On the Road to 1,000 Subscribers as a Creature Collector Youtuber

900 Subscriber Milestone

I just reached the 900 subscriber Milestone and wanted to share how I got here.

It started in 2020 when Teamfight Tactics season 2 came out and I reached Master rank, and I thought I should start creating content. Shortly after, Temtem released as Early Access in January 2020 and I lost interest in TFT and had built almost no viewership at that point.

Temtem

When Temtem came out, I really enjoyed it but it was very early. It was a year later, in 2021 and I was enjoying PvP, that I started creating semi-regular content.

Having had played thousands of hours in-game, I knew the Temtem online community very well. Hanging out in Discord or even seeing players in-game, it seemed like almost everyone knew who I was!

The big boom came in September 2022, when the game fully released, including the Post-Game Island and Console Release.

I had an advantage as an Early Access player. Already being knowledgeable, I was quick to release videos on the endgame Island, Tamer's Paradise. This allowed me to gather in new viewers who shared my passion for creature collectors.

Despite that, I was disappointing by the post-game content, despite those being my best performing videos. By the end of 2022 I had quit Temtem and was in search for new games.

Cassette Beasts

My best work to date has been for Cassette Beasts. When it released in March 2023, I had already dipped from Temtem, so I dove into it head in.

Whilst playing the story, I started with videos on bootleg hunting (shiny hunting) whilst I got to the end-game.

Then, I was able to post a few videos on end-game, post-game content and fusions. During this period, the increase in subscriptions in viewers were positive and consistent.

During this period, I also diversified a bit, such as making small guide videos for other games like Slime Rancher 2. That year, I put a lot of effort into learning how to do create better thumbnails and improve better to bring more viewers in.

As much as I enjoyed Casette Beasts, indie games have a limited potential and I found myself without additional ideas of exciting content for the game.

Hiatuses and Smaller Content

In September 2023, I had a small hiatus because I was moving countries! I even spent 2 months without a gaming PC, so I could not create any content during this period.

The one advantage of Youtube over Twitch is that my subscriptions continued to increase at the same steady place. This is due to some 'evergreen' content that continues to gather views to this days, such as How to Open Doors in Slime Rancher 2 or How to Bootleg Hunt in Cassette Beasts.

Tales of Tanorio (Roblox)

In March 2024 I had one of the biggest peaks when I started live-streaming and creating content for Tales of Tanorio. ToT is a Roblox creature-collecting game for which I knew there was a lot of hype.

It was my first time playing Roblox, and it was definitely rewarding, leading to my most viewed video of all time. As Roblox is also mobile-accessible, I tried to edit some of my content into Youtube Shorts to expand. That said, I don't think I understood how to create good Shorts.

Tales of Tanorio is still in development and the developers had gone lots of back & forth on lots of promises. In fact, for features like PvP that were intended to come out around May or June, continuously got postponed and are not yet released

Although I would like to return with PvP content while it releases, I stopped playing Roblox games for the time being to do things I enjoy more.

Ova Magica

My latest game I've focused in is Ova Magica. During the Steam Next Fest Demo, I recorded over 50 hours of footage and created over 10 videos, with more videos post-launch. I wrote more details about my journey with the game here: How I Became an NPC in my Favourite Game

I learnt the game inside and out and was able to build a gaming wiki for it. However, I still struggle to create valuable content that is appealing.

The Challenge of Covering Indie Games

The challenge I have been facing is that the games that I love the most tend to be the least rewarding. Whilst I love covering indie games, like Ova Magica and Isle of Swap, they have limited reach.

For example, Ova Magica is in Early Access, which means the largest amount of players will come around mid-2025 when it launches on consoles like Nintendo Switch. Thus, although playing early helps me be ahead of the game, I have to wait around 6 more months with limited growth.

Because of that, I need to rethink my channel strategy. I still struggle to find ideas for videos that will reach a large amount of people and help me grow my channel.

The Future: On the Way to 1,000 Subscribers

Once I reach 1,000 subscribers, I'll finally be eligible for monetisation. It's a lot of hard work and I'm enjoying the journey and continuously learning.

I'll continue to play Indie Games, but need to be better at selecting what games to play and what videos to create for them.

This weekend I brainstormed few ideas and started working on a video review for Beastieball -- another early access indie game. Hopefully I'll continue to think of new ideas and achieve my goal by early 2025.