Admittedly, I’m not a shorts creator - so why should you listen to me?

Because the things that make me good at identifying what works in long form, just might be the key to helping you with shorts.

This is Mistakez, a YouTuber who focuses on “horror/macabre playthroughs/reactions.

He messaged me on Reddit with the following:

Let’s take a look at his shorts (not like that, don’t be weird) on the day of messaging: July 17th, 2025

Now in my personal opinion, these first frames don’t look bad at all. But there is something missing. It’s not that these aren’t well done - but let’s take a look at some relevant competition.

These are two MASSIVE shorts creators in the industry. I’m not going to gatekeep any of the advice that I gave - so here it is [Bit of a long section, but I’ll break it down]
If I compare your shorts to SmallAntClips (PokeTuber for the most part) there's a few key differences:

1) Audio quality : The first 3 seconds is PIVOTAL if you’re going to get someone to stick around, especially in gaming content. It’s worth testing your microphone settings before clipping.

2) Game SFX : Not everyone wants to hear your video game sounds on your feed. Especially since the clips are of YOU playing the game - then the content is mostly YOU. So nice/ subtle background music is the way to go unless the music/sfx of the game is the point of the short.

3) Strong start : If you’re going to say something controversial/ could be misinterpreted/ the strongest thing that you say, don’t save it for the end of the short. Front load it.

4) Tell a Story : You only have 10-30 seconds to work with ( I know shorts can be 3 minutes long now, but humor me) but you still have to tell a story. This is a serious skill but one that you can’t neglect if you’re ever going to be successful. (Short form and long form) A beginning, a middle, and an end.

If you’re interested in the ‘full advice’ I gave him, I put it at the bottom of the letter, but it’s a bit of a read.

Let’s see what happened.

The success didn’t end there either - again, I can’t any of this credit, but it’s cool to see what happens when someone changes 1, or 2 things and BAM views.
So here’s the question for you - what’s the thing you need to change? Don’t know? Can’t see it? Reply to this newsletter, and let’s schedule a time to talk about it (Don’t worry it’s free)

If you have questions - email me. I don’t bite… hard.

Creator’s Killing it.

You’re a skeptic. You want more proof that people are succeeding NOW in gaming on YouTube. Alright, twist my arm. Here ya go.

Disclaimer : If I had to guess, this isn’t their first channel, and also the timeline doesn’t match up with outliers, so they have probably have unlisted a few videos. Still December of 2024 is IMPRESSIVE for this amount of views

Key Takeaways

Look at those freaking thumbnails: I’m gonna say it - those thumbnails are CLEAN. the one on the far right is a LITTLE busy to me, but I’m not the target audience. People who like that style are though.

Timing: The Minecraft Movie came out in May. Do you think it’s any coincidence that these videos took off right during that time? I don’t think so. There are some worthwhile things to be said about searching for what works WHEN it works

Not a Let’s Play: I know some of you are going to see the 3:49:04 and think that this is a let’s play but it’s not. There are some long and drawn out moments of gameplay but they are all hinged around. I made that first one clickable to the video so that you could see for yourself. The intro is SHARP, and then the gameplay goes to tell a story. For that amount of time, and that amount of viewership, I can tell you this creator may already be on his way to full time salary if he’s not already.

Creator Opportunity

This section isn’t about Nintendo

As much as I love Nintendo, I want to draw intention to the “direct” portion. Nintendo does these events called “directs” every occasionally. Sometimes they are about a specific topic, sometimes not.

So does probably every gaming/gaming console you follow. PlayStation has a version of this, E3 is still enormously popular. Events like this, and ComicCon are all great ways to stay informed.

And if you haven’t heard - Game Informer is coming back [More on that in the next issue of this newsletter, I’m gonna get it and let ya’ll know what I think]

The point is this, whatever game you do, whatever style of content you do, it’s well worth it to spend SOME time looking at what’s trending/popular, even if you think it might not be worth it.

But John, I play retro games. so? Don’t you want to know which retro games are making news articles and why?

Don’t be lazy, be proactive in chasing news about your game/niche.

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Can I ask you a question? What’s the BIGGEST thing you’re struggling with as a gaming content creator? Let me know in a reply to this email

Full Transcription: [My end - for Privacy] had with Mistakez_

Hey - thanks for the trust here -If you don't mind, I'll probably give some shorts advice in the next issue of the newsletter using your channel. (I promise this was actually said)

So I think your editing is on point, I don't think things need to change from a technical standpoint.I also want to say that I'm not a shorts guy I specialize in long form for sure HOWEVER -

Just some things I'm noticing

If I compare your shorts to SmallAntClips (PokeTuber for the most part) there's a few key differences. You start with gaming and so the audio quality is naturally lower than if you did a voiceover - He almost always does really clean voiceover in that first 1-3 seconds.

Additionally, you only have game sounds, his top performing shorts have some type of background music at the beginning with nice subtitles. You'll notice that you got a little bit higher views on the one short that you said "I'm here to pump you" Listen to that voice cut versus some of your newer ones.

Last and you do this sort of, but it's almost always a complete story with his - like a complete thought, I feel like when you're starting out you can't get away with gameplay nearly as much as larger creators can. I would switch it up just a smidge and if you're producing two shorts a week, or more, I would do like 1 short that is like your regular format, and then one short that tries to tell a story in the shortest time possible.

Also - I don't know if this will do anything, but it seems like with a lot of gaming channels, they put themselves in the bottom half, and the game in the top half.

Thanks for reading