31-08-2018, 03:42 AM
(This post was last modified: 31-08-2018, 03:58 AM by MoloMowChow.)
Every now and then I think about ways to perhaps expand our scope to bring in more interest, outside of just straight up advertising our web url every time we mention content. Most of what I think about end up being terrible ideas, but I thought I'd share my thoughts on a potential one.
Please note that what I'm presenting here is just an idea. I am in no way saying that this is how things should exactly work or that this is what we should do. Discussion is encouraged to flesh out this idea or point out flaws in this way thinking. It's likely nothing may come out of this, but I think discussions like this can be interesting anyways.
Currently, our only archives of Spriteclub matches are short Twitch clip highlights, and the full 24/7 stream archives on Twitch, which presumably get deleted after a certain amount of time to be replaced.
As someone who can't be on Twitch often, I often end up missing certain matches, tourneys or debuts that I'd otherwise been interested in. If I wish to catch up to matches I missed, I essentially have to hunt the fully recorded Twitch archives and compare the matches to the match times displayed on the Spriteclub website match database, painstakingly hunting for the right time code on stream recordings that can be as long as 40+ hours. It can be tedious.
I think that, if Spriteclub was made a bit more convenient for people interested in watching MUGEN matches but maybe don't have enough time to catch every stream, a different way of archiving might serve a way to bring more viewers in. For people who are fans of Vinesauce, such as Vinny or Joel, you'll know that they have Youtube channels where they upload their full Twitch streams there for people to watch outside of twitch. However, simply uploading the full streams isn't a viable option for us since the Spriteclub stream runs 24/7, and that wouldn't make it much different than looking at the full twitch streams anyways for seeking certain matches.
So what can we do? Well, Vinesauce streamers also have Youtube channels that upload videos of only certain highlights from their full streams, similar to the way Twitch Clips work, but more fleshed out. I think that sort of channel would be more viable for Spriteclub. It might be possible to upload certain, specific Spriteclub content to a Youtube channel in order to provide an alternate way to showcase what Spriteclub is all about, outside of the whole "betting" meta.
But I must stress that I'm not suggesting that Spriteclub should transition into a Youtube environment or anything like that, and that's not what I would want. I just think Youtube can be a secondary tool to archive some of our content, but it should by no means become a full blown alternative to our Twitch streams.
The Pros of this is that we have an alternate avenue of presenting Spriteclub outside of just telling them to visit our stream, or comparing ourselves to other MUGEN streams. It also provides an alternate way for people to watch Spriteclub content outside of being there daily for Twitch streams and hoping for an interesting match, or searching through the full archive.
But an obvious Global Con of this idea however, is that maintaining an external Youtube channel would be a lot of work, requiring extra effort alongside maintaining the Twitch stream itself. Even Vinesauce Vinny/Joel have someone else edit and upload their content to the Youtube channel for them, rather than do it themselves. You'd need video editing software, and the raw stream file to work with. This single con itself is enough to invalidate this entire idea that I'm presenting, which is why I'm mentioning it here first before going any further with this idea.
The other obvious Global Con is that each match on the stream has a 30 second delay that stalls the match allowing people to bet. Obviously, this 30 second delay wouldn't be relevant to Youtube viewers, and as such would serve to waste time. The idea of having someone editing out every 30 second delay is so painfully tedious that the only other option would be to somehow automate the process.
Ultimately, no matter what, someone would need to put the time and effort to manage a Youtube channel in the first place. So all of this would be moot if no one is willing/has the time to maintain it in the first place
However, if we can put aside the big obvious Cons for now, I'd like at least present some ways an external Spriteclub Youtube channel could be managed, just to toy with the idea. It might not need to take away too much attention from the stream if we could carefully select only certain stuff to upload to the Youtube channel.
As for what kind of specific content to upload to a external Spriteclub channel, I think we can already exclude all normal matchmaking matches that happens between tourneys, as those can be considered filler most of the time. Once in a blue moon something amazing might happen and someone catches it, then we could probably cherry pick that one out of the archive, but otherwise, Twitch clips tend to cover that well enough.
So here are some suggestions on what to upload, and how to upload them. It's probably not viable to choose more than one of these for a side Youtube channel, so it'd be best to consider them each on an individual level, rather than altogether:
1. Debuts
Currently, our debuts are probably the most popular part of Spriteclub. It consistently pulls in the most viewers, in addition to how a lot of Spiriteclub regulars are content creators themselves that host their content during debuts. So uploading archives of Debuts seems like an obvious choice. But I also think we shouldn't just upload the full uninterrupted debuts either, since who gets chosen for the next debut match is all RNG.
Personally, if think that if we were to upload Debuts to a Youtube channel, I think it'd be more organized to upload Debut videos based on the Debut character. This means compiling the 10 Debut matches for that character, editing them into one video, and upload them to Youtube. This way, people will be able to at a glance see how many, and which, characters were featured in that week's Debut, and be able to watch only that character's debut if they interested. This preserves debuts and allows people to catch what they've missed, expecially for matches that occur during people's sleep time.
The problem is, of course, that this method would require a lot of time to edit and compile all the debuts matches by character from the recording. And since the Debuts are the one thing most people tune into the Spriteclub stream for anyways, you can argue that this is too much effort for a bi-weekly event that a majority of it is watched anyways during a weekend. The only reason than would be for archiving purposes and to give a summary of what is new in this Debut.
We could just make it one Debut video of one match for each new Debut character, providing a quick previews/summary and a list of all the new characters introduced. That'd be less work, but it'd still require time and effort to edit together.
2. Tourneys
Tourneys can be a mixed bag. It's something that happens just as often as normal matchmaking, but with the same reoccurring characters. It's probably not viable to upload every tourney that happens, but perhaps it's possible to cherry pick certain tourneys that happen, perhaps just one specific tourney daily/weekly, or maybe we can utilize the Community Tourney idea that we've done before and only upload those.
You wouldn't need to splice and compile individual characters like the Debut idea (but once again those 30 second delays are the elephant in the room) and since it features reoccurring characters and it can be more structured viewing/archive.
3. Just certain matches (Highlights)
This is probably the only realistic option for a side Youtube channel without taking too much time away from maintaining the stream itself. Just cherry pic certain matches that end up being very interesting to the Spriteclub community. It can be from random matchmaking, a tourney, debut or even from an exhibition. Just one standout match that happened to be interesting for the stream. Sort of like an extended version of Twitch Clips.
With minimal editing effort, you can sort of bring bigger attention to stream highlights, give a better idea of what to expect from the Spriteclub stream without making them straight up visiting the Stream and then wondering what this is all about. Instead, they can be shown small clips of interesting MUGEN matches that may be funny, or cool to watch. They can then maybe decide themselves to visit the Stream on their own.
4. Custom Videos
Sort of like what we have with exhibitions, but specifically for Youtube. Just make some custom video content for the Youtube channel using the large database of characters we have stored already. Wouldn't have to edit out any 30 second delays (if we exclude them from the start) and we could directly showcase what we want instead of trying to splice and upload from the existing stream archive.
The con is that, someone would still have to take the time to make these videos, and that would still require a bit of time alongside maintaining the stream itself.
And at this point, it'd be no different than being a normal MUGEN Youtube channel. This concept was supposed to be about Spriteclub matches/archiving.
5. Community Events
If we ever have some super special community event, we could just upload those for prosperity.
I'll stop here and leave it at that. Once again, I stress that this is only a post where I regurgitate what I've been thinking about in an attempt to spark a discussion. I'm not trying to force this to be a thing or anything like that, and I'm not trying to say we have to do something like this. I'm just interested in what other people think about this in regards to things we could add to Spriteclub.
tl;dr I think a small side Youtube channel for uploading certain content/archives from Spriteclub could be a useful tool for our community
Please note that what I'm presenting here is just an idea. I am in no way saying that this is how things should exactly work or that this is what we should do. Discussion is encouraged to flesh out this idea or point out flaws in this way thinking. It's likely nothing may come out of this, but I think discussions like this can be interesting anyways.
Currently, our only archives of Spriteclub matches are short Twitch clip highlights, and the full 24/7 stream archives on Twitch, which presumably get deleted after a certain amount of time to be replaced.
As someone who can't be on Twitch often, I often end up missing certain matches, tourneys or debuts that I'd otherwise been interested in. If I wish to catch up to matches I missed, I essentially have to hunt the fully recorded Twitch archives and compare the matches to the match times displayed on the Spriteclub website match database, painstakingly hunting for the right time code on stream recordings that can be as long as 40+ hours. It can be tedious.
I think that, if Spriteclub was made a bit more convenient for people interested in watching MUGEN matches but maybe don't have enough time to catch every stream, a different way of archiving might serve a way to bring more viewers in. For people who are fans of Vinesauce, such as Vinny or Joel, you'll know that they have Youtube channels where they upload their full Twitch streams there for people to watch outside of twitch. However, simply uploading the full streams isn't a viable option for us since the Spriteclub stream runs 24/7, and that wouldn't make it much different than looking at the full twitch streams anyways for seeking certain matches.
So what can we do? Well, Vinesauce streamers also have Youtube channels that upload videos of only certain highlights from their full streams, similar to the way Twitch Clips work, but more fleshed out. I think that sort of channel would be more viable for Spriteclub. It might be possible to upload certain, specific Spriteclub content to a Youtube channel in order to provide an alternate way to showcase what Spriteclub is all about, outside of the whole "betting" meta.
But I must stress that I'm not suggesting that Spriteclub should transition into a Youtube environment or anything like that, and that's not what I would want. I just think Youtube can be a secondary tool to archive some of our content, but it should by no means become a full blown alternative to our Twitch streams.
The Pros of this is that we have an alternate avenue of presenting Spriteclub outside of just telling them to visit our stream, or comparing ourselves to other MUGEN streams. It also provides an alternate way for people to watch Spriteclub content outside of being there daily for Twitch streams and hoping for an interesting match, or searching through the full archive.
But an obvious Global Con of this idea however, is that maintaining an external Youtube channel would be a lot of work, requiring extra effort alongside maintaining the Twitch stream itself. Even Vinesauce Vinny/Joel have someone else edit and upload their content to the Youtube channel for them, rather than do it themselves. You'd need video editing software, and the raw stream file to work with. This single con itself is enough to invalidate this entire idea that I'm presenting, which is why I'm mentioning it here first before going any further with this idea.
The other obvious Global Con is that each match on the stream has a 30 second delay that stalls the match allowing people to bet. Obviously, this 30 second delay wouldn't be relevant to Youtube viewers, and as such would serve to waste time. The idea of having someone editing out every 30 second delay is so painfully tedious that the only other option would be to somehow automate the process.
Ultimately, no matter what, someone would need to put the time and effort to manage a Youtube channel in the first place. So all of this would be moot if no one is willing/has the time to maintain it in the first place
However, if we can put aside the big obvious Cons for now, I'd like at least present some ways an external Spriteclub Youtube channel could be managed, just to toy with the idea. It might not need to take away too much attention from the stream if we could carefully select only certain stuff to upload to the Youtube channel.
As for what kind of specific content to upload to a external Spriteclub channel, I think we can already exclude all normal matchmaking matches that happens between tourneys, as those can be considered filler most of the time. Once in a blue moon something amazing might happen and someone catches it, then we could probably cherry pick that one out of the archive, but otherwise, Twitch clips tend to cover that well enough.
So here are some suggestions on what to upload, and how to upload them. It's probably not viable to choose more than one of these for a side Youtube channel, so it'd be best to consider them each on an individual level, rather than altogether:
1. Debuts
Currently, our debuts are probably the most popular part of Spriteclub. It consistently pulls in the most viewers, in addition to how a lot of Spiriteclub regulars are content creators themselves that host their content during debuts. So uploading archives of Debuts seems like an obvious choice. But I also think we shouldn't just upload the full uninterrupted debuts either, since who gets chosen for the next debut match is all RNG.
Personally, if think that if we were to upload Debuts to a Youtube channel, I think it'd be more organized to upload Debut videos based on the Debut character. This means compiling the 10 Debut matches for that character, editing them into one video, and upload them to Youtube. This way, people will be able to at a glance see how many, and which, characters were featured in that week's Debut, and be able to watch only that character's debut if they interested. This preserves debuts and allows people to catch what they've missed, expecially for matches that occur during people's sleep time.
The problem is, of course, that this method would require a lot of time to edit and compile all the debuts matches by character from the recording. And since the Debuts are the one thing most people tune into the Spriteclub stream for anyways, you can argue that this is too much effort for a bi-weekly event that a majority of it is watched anyways during a weekend. The only reason than would be for archiving purposes and to give a summary of what is new in this Debut.
We could just make it one Debut video of one match for each new Debut character, providing a quick previews/summary and a list of all the new characters introduced. That'd be less work, but it'd still require time and effort to edit together.
2. Tourneys
Tourneys can be a mixed bag. It's something that happens just as often as normal matchmaking, but with the same reoccurring characters. It's probably not viable to upload every tourney that happens, but perhaps it's possible to cherry pick certain tourneys that happen, perhaps just one specific tourney daily/weekly, or maybe we can utilize the Community Tourney idea that we've done before and only upload those.
You wouldn't need to splice and compile individual characters like the Debut idea (but once again those 30 second delays are the elephant in the room) and since it features reoccurring characters and it can be more structured viewing/archive.
3. Just certain matches (Highlights)
This is probably the only realistic option for a side Youtube channel without taking too much time away from maintaining the stream itself. Just cherry pic certain matches that end up being very interesting to the Spriteclub community. It can be from random matchmaking, a tourney, debut or even from an exhibition. Just one standout match that happened to be interesting for the stream. Sort of like an extended version of Twitch Clips.
With minimal editing effort, you can sort of bring bigger attention to stream highlights, give a better idea of what to expect from the Spriteclub stream without making them straight up visiting the Stream and then wondering what this is all about. Instead, they can be shown small clips of interesting MUGEN matches that may be funny, or cool to watch. They can then maybe decide themselves to visit the Stream on their own.
4. Custom Videos
Sort of like what we have with exhibitions, but specifically for Youtube. Just make some custom video content for the Youtube channel using the large database of characters we have stored already. Wouldn't have to edit out any 30 second delays (if we exclude them from the start) and we could directly showcase what we want instead of trying to splice and upload from the existing stream archive.
The con is that, someone would still have to take the time to make these videos, and that would still require a bit of time alongside maintaining the stream itself.
And at this point, it'd be no different than being a normal MUGEN Youtube channel. This concept was supposed to be about Spriteclub matches/archiving.
5. Community Events
If we ever have some super special community event, we could just upload those for prosperity.
I'll stop here and leave it at that. Once again, I stress that this is only a post where I regurgitate what I've been thinking about in an attempt to spark a discussion. I'm not trying to force this to be a thing or anything like that, and I'm not trying to say we have to do something like this. I'm just interested in what other people think about this in regards to things we could add to Spriteclub.
tl;dr I think a small side Youtube channel for uploading certain content/archives from Spriteclub could be a useful tool for our community
