Hello everyone, and welcome to this heavily delayed update blog.
I would love to say there are valid reasons for the huge gap between updates, and there has been one major reason, but overall my focus has been elsewhere over the last few months and because of that I just never got around to writing any blog posts.
I’ll start with the big update. M4J is once again a separate entity with no attachments to other companies. My relationship with X Vision Interactive ended back in May through a very messy situation (again not going to talk too much about that here), and since then my work has mainly been to look for new opportunities elsewhere. At this stage I am still finding my feet, but have been offered some awesome chances to work with some big names, one of which is Hashtag United. For those who don’t know, Hashtag is a football club based in Essex who two years ago joined the English football pyramid. They are arguably the most-watched football club in the country right now, so any chance to work with them is one not to be sniffed at! My current role with them is as a programme contributor, specifically the player bios. Hopefully this is just the start of working more with Hashtag, but for me this is just step one of a new path for M4J.
One thing my previous job taught me is how to run a business. All of my experience from the last two years has now been focused onto my own business, and I am now finally putting my university degree to good use by making M4J Media official! On the surface, not a great deal will change, but behind the scenes I’ll be working a lot more with startups looking to build an online presence. Basically I make websites and stuff.
So what does this mean for M4J_Gaming? Honest answer, I don’t yet know. Obviously I love what I do, and would love for it to continue the way it is now, but it all depends on a number of things:
How successful the channel is - M4J_Gaming is a hobby, but a hobby that still needs a degree of success in order to be sustainable. The last couple of months have shown that the potential is definitely there, but once again things have plateaued in terms of growth and interaction. If the channel remains a hobby, then this isn’t a huge issue. But if it’s to be part of the business, then it does need to show more signs of progression.
How busy the main business becomes - Right now work is pretty light, but in an ideal world I would like to be swamped with work. When the work does come in, my priority will rightly be on the projects that yield the biggest results. At this moment in time, that will not be the channel. What this means is uploads might become more sporadic, maybe even just a video or two a week. Streams might be cut back, but will be more focused to make up for that. Video premieres have already been announced as the first episode of each month, and the plan is to keep this going so long as it’s popular.
My personal feelings - I have talked about this before but I’ll say it again now. I do enjoy what I do, but there are a number of factors about YouTube that I do not like. The biggest two are the negativity that can surround the channel, and the pressure and stress my channel puts on my daily life. I’ve talked before quite candidly about how I’ve almost quit YouTube a few times over the last couple of years, as well as the reason why I ultimately haven’t. The main reason I’ve always stayed is I know behind all toxicity any creator faces, there is a core audience that enjoy and appreciate the content. My genuine viewers are those who watch streams every week, comment below most videos, get involved in the Discord/Reddit channels and continue to support the channel in any way they can. You guys are the reason I enjoy YouTube and continue to do what I do. Hopefully in time that core continues to grow and drown out the negativity that can engulf the comments section at times, but for now I’ve been dealing with it in my own way.
Ok, bit of a down beat there, but let’s get back to some positives. The M4J Network and New Gardcity are by far the most popular series on the channel right now. These are the flagship series, and with a new lease of life, will continue for a long time to come I hope. Going back to streaming OpenTTD has been warmly welcomed, with the new format on Tuesdays also being well received. On top of that, the M4J Rail livery has now made its first appearance in the game, with a huge thanks to the BRTrains team for their help in achieving that. To go with everything said above, there is a new mentality with the channel that I’d now like to state.
My channel was set up as a means for me to play games I enjoy in the way I enjoy, and find other people around the world who enjoy those games played that way too. Over the years I’ve been guilty of “chasing views”, trying out games that I wouldn’t otherwise play in order to try and attract viewers. I’ve also compromised my style in order to try and appease certain people. Both of these were, to put it bluntly, mistakes. So from now on, I will go back to basics, playing games my way. OpenTTD, Cities Skylines, Football Manager 2020, F1 2020 and Rainbow Six Siege are the current games I enjoy playing most, and these will be the games I make videos on for the time being. Some people might like all of those games, some might only like one or two, some might not even like any of them, but those are the games I have chosen to play and I ask you all to respect that. Any comments saying “Play … instead” will be ignored from now on, as viewing figures in the past have proved that ‘popular’ games do not equate to popular channels. My channel is known for my style, as I’ve come to realise recently, therefore that’s what I’m going to keep doing. Suggestions for new series can be submitted through the M4J Viewer Survey as well as any and all other feedback. The survey was set up for that specific reason so please do use it. I still find it hard to believe that I have over 1,000 active subscribers yet only 12 have filled out the survey!!!
Besides all that, I think I’ve said enough for this month. Once again I’ve gone on for way too long (sorry about that!) but I wanted to try and update you all as best as I can in a single location rather than scattered across a number of random videos. This post might be edited over time as things change, but if not then the next post will be a more coherent update on recent changes. There are other things I haven’t mentioned, for example merchandise, but right now there’s nothing much else to say but of course if something does change you’ll be the first to know.
So thanks for reading all of this, and hopefully that does clear up a few questions some of you might have had. If not, feel free to comment below or contact me on Discord and I’ll be happy to answer any other questions you might have.
Cheers all, and until next time I’ll see you soon!
