why Empire Earth still stands among one of the best video games in history. The presentation of the game is awesome.

This is what video games need now. They need an aesthetic vision to help distinguish themselves. Genre orthodoxy is getting in the way and people to embrace some more creativity.

That is the only way that the video game industry can regain some strength. It will take time of course, but breaking out of genre conventions and having some unique vision that goes beyond graphics is what games need in this age.