I have been here since early december. When I came, there was only a handfull of let's plays in D.tube, and I hoped that adding variety of different let's plays would get me great attention, and grab some decent followers. I got some but not enough, and even less I got people with meaningfull upvotes.
I think that at about january, there was huge influx of new let's play videos. I tried to see if there was anything intresting, dropped few upvotes + comments. Had about 0 interaction back. Most of those people were some youtubers who just vomited few videos only to be disappointed to their payouts. Yes, you can't just expect to make money by dropping a video and then forget it. Quickly thought solution to this has been that they get voted by D.tube or some curation-bot. Those made them earn a little, but much less than from youtube. I think all of them gave up.
Now looking at let's plays of D.tube and Dlive, there are only few who actually make consistently money with their videos. @strawhat and @acidyo, who have been here for some time, have their devoted followers, who do not give a damn to look for other let's plays. There is also @jarendesta who has a whale friend. Yes, having a whale friend matters shit ton on this platform. Yes, I have not asked them to come and see me, because I heard it is not cool.
My own experience with trying to curate content, thats creator does not give a damn about comments, and making let's plays, hoping to improve, but getting damn demotivated when there aren't too many new faces, has been very exhausting. It is supprisingly hard to curate and produce.
Attempted solutions!
One suggested and currently popular idea has been that vote-bots are going to help people grow. That is not a solution, because at the end of the day bidding to a bot is just going to help you by how much you were able to bid. Person without much get's less than a person who already has plenty. It is just self up-voting. Besides, D.tube takes 25% cut. You likely just loose. Ironically whole concept of those bots is just to "centralize" the curation.
One of the other attempted solution has been all these D.tube/Dlive upvotes, in hopes to retain the content creators. Problem is that right at the moment you stop receiving those, you are dead, unless you are already one of those few I mentioned above. This approach also seems to make a bubble. Bubble were big creators get constant upvotes from D.tube/Dlive and their own followers. Everything outside is unmeaningful, as those content creators don't realy wonder outside their already established content feed. They just end up like some artists who run on a social-security, and constantly compliment each others "important" content on their small "community".
Solution!
I heard some time ago about a whale who had delegated 5000 steem power to bunch of others. I don't remember who he was, but his idea was that problem of steem is that there isn't a middle-class, thus creating it very hard for minnows and other small deals to make any money. What he hoped to achieve was that by spreading that power to small deals is going to help them give meaningful upvotes, because he understood that bunch of people are going to be able to curate much more efficiently than a whale.
People looking for let's plays are very few if any. People who use youtube don't care about using D.tube or Dlive, because they don't have to. With steem block-chain, they could get paid, but they don't. Because no one upvotes them and they are likely not going to invest into steem. They won't give money, they won't make money, why the heck would they move from youtube to some buggy Dlive or D.tube. Doesn't make sense.
So as a solution, I suggest that those with plenty of steem-power paired with 100% voting power constantly, delegate it to some small viewers with promise that they will use it to curate others content. Or simply start looking at their comment section and find real people and give them good upvotes. Not some 5% upvotes (unless you are a serious hodler-whale) but some upvotes that will actually make them earn enough steem-power to make them give more worthyfull upvotes.
When we get viewers with meaningfull upvotes, it is also eventually going to eliminate need of any "centralized curation-plan" for those who come from youtube, because they can be discovered by viewers with meaningfull upvotes! If we don't make strong viewers, and more content creators jump aboard, it is going to be harder and harder, and we will just have another wave that dries out!
Resteem if you agree or find this important. I want that people see this.
totally agree with you that there is not a community in lets play.
i like games and like watching letsplay and u are the only game channel i follow here. a have check around, no communication and bad videos
but here is the trouble at steemit. there are 3 groups of users here. the ones that make: crypto news and those who post pictures then the rest of us . a like crypt news and pictures but if u are not in those 2 is very hard.
a dont have a solution on the problem apart from continue with what you are doing.
a read a post maby it can be something there.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@whatamidoing/steemit-zombies-are-coming-a-protest-against-the-poor-distribution-of-wealth-at-steemit
Also, the payout is low now because of the price but you can power up quite easily
Steemit is a quite new platform. We need time for growing our gaming community. I don't use any upvote bots and other "buffs". I want to make my community grow 100% organic and natural :)
This.
100% this.
Asking for 'redistribution' and 'charity' might work in the short run - but it'd be nice to see the community blossom on its own. . .
As mentioned in the article above, a lot of LP material is just puked over from Yuckt00b. Not a lot seems to be made FOR steem/dtube. It just kind of feels flat. . .
The only things that will stimulate the LP niche will be creativity, and people committed to putting the time and work into this platform.
The article hits the nail on the head in mentioning that the lazy 'tip toe' approach is a stumble through the gate - but while we might miss out on people swapping over from Yuckt00b, the ones who really push it will end up coming out ahead in terms of innovation (I think - pardon my senseless ramblings).
You done great job with upload game session and you got only 1-2 time upvote from dtube? as i remember just twice vs like 100 videos of gaming. let's play is dead for sure here and when you got low steem power + low amount of people you will earn like 0. I tried with training videos etc but mostly income i got from you + some less meaning amount vote. On dtube when you put like daily blog or talk about cryptocurrency you will probably get some vote from strongh account like dtube etc. Im from december also and i earn just 18 steem power by voting, comments + some videos so my vote isn't helpfull do other anyway but i think the best way is just keep calm and earn, got more people around.
Yeah, but I think that if we really want to push this platform, people need to stop delegating power to some centralized curation-bots and so on. I know from @taskmaster4450 that whales are losing power all the time, but there just isn't viewers with meaningfull upvotes in enough many categories.
I agree with your thoughts. It's an unfair environment and as Steemit grows, it's more and more difficult to get your content noticed. I've been resorting to bots lately as I get demoralized by seeing my content earn 0.05, and while I know bots will take more than give back, I do it to get a bit of steem power along with a few SBD to keep going. I'm reaching the losing point, so I don't know what kind of strategy to do next.
Steemit is far from a fair place, as whales will be whales (most of them) and apart from a few (I've had a few upvotes from you and I appreciate it), it's a dog-eat-dog environment. I have a bunch of go-to gaming buddies that I discovered here (for Dtube there's also @xr-hammergaming, he also posts daily and he's a nice, supportive fellow) and I do what I can to upvote and support them, but I'm so small that it's almost meaningless.
Recently I resorted to selling some voting power to a bot, as having some cents daily is better than none at all in the long run, and I can't always be around to upvote quality content. Your idea of delegating SP to small quality users would be perfect (5000 seems wonderful), but I have serious doubts that this will happen. Maybe 1 whale in 100 would do it, but as for the rest... I don't see it happening.
Sadly, I think Steemit is a place that isn't going to be much different from the norm: the more you can invest, the more you earn - but how fair is that to those who don't have the luxury to invest?
Upvoted and resteemed.
Well I know that whales are actually losing power, thanks to https://steemit.com/steem/@taskmaster4450/huge-loss-in-whale-power-a-6-month-view-distribution-is-really-changing-facts-on-paid-bots-too
Now the things is that all these old whales just keep upvoting each other and are damn sure that their dedication just has been so superior to others that they ignore the fact that others don't make shit. The process to make this attractive to small deals and newbies is going to be fucking slow unless we do something.
What I figured last night is that instead of just upvoting content that we like, we should also upvote those curators by upvoting their comments. I don't mean comments on our own content but everywhere. That way we could maximize the growth of curators, possibly attract curious people to our channels and grow overall faster!
Yeah, most whales are only upvoting other whales' content, as they are looking for a similar level of rewards. There are exceptions, of course, but looking for and upvoting high quality content takes time and usually it's hard for anyone to go out of their bubble.
I'm all for upvoting good comments. Amidst the spam and quite frankly ridiculous accounts that exist (which should just be banned for posting shit such as "nice post dear, I follow" and stuff like that), good, constructive comments are as valuable as a good blog post. I've done it a lot before and had some amazing discussions with fellow gamers (and non-gamers) about random stuff such as veganism, bullfights and whatnot, and felt intellectually enriched by all of it. These comments are deserving of a good upvote way more than a random meme or the latest boring "find your path in life" post.
Sad news is, I don't see these breadcrumbs taking anyone anywhere soon - in fact, many minnows will just feel depressed and leave.
Going to jump on this thread and say thanks @gamingstation for mentioning me (Wouldnt it be great If steemit notified you when you get tagged/mentioned In a post) I do upload daily and feel I am very supportive, if you look back through my comments and replies you will see that I have spent alot of time talking to people and replying and even helping out some (smaller than I folk) There are a few people I support who have very low reputation because they put out really good content, its not just gamers, i support artists and foodies too. I always give a genuine reply to people who take the time to comment on my posts.
I feel that unless your reputation is exceedingly high, then the bigger guys don't want to interact with you. And sometimes when people leave me comments asking me to check them out, I actually do because you never know whos content is worthy otherwise.
The 25% cut that Dtube takes Is a killer, before Dtube was released I used to just share my videos from youtube to my Steemit post but I want to have a decent Dtube account going eventhough I earn less back. Im riding on the hope that Dtube Itself with be a real competitor for Youtube one day and If that day comes ill have all my videos on Dtube.
I have used bots a fair amount myself but like you say, the 25% cut that Dtube takes basically just means that I break even or I lose. Its tough. I have normally around 10upvotes a post, sometimes more and its very rare I ever hit over £0.50 a post which yes is disheartening. Alot never bother to actually view my post either because I may get the upvote but my view count doesnt go up. I have decided that after my last use of bid bots that I will no longer use them because I took a huge loss. My own fault I know.
I do a lets play series of Dragon Quest Builders eventhough I don't call it a lets play. I do play a variety games however I dont play alot of popular games, Overwatch is probably the most popular and that isnt overly often. So maybe that doesn't help my cause but I play the games that I genuinely enjoy. Untill I am 'big' enough to start taking game requests then that Is what i will continue doing.
There has been a huge influx of creators on here since January I have noticed and that doesn't help because everything gets lost in the sea of other posts.
You @bestbroplayer have a huge amount of Steempower more than me and I have been on here 4months longer than you. You also receive more upvotes on your posts etc. I dont know if you personally invest money on here, I do not and im not in the position to do so either. Im not hating on you either :) I have seen many creators join Steemit long after me and they do alot better than me. That Is also disheartening. Maybe my content Isn't good. I don't know, Its not often I actually get feedback on my videos so I wouldn't know if there is something I can improve on. Untill It happens im just going to keep struggling along In hopes than others will enjoy my stuff.
Its not surprising there's such a low user retention on here. It seems the only way to get anywhere is to either be an old school user with a big following like you mention or join being a friend of one of those old school users. Or get a big upvote from DLive, which i have streamed around 10times but did not receive anything from DLive. I have seen new users join in the last few weeks who have a bigger reputation than i with more Steempower simply because when they stream they get upvoted from Dlive. Again maybe my streams arent good enough, I dont know.
Great post, I have rambled abit lol. I only seen it because @gamingstation resteemed it so i will too resteem for you buddy.
Nice to see you discovered this discussion, @xr-hammergaming. An alert system would definitely be great :)
I'm not going to add much more to this, we've said it already, but one sentence sums it up pretty nicely: "everything gets lost in the sea of other posts." That is discouraging, especially when we don't have that much time to do stuff here. Steemit has plenty of great creators, but spam accounts are rising at an alarming rate and flooding good content.
I do love a good discussion :)
Very discouraging. I know my posts aren't exactly blogs, they're videos, I do write up a post on occasion but recording and editing my videos take just as long if not longer to create. I do spend alot of time on here joining in on discussions and commenting on others posts because I believe in the platform. So much so that I spend far more time on here now than I do on Youtube.
I get the same old spammy posts on here that I also get on Youtube and I know the spammers won't get very far on this platform In the long run anyway, but in the meantime, they're taking away space from the hard working creators that actually deserve It.
I will plough on, I'm here for the long haul 😃👊
It could also be nice if I could see when someone replies to a reply in my post! I remember you from vidme. I think your content is very nice, but it's category is more of a "family suitable". I think that is one reason why you haven't found too many people. I have also found that if you don't get too big upvotes for your comment's, it can get bit exhausting. It is kind of funny even if you truly believed in the content.
What I have decided right now is that we all should go out and upvote curators. If we happen to stumble upon a nice content, we should upvote those meaningfull comment's with atleast descent power.
Yeah, I bought plenty of steem, but now since I have seriously started to upvote curators, I have noticed that my upvote isn't too much if I try to preserve any voting-power for next day.
There's also just a serious lack of good content here.
I've been checking #gaming severel times a day for last couple of months, just to upvote and comment, but often I just close the browser window again.
And then you see whales posting gaming content that earns them 100+ dollars.
Clearly it's their name, and not their content.
I think it would be a great idea, to have a lets' Play community set-up by gamers like yourself ... I think this will help the chain;; Good one @bestbroplayer
There are whales on discord, who will delegate steem-power to the beautiful idea...
This is such a great idea but you know everyone is focused on making money here. No one gives a shit about other people. I think it's very important to help all the minnows to grow, if not all at least some who are worthy. I have seen whales don't want to mention the name who don't even give upvote and some don't even reply back. I think this is the serious problem of people on steemit, if only everyone could think like you. I really appreciate your efforts. Your post deserves an upvote,not that my upvote makes a difference. Resteemed
Good