itmeJP Community


itmeJP Community

Why does JP upload 30 minute clips of gameplay on his youtube?

I’ve been following JP since the very early days, I’ve followed pretty much every campaign of his until Swan Song ended, plus i’ve watched every episode of Dropped Frames.

I follow a lot of youtube channels and i really dislike spam in my feed, so his trend of uploading 30 minute segments of game playthroughs was just too much for me, i had to unsubscribe.
JP is a smart guy, I’m sure he understands that youtube isn’t just a place to dump your gameplay VoDs. Twich already exists and does a better job at keeping track of that stuff if someone really wants to see those streams.
What does he gain by uploading these 30 minute videos that each get <500 views, compared to dropped frames and roleplay content that gets 5000-50000 views?

Just look at youtubers like Vinesauce, they only upload edited compilations on youtube. If those 300 people who follow his playthroughs really want to watch the full thing, they could see the compilation on the youtube, where JP could create a link to the full VoD. It’s that easy.
If he really wants that stuff up on youtube, he could just upload it all in one big chunk. I doubt he earns anything from these videos, and viewer exhaustion is a real thing if they see videos from a creator popping up every day in such a situation.
I feel like i’m proof of this, since i’ve followed JP through every endeavour of his from starcraft to dropped frames and roleplaying.

  1. Why upload those to YT and not just leave them on Twitch?
    Because Twitch doesn’t allow him to set which vods are sub-only. Therefore, for non-sub to watch gameplay vods, there is no other way than upload to YT.

  2. Why he doesn’t do it like other Youtubers?
    JP admits that Youtube, at this point, is just a place to upload vods to him. The income from Youtube not worth the effort anymore.

Keep in mind that I am only a viewer, what I said above may be wrong.

2 Likes

Your first point makes sense, but then why wouldn’t he just drop the entire VOD on youtube?
It takes more effort to cut it into chunks and manage uploading them…
And if VoDs are a reward for subbing, then what’s the point of uploading them to youtube?

I remember when he made highlights of games like watchdogs and his highlights were actually fun to watch, while serving as a nice introduction to get more people to watch his twitch. I’m sure he could arrange for someone to go through twitch clips in order edit up a weekly highlight video.
There are people who do that kind of editing both as paid work and as fans, it’s not a tedious thing to arrange if he’s willing to drop 100 bucks on it.

I think uploading in parts is an incentive to get people to sub on Twitch.
If you don’t want to sub you can watch on Youtube for free, you just have to wait for a while. Or you could pay 5 bucks and watch it immediately on the Twitch archive.

That was a good incentive for rollplay episodes, since it’s a story that you can get invested in, and it had a big following.
I don’t think many people want to check out a playthrough of a multiple year old game uploaded in 30 minute parts, just because it’s played by JP. And that is evidenced by the viewership on these videos.
But in addition to so few of his fans caring about these videos, it’s making it increasingly annoying to follow him for the content that people actually like to consume on youtube.

I don’t really know what to tell you.
I’m not comfortable making statements on why JP does what he does but like TilyHalfPrice said JP has said in the past that he doesn’t really care about Youtube.

I guess if you’re only into Dropped Frames they’re on various podcast services now too.

As with everyone else, this is just guess work, but it might be a way to boost the relevancy of the youtube channel in the eyes of video suggestions as the channel has constant stream of videos. While YT might not provide relevant financial benefit, it most likely is still rather relevant in providing visibility. Twitch is still extremely bad for new viewers finding your content.

Personally I don’t have any problem with this as the videos aren’t coming in in a huge block of 10 30 minute videos at a time and clogging the YT feed.

I’m sure much like cohh. He wants a convenient place for people to watch full game playthroughs who can’t watch live. This is not a super uncommon thing even for YouTube let’s players. And is definitely the best way for a twitch streamer to upload playthroughs imo.

Would you rather he upload a 4-6+ hour video? Who’s going to have the time to watch that in one sitting. It’s a lot more difficult than simply remembering which episode you’re on. 30 minute episodes are a godsend to me.

But to comment on an earlier statement. Yes YouTube is just a place to dump vods. Twitch has made it very clear it doesn’t want to be used for long term video storage. Hence auto deletion of vods. And not having any real search function.