YouTube Gaming Audience Content Opportunity Analysis™ Q4 2022

Content Opportunity Methodology

1. ‍Measure & Categorize. Sample a large number of social posts to find ones that are significantly outperforming the average.‍
2. Identify Top Themes. Identify the themes that are resonating most with the audience by sorting the themes by their aggregated performance metrics.‍
3. Identify a Benchmark. Identify content themes that are performing above and under an average benchmark for the industry based on views & engagements.‍
4. Identify Opportunities. Look at the data and find the content themes that are resonating with the audience based on a set of top creators.‍
5. Repeat For Each Platform. Repeat the analysis for every platform that matters to your brand and audience to find platform-specific opportunities.

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YouTube Content Bucket Definitions

• Minecraft Roleplay Shorts: Funny and entertaining clips from Minecraft story roleplays and series featuring popular characters.
• Minecraft Challenges & Mods: Minecraft players create and compete in various challenges and play using different mods. 
• Aphmau Minecraft Stories: Story roleplays and roleplay-themed mini-games from Aphmau. 
• Group play: Videos from multiplayer games that show the participating players and their reactions as they play against each other or as a team.
• YouTube Gaming Community: Videos in this category feature gamers collaborating on content or responding to other creators’ videos.
• Minecraft Myths: Gamers explore pervasive minecraft myths and let viewers watch along as they determine whether or not they are in fact myths. 
• Gaming Humour: Weird and funny content that is relatable to other gamers and shows off the YouTuber’s unique sense of humour. 
• Horror Gameplay: Videos showing the gameplay and gamer as they play and react to games centered on horror fiction that are typically designed to scare the player.
• Karmaland Livestreams: Live gameplay from the multiplayer Minecraft server and Spanish series, Karmaland.
• Gameplay Watch-along: Videos showing the gameplay and gamer as they play and react to a variety of game types and genres. 
• Gameplay shorts: Short clips from the gameplay POV.
• Gamers IRL: These videos show popular gamers in their daily life or at live events.
• Gameplay Reveal: Similar to teasers and trailers but specifically highlighting the gameplay format and feel for new and upcoming games.
• News & Reviews: Opinions and reviews of popular games and esports tournaments. Often in a list-style ranking format. 

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Minecraft Roleplay Shorts is an extreme performing content opportunity, averaging 3X the views & engagement rate on YouTube.

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Excellent performing content categories for the gaming audience on YouTube include:

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Good performing content categories for the gaming audience on YouTube include:

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Substandard performing content categories for the gaming audience on YouTube include:

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Low performing content categories for the gaming audience on YouTube include:

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Extreme Performing Segment:

Minecraft Roleplay Shorts

Short clips that are funny or entertaining from Minecraft story roleplays and series featuring popular characters. 

Tactics to Implement:

• Variety: Top videos in this category from Aphmau use a variety of animation styles, changing the appearance of the server and characters.

Top Format:

• Duration: Top videos are 25 seconds long on average.

Content Opportunity:

• Character Development: Shorts with the highest engagement feature familiar characters and storylines. Create shorts from the stories and character behaviours that your audience is already familiar with. 

19.2M  Views

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14.7M Views

The following viral videos were omitted from the data set to avoid any skewing.

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Content Opportunities:

1. Minecraft Challenges & Mods

Minecraft players create and compete in various challenges and play using different mods. For example, in the video below, MrBeast hosted a challenge in which 1000 people were split into seven teams and had 24 hours to build a civilization and then fight to defend it. 

Tactics to Implement:

• On Screen elements: Both videos use a green screen to overlay the gamer’s image on top of the gameplay. Bright and bold text is used to emphasis key parts of video narration. The video below uses a progress bar to track results. 
• Audio: Videos include player audio as well as sound effects and background music.
• Familiar gamers: In the video below, MrBeast collaborates with 7 other well known YouTubers to manage the teams, increasing video reach and viewership.
• BTS footage: MrBeast’s video builds anticipation for the challenge by including clips of the team’s building process and progress and a final look at each civilization before they begin fighting each other. 

16.4M  Views

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11.9M Views

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2. Aphmau Minecraft Stories

Story roleplays and roleplay-themed mini-games from Aphmau. 

Tactics to Implement:

• Style: Videos follow a signature style, they begin with an intro, describing the story or mini game and always use brightly colored visual elements like text, emojis, and sound effects.

• Target Audience: Aphmau’s videos are most popular amongst kids and she’s developed a loyal following by aligning her content style and character storylines with her target audience. Her consistent post cadence helps maintain subscriber engagement. 

Top Format:

• Duration: Top videos are 18.2 minutes long on average.

7.2M  Views

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7.3M Views

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Good Content Category:

3. Group Play

Videos from multiplayer games that show the participating players and their reactions as they play against each other or as a team. Group play videos vary in length and format based on the game type but are typically uncut, long-form footage that allows viewers to watch along and discover the game alongside the players.

Tactics to Implement:

• Subtitles: Creators use on-screen subtitles that capture the player’s interactions with each other and to display the game results.
• Personability: Players banter back and forth and react to the game authentically with no noticeable cuts in the audio.
• Focal points: Viewers can watch both the gameplay and the players themselves with PIP, green screen, or split screen formats.

4.4M  Views

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4.3M Views

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4. YouTube Gaming Community

Videos in this category feature gamers collaborating on content or responding to other creator’s videos. For example, when gamer CoryxKenshin claimed that YouTube was restricting his content without cause, other gamers shared his story and started the “Try Not to Get Age-Restricted Challenge” to prove that he was being unfairly targeted. 

Tactics to Implement:

• AV Quality: Talking-head content is filmed using high quality sound and video with multi-angle shots. 
• Tagging: Creators mention and tag other gamers in their videos and captions.
  

Content Opportunity:

• Get Involved: Open up discussions with other gamers on platforms like Reddit and Twitter and co-create content based on popular topics among your audiences. Collaborate for multi-player games and participate in YT challenges and trends.

6M  Views

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5.3M Views

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5. Minecraft Myths

Gamers explore pervasive Minecraft myths and let viewers watch along as they determine whether or not they are in fact myths. 

Tactics to Implement:

• Titles: Video titles include keywords from popular Minecraft searches and often key figures like the second example below: “Busting 1000 DEADLY Minecraft Myths in 24 Hours”
• Instructions: Creators explain the myth and walk viewers through how to set up your Minecraft world to test it yourself.
• Entertainment factor: Creator PrestonPlayz uses a green screen to include his image next to the gameplay, where he provides entertaining commentary and dramatic reactions to make his videos more dynamic. 

5.7M  Views

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4.3M Views

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6. Gaming Humour

Weird and funny content that is relatable to other gamers and shows off the YouTuber’s unique sense of humour. In the first example below Markiplier is reacting to a video from gamer MatPat (The Game Theorists) as part of a running joke between the two. The second video features Markiplier creating and laughing at nonsensical AI-generated stories.

Tactics to Implement:

• Personality: Content in this category is not always related to gaming but the commentary style and tone are similar to the typical gaming content posted by the YouTubers and captures their personality.
• Engagement: Top humour videos from Markiplier include a CTA at the end of his videos encouraging viewers to use random yet specific phrases in their comments, boosting engagement. Referencing and tagging other YouTubers as Markiplier does with MatPat can also increase viewership.

4M  Views

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4.5M Views

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7. Horror Gameplay

Videos showing the gameplay and gamer as they play and react to games centered on horror fiction that are typically designed to scare the player. Examples include The Man from the Window and The Mortuary Assistant.

Tactics to Implement:

• Fear Factor: Amp up the fear factor by including elements like moody music, lighting, and voice effects. In this example, Markiplier plays in the dark using night vision.
• Reactions: Creators leave their video on so viewers can see their reactions. Most replayed moments in Horror Gameplay videos include jumpscare reactions.

Top Format:

• Duration: Videos in this category tend to be long-form and record the entire game either in one video or split into parts. The average video length is 1 hour 20 minutes. 

6.9M Views

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6.9M Views

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Viral Video:

These videos were omitted from their content buckets as ‘viral’ outliers for exceeding 3x the views and engagements of their respective benchmarks.

Multiplayer Gaming Challenge 

Content: In this video, MrBeast and his crew play a multiplayer racing game. The video features them racing on multiple tracks in custom cars and is edited to include only the most action-packed parts of the races.
Hook: In the video intro the narrator explains the stakes of the game. Viewers are enticed to watch to the end as the player with the lowest score at the end of the races will have to bathe in ketchup. Throughout the races, players' scores are displayed on screen and the players discuss the ketchup bath.

24.6M Views