How YouTube Changed My Life

When I started making videos about game development on YouTube, little did I know that this small knowledge sharing hobby of mine would eventually end up opening doors from me that I couldn't even imagine of at the time. Today I have more than 100,000+ subscribers with over 7 million+ views across some 700+ videos that I have uploaded till date and I feel really grateful for all of this. A lot of positives happened due to my selfless knowledge sharing. Through this post I want to share my learnings from my journey so far and how YouTube changed my life.

The Intent

I had started my career by founding my company GameEon Studios way back in 2013 and since then I have learned a lot through just pure hard work. I did not have any family money backing me, neither a business degree of sorts to navigate this space and so it was all just trial and error along with persistence and a curiosity to constantly learn something new that helped me achieve some amazing things. However, I realised in 2019 that perhaps all of this experience should not be restricted just to myself and hence I thought I should share this with anyone and everyone who perhaps wants to get started in the gaming industry. And what better way to do this than by documenting my thoughts in the form of videos? Thus began my YouTube journey.

The beginning

I already had a YouTube channel back then with less than about 500 subscribers at the time, I think. I had started my YouTube channel in 2016 but my uploads were never consistent since I did not have any central topic that I could take and put out videos on the regular. I made a commitment to myself in 2018 that now I will try and upload as regularly as I can. I uploaded quite a few videos in English and used to put in a lot of efforts in writing down the content and even prepared scripts for my content. And amidst all of this I never really was concerned about the views or subscribers that I gained on my channel. The pure single intent was to just share my knowledge.

The consistency

On 6th January, 2019 I posted a video titled 'How I Became A Game Developer In India | Story of my life | Hindi' wherein I talked about my journey till that time and this was my very first video to cross over 1,000+ views. It felt great! Up until that point none of my other videos had crossed 1,000+ views and somehow this video that I recorded without a script, without any preparations and in Hindi was starting to perform well in terms of numbers as well. It also had a direct impact on the number of subscribers I had at the time. Although I have never played the numbers game on YouTube, it felt like a great validation for me to put out more content. And this made me even more committed to my knowledge sharing. Thus began my consistency in uploading videos more frequently.

The problem

Before this particular video I used to put in hours and hours in simply preparing myself even before I hit the record button. But here I was, realising that even if I did not prepare myself and just hit the record button and talk freely, I could still impact people by being my truest self. Thus, from this video onwards I decided that I will talk freely and put out content on the commonly asked questions around game development. This does not mean that I gave up preparations entirely, of course not. When you are on a mission you always do need a plan of action. My plan of action was to list down all the questions that I personally had when I was starting my journey in game development and then just answering those questions through my own experience.

The solution

I wrote over 100+ questions and one by one, day by day just started recording videos regularly. Editing was also not a challenge for me as I had decided to not put much effort into fancy editing. Surprisingly, my audience loved my content. That was reflected through the comments wherein people started to tell me that they are enjoying my videos. I knew I was on the right path. Then on 7th April, 2019 I crossed 1,000 subscribers mark. This was extremely special for me. I wanted to thank my audience for this so I wanted to do something different than just putting out a pre-recorded video.

Eureka moment!

I found out there was a 'Go Live' option on YouTube and I thought it would be really cool to actually have a live interaction with my audience to personally thank them all for helping me cross 1,000 subscribers mark. In this live session I thanked my audience but there was one thing that clicked here for me: People were asking me a lot of questions related to game development in this session and I was able to actually answer them even more effectively and in a personalised way as compared to a pre-recorded video. This made me realise the power of live streams. Now I thought it would be really amazing to actually do live stream sessions in addition to my pre-recorded videos to solve doubts of people who want to make it in this industry.

Live streams are fun!

The beauty of live streams is that it does not require any prior preparation as such. You can literally be yourself in your truest and rawest form and if you are able to capture the attention of the audience then you are actually able to form a really special bond with them that is extremely powerful. I started doing regular live streams and this is how I was able to consistently grow my audience from 1,000 to 5,000. After this, I had to face a really tough time in my journey. My channel got hacked!

How did my channel get hacked?

One day I receive some mail for doing a promotion of a brand that had a link. The mail instructed me to check out their product that they wanted to promote via my YouTube channel. I obviously did not want to promote a product without actually seeing what it was and did not want to promote anything that would not be aligned with the interest of my audience. So I clicked on the link and downloaded the product to see what it was. That was the biggest mistake that eventually got my channel hacked. Turns out, the product was a malware and hijacked my account information and the very next day I lost control of my channel. This was a painful journey for me to lose my channel over such a stupid hygience that I, as a software developer should have had followed. Never click any unknown links! I felt stupid. I got in touch with the YouTube team and followed up with them for almost a month.

The intent continues

Between this, I still felt that regardless of what happened, I cannot stop my content sharing journey. And so I started another channel to do the exact same thing that I did with my hacked channel. I started posting content regularly over there too. Fortunately, the hacker did not delete any of my previous content so my channel in a way was safe. The hacker even asked me to pay him to get my channel back. I refused to pay because I was already in touch with YouTube to get it back and one must not take lightly to threats. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, I got my channel back on 26th January 2020. I was relieved. But now I also had this new channel that I had created as a replacement of my main channel. I could not put out duplicate content and had to do something different. Therefore I converted that channel into a personal vlogs channel wherein I put out content on my personal life. There is no fixed schedule or regular uploads on the other channel, it's just a chill place for me to put out videos around my personal life whereas the mission of sharing knowledge continues through my main channel. If you want to check out the other channel, it's called "Nikhil Malankar Vlogs" on YouTube.

The consistency continues

I then just followed my existing strategy of putting out content on the regular. It has been a great journey so far. The best part of this is that through this all I have been succesful to document my growth journey as I have also shared my personal life through YouTube. This has also helped me connect on a deeper level with my set of investors since my life is very much in the public domain and thereby it is easier for me to establish that sense of trust. I also firmly believe that my fundraise of almost half a million dollars for my company was possible because I was already out there creating this community that essentially helped me prove to set of investors that there will be a market for our ambitious game Mumbai Gullies that we are developing once it's launched.

The awesomeness

It also enabled me to connect with my some of my favourite YouTubers and be featured in their videos as well as have some of them come onto my channel. I believe that my channel has now become a talking point and a central place for all things gaming. Of course, I do not say this with arraogance but with a deeper sense of understanding of the value that I have provided over the years and still continue to do so with the very best of my intent: To provide people with a transparent picture of the gaming industry. This intent has helped me gain the trust of the community that I have created and along with that also helped me enjoy somewhat of a celeb level status within my industry. I enjoy the attention and love that gets showered on me whenever I go live on my YouTube channel. All in all this has been a great journey so far. There is no destination as such, but the intent stays the same even today: To share as much as I can about this field for which I am so very passionate about. And as a by product of that a lot of great things have shaped up.

Thank you subscribers!

Last but definitely not the least, none of this would have been possible without the support of my amazing subscribers. For that, I am extremely grateful and as I continue to grow there is a bigger sense of responsibility to do everything in my power to make sure that I leave behind a legacy of my own through content sharing and educating people about the gaming industry. So, a huge thank you to my subscribers and to anyone and everyone who has supported me through this journey of mine.

If you haven't subscribed to my YouTube channel yet, here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/NikhilMalankarM