The Official HdE Does Anime Thread

Thanks for the kind comments, guys! I'm honestly a bit taken aback at some of the comments and messages I've been getting through different arms of social media since I broke the news.

Just gonna do a quickie lightning round of responses to the last few posts:

Phobos said:
On that note I’ll need to see about catching up on your vids that I haven’t seen yet!
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I'm leaving everything up until the 20th, so you've got time. That date is key because that's when Youtube are dropping the hammer. After that, I'll be setting everthing to 'private' and leaving them online for a while so that they're still in Youtube's system, just in case there's some kind of policy reversal. Google are copping MAJOR heat for this move, so I wouldn't rule out such a thing. I'm also not holding my breath, mind.

Neil.T said:
One wonders just how many people who have found themselves under the magic 1,000 subscribers mark will collectively think "Right, **** this for a game of soldiers. I'm off."
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At first impressions, having surveyed the outpouring of anger and frustration, the answer to that question is... a LOT. This action on Youtube's part marks a pretty clear intent to corporatize the site even further than they already have. However, they've also failed to understand how circular Youtube is by nature. Channels that are small but regularly active tend to show an interest in other channels, even if only by watching their content. Lots of smaller creators, feeling rightly disenfranchised after having effectively been shown the door, simply won't visit the site now.

It's a bit like how my crappy experience with the boss of a Vauxhall showroom years ago has ensured I'll never buy Vauxhall vehicle. Once the bridge is burned for a lot of people, it's burned without hope of repair.

Neil.T said:
I for one won't be using trick apps to hang onto @HdE's videos, and will instead invest in crossing my fingers in the hope that they resurface one day. In the meantime, I'll content myself with reading his (hopefully) continuing forum posts while hearing his now-familiar voice in my mind's ear.
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I won't lie - I appreciate that sentiment a lot! It shows that folks value the work and effort that went into the videos. And don't fret - I'll still be around to complain about the price of anime, the size of collectors' edition box sets and remind all you kids how I'm old enough that I remember when all of this was fields. You know, before the war, when Labour were in power and you could afford to buy a house after a decade...


Sarah said:
I can only admire the way you've persevered, @HdE , through all the problems and impediments that YouTube has thrown in your way, only to end up with this latest slap in the face. And I've really enjoyed your video reviews and think they definitely deserve a home somewhere else (as @Rui says above) if you decide to create a new home for them. Also sorry to see that this other project has been put on hold (you're an excellent voiceover voice and deserve to be better known!)

I'm hoping that this will prove to be one of those 'As One Door Closes, Another Opens...' moments.
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Thanks, Sarah! As I said in my last post, what happens now is (yet another) period of sitting back, cracking on with the bread-and-butter work and waiting to see what happens when the next landscape shift occurs.

Youtube might indeed be an ever changing mess, but some of the fledgling competitors are adapting as well. Very few of them are attractive prospects, as I'd already mentioned in this thread. But there's no reason why they couldn't be in time.

The way things stand right now is that the guys I was going to jump into the gaming channel with are going to look at possible alternatives and weigh up how lucrative they might be. A sad fact of the game is, if you're going to pump out regular content, it HAS to pay out. This is what's going to kill Youtube - they're asking for a full-time investment from new creators in hopes that they'll meet targets that are already unrealistic, and will only get worse. It'll get to a point where no-one can do it on the level that they used to.

Anyways... I've survived worse. We'll see what happens.
 
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Neil.T said:
Got to admit, I'm curious about the Vauxhall boss now... ;)
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And I don't mind dishing dirt. I did some work on site at a Vauxhall showroom some years ago for another company. The boss there was an asshole of the highest order. Something the guys I worked for had done didn't sit right with him, so he called me into the office to rant and rave about it. As if it was something I could do anything about. It wasn't - to be clear, I was a rank and file employee and the 'problem' the showroom boss was annoyed about was a management level thing. And this came after something like a week of tolerating ****** behaviour from him.

When I tried to explain to him that his anger was misplaced, he held up his hands and said - and these were his exact words: "Didn't your mother ever teach you not to speak when the grown ups are talking?"

My response was - again, verbatim "Oh, shut up you stupid prick." That had the desired effect, so I took advantage of his stunned silence to remind him that I didn't work for him, it wasn't his place to speak to me in such a fashion, and that he was actually harrassing me by his actions. He argued. I told him I'd be happy to take the matter up with him outside. He went wide eyed and told me to get out of his office. I gave him the finger and told him "that would be my pleasure."

My employers took my side, thankfully. But I walked off the job and never went back.

(Oh yeah - and besides all that, Vauxhall cars tend to be pretty awful anyway, according to pals of mine who have owned them.)
 
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Neil.T said:
Wow. What a class-A assh*le.

Glad you Judged him. "I am the law, perp." ;)
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I've been VERY fortunate in my working lifetime to never have been put in a position where I've had to kow-tow to anybody. In fact, I think I've spent more time self employed than I have in employment. It tends to change your outlook on things quite a bit with regards to how people treat you.

Just remember, folks - when people gleefully serve you a poo sandwich, NOWHERE is it written that you have to take a bite out of it.
 
Well, B*gger me! There's an update in this thread! And I wrote it!

I just wanted to pop back in here and mention some potential developments regarding my old Youtube material and what could happen in the future.

There's been some discussion over the last few days - mostly to do with the gaming content I was meant to start uploading this month. But it could also offer a lifeline for my anime reviews and possibly even lead to more down the line.

It's basically been put to me that there are a few instances of Youtube channels seeking funding via platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. In these cases, it seems to be that the parties producing the content anticipate that it'll be targeted by Youtube's increasingly tyrannical dictates and refused monetization. So they're simply looking to draw more meaningful funding from the folks who'll actually appreciate it. And it's been suggested that I adopt this model to create new material.

I have to say, it's an appealing prospect, for several reasons. But it's also kind of daunting. I'm not sure that folks in the numbers I'd need to make such a thing happen would actually stump up their cash to finance such a thing. But the good news is, I wouldn't need much. In fact, doing some conservative calculations, to produce a video every two weeks, I think I could get by on somewhere in the region of £1,500 to fund a year's content.

As I type this, it's almost 4:00 AM, and I've been doing my maths like a crazy man and working out strategies to potentially approach this. In fact, by this point, I think I may have evolved my own alternative central nervous system that runs exclusively on coffee! But this is by the by.

I figure it's worth posting here to put this idea out there as a *POSSIBLE* way of moving forward. £1,500 isn't a lot of money in Kickstarter terms, but it's still a lot of money when you stand back and consider it needs to be raised over the duration of a campaign.

So, let me know what you guys think. Is this a venture you would consider supporting with a portion of your hard-earned? And if so, what would you expect to get back for it? (This part's important!)

To be clear, if I went forward with this, it wouldn't be a resurrection of the HdE Does Anime channel. This would be a new channel, with a comparatively smaller amount of anime related content. I'm thinking everything that was published previously would be rebranded to appear alongside videos that focused on gaming content (both software and hardware) with the occasional movie and even book review thrown in.

There you go. Over to you. DISCUSS!
 
I thought Kickstarter was for more tangible products like games or anime releases where you get a physical product at the end (I suppose games could also be digital copies nowadays).
What about Patreon? I see you have 222 subscribers, now if everyone chipped in a dollar a month that is $2664 a year! That's £1,898.42. Now not everyone would I suppose, but I'm guessing it's more of a hobby at the moment so you would have a backup still. Also with Kickstarter, AFAIK, you would have to raise the entire amount within a time limit or get nothing, whereas with Patreon you'd be getting cash each month, you just have to keep the videos coming on a semi-regular basis or people will stop paying.
Do you have any favourite YouTubers who are good with their community that you could contact via Twitter or another means to ask for advice? One of my favourites is Many a True Nerd who has only the dollar tier for Patreon and seems to be doing well enough for himself on just a third of million subscribers. He does a Patreon-cast each month as the exclusive and answers pretty much every question put to him in the call out post.
 
Cheers for the post, D1tchd1gger! (And I'm glad I'm not the only one still up at a stupid hour!)

There's some stuff here I've already looked into, which I figure is worth answering - especially if it furthers conversation:

D1tchd1gger said:
I thought Kickstarter was for more tangible products like games or anime releases where you get a physical product at the end (I suppose games could also be digital copies nowadays).
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This is correct. However, a precedent has been set recently for funding Youtube content via Kickstarter with a successful campaign for 'Digitiser - The Show.' That's going to be a gaming show with a finite number of episodes that draws on the old Teletext Digitiser pages as a source of inspiration. (Side note here - I'm personally REALLY looking forward to that, as I'm old enough to remember laughing my socks off reading Digitiser on my late grandma's old TV. It's also going to feature two of my favourite Youtubers, NostalgiaNerd and 0ctav1us Kitten. Look 'em up - their content is superb!)

Basically, Kickstarter's requirement is that the finished product is something that can be shared with people. It appears that Youtube content fits that description now. It's a worthy point you raise, though, as I've had to consider already what Kickstarter funding might mean long term for content funded that way - where it's displayed, how long it should remain accessible to viewers, and whether unforseen circumstances might affect those concerns.

D1tchd1gger said:
What about Patreon? I see you have 222 subscribers, now if everyone chipped in a dollar a month that is $2664 a year! That's £1,898.42. Now not everyone would I suppose, but I'm guessing it's more of a hobby at the moment so you would have a backup still. Also with Kickstarter, AFAIK, you would have to raise the entire amount within a time limit or get nothing, whereas with Patreon you'd be getting cash each month, you just have to keep the videos coming on a semi-regular basis or people will stop paying.
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Oooohh... this is tricky to say anything back to, because Patreon has been a subject of MUCH discussion and not a little grief recently. (I also REALLY don't want to come off as a dick for what I'm about to say here, because it's a reasonable suggestion that just happens to have been flogged to death in discussions you won't have been privy to. It's worth adressing here, though, so here goes...)

Basically, Patreon seems like a great idea for funding. But getting folks to actually sign up and regularly donate through it is an uphill challenge. Here's the skinny on that:

The reality of Patreon funding comes down to a numbers game. I learned a basic rule of campaigning for public support back when I played music, which basically meant that, if you publicised gigs via word of mouth, roughly one third of the people you approached would show up. Usually, its even less than that. And this seems to correllate with subscription based crowdfunding.

Something I've learned from working in comics is that subscription models can be dodgy. They're subject to fluctuations and a predictable rate of fall-off, and that gets worse over time if a product is supplied over an indefinite period. So, in an ideal world, I can see where you're coming from. But the 'if everyone donates a minimal amount' reasoning never realistically finds purchase. My social media feeds are so bloated with folks asking for support via Patreon that they all inevitably start to blur together, and I tune them out. Which is exactly what I expect would happen if I went the same route - at least, right now, anyway.

This is kind of born out by what you'll find if you look at how even successful Youtube channels are doing for Patreon backers. I've been a big fan of Mark Bussler's Classic Game Room channel for a few years. But he's been in an ongoing love / hate relationship with Youtube pretty much ever since he started up on there. In fact, he's just jumped ship and taken his new content to Amazon Prime's video service. He has a HUGE subscriber base. But this is already smaller than it was thanks to Youtube dicking about with the notification system, as well as dictating to the kind of content Mark can post, from what I gather. He displays the names of his patreon backers at the end of his videos ever since he started sourcing funds that way. And even with thousands of subcribers... well, it doesn't take him long to get through his list of patrons.

The bottom line is, Patreon seems to only work realistically for very large channels. I'm not saying that contributions made before a channel grows large are worthless, mind you. It's just that, for a channel with 222 subs (three quarters of whom are evidently not receiving notifications - THANKS, Youtube!) Patreon isn't a platform that would adequately support a creator. Sad, but true, I'm afraid.

Patreon's also being eyed a bit warily right now by quite a few folks who use it. They recently tried to do away with $1.00 donations, which caused enough of an uproar that they had to go back on the idea and issue a public statement saying they'd made a mistake. What I take form this is that Patreon is flawed in the same way Youtube is - there's no reason to expect that the landscape will remain the way it is for long enough to make any plans around it.

D1tchd1gger said:
Do you have any favourite YouTubers who are good with their community that you could contact via Twitter or another means to ask for advice? One of my favourites is Many a True Nerd who has only the dollar tier for Patreon and seems to be doing well enough for himself on just a third of million subscribers. He does a Patreon-cast each month as the exclusive and answers pretty much every question put to him in the call out post.
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Excellent suggestion. Trust me, though - discussion about this kind of funding method has gone on pretty regularly since I announced the end of HdE Does Anime.

It might be worth mentioning that a Kickstarter funding model is under consideration for several reasons. One is that aversion I've got to subscription based models, and their unpredictable nature. Another is that it's actually fairer to backers in terms of providing tier based rewards.

Realistically, I know what I can commit to every month, and offering a monthly reward for something like Patreon contributions isn't really on the table. At one point, I'd considered setting up a Patreon account and putting out a digital magazine every two months for backers with exclusive content. But even that was realistically not something I could deliver on time reliably. The issue is that I don't want to be in a situation where I can't deliver what's promised. (Check out the Indiegogo page for the ZX Spectrum Vega + if you get a chance. That's the kind of mess I want to avoid!)

I only have the vaguest ideas of what I can offer as rewards for different donation tiers right now. I'm open to suggestions! But I know that's something I can accommodate more easily and - if I play things sensibly - 100% more reliably than a regular monthly reward. Kickstarter also works out more favourably for me if funding can be secured after a 30 or 60 day campaign. If it's a success... well, I've got the sum of cash I need once it's been processed. And that's (quite literally) currency. With cash in the bank, I can make plans. I can properly justify time taken to create videos and even possibly the expense incurred for equipment upgrades to make content technically better.

Not intending any of that to pooh-pooh your suggestions, D1tchd1gger. Because they're all good and valid. It's just that they're points that have already been considered to a comprehensive degree. It really comes down to gauging if people would go for the kind of crowdfunding approach I'm considering and - really importantly - what they would want to see for their buck.
 
I’d be willing to donate, all I’d really be after for my money is for your anime reviews to go up. I suppose if you’re after ideas of rewards for tiers then there’s a couple obvious ones I can think of.

Bear in mind, I did say they’re obvious.
1, a thank you at end of a video ie name scrolling thing.
2. A personalised shout out thank you type thing. Where you literally go “thanks x,y&z.”
3 potentially as a higher tier reward if you think it’s feasable allow the backer to choose which anime a review will be about.

Not entirely sure what other rewards could be.
 
Cheers, phobos! (And even if this idea never gains traction, please know that your willingness to donate means the world!)

Those reward ideas all make sense, and to be honest, they're already things that I've either considered or had suggested already. But it's good to have them aired in this thread.

Crediting backers is a common sense thing to do (and really only courteous, I think.) I do like the idea of allowing a backer to request a specific piece of content, and this is something I've already discussed with folks. The only puzzle there is knowing how to approach it, because it could pose some difficulties - say, if somebody want to see a specific game, show or movie reviewed, there may be a question as to the accessibility of the material. And I wonder if I might have to put a few disclaimers in place. Some things I'm just not up for looking at. (I'm anticipating a ton of requests to review stuff like Urotsukidoji and Boku No Pico - no WAY is that stuff ever making its way onto a channel on my watch!)

Here's an open question: If I made a 'review of your choice' tier available, how would folks feel about caveats being placed on that? For example 'no hentai' or 'no visual novels' or 'ease of access to the chosen material is a requirement?'

Be honest here, guys. Genuine feelings and opinions really help with this.
 
If it was obvious that there were limitations to backers requests I’d personally have no issues with that. However let’s say they were in essence hidden (not saying you’d ever go this way) from a backer then I’d have to take an alternate stance simply because it’d come across as deceptive. Yknow if it’s clear there’s limitations then it’s pretty clear what people can/can’t do and can make their choice accordingly where as a “choose your own” then getting a “no, no, not that either - check this place you wouldn’t have thought associated with your tier choice for what you can do” just seems very misleading and unprofessional not to mention a bit of a slap in the face for the backer.
 
Phobos said:
If it was obvious that there were limitations to backers requests I’d personally have no issues with that. However let’s say they were in essence hidden (not saying you’d ever go this way) from a backer then I’d have to take an alternate stance simply because it’d come across as deceptive. Yknow if it’s clear there’s limitations then it’s pretty clear what people can/can’t do and can make their choice accordingly where as a “choose your own” then getting a “no, no, not that either - check this place you wouldn’t have thought associated with your tier choice for what you can do” just seems very misleading and unprofessional not to mention a bit of a slap in the face for the backer.
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I completely agree!

My experience with Kickstarter so far has mostly been when I've been attached to a comic book project that sourced funds that way. In that arena, it's really, really important to deliver on what you promise, and transparency is vital.

I very seldom personally back a crowdfunded project. But in the instances when I have, such as for the ZX Spectrum Next home computer (which, I hasten to add, is NOT the same things as the RCL funded Vega+ debacle) or the Retro Fighters Nintendo 64 Brawler control pad, I can say that I've been very appreciative of the regular updates and consistently clear communication that were offered. That really points the way toward 'doing Kickstarter right' in my book.
 
Neil.T said:
Ah, crap. I must've missed that. What was it? Please! I need to know now you've mentioned it. :p
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The answer is... only being provided to those Kickstarter backers who pledge for the 'One Man Production Army' tier, donating £1,500 and a brand new limited collector's edition of Sentai's Legend of the Galactic Heroes box set!

That's a cheeky lie, actually. Go watch 0ctav1us Kitten's video about Digitiser (which is properly entertaining and funny) annd the ghastly NSFW truth will be revealed.


Be warned - it also features stuff from Mr. Biffo's 'Found Footage' show, which was ALL kinds of wrong.
 
Further update!

All the old anime reviews are back online. So if you've been missing them, or want to re-watch any of them, have at it!
 
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