I’ve been playing a bit more with making some videos using the PlayStation 4 and its ShareFactory software. As it turns out, today I actually hit the upper limit of how many clips of commentary it’s possible to add to a single project; apparently I need to record narration all in one go, then split it up later if necessary rather than recording in small chunks!
This was today’s project:
Sword Art Online Re:Hollow Fragment is a really good game that I’m enjoying a whole lot, and making a video about it seemed like a good idea, because a lot of people who haven’t taken a chance on it and just started playing it really don’t know anything about it at all. My good friend Chris Caskie, for example, specifically thanked me for showing all the different parts of the game across the course of my six-minute video, since gameplay footage he’d seen in the past had only ever shown a tiny (and, from the sounds of things, boring) excerpt of what’s actually on offer.
I think I’ve found a format I like working in, too: I never felt quite comfortable doing “Let’s Plays” or recording live reactions as if I was streaming a game. At least part of this, I feel, is due to the fact that, as a viewer, I don’t really have much interest in Let’s Plays and streaming, because I’d much rather play a game than watch someone else play it. What I do appreciate, however, is the opportunity to see a game in action, find out a bit about it and perhaps a touch of personal opinion as to whether or not it’s worth exploring. I am also uninclined to spend 20 minutes watching someone go through options menus and whatnot; short and relatively snappy is the key, summarising everything I might want to know about the game without rambling on and on about it for too long.
So that’s the format I’ve adopted in my last couple of videos. I feel it works well; I’ve been pleased with the result (though not so much with the sound quality; I need to 1) adjust the sound levels between the game footage and my commentary recording and 2) invest in or find a pop filter for my headset microphone, which is otherwise proving to be pretty good for this) and I actually find myself going back and watching the videos I’ve recorded again; considering a few years back (prior to the first time I went on a podcast) I absolutely loathed and detested the sound of my own voice and would rather have stuck my head into a woodchipper than listened to myself, this is Progress of sorts, I guess.
I think the fact I’m enjoying making these videos — and that I can do so quite quickly — is important though. I will always be someone who enjoys writing about games first and foremost, and that’s what the magazine project I’m currently working on is all about. For a basic “review” of sorts, however — which is effectively what I’m doing with these videos, or at the very least providing some first impressions after a few hours of play — video seems to be an eminently suitable medium, perhaps even better than dry written words on a page.
Perhaps I’ll even be able to make some money off this sort of thing eventually, though I’m realistic here; my viewing stats have broken three figures on, I think, just one of my videos posted to date, with the others having anywhere between 10 and 70 views. That’s not at a point where it’s worth putting ads on my videos as yet, though that said I haven’t really made a huge effort to try and promote what I’m doing; I’m just putting it out there to see what people think.
If nothing else, it’s something to do on empty, tedious days, and I’m having a whole lot of those at the moment.
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Fantastic! So impressed with your Video – and your voice sounds great on it. Your grasp of and pronunciation of the English language makes a huge difference – it means your dialogue flows smoothly and intelligently without being condescending to those with lesser vocabs. It’s easy to listen to, visually stimulating though a little quick for those who don’t know the RPG genre, and informative in a relaxed way that doesn’t thrust data at your audience. Well bloody done! I wish I could do the same with my site. 😀
It’s actually less difficult to do than you think once you have the basic setup in place. The tricky bit is getting video capture set up in the first place, particularly on PC; I’ve been able to do these ones so quickly because the PlayStation 4 has built-in recording and video editing facilities, which makes the overall task much easier!
By the way the music videos are great! Are you playing all of them? And is this the way your Moegamer site is set up? I think I need to visit it.
Yeah, the footage is all me playing, then edited together to remove boring bits like loading screens or running around doing nothing. (A “Let’s Play”, meanwhile, is an unedited video of someone playing a game, warts and all, and commentating “live” over the top of it; they tend to be a lot longer and much less interesting.)
MoeGamer to date has mostly been long-form articles, but those take a while to put together (largely because I don’t like to write something long-form about a game until I’ve beaten it — and Japanese devs sure love their long games!) I’m going to do more of this going forward, though; it lets me put stuff out more frequently, plus being on YouTube exposes it to an audience outside of the original website, too.
Pop on over to moegamer.net if you want a look at what I’ve been doing previously.
I saw that you had the music on your iPad. What site/app should I download to find those game music pieces? How do you stop the iPad from closing before you are ready to turn the page?
I’ll thank you again! The video was great. So was your Galak-z one. Both sold me on games that I was on the fence about. I’d love to do something like this if I had the time.
Back in my college days, the gamer crew I used to roll with used to love listening to me talk about games they didn’t know about. And I went to grad school with the intent of becoming a professor because I love to teach through the spoken word. I share your aversion to “lets play” style stuff. the idea of a brief, informative video that teaches about a game not only appeals to the lecturer in me, but also manages to get me excited about the potential of video for games media in a way that i hadnt been before.
Yeah, this sort of thing is why I always enjoyed doing podcasts with the Squadron of Shame crew. The downside to that is that it was a pretty considerable time commitment for each one; we’d spend several hours recording, and then I’d usually have to spend pretty much a whole day editing to get rid of mic noise and Skype bullshit.
This kind of thing, meanwhile, I can knock out in the space of a couple of hours, and it comes out pretty well, I think. I also don’t have to rely on other people, which is always nice!
Now if I can just figure out how to capture from Vita/PSTV and PS3 I’ll be all set, I think…