2014 Year in Review
We celebrate 2014 and focus on what’s ahead for 2015.
Looking back at what I wrote for my 2013 wrap-up, this year has been a massive year for me personally and for the show. There’s been some great opportunities, some big changes and I’ve even started branching out a little further in the type of content I’m producing for the show (See: I sold my NES and Resellers aren’t all that bad).
At the end of 2013, I asked myself “How will I know if my show is successful?”… I guess the answer to that is if I was excited to start 2015, then I did something right. It’s easy to lose motivation with a hobby that starts to consume your personal life so voraciously and finding a balance has always been difficult, but the rush of finishing a review and the immense pride I feel when browsing the website and seeing all the work laid out keeps me coming back… And perhaps more importantly, keeps me striving to make the experience, the videos and the content better… And hopefully more varied.
How was 2014?
Looking at some rough stats… It was an amazing year.
– The main Leftover Culture Review channel gained over 1800 subscribers (compared to 580 in 2013)
– This year I’ve had the chance to celebrate 1000 subscribers. I’m hoping to do something special again if I ever reach 5000.
– The brand new Leftovers channel has 47
– The three most popular videos this year were all produced this year,
– #1 Sega 32x Console review – 7000 views
– #2 Sega CD Console Review – 6400 views
– #3 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (GBA) – 6200 views
– The website has received over 27,000 page hits and the most popular articles (again) appear to be the Neo Geo X Magic SD Card review and the Toxic Crusader Action Figure toy line.
Outside just my content, I’ve been very privileged to welcome Dan Laughton to the website. He’s submitted two articles already and it’s been great opening up the website, including my first ever guest post by Trpe covering the (then new) Transformers movie; Age of Extinction.
What’s next?
I really enjoy producing the main Leftover Culture Review’s, but where I aimed for 20 a year, I only delivered 15 episodes in 2014. Despite less episodes, I’m really proud of the content that has been created. Maybe, less is best? The show will go on, I still enjoy producing it, but I’m not aiming for output in 2015, I’m aiming for quality. Better quality video, better quality scripts and better quality articles for the website.
I have two more focused goals in 2015 outside producing ‘better reviews’. Firstly, I’m looking forward to expanding, building and improving the website and website focused material (like the newsletter, toy reviews and other articles).
– I want to open the website up to a larger set of contributors and collaborators. I never intended to compete with website like the Punk Effect, Screwattack or Gamester 81 but I’d love to invite friends and people whose content I really enjoy and give their work a home here; help promote it and curate it.
– I want to implement a better web store with an actual quality line of merchandise (shirts, phone covers, posters).
Secondly, I’m really blown away by the opportunities I’ve had to collaborate and cameo with channels in 2014. It got me excited, the video game community across YouTube has been awesome and I never wanted to bigger part of it.
It’s seems like weird New Years resolution, but I don’t want the reviews to be the focus this year. I want to make them better but more importantly for me, I want to support the website and the community around me better (which will in-turn support the show better). I have started working on a few new ideas, such as the Leftover Culture Show. More details to follow but new stuff is coming.
One of the most exciting changes this year has been a stronger collaboration with Harley and Kenny Wootton. This duo, who go by the title InRedMusic, provided all the music for the series in 2014 and now in 2015, Harley has taken on scoring some of the episodes. I felt like it’d be a better chance for his music to shine, but more importantly, he’s bringing a level of quality to the audio I couldn’t have imagined otherwise.
So I am excited about the year ahead, still excited to be creating videos (especially in my new games room!) and since premiering on Channel Awesome (formerly That Guy with the Glasses) in November, I’m really hoping to leave a bigger mark than last year.
Thanks everyone for your on-going support. It’s truly appreciated.