Tarn Adams Interview and how YouTube gaslights me.
Sieges, Crossbows and lots of Dye. Bay12Games Interview.
Last week on Wednesday I had a lovely chat with Tarn Adams. Some of you may know him as Toady0ne. If you are new around these parts this is something that has happened a number of times over the years.
It all started back in May 2020. I was stuck in hospital with minimal outside contact. I had just been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and was not allowed to leave my ward. Due the the global pandemic, I was quite figuratively and literally at rock bottom. I desperately needed something to plan for. Often planning this is what keeps me motivated to work and push in this self driven industry. I had met Tarn at Pax the year prior and had introduced myself. While speaking he realized he had seen my work on social media. This planted the seed that made me decide to reach out. Late one evening after a nurse replaced an IV in my arm. I grabbed my phone and sent Tarn a DM asking if he'd be interested in being part of a Q&A on my stream. To my surprise he responded within the hour. "Sure!"
I had been around Dwarf fortress for some time at this point. One of my favorite eras was when Tarn and Zach frequently took part in DF-Talk, a podcast hosted on the Bay12 website. Its initial run started in August 2009 and mentions a lot of features that would not make it into the game for a decade in some cases. It ran monthly with relative consistency featuring two co hosts "Rainseeker" and "Captntastic" until 2013 when episodes suddenly stopped. Then in November 2014 a surprise episode featuring Just Zach and Tarn who talk about the game for a little over and hour and end with "We'll see you some time in the future and hopefully in less than 18 months" followed by a nervous laugh. Tarn and Zach did speak at a few conferences over the years but the podcast remained dormant. I wanted to fill that void. In June 2020 I released my first interview with Tarn and a month later the official Bay12games podcast DF-Talk made a return and run until Spring 2021. I do suggest you go back and listen to them if you have any interest in Dwarf Fortress history.
Looking back on this, its the prototype of what I'm doing now. It sure could have used a lot of work and I was close to having a anxiety attack the whole time. I had hosted a few developer interviews at that point but this was a whole new ball game. I should also mention that my Twitch and YouTube channels were significantly smaller as well. Not only was this a kind gesture from Tarn. It was a gift of legitimacy to the work I had been doing.
That is why I continue doing these. The with Bay12games team members are the least flashy yet most important work I do. While I might feel this way YouTube feels otherwise. This next part of this post is going to talk a little bit about how YouTube gaslights you into chasing trends. I don't want to seem like I am begging for sympathy or anything. I am extremely lucky and successful in what I do on these platforms. I also like to spotlight how the platforms make me feel positive and Negative.
Historically all of my interviews have been slow burns. They rarely take off and almost never do well in the YouTube machine. They do however often gain a lot of discussion and have really good watch time vs the number of views they get. Meaning the people who like them really enjoy them. It always gets a lot of chatter going in various subreddits and has even attracted Danny of NoClip who told me he had some of them downloaded to use as research material for his interviews with Tarn.
But this is YouTube a machine powered by robots so that robots can be the worst managers of all time. At the time of writing this is what the stats look like. Views are in the lower end of normal and money rates are horrible. 67$ in Cad before taxes. However nothing here is out of the realm of normal for these interviews. They hit the exact audience they are targeted at and those people enjoy them.. right?
This is closer to what YouTube had to say about the interview the day it was uploaded to YouTube. Within a few hours it was giving me warnings telling me the video was performing 40-50% worse then normal and even sent me notifications telling me to look at the inspiration tab to learn how to "improve" the video. If you are lucky enough to not be aware. The inspiration tab lives at the top left of YouTube studio. meaning its really hard to not click it if you are used to clicking on the videos tab. It links to a shoddy image generator and a hodgepodge of your previous work mashed together in formats that YouTube thinks will perform well on the platform.
This tab is awful. It is even making up bugs in dwarf fortress that don't exist. I can tell exactly what videos it is taking ideas from. If you have half a brain and basic human creativity most you would have thought of these already. This tab existing on its own is silly but fine. Just a whatever throwaway feature so that execs at YouTube can point and say "See! We have a plan for AI" While in reality all it does in encourage AI slop on the platform.
This is surfaced everywhere. Even looking at my top performing videos in the last 90 days the prompt shows up.
It takes the content of the comment and then prompts it. Pointless waste of energy and UI design. The final straw for me that has undoubtedly influenced this blog post was the mobile app. For awhile now the YouTube studio app has had a somewhat useless feature that shows weekly performance reviews. Sometimes it shows off some neat stats that I don't often look at but most of the time it is just the number of videos uploaded, how many likes you got and other surface level statistics. You can't make them go away unless you flip through them so I have developed a habit of opening and clicking through them quickly to make them go away. This time was different. Instead of the weekly performance review it said "Outperforming first 24 hours! Find out why" Grumbling I thumbed into it to see what YouTube had for me this time.
The "See video ideas" button links directly to the inspiration.
The problem is YouTube only has the last 28 days. It does not care about anything historic or video styles. All of that information it gave me is pointless. It compares my video to two story videos from VonGalactic. (Great videos btw) that are so completely different that their performance should not even be comparable with this interview. The click through rates were within the normal realms for kinds of video and the view count was actually on par or above normal. Comparing the video with Tarn Talk is also silly because that is on an official channel and its under 10 minutes of Tarn recapping updates.
In poor faith YouTube is pushing creatives from every angle to use this tool. Why? You tell me. I like the fact that a portion of my living comes from YouTube. It gives me an extra stability net in this volatile industry. This stuff scares me, its bad data in poor faith to push people to make number bigger but not actually improve the work they are doing for the audience it is provided too. Just simply make number bigger and hold audience attention longer.
This was mostly just a chance for me to vent. I'm happy with this interview and hope that you are as well. Feel free to do whatever you want with the audio. Keep it on your server or host it elsewhere. Just give me credit as the second voice. If you are supporting me on this blog thank you. This is a place that is free from that kind of hyper corporate bad data feedback and allows me to create and provide that work to people who look for it and enjoy it.
Schedule
Schedule for this week is streaming Tuesday - Friday. We'll be taking the viewer succession save on Friday. I am thinking about posting once each fortress completes. Thoughts?
I'm currently behind on FoTF because it has been really hot out and construction is right outside my window again. Making me not want to spend time at home if possible. I'll get it done by next weekend.