2022 - A Year in Review

Hi. It’s me. Hope you’re doing well. This video if you can guess by the title, is a little different. I wanted to take a little bit of time and kind of just chat with you and have some reflecting thoughts on 2022 as an overall year. This year has been kind of crazy for myself, at least in regards to the channel. Some things happened that I never expected would ever really occur, and it’s been really fun overall as a whole. I’ve had this YouTube account for over 11 years; it was originally made just so I could subscribe to channels and comment and videos, you know, typical online account stuff. I never really put much thought into actually making any kind of videos, but during the pandemic, in 2021, I found an editing software that was fairly cheap because they were having a sale, and basically said to myself, why not? I’m not spending hundreds of dollars on something I might never use after the initial try. I could’ve just used the free version of the program, but there would’ve been a huge watermark on it and I would’ve had a lot of limitations as to what I am able to do with it, so I opted to just get the full version instead. Now, to be fair, because it was very inexpensive, the limits of what I am able to do with the software are slowly starting to be felt, so maybe in the future there will be room for an upgrade, but for now, it suits my style perfectly so there’s no reason to make a change just yet.

But I mean my very first video, was just me walking around customs in Tarkov getting like 2 kills with some cuts and that was it. Super simple, but it was still so fun to just mess around with the software and see what was possible. And then the video after that, the second one, you already notice a decent upgrade in quality. Music, better cuts, better footage (still not great and we’ll talk about that), but a decent jump forward. To this day, I still think my open world Tarkov videos are the best in terms of me being creative with what is available to me. Just the game and assets for the video that I was making as much on my own as possible. In those instances, having someone else for camera movement would’ve been awesome, but other than that, those are such interesting videos to make. The first one is my favorite because of the simple cut from customs to being inside factory; it’s dumb but I still get so hype when I rewatch it. This year alone in 2022, I made a total of 62 videos, and 10 shorts. Which side note, expect more shorts next year as well. They are super fun to make and a much different style than I’m used to for regular videos, and for a channel my size, they do really well, so hopefully you like them because expect more next year, especially considering YouTube will be paying for shorts in February next year. Anything is better than nothing. But year, 62 may not be a ton of videos, but I am still very proud of pretty much all of them. My only personal gripe is the actual footage in the background. It’s weird I don’t mind editing, I don’t mind script writing, but the one thing that bothers me sometimes, is getting footage. Now, I think that stems from playing Tarkov where I go into a raid with a very specific kit, and then die immediately; it’s really disheartening when that happens. But other than that, I don’t mind as much.

However, the elephant in the room is the video that basically kicked this all off. I Miss Old Tarkov; somehow, and I have NO idea how it happened, that video has accrued over 144k views, which is freaking mind-blowing. Please, if you watched that video, what about did you enjoy? Even when it had like 2k views I was super pumped and excited, but over the course of like a month it got up to I think 80k views, and with that cam basically over 900 new subscribers, which allowed me to get over 1k and hit the final pre-requisite to get the channel partnered. I just wish I had more information as to why it blew up as fast and as much as it did. Did it just hit the algorithm right? Did people share the crap out of it? I don’t have the answers to these questions, and because of that I wasn’t really able to keep that momentum up for very long, if not at all. I had a couple videos after do really well again, but after that things have mellowed out significantly. Which I'm not upset about, there are a lot of things I need to learn and still improve upon. Like better titles and thumbnails. But the mystery of how that video ended up doing so well eludes me. Maybe one day someone could look at the analytics and give me some answers, but for now, I’m just glad the video resonated with so many people. I still stand by my points in the video. Here’s to hoping the eventual 1.0 release will be better.

But overall, 2022 was a good year for me and the channel. I hope to just keep learning and improving what I make. I do want to play more games, try different styles of videos and overall keep it about the things I find interesting, and not just be all about Tarkov. Tarkov will certainly play a large role because I still love the game, and we have a wipe on our hands here very soon, so all kinds of new ideas for videos with that, but expect lots of different kinds of videos about games, ideas, stuff like that. I do have an idea for a longer form video where it’s just me basically talking for longer periods of times perhaps with no script; kind of like a steam of conscience, or a mini-solo podcase, so let me know if that sounds interesting. But yeah, it was a great 2022, and I hope we have an even better 2023. I hope I continue to learn and grow the channel to reach more people. OH, I also want to stream more. I did for a little while on twitch, but overtime, YouTube felt more doable and was my main focus because it was doing better. But I do want to stream. No idea how many days, no idea for how long, maybe a couple days a week, for a couple hours a night or something. But yes, streaming. Want to do more., Almost forgot that. So, if you aren’t following me on Twitch, first link in the description will take you over there.

But other than that, ... I think that’s everything I wanted to say. It has been a wild year, so to anyone who has watched any of my videos, for any length of time, I truly do appreciate you taking the time out of your day to do so. It means a lot that out of all the wonderful people not only in the Tarkov community, but all of YouTube in general, you have found and decided I was worth your valuable time. I am forever grateful and hope I can continue to make more videos that we all find valuable, interesting, and maybe a little thought-provoking. Here’s to a better 2023, and I hope to see you in future videos.