Let's tackle the elephant in the room first - this is self-promotion, it's true that I want to get more eyes on my content and I know it's against the rules of Resetera, but I want to kindly ask the moderators to leave the thread up as I genuinely believe that the videos I make are going to be really appreciated by local members and you won't really find anything like it on YouTube.
The first and foremost reason is that on YouTube at this moment you won't find video game critiques created by a professional Game Designer with 10 years of experience, including Lead Design positions at Ubisoft (Lead Designer for Trials Rising project, Lead Designer for the Bucharest mandate of Watch Dogs Legion). Incidentally, that person is me, and the channel I curate is called Farlands Design Den.
And probably one of the reasons why I decided to pull this stunt of breaking the rules of Resetera and hope that this thread is not going to get shut down hard is that people who watch my content find it deserves more views which are difficult to come by in the current competitive YouTube space.
My favorite comment is this, on a video posted before I rebooted my channel to focus solely on reviews.
Heh, it never blew up. But what's a better way to showcase a channel focused on argumentative discussion about games, than to post it on a forum focused on argumentative discussion about games?
Now, obviously, just having professional credentials is not enough for the content to be unique, but my experience allows me to create compelling arguments and provide nuance that you will rarely find online.
An example would be my Demon's Souls video (can't insert as media due to YT music copyright claim).
Now, besides being a pretty monstrous 1h 20m video that breaks down a lot of Demon's Souls design elements, of course a Souls video couldn't be created without discussing difficulty and easy mode. But these discussions often lack nuance, with people a lot of the time going into extremeties. In my video I actually break down what would be the definition of difficulty, why it matters for Demon's Souls, what problems people think easy mode will solve but also why it is dangerous for Souls in particular and what would be the applicable alternatives. From the get go, I'm all for accessibility and approachability, but I straight up say that Demon's Souls doesn't need an explicit easy difficulty setting though there are plenty of improvements it could do. I also mention some aspects of Souls that are often forgotten by both sides of the 'difficulty' spectrum.
Another pretty long video I have is about Assassin's Creed II.
Assassin's Creed II has obviously popularized the franchise by changing the direction it was going towards (which is not an aspect I personally consider to be positive). But despite it's amazing 90+ Metacritic reception, it is actually a very flawed, oftentimes borderline broken game, but it still... works and is greatly enjoyable. Again, you won't really find videos like this on YouTube, content that I saw would usually be divided into full-on fan 'the game is perfect' mode (which is great that a person feels that way but I don't find it to be a useful critique) or 'the game is overrated shit' mode (which is unfair to all the aspects that Assassin's Creed II does extremely well). But in my videos, I provide that nuance.
Now, reviews/breakdowns/critiques that I release are not just huge hourly romps, I have shorter videos as well. For example about such classics like Journey.
In this video I explain for those who don't know what is The Hero's Journey, absolutely agreeing that it is a very overused trope, but it works particularly well in Journey because the whole game from its game design, level design, narrative design, visual and musical aspects is fully focused around that singular notion of going through a Hero's Journey and that's why it is so fantastic (and I will outright say - my most favorite video game of all time).
And, as sort of a cherry on top for the variety of content I'm trying to create, I have detailed breakdowns of video games that don't get any recognition on YouTube besides some nostalgic reviews, but never detailed analysis. Licensed tie-ins like The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers for consoles (which also can't insert as media due to YT music copyright claims) and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone for PC.
I believe these games deserve as much thought put into their analysis as more popular titles. And nobody is crazy enough to try and do that. Except me, heh.
Now, when it comes to the future of my channel, I already have a bunch of The Legend of Zelda videos in progress, and in general I have big plans, and my content quality and writing style keeps improving which is... well, it's natural and will lead to only better videos :)
I hope I have built a compelling argument to the moderators why this thread should stay up (and promise I won't ever try to create another like this one again... which I suppose wouldn't be necessary anyway), as well as compelling arguments to the visitors of this forum why they would enjoy this content and why it's different from others that one might find on YouTube.
I always try to keep my communication channels open so am in touch with a lot of people who watch my videos, and many game designers and people who want to become designers find them very useful.
So... hope you will enjoy the current and future videos! Thanks!
The first and foremost reason is that on YouTube at this moment you won't find video game critiques created by a professional Game Designer with 10 years of experience, including Lead Design positions at Ubisoft (Lead Designer for Trials Rising project, Lead Designer for the Bucharest mandate of Watch Dogs Legion). Incidentally, that person is me, and the channel I curate is called Farlands Design Den.
And probably one of the reasons why I decided to pull this stunt of breaking the rules of Resetera and hope that this thread is not going to get shut down hard is that people who watch my content find it deserves more views which are difficult to come by in the current competitive YouTube space.
My favorite comment is this, on a video posted before I rebooted my channel to focus solely on reviews.
Heh, it never blew up. But what's a better way to showcase a channel focused on argumentative discussion about games, than to post it on a forum focused on argumentative discussion about games?
Now, obviously, just having professional credentials is not enough for the content to be unique, but my experience allows me to create compelling arguments and provide nuance that you will rarely find online.
An example would be my Demon's Souls video (can't insert as media due to YT music copyright claim).
Now, besides being a pretty monstrous 1h 20m video that breaks down a lot of Demon's Souls design elements, of course a Souls video couldn't be created without discussing difficulty and easy mode. But these discussions often lack nuance, with people a lot of the time going into extremeties. In my video I actually break down what would be the definition of difficulty, why it matters for Demon's Souls, what problems people think easy mode will solve but also why it is dangerous for Souls in particular and what would be the applicable alternatives. From the get go, I'm all for accessibility and approachability, but I straight up say that Demon's Souls doesn't need an explicit easy difficulty setting though there are plenty of improvements it could do. I also mention some aspects of Souls that are often forgotten by both sides of the 'difficulty' spectrum.
Another pretty long video I have is about Assassin's Creed II.
Assassin's Creed II has obviously popularized the franchise by changing the direction it was going towards (which is not an aspect I personally consider to be positive). But despite it's amazing 90+ Metacritic reception, it is actually a very flawed, oftentimes borderline broken game, but it still... works and is greatly enjoyable. Again, you won't really find videos like this on YouTube, content that I saw would usually be divided into full-on fan 'the game is perfect' mode (which is great that a person feels that way but I don't find it to be a useful critique) or 'the game is overrated shit' mode (which is unfair to all the aspects that Assassin's Creed II does extremely well). But in my videos, I provide that nuance.
Now, reviews/breakdowns/critiques that I release are not just huge hourly romps, I have shorter videos as well. For example about such classics like Journey.
In this video I explain for those who don't know what is The Hero's Journey, absolutely agreeing that it is a very overused trope, but it works particularly well in Journey because the whole game from its game design, level design, narrative design, visual and musical aspects is fully focused around that singular notion of going through a Hero's Journey and that's why it is so fantastic (and I will outright say - my most favorite video game of all time).
And, as sort of a cherry on top for the variety of content I'm trying to create, I have detailed breakdowns of video games that don't get any recognition on YouTube besides some nostalgic reviews, but never detailed analysis. Licensed tie-ins like The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers for consoles (which also can't insert as media due to YT music copyright claims) and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone for PC.
I believe these games deserve as much thought put into their analysis as more popular titles. And nobody is crazy enough to try and do that. Except me, heh.
Now, when it comes to the future of my channel, I already have a bunch of The Legend of Zelda videos in progress, and in general I have big plans, and my content quality and writing style keeps improving which is... well, it's natural and will lead to only better videos :)
I hope I have built a compelling argument to the moderators why this thread should stay up (and promise I won't ever try to create another like this one again... which I suppose wouldn't be necessary anyway), as well as compelling arguments to the visitors of this forum why they would enjoy this content and why it's different from others that one might find on YouTube.
I always try to keep my communication channels open so am in touch with a lot of people who watch my videos, and many game designers and people who want to become designers find them very useful.
So... hope you will enjoy the current and future videos! Thanks!
