What I'm gonna talk about here isn't about most of you, don't worry. This is only for a VERY small percentage of the community, but I wanna sort of nip this in the bud lol.
First of all, if you haven't seen the FNaF4 AI breakdown by ItzTaken, you should watch it! If you liked my FNaF 1 video, you'll enjoy this one, too. https://youtu.be/00QpsfqHQzw
However, since it came out I've been getting small amounts of DMs and emails here and there saying "Lol you were too slow, someone else beat you to it" and stuff like that. I'm sure a portion of that is just people ribbing me but it's getting a lot more frequent so JUST IN CASE, I wanna ask that you don't try to antagonize anybody based off a perceived rivalry; that's really not the case. Small comparisons are one thing, (After all, did you SEE those visuals? They really added a lot to the explanation, I could learn a thing or two lol) but Tech Rules has always been about putting more easily digestible information out there, and this literally just means more information. It's only a good thing.
This probably seems like an unnecessary clarification, but the reality is that people are very mean to content creators. I'm at the point where it doesn't bother me anymore, but the issue is that when small creators start increasing in popularity, people start slowly taking that popularity to mean that it's okay to start being cruel. Please, DO NOT do this. Even if you see someone being like "[BLANK] content is so much better than Tech Rules", that is not an invitation to put the commenter or anyone involved down, and it's ESPECIALLY not an invitation to put the other channel down to "win the argument" or whatever. In fact, for those of you I've already seen trash-talk ItzTaken in order to "defend" my videos, know that your comments are probably already blocked on this channel indefinitely. There's discussion, and then there's that useless nonsense. I don't want your toxicity, regardless of the reason.
All this to ask: Please show ItzTaken some love whenever they make more FNaF breakdown videos! What they've made so far is phenomenal, and the only reaction from my community that will make me happy is appreciation for the excellent work they've done.
Hopefully this doesn't come across as super-aggressive to the people who are just trying to appreciate my work. I just think that their channel is going to be doing really well in the future, and I want to make it clear from the beginning that we should be welcoming and excited for another great content creator to show up. Thanks, everyone!
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As some of you may have seen from Backseat's latest stream highlight, I was completely wrong about how Golden Freddy works in my FNAF video. I've made the correction in the pinned comment under the video, but I feel the need to make a community post about it, too. It's the most popular video on the channel right now, and it's a bit dishearting that I've been spreading misinformation about this the entire time lol.
Basically, I let my preconceived assumptions of the game mislead me into thinking that the random 1 in 100,000 check happens when you look at cam 2B. In reality, it tries the check EVERY SINGLE SECOND you're in the night, and if it succeeds, you'll see that the poster has changed the next time you look at it. You can even see the change instantly happen, if you're watching the poster when it succeeds!
This was found by Phisnom after Backseat managed to get TWO Golden Freddy encounters in a single playthrough of the game. If my version of the Golden Freddy event had been real, this feat would've been nigh-impossible with those unbelievably low odds, and I'd be fearful for the man who used up his entire lifetime's worth of luck on FNAF. Instead, it's just an extremely impressive occurence, with the added benefit that he'll probably still be okay walking underneath pianos and safes and whatnot. You can find out more in the video itself! https://youtu.be/vdgV_rGzML4
This just proves my point when it comes to things like this: Misinformation is SO easily spread, even when you don't mean to. If you're using secondhand information to come to a conclusion, be sure to double-check as much of the information as you can!
I also went ahead and added the correction about the botched percentages in there too, since the top comments that pointed them out seem to have been knocked off the top by YouTube's comment sorting system. In it, I also go over how exactly that mistake happened. Long story short: I noticed the incorrect numbers during revisions, but in my exhausted state, I tried to add a zero to the numbers instead of removing one, making them...even more incorrect. I almost don't want to know how long those top comments have been missing!
And while I'm here, might as well reiterate what I've talked about a couple times on Twitter: Wow, I haven't uploaded in over a year!! Yeah, my bad. Turns out if you try to push through creative exhaustion for multiple years, you get hit with some serious long-term burnout that physically stops your brain from making the thing anymore. I love learning new things!
I'm working on it, though. I wanted to come back with a new, improved look and better editing, but I think at this point it'll just be good to work my way up to making content again. The upgrades can come later, now that I know better than pushing myself to get a certain amount of videos done per year. I'll try to have something fun uploaded when I can!
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Enough people have asked me not to make the April Fools video unlisted that I'm...still going to do it. HOWEVER! I made a new playlist exclusively for the April Fools videos, so you shouldn't have any trouble finding them should you want to rewatch them.
I'm aware that I don't HAVE to make the video unlisted, and I could just label it as an April Fools video in the title. I just don't want to do that because of the low amount of videos this channel has. When this channel ends, it will still probably have just a small handful of videos, and I don't necessarily want those small jokes taking up space on the channel page and making it look like there's more content than there actually is.
And no, the "actual video soon" comment was not also an April Fools joke, you hecklers lol
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I appreciate the feedback on the latest video, but for those of you in the comments who were really worried I'd like to reiterate that this was a one-off and not a permanent format change lol. Seems like a lot of people were under that impression. Even still, many of you have made some really good points, and I think we'll be scrapping the idea. It was worth a shot, but you're absolutely right that it's not a good fit for the channel. Sometimes you don't realize stuff like that when you're so focused on the creation/editing side of things. I hope you'll still enjoy it as a weird, experimental side thing until the next video, which I promise won't take nearly as long to go up!
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DISCLAIMER: GIANT RANT ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THE (formerly) NEXT FNAF VIDEO
Hey, everyone. I'm going to be completely honest with you here, so bear with me. You're more than welcome to provide criticism in the comments for this decision, but if you want to do so I ask that you read the entire explanation first.
Firstly, just to clear the potential misconception as soon as possible, the Five Nights at Freddy's video that was supposed to be released soon isn't cancelled. I'm still working on it just as hard as I've ever been. However, I've unfortunately made the decision to not release it for the time being.
There are a lot of factors that play into this, but the primary one is that I'm not happy with the video in its current state. It's not that I find the facts I've unearthed while exploring FNaF 2 boring or uninteresting. Far from it, in fact. There's lots of cool stuff in here that I'm excited about, and I really, REALLY want to show it to you right now. However, the game bears a lot of similarities with the first one, and those cool facts unique to it don't translate well to a video when it's short and ends just as its momentum starts to build up. Fundamentally, Tech Rules is about fact videos. But I'd also like to think it has elements of storytelling in how I present it, which makes difficult or foreign concepts a lot easier to digest. If that's the case, then this isn't a good story.
I decided that if this won't work on its own, then I just won't present it on its own. In other words, the FNaF 2 video has been expanded, and is now about more than one FNaF game! I'll keep the details vague as I'm currently working out the revised video's pacing, but I'm sure you can easily guess which one I'm currently looking into adding. It's one that plays a bit differently compared to the rest of the series, but not to the extent of, say, Sister Location or something. (To the people in the Discord that heard me talking about which game earlier: Shh! Pretend it's a secret!)
However, there's a problem with this decision: It's been a WHILE since my last actual Tech Rules video, and I would hate to add a large amount of additional waiting to that. When I did that April Fools joke upload, I saw a lot of comments that were really disappointed to find out it wasn't a real upload. They meant it in good faith, but reading that hurt my heart a bit lol. Because of that, I'm going to be pushing the Friday Night Funkin' video forward and trying to get that finished as fast as possible, so that I have something to show while I work on the FNaF video. This will probably feel like a slap in the face for the people who voted last time I asked about this. To those people, I want to reassure you that also working on the Friday Night Funkin' video will NOT slow my work on the FNaF video down in any meaningful way. I already know more or less everything I need to know about that game's code to make a video on it, since I've been analyzing it a lot in my free time. (I really enjoy that game, haha.)
I know that video delays suck, especially coming from a channel like me that isn't able to upload very frequently. I've already gotten many messages from many people expressing their frustration over it. I'm sorry. But please understand that Tech Rules isn't my full-time job. I try my best to work on it whenever I have the time because I just genuinely love making content for this channel. It's just that even when a game is already decompiled, going through every bit of that code can be very exhausting. To show my point, I'm including a screenshot of my hours spent in Clickteam Fusion 2.5. I don't make games with this software. Every bit of that is just from analyzing FNaF games. I don't get to pick and choose which lines of code I look at for a video. I essentially have to understand all of it to ensure I know what I'm talking about when I explain my findings.
I'll work hard to make sure I have something for you very soon, so please wait just a bit longer. From a growth perspective it would probably be smarter to just throw out the video entirely and work on something that takes less time to complete for the same amount of views, but that's not really why I do this. However, when the FNaF video finally releases, please consider sharing it around if you feel like I did a good job. Doing so will ease the blow a bit and make me look a bit better in the eyes (sensors?) of the algorithm that probably isn't happy about the lack of content. I'm sure you're tired of hearing it by now, but thank you for your tremendous amounts of patience! I'm really excited to see your reactions to this video once it's finally done!!
(Oh, and I'll stop nagging at you with community posts like this for a little while now, haha. If I have anything else I need to say about this, I'll say it on Twitter.)
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Have you ever wanted to ask me question about a video, a game mechanic, or something personal/completely off topic and get an answer in real time? Now's your chance! The Infinite Azure Discord is hosting a Tech Rules Q&A this Friday, starting at around 6 PM EST! If you want to participate, make sure you join the server and follow the instructions provided some time before the session! (Just a disclaimer, your questions may show up in a bonus video on an alt channel I'm contemplating on starting.) discord.gg/haEb4y9
Speaking of Friday, I have a genuine question for you all: The FNaF video's still coming along fine, it's just taking a while because there's a lot of information to parse and I'm getting a bit exhausted. I'm still gonna do the video, but I'm wondering how everyone would feel about, for now, switching gears and doing a quick-ish Friday Night Funkin' video? It seems everyone is talking about that game right now, and I definitely get why. I would be very excited to put that together, if everyone wants to see it! If I did, the FNaF video would come immediately afterward. Let me know!
(As much as I always appreciate it, don't worry about picking FNF just because I'd rather do that right now. I'm asking because I wanna hear which one YOU ALL want to see first! We won't change course unless FNF beats FNaF by a significant margin, since I kind of already promised it lol)
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Hey, it's been a little while since the last video! Don't worry, we're not doing another long break! Things are just taking a bit longer than usual due to things outside of my control. I promise that you'll see the next video very soon!
On the bright side, it's one that I think a lot of you have been looking forward to...
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Okay, looks like today will be a Persona 5 stream! I figured that's the one that would win, but I definitely didn't expect it to win by so much! For those that voted Three Houses, we may still play that! I have it as a backup in case everyone gets bored of the Persona 5 rando, or if the stream goes well enough that we continue it for an extended period of time. Again, the stream will start today at 5 PM EST. See you soon!
(And for those that voted Kingdom Hearts, you get dibs whenever we do the next randomizer stream!)
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Hey, everyone! First stream is coming up soon, and it's time to vote on the game! I think I already mentioned that it was going to be some sort of randomizer stream, but I've finally narrowed the choices down to three. I chose these because they were ones you may not have seen much of before, due to them not really being accessible or having somewhat significant logic issues. Nonetheless, they are very interesting and I would love the chance to show any of them off!
Poll closes on the 15th, the day of the stream. The stream itself will happen at 5 PM EST (provided there are no issues) and will probably only go on for a couple hours or so. The reason for this is because I've never done a YouTube stream before, so this is going to be a learning experience. Expect issues and weirdness!
And if you're conflicted on what to vote for, I can definitely say that the Three Houses randomizer would be very, VERY interesting to stream! That being said, I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone is interested in. Hope to see you there!
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Hey, so, let's talk about sponsorships. A lot of you pretty much already understand the reason there's a sponsor on every video, but it occurs to me that I've never really explicitly talked about it. I also would like to ask a question, but I'll save that for the end of the rant.
The summary is that sponsorships make up around 80-90% of my income from Tech Rules. That's not because sponsorship payments are extremely high or anything. They're about what you would expect them to be. It's because, at least these days, ad revenue from videos does NOT pay very well. Not only that, but YouTube reserves the right to suddenly demonetize ANY of my videos with ZERO notice or explanation. My channel is particularly vulnerable to this; the subject of hacking makes video game publishers and legal teams VERY uneasy, and all it takes to get one of my videos demonetized (or perhaps even taken down entirely!) is a copyright notice to YouTube. As a creator, the tools I'm given to handle or otherwise contest situations like these are very limited.
But for the sake of transparency, Tech Rules isn't my only source of income. If I stopped accepting sponsorships one day and only received the ad revenue, I would probably still be able to get by. However, not only would I be cutting it close, any sort of copyright claim or takedown notice would completely negate my earnings for that month, and I'll suddenly find myself in a tricky financial situation. People seem to have the conception that YouTubers are loaded and set for life. That may be true for the ones with millions of subscribers, but channels my size that make videos full-time are probably making less than their skill set is worth for the sake of their passion.
At the moment, over half of my time working is spent on Tech Rules. Despite that, I'm currently only able to put out around one video a month, and they're often only finished a few days before they go up. Do I plan to eventually increase that? Absolutely. It's something I've been working on since the (currently suspended) Patreon page went up. Sadly, we're not there yet. Until I am, having a sponsorship on every video helps me stay afloat and work toward my goal of more consistent content.
From what I've seen, most of my viewers seem to be cool with this. You have no idea how much of a relief that is, and I'm extremely fortunate that you all are so understanding about it. That being said, I get that not every sponsorship is equal. In the past, there were a couple I took in particular that people were NOT happy about. Rest assured, those sponsorships will not happen again.
In fact, from now on I'm going to try and make a habit out of checking with you all whenever I take a sponsorship that's a little different. We're going to start that right now, actually: What do you think about a sponsorship with Manscaped? Considering the Keeps sponsorship was received well enough, I imagine it shouldn't be a big deal, but I'm going to ask regardless.
Either way, please don't hesitate to leave your thoughts here, even if it's something negative. I wouldn't be bringing all this up if I didn't want to hear from the people who enjoy my content. I probably won't be able to respond to many, but I'll try to read as many as I can, if not all of them. As always, thanks for giving me the opportunity to share my passion with all of you!
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Learn about the inner workings of things you never really cared about in the first place!