What's the SECRET to Creating Engaging Gameplay Videos?

0:00 I just spent all night filming four gameplay videos for the upcoming Rove anchor point campaign and I had such a good time. But by far the worst part of producing content here on this channel has to be filming gameplay videos. Now it's not only the worst part, it's also in many ways the very best part. After all, I get to hang out with friends. I get to play new games or classics that we all love. And I have a blast when I'm filming gameplay on camera because everyone's paying attention, engaged, invested in not only the mechanics, but also the flavor text and story. But gameplay videos are the most challenging form of content to not only justify but also produce on, I would say, any board game channel. After all, you have the classic conditions we're all aware of.

0:55 You got to know the game. You got to learn it. And oftent times you're playing something new or playing a new version of something old and traditional. You got to sit in front of a few cameras, right? Figure out how to make it as watchable as possible, as fun, entertaining, and accurate. But then then comes the part that is by far the most grueling, and also the most unfulfilling when it comes to actually posting the content you just made. I'm of course talking about the editing, the post-processing once you were done filming like I am a few sessions. You had a blast filming. You had a really good time. It was well worth that time spent. Just like sitting down and learning a board game isn't the most fun aspect of playing, but it certainly is worth the time invested in order to do so. But the editing is another story entirely. There are a lot of different decisions to go through, choices to make when producing and editing and then publishing a gameplay video. And that's what this little quick vlog segment is about. As I clean up the studio a little bit and get ready for West and Dennis to come down next week and theoretically film way too much gameplay content, I wanted to have a conversation with you all, the audience, about what is watchable, what you enjoy, what makes a gameplay video all the better as opposed to is a waste of time, energy, resources

2:27 that you'd rather me spend learning something new, working on how to plays, filming more game plays. I have 10 categories that I want to run through quickly and try to give you context for how these elements go into the actual production process, how much time they might add to the post-p production process of any one gameplay video, and then talk to you about some of the experiences that I've had when it comes to posting, uploading, and seeing, perceiving an audience's response or reaction. I want to know on your end, what makes a gameplay video better, more consumable, and what's the objective for you when you sit down to watch? Are you trying to learn and understand the game?

3:13 Do you want to follow along with every single card? Do you want to just hear a couple of friends hang out, play something ridiculous, and have a good time? That's category number one here, right? Would you rather have a gameplay video that is more fun or more accurate? Now, we could add eight players to the table, but that's definitely going to decrease our ability to safeguard every single rule and rules mistake that might happen. We could play a few game sessions before actually hitting record. We always try to get at least one in when possible so that everyone's up to speed and refreshed recently. But if it's not possible, sometimes we hit record because sitting down and playing is, in our opinion, more important than knowing every single nuance and detail. Mistakes will happen, but it's the good time that tends to matter. Now, I could be wrong on that, so let me know. Would you rather us have a extra glass of whiskey or an extra friend at the table to play, laugh, joke, and spend time just roughousing, or would you rather we film less and produce the stuff that we make a little bit more carefully, tactfully, and potentially with less mistakes overall? Question number two is about the number of cameras that we run here in the studio. Our production studio, which is right now in absolute terror and wreck. I am working on cleaning it up today, has the capacity to sit maybe six to eight people comfortably and run between

4:46 six and eight cameras, some of which are vlog cameras like this or B-roll cameras. And sometimes that's these beautiful overheads with multiple angles or shots on tripods getting the full room, close-ups on the table itself, wide shots on the players, etc., etc. But seven cameras is a lot to put into an editing system. It's a lot to use in a multicam editing track, and so it bogs the whole process down. Would you rather have three really good camera angles or seven angles, a few of which are excellent, a few of which add extra context, and a few of which are just kind of fun. Popping over to the side, running around the studio space, you know, having a blast. That's a big question. The game plays that we just filmed, we opted to not use the vlog camera cuz it adds a decent amount of time to the actual production. We opted to only use four cameras, two overheads, one on us at the table and one zoomed in on the game map we are playing because while boosting up to five or six would be cool is something that we often times do, it also creates a barrier in the post-p production side of things. I can edit four camera angles probably twice as fast as I can edit six or seven. And these vlog segments, this type of stuff I actually have to put in by hand as we go through and cut out and

6:19 cut in the footage. So, they add a lot of time as well. And no matter how many fancy angles, B-roll, music, whatever we add, no matter what, board gameplay videos still get some of the lowest views across the board. There are some games that stand out as a stark contrast to that. Some campaigns that people love, like Kingdom Death Monster, will usually harbor some good views or classics that people love seeing a new experience of, like Routt. But most gameplay videos will perform worse than top 10 lists, how to plays, tutorials, previews, and the like. But they take the longest to make. So deciding between four and six cameras if it's a question of a couple extra hours of production time verse a couple extra dozen views means that we shouldn't add the extra cameras. Means that we should honestly focus on filming a tutorial how to play or a preview instead of taking the time to do the extra well produced gameplay.

7:20 Point number three is something that I just mentioned but it's the vlog shots. It's the camera angles where we grab this off the table and either zoom in and show you details. We talk to the camera and walk around the studio space. It's one of my favorite elements or things that we add to our gameplay content at the moment. But how do you all feel? Have you seen a gameplay video that we've produced recently with these vlog camera segments included? Have you liked the style of content we've been putting out filming on this vlog camera over the last couple weeks? Does it make you feel like you're more a part of the community, more in the room? Let you feel like you're sitting at the table hanging out with a bunch of friends and playing or potentially give you a little bit of a insight into the game and what's happening. So that if you are following along, we can focus in on a card, a detail, or show you the map in a different angle that lets you follow along a little bit better. Now, the vlog camera is one style that we do utilize.

8:22 It's the style that I tend to like the most and have the most fun with. But we did a series called past 2 a.m. about 2 years ago where we leaned into the tabletop style cutaways. Those side share, you know, where you have another camera in another room, you set someone down on a couch and they're talking about the strategy, the game halfway through. They're reacting and responding and adding emphasis like survival, you know, survivor style to the video that you're watching. I found those to be a lot of fun, very engaging, and they added a sense of humor, a pop or a cutaway from the gameplay video that you're watching yourself. But with the size and scale of games we play, they also can be a touch prohibitive. I think they work best with the party style games or family style games that tabletop and many of these other channels tend to cover. So, would you rather us not cover Kingdom Death and cover Katon or Monopoly with strategic dynamic cutaways with strategy and, you know, commentary on the other players sitting around the table? It's certainly fun to do, but it definitely adds a lot of work. not only tracking and trying to understand when and how people should make a statement to the side camera, but then also in post-production editing and putting those storylines together means that I have to know what everyone said when they said it and make sure I fit it into the timeline accurately. Then we come to a style that I did first when I was covering Frost Haven back in the day

9:53 and I've done with Kingdom Death and a few other titles since then, Terraforming Mars being one, and it's strategic, purposeful card overlays. I'll show you kind of what it looks like. But you can go check out some of those videos to see. In essence, I set up a shot, a close shot, something like this, you know, stylized and looking very aesthetically pleasing. And then one after one, I film on a separate video track a shot of every single card or the entire rule book, whatever flavor text, just whatever gives the audience more context for what it is we're filming, what we're doing, so that you can follow along. You can read the rules. You can read the flavor text right alongside of us. You can see the cards we are playing as we play them and therefore be a engaged viewer. I think this looks really good. I think stylistically and production quality wise, it probably adds the most production value when considering the followability or the the the value of learning from a gameplay video. The the value of seeing and tracking and knowing what players are doing um and being an engaged board game viewer, board gameplay viewer. It's good for the people that like to leave comments letting us know where we've misstepped or missed some rules. And that helps us and the community be more accurate as we play. The problem is is if the answer to the first question I asked, the debate between a gameplay video being more focused on personality,

11:25 on fun and uh viewability as opposed to strategic tutorial-based gameplay content. If the answer is you just want us to hang out, have fun, and you're not paying that much attention. You're mostly just listening to us like a podcast that you can check in on every now and then, then the card overlays add almost no production value for you at all, but they double or triple the actual production time on our end. So, that's the first category of decisions I have to make when deciding how to produce a gameplay video. Am I focused more on fun and personality? How many cameras am I adding to the studio in order to make it as viewable, engaging, and followable as possible? Am I doing a vlog style camera where I have something on the table that I can grab, point, and show off? Am I doing cutaways, conversations, strategic overlays, kind of like we have commentary throughout the course of the video to make it more fun, more dynamic, add in those pops of jokes or that behind the scene detail that everyone enjoys when they're watching a reality show like Survivor or Tabletop? And am I doing card close-ups, cutaways to all the flavor text, the details, the information available there on the table, the stuff that viewers who want to follow the game want to be able to see. Once we've determined those elements, we then have to start asking oursel the question, which games are we actually going to cover? Right? if we're doing x number of card overlays or

12:56 cutaways or conversations. And part of that comes down to the time we have, the players we have available, and what we think the gameplay video will do, the audience potential that it has. I mean, Kingdom Death is probably worth a little bit more production time than something like uh Marvel X-Men, for instance, or Marvel Marvel United for instance. But even there, I could be wrong. So, what do you prefer? quick, accessible 60 to 90 minute gameplay videos or giant aggressive behemoths that take three plus hours to play, table, and cover. But we also might be one of the only well produced or only produced gameplay videos there on the internet. Are you going to click on a long video? Are you going to watch, enjoy, and stay engaged with it? or is it going to get less views, less engagement, less watch and retention time, therefore hurting the channel and making it less likely YouTube's going to continue sharing, pushing, and encouraging you to watch the content that we produce that you actually do want to see? Should the size of the game be a big factor when considering whether or not we do gameplay content? Or do we cut a game in half? right? Remove a portion, just make an entertaining segment to allow you all to see how the game functions and flows, but not see the ending. That to me seems unsatisfying, and so I'd lean away from that and lean towards shorter games if that was the decision. Then we have the little elements, and these are three in rapidfire succession. The stuff that

14:29 makes the video a little bit more dynamic and might make it slightly more engaging and viewable. Do we do voice over flavor text or stylized uh audio narration? And yeah, we could just go ahead and grab stuff from Foreller and place it with B-roll into the video, but sometimes we like to do and produce our own. Should we emphasize that and make it a feature or just kind of read it while we play, skip over a few sections, and don't worry about mistakes as we go? Do we add background music? And I know I don't want to overwhelm with background music. Sometimes the audio is a little bit not balanced. it's too high or too low. But I'm talking good, subtle background music that fills the silence and draws viewers into the action happening on the table. And then finally, do we add B-roll? Do we film footage of the landscape? Right?

15:19 Beautiful shots of the miniatures, the models, the terrain, and the art that we can place usually in the earlier sections of the video while we're giving you tutorials, while we're giving an overview, while we're reading flavor text and setting up the narrative we're playing. or do we just leave it on a flat camera, following and watching us, cutting the table here and there. Does B-roll make the video more watchable? So, voice over, music, B-roll, three more decisions we have to make when deciding to film a gameplay. And then finally, once all of this is set in stone and some degree of variability exists, of course, but once we have a sense of what our gameplay video is going to look like and we know the size and scale of the game we're going to approach and try to play, we still have one more decision to make. Are we focused on doing a classic game?

16:09 something that is already well known and beloved in the community, whether that's a Zuul, Everddell, Root, Kingdom Death, one of those that people, a hardcore audience returns to. Are we covering something brand new, a prototype that's never been seen, a game that just arrived? Are we rushing to be the first people out on content as it stumbles its way into our hands? Or in the final option option, are we focused on a campaign? Whether it's a series of short final girl snippets where we have a narrative that we've created tying them all together, a cycle of competitive Rove games, or not rove games, root games, or a campaign game like Rove where we're showing chapter 1, chapter 2, and chapter 3. What type of content?

16:57 What are you most likely to click on, be engaged with, and be excited about? a title you know, a title you're trying to discover, or a story line you're trying to follow. That's the final decision. Those shape whether or not and how we go about producing what is again some of the most fun, but also some of the most difficult content on I would say any board game channel. So, as you answer those questions, I wanted to give you a quick run through of the production timeline we're talking about. What takes a 1-hour gameplay recorded 1-hour gameplay and potentially turns it into a 12 or 13hour production nightmare? If we included all of the stuff I just listed, that's about where we're looking. So, you help me do the math and determine what is worth the time and what either needs to be done way more efficiently or not at all. So, if I filmed a 1-hour video, right, sitting here at the table, that was the entirety of the introduction, tutorial, gameplay, in and out, 60 minutes. The edit is usually two to three times the amount of time recorded in camera. So, 1 hour of filmed footage is going to turn into two or three hours of post-processing and editing. from transferring the cards to syncing everything up for a multi- time edit, watching through and making all those cuts and then exporting on the back end. If I am focused on accuracy

18:28 over fun, I might double the amount of time it takes to actually produce the gameplay video itself. Cuz we all need to review the rule book. We have to go through and double check for rules, mistakes. Midame, we might actually find a stumble that we made that makes us have to reset the entire shoot and start from zero again. We have absolutely done that a number of times or scrapped an entire video in total after a couple hours of filming because well the mistake we made was just so critical there was no way we could justify editing and posting it. So more accurate is probably a little bit longer than more fun. I understand both are important. It's not a zero- sum game. But if we're focused on more fun, well, pour a couple glasses of whiskey, make sure someone knows the game pretty darn well, and then get on with it, right?

19:19 Start playing more cameras. I would say every camera I add above three, possibly four adds about half an hour of additional time per hour of recorded video because I'm again messing with more shots. I'm slowing down how quickly I can actually run the edit. I can't do multicam between seven cameras while on 1.5 speed. So, I have to actually watch it at the pace that it's set. One of the prohibitive features of Kingdom Death is just that. We're talking a 2 or 3 hour gameplay video that I have to watch every second of to cut between the number of cameras, insert B-roll, and make as good as possible. If I'm adding vlogs, I think the vlog segments add anywhere from 30 minutes to 45 minutes to a finished edit. So, a bit of time, but not a horrifically substantial bit of time. I think they add a lot, but who knows? Uh, if I add the cutaways, the strategic commentary, the tabletop style vlog segments or or commentary segments, the reality TV show segments, we're talking maybe 1.5 hours to that final production time. The game length and scale is a big question, but in this case, we're talking about a 60-minute game, which is fairly approachable, right? The bigger the game is, the more complex and harder to manage all of these factors become. If I add card overlays to something like, let's say I was doing card overlays for a gameplay session of Rove here or a gameplay session of Everddale, something with a decent number of cards that need to be

20:49 added in regularly, we're looking at something like 2 hours added to the edit. So, not quite doubling the time of editing in production, post-production, but certainly contributing uh very heavily to it. If I'm adding B-roll, I think we're adding maybe about an hour, right? Possibly 2 hours if I have to set up B-roll separate from the actual filmed gameplay session. If I forgot to grab B-roll when we were filming and I decide I want it later on, then I actually have to reststage, reset up the scenario, the game, get the cards, get everything looking very nice, and film B-roll as a secondary option. So, two hours in that case. If I am uh adding music, flavor text or um adding B-roll, music's like 15 minutes. Not hard to do, but some people just don't enjoy it.

21:37 Flavor text and voice over is probably half an hour up to about an hour depending on how long the flavor text is and how dedicated we get to featuring it or making it as thematic as possible. Something like Foreller is easier to put in, but we require more coverage, more B-roll, more more footage that looks pretty in order to hide us just sitting there listening to the Foreller app. So, there's a pro and a con there as well. And then depending on the type of video that we produce, classic, campaign, or brand new title, we're looking anywhere from 1 to 3 hours of pre-production, refresh, rules, touch-ups, trying to get the game to the table, making sure we know the story that we're being that's being told. The leadup to filming is substantial as well. So, there you have it. The entire roster of questions and decisions we have to factor in when trying to make gameplay content. And I'm looking forward to hearing from the few of you that will make it to this point in the video who are going to take the time to respond and let us know what you enjoy watching and engaging with, what matters to you the most here on the channel, and what you think would be the best for our style of content going forward. We'll of course fine-tune this and figure out more efficient ways to do it and figure out the thing that we enjoy making the most or the thing that at least doesn't bar us from producing stuff on the back end. But it is helpful to pause and reflect on the different options we have and determine which ones make sense and which ones just really

23:07 shouldn't be a consideration at the moment. And finally, I do have one more question or thing to consider for those of you that have made it to the very end of the video. We always have the option of setting up and live streaming gameplay content. We've done that before for some fairly massive titles and had a good time doing so. It allows us to engage with the audience directly. Lets us film with about three cameras using a foot pedal to switch between a overhead shot, front shot, maybe a detail shot for cards. And other than being a bit of a scheduling nightmare and headache, it's definitely brought some fun moments of engagement and opportunity to sit down and play without having to do all the post-production and editing required, but live stuff really should be scheduled. Live stuff is riskier cuz you never know exactly what's going to happen and there's no delay. So, whatever happens on camera happens on camera. And on top of that, live stuff is uh less watchable after it's already complete. Maybe if it's a new game within the first little window or season, but I think it really falls off after that. So, would you rather engage with a well prodduced video that lives a little bit longer on the channel that is worth coming back to and consuming at your own speed? Or are live streams just more fun? Get a chance to comment, correct mistakes as we go, engage with us as we explore?

24:39 Should we do more live gameplay videos? Have that be a little bit more of a feature? I know that's the direction that groups like Dice Tower have seemed to lean in. Lots of decisions, lots of thoughts, [sighs] lots of cleaning and organizing and preparation to do. But for now, at the moment, I think I'm going to film some card overlays, pop upstairs to the four camera recording we did of Rove and begin whittling away at those edits because the campaign goes live next week and I need to be ahead so that I can focus on filming some other things with Dennis and West. Thanks for being here. Thanks for watching. Whatever the case, whatever you do, remember to do the important thing. Get out and play some games. We'll see you later.