Hey everyone, welcome to another edition of Homeroom Announcements, my Friday podcast type video where I give thoughts and updates about the Skooled Zone channel.

This week marks the two-month anniversary of the Skooled Zone. So I thought I'd do a little reflection of what the last two months has brought about for the channel. No, I'm not going to post an anniversary video every two months. I'm just still in that honeymoon phase with YouTube, kind of like when you first start a new relationship. Not everyone, but some people get cute and take note of each month that goes by. So, you know, thought I'd do something similar on the Skooled Zone.

Well, I did spend several months before I launched the channel preparing myself for what to expect. But as always in life, you can never completely prepare for the unexpected. Interestingly enough, some of the things I thought would happen didn't and some things I didn't think would happen happened.

First of all, I never expected to reach a thousand subscribers in the first month. I expected a slower initial growth. However, subscribers have tapered off slightly and I know why. I'm getting feedback that people really like the concept of the channel but that I should be featuring newer games. I totally get that. I'm going to go ahead and finish Dishonored because I like to finish what I start. However, the next game will be a significant jump ahead in publication dates. And then after that, I'll feature exclusively new games.

Dishonored just worked out really well as a starter game because of the effort that the developers put into creating a rich environment that wasn't dumbed down. They basically made my job easy, so to speak. With so many cool historical references and advanced vocabulary words in books and cut-scenes, I just couldn't start with anything else except, you know, maybe an Assassin's Creed game or something like that.

I also expected the occasional content ID match. Haven't encountered anything like that yet. Either older games are just safer to feature on YouTube, my channel concept is so overtly covered by fair-use, or Bethesda is just really simpatico with YouTuber gamers. Don't know which. Maybe a combination of all three. Or maybe game companies are all lax these days in general as long as you turn off the background music. If anyone has any insight on that, let me know in the comment section. Or if you've had a successful or unsuccessful run-in with content ID matches and copyright strikes. I'm sure we'd all be interested.

Another thing I expected more of were trolls and spammers in the comment section. Haven't really gotten a single hate comment yet, which is totally fantastic. Maybe the channel is still new and I should be knocking on wood about now. Or maybe the nature of the channel isn't so conducive to trolls, which is also a good thing. I've noticed science and trivia type channels get less of that noise. Or maybe trolls just like to yell from the back of the crowd and then duck, so to speak. We'll see what the next two months or two years brings.

I also didn't expect to do have done any collabs yet. I did my first collab of sorts within the first month and have gotten more requests for collabs since. I think I'm getting a little more courage to reach out to other channels myself as well, now that I've gotten a sense of how others are framing the collab requests toward me. You kind of learn what turns you off and what intrigues you through direct experience like that.

Another thing I didn't expect so soon was to be approached by MCNs. Already gotten some requests to join. Although those early requests were probably cookie cutter affiliate type pyramid schemey requests. So I'm definitely not bragging about that. In fact, I'm probably going to hold off on joining an MCN until I have a little more offer in the way of subscribers and view counts. At this point, I'd like be a needle in their haystack so it's not even worth it. If any of you have joined MCNs, I'd be very interested to hear your experiences as to whether they're worth it, how you've faired since joining, success stories, regrets. I'm sure we'd all be interested.

It's not all peaches and cream, though. I was totally unprepared for the amount of editing time that has to go into each video. Granted, my videos tend to be between 20 and 30 minutes and I add pop-ups and whatnot. Maybe I might try to scale the length down slightly in future game series. Or maybe I won't have to and I'll just get faster at editing as time goes by. I've noticed other gaming channels tend to shoot for 10-15 minutes. Or they just cut a 30 minute session into two videos for the numbers gimmickry. You guys'll have to tell me if you like the general length of my videos down in the comment section. Are they too short, too long, or just about right?

Anyway, in general, my first two months have been a wonderful experience on YouTube. If it only gets better from here, then I can't wait to see what big things lie ahead. And as usual, I have you guys to thank for being awesome, liking and sharing the videos, and making all of this a positive experience.