Hey everyone - this week's blog is a bit late since I had yesterday booked off for my girlfriend's birthday. It was a nice weekend and we saw the new James Bond film, so all in all, a good time. Today was back to business as usual, though, so here's a round-up of what happened and what's happening this week.
YourTube
So the last video - Top 5 Mods To Play With Friends - isn't doing superbly well. It hasn't breached a thousand views yet, though the article did about as well as the other editorials, so ultimately, that's the important thing. The next video is at risk of not doing well either - it's an experiment so I can see what's going on with our YouTube community. Given it sat around for six years, I'm not surprised initial uptake is low, and I want to figure out exactly how much uptake we're looking at. The next video, then, is five still great mods, but ones without dedicated Discords (that I know of) or conventional communities like that to share them around in. That tends to get extra eyes on videos, and what I want to know is how much promotional power all of the socials have for just one video, on their own, without other groups contributing. It'll be the Top 5 Mods That Make You Think, whether physically or metaphysically, and we'll see how it goes.
Editing Schmediting
Two editorials went live last week - Space Marine 10th Anniversary Out; 5 Warhammer 40k Mods Where There's Only War, and Halo Infinite's Phase 2 Flight 1st Weekend; 5 Halo Mods To Play Before You Finish The Flight.
40k is a remarkably popular franchise on the site. Dawn of War mods are pretty much hosted here or not hosted at all, and other 40k games like Space Marines and DOW2 enjoy some healthy modding support, too. It's sometimes difficult to gauge how well editorials are going to do, but I knew the 40k one was going to be a hit. Five great mods made the cut and people really enjoyed the editorial. Lots of discussion happened, mostly about some other great mods worth checking out, and all in all, I had a good time writing the editorial too.
The second editorial that went live last week was about Halo Infinite, and my flight I was involved in. It was a fun flight and I'm really excited about Infinite's multiplayer, even if the campaign is still a wary point for me given Halo 5's blunder here. The second flight period happened the weekend just gone, and though it was a busy weekend for me, I did manage to fit in a little bit of flighting even so.
The Infinite editorial didn't do anywhere near as well as the 40k editorial. Matter of fact, it did worse than I was expecting, but I was expecting it to be a less sure-fire win. The Halo modding community on ModDB is not very large, with most Custom Edition mods being on HaloMaps, and most modern-day Halo mods being on Nexus. I'm trying to turn this around as with many other modding communities, but it's a difficult road to travel. Editorials that put mods in the spotlight are an essential part of that journey as modders won't consider hosting their content on ModDB too unless there's strong incentives to do so.
I also went live with my own mod article for September, a major update to my project Raising the Bar: Redux, the Half Life 2: Raising the Bar REDUX: September 2021 Update. It featured some pretty big things and whilst personal modding news isn't directly relevant to site administration, engagement on the site is engagement on the site. Lots of comments and a big splash with both viewership and on the social medias for that mod mean it's one of my best performing articles in a while.
Letting News
I also did the newsletters last week, and that's why the video's delayed again - newsletters take a long time to put together. We stopped doing them for a few months due to the scheduling of the previous editor, and we didn't do any between January and June. Now I'm in the role it's something I've been committed to getting back on track for monthly submission, and it's going fine enough, so far. A few hundred thousand people are subscribed to the newsletters so it's another part of the social outreach we should be making use of.
The Week to Come
This week, I've got three editorials planned. The first is already live - the second part of my Halo Infinite editorial, Halo Infinite's Phase 2 Flight Part 2; 5 More Halo Mods To Play After Finishing This Flight, where unfortunately my in-game shots didn't come out exactly as I wanted them to (but I still think they're usable). The other two will be a poll analysis editorial for the month of September tomorrow, and then an editorial on Friday for the new video. That leaves Thursday as the wildcard for anything especially unique to come up, but we'll see.
The video's mods are locked down now - Portal: Reloaded, The Nameless Mod, Watching Paint Dry, The Forgotten City, and The Mansion 1408. All are really solid mods that either tax your brain, tax your emotional compass, or both, and I think that's an interesting premise for a video. It goes without saying we'll do something spooky this October too, and meanwhile, we're beginning to gear up for MOTY and IOTY, so something to keep an eye on.
Closing Thoughts
Last week was busy, this week'll be busy, and thanks to MOTY and spooky month, it's likely every week for the next few weeks'll be busy too. Keep an eye out in the mean time and you'll see lots of content. If you have strong opinions about it, comment down below, and we'll touch base during next week's blog.
