QC Done

Category: Updates

  • World 6-1: Channel Update

    A brand new year has started, and it’s time for another channel update. Over the past 14 months, I have tried various formats for the channel, and tested different types of videos, in order to attract more viewers. 

    The results have been a modest success, with the channel acquiring a little over 8900 views. That’s not a lot in the grand scale of things, but it’s not a totally small number either. At this point, I know what sort of content works best for my channel, and that is gameplay or reviews of recently released games.

    At the end of 2024, it was time for me to make an important decision – should I try to continue growing the channel with further experiments, or should I focus on other projects. After all, from day one, I have been clear that running this youtube channel was only a part-time pursuit. 

    And after much thought, I have decided that I’m going to go easy on the channel going forward. It means I’m not going to entirely shut down operations. The channel will still remain active.

    The only change is that I will no longer stick to a strict schedule of uploading every single week. I started season one with two uploads per week, and that gradually came down to one upload per week. Going forward, it is going to be open-ended, with new uploads going up only when I feel I have something interesting to share.

    This relaxed schedule means it no longer makes sense to have quarterly seasons. So going forward, each season will run for an entire year. 

    That was it for the channel update. As always, thanks to each and every one of you who have supported my work so far. Wish you all a Happy New Year!

  • World 5-2: Website Update

    World 5-2: Website Update

    With the one year anniversary of QC Done fast approaching, I decided it was time to dust off the cobwebs on this website and bring it back to life.

    When I registered this domain, I intended for it to act as a companion to my YouTube channel, featuring more details about whatever topic I was talking about in the videos. However, I was biting off more than I could chew, since I was running two YouTube channels with a total of four videos coming out each week, and I was learning game development at the same time. There was no time left to build and maintain this website.

    Fast forward to today, and I have scaled down operations on one of the channels, and even the main channel has come down to one video per week instead of two. This felt like a good time to see what I could do with this website.

    To begin with, I will merely link to all of the videos published on my channel, but by the end of the year, I hope to start adding some text to each of the posts, to give some more context to the videos. We’ll see how it goes from there.

    If you have been watching my videos, and would like to provide any suggestion related to the YouTube channel or this website, please do let me know in the comments!

  • World 5-1: Channel Update

    Welcome to the fifth season of QC Done. We are nearing the one year anniversary of this channel, and it’s been a really interesting journey so far.

    Now I’ll admit that one of the reasons I started on YouTube was to eventually get the channel monetised and explore content creation as a revenue stream, but since day one I have told myself that this will always be a side-hustle, even if I do reach the monetisation goal. That’s because I’m not a big fan of depending on YouTube to make the rules on how and where I earn money. In any case, unless my videos get hundreds of thousands of views in the next three weeks, there’s no way this channel is getting monetised before its first anniversary. Even if it does, it probably won’t change my next plans for this channel, which I’ll talk about in this video.

  • World 4-1: Channel Update

    World 4-1: Channel Update

    Welcome to the fourth season of QC Done. At the beginning of the previous season, I said I wanted to answer the question, what can I do to make the videos useful to a broader audience? The generic answer to this is simple: make videos that people want to watch, and your channel will get lots of views. This is an open secret. But…I chose the harder way of first making videos that I like, and then try to match them with people who would also like to watch those kinds of videos. Most of the time, such an approach will be very slow to show results. But eventually, it does show results.

    I’m happy to report that in the previous season, this channel got its first batch of small scale hits. Four videos got more than a hundred views, with two of them crossing five hundred views. That’s huge for this channel, because as you can see, the rest of the top ten videos in the same time period got less than 20 views. The four hits gave me enough data to answer the question, what can I do to make the videos useful to a broader audience, while continuing to make videos that I like?

    And the answer is that I can continue making videos about games or topics that I like, and some of them will definitely match up with games or topics that people are searching for on YouTube. But there are also clearly a lot of other games or topics that I make videos on, which no one really cares about; so the best thing I can do is to only publish videos when I’m confident that the video’s subject has some public appeal. More details in the video.

  • World 3-1

    Welcome to the third season of QC Done – the channel where I essentially make videos talking to myself, because hardly anyone is watching anymore. I’m not really surprised about this, because the type of content I chose to make is not everyone’s cup of tea, and those who do like video essays about video games already have a lot of established names to subscribe to. I still need to find that missing ingredient that will make my content worth watching. And that will continue to be my effort going forward. Spoiler alert: things won’t change drastically in this season, but there will be a few small changes along the way. Let’s talk about those in this video.

  • World 2-2 – Channel Update

    This is a random update video about the channel. I said at the start of the second season that I would provide an update about how the first season performed, and this video is mostly about that. But it also talks about the upcoming content on the channel.

  • World 2-1

    Welcome to the second season of QC Done. TV shows or series get to take a seasonal break for a few months, but video game seasons run continuously, with a new season starting off on the very same day that the old season ends. This channel is something similar, with a new season starting right after the old one ended last.

  • World 1-1 (Archived Post)

    Note: This is a backdated post, originally published on October 26, 2023 on my Substack page. I currently do not intend to post further on that page, so I am re-publishing the post here for archival purposes.

    After two months of procrastination planning, I finally launched my bi-lingual Gaming YouTube channels – QC Done and Aaduko – on October 24, 2023, each featuring two videos on Day One.

    Until the last day, I kept wondering if I should stick to the bi-lingual plan, because the work to be done was insane.

    Each video took between 6-10 hours to produce, as they needed to have all of the following as a bare minimum:

    1. A script, so that I could stay on track and not waste time mumbling or ranting
    2. Stock footage, so that the viewer has something to see on-screen instead of starting at a whole lot of nothing
    3. An audio track, to narrate whatever I wanted to convey to the audience
    4. Background music, to cover up the constant noise of traffic and other sounds that crept into my room at the time of recording
    5. A screenplay/timeline, to put all the above elements into a sensible order, for the viewer to follow along
    6. A half-decent title and thumbnail, so that the viewer can get a sense of what the video is about

    Now imagine doing the above for four videos. No wonder I was wondering if I should cut my work in half by skipping one language.

    In the end however, I was glad that I stuck to the plan and launched both the channels on the same day.

    Of course, the work isn’t finished. I still need to find some better thumbnails, and I’m not too happy with the retro background that I picked for the videos. But as I kept reminding myself till the end – these things will take time to improve. What’s important on Day One is to show up and showcase what’s been done so far.

    This blog/newsletter will track the story of how these channels are performing, and also document what I have in mind for “QC Done” as a project overall. I hope you will join me for the ride, and offer your feedback along the way.

    Thanks for your time!

  • World 1-1: The First Video

    I like stories, and if I had infinite time, I would probably love to hear everyone’s story. But the time we have is limited, and we all have to pick and choose the stories we pay attention to.

    And when I had to pick which story I wanted to follow, it was that of video games.