(this is a crosspost so forgive formatting)
so! last night on aqualounge, i made an announcement.
my streaming efforts are gonna be dialed back for the rest of 2023. i'm not /stopping/, but no more "numbered" showcase streams or deep dives until 2024.
there are several reasons why, external and internal.
1. the aqualounge format - numbered streams, deep dives, and planned stuff - is a ton of work. so much so that i don't think i can continue to run aqualounge status quo without some help.
re: numbered streams, curating not just indie content but music, video art/animation, etc. for each stream takes a ton of manual searching. it had gotten to the point where, even at just one stream a month, i was finalizing content literally the night of, several months in a row.
the deep dives take actual months of time to produce - for a ~10 minute video, it's so content dense that it's /all/ i can work on in what little free time i have after my 40 hour work week. which brings me to my second point...
2. i have some creative obligations i need to prioritize.
i have a mcdocumentary to finish, which is gonna be taking priority 1. priority 2 is me sticking my toes back into the water of indie game dev again - i have a narrative game project that i want to seriously put time into.
beyond my obligation to ks backers on the former, these two take priority over the longer-form/higher-effort aqualounge content right now, because...
3. social media is on fire. my reach, everyone's reach, is shit.
as a result, there have been very diminishing returns btwn the amount of effort i've put into aqualounge and actual channel growth, to the point where the logical course of action is to deprioritize that for now.
i can throw myself at high-quality product for aqualounge all i want, but that will be a waste of effort if the reach simply isn't there, and right now, i'm sorry to say that the reach isn't there.
that's not my fault - i know the product is good. but it's the facts.
am i giving up on numbered streams/deep dives entirely? hell no. they're what make aqualounge unique, and i find them rewarding. but i can see the obvious, and the obvious is that it's better to bide my time and focus on serving the existing community in the meantime.
so, with all that said, what ARE my aqualounge plans for the rest of the year? well, they're threefold:
1. making aqualounge's 2024 revenge (return? resurfacing?) more sustainable.
i can see a path for growing aqualounge that will bring it success, but i can't do it by myself. i've been at my limit with it for the entire year thus far.
so, i'll be scouting out that help.
this includes:
-a second streamer, someone who can run more frequently than i can.
-folks to help with discord/youtube channel maintenance/more regular promo content for social channels (e.g. clips for twitter/tiktok/youtube/etc)
-investing time into improving the overlay
aqualounge hasn't made a net dime, so i have no idea how to compensate the time of those who i'll contact. i'm not in terrible pesonal need of income from aqualounge, so i'm down to do something like revsharing, but it's a tricky situation. i might seek guidance on this.
2. planning a suite of content for 2024 to really blow the doors off. an aqualounge 2.0, as it were.
i've got tons of youtube video concepts in the queue, as well as some events that are so batshit that they might actually get me into trouble. i'm super excited for it!
i'm also interested in doing some public-facing development on aforementioned indie game project over stream, or tying the dev process into aqualounge somehow - i think it fits aqualounge's holistic approach to games as culture to make game dev itself a part of that!
3. continuing to stream in 2023!
what will that look like? not sure yet! it'll likely still remain at once a month, maybe more frequently but shorter.
expect me to showcase both retro and modern indie stuff i still think is cool. just smaller-scale and more spread out.
because i'm gonna be doing way less work promoting these (sorry, no more sick promo flyers from me for the rest of the year, those are also a huge timesink), if you want to catch these, i IMPLORE you to keep up with aqualounge via the discord or the google/iphone calendar alerts.
you can find links to both via http://linktr.ee/aqualounge.tv . if you don't do discord, i highly recommend the calendar links - one click and you'll get calendar events for aqualounge stream automatically added to your phone until you opt out.
in conclusion, it was always my plan to take a look at the state of aqualounge 1 year in and decide where to go from there. in a year's time, i've gotten the channel from 0 to almost 600 followers - pretty solid! but most of that growth was in the first half.
it bums me out that twitter is crumbling, where my reach has historically been. i'm rebuilding well here! but it takes time.
on top of it, i see the metrics. most folks do see my aqualounge tweets and don't care. that's fine, but it does mean that simply slamming on the gas more isn't gonna work.
aqualounge got started up when it did partially because i had been kicking around a concept like it for a while, but partially bc i knew twitter's days were numbered even before the musk takeover, and i felt the urgent need to start building a dedicated platform for my output.
i wish i had been able to build it faster. i did it as fast as i can. but it's hard to fight uphill.
still, i've determined that the bones are good, and so i'm gonna keep giving it my time.
a deep part of me does still fear that all my time and effort streaming has been a distraction. that i should have used that time for making games.
but that is directly contradicted by the fact that twitter IS crumbling, and my instinct to rapidly build elsewhere was correct.
it ultimately comes down to me feeling the fatigue of going it alone on that, combined with reading the room. so, call it a strategic retreat, but i'm not done yet, and the mission is the same. count on it.
