What do you like in Developer Videos?

[TheAustech]

Obviously quite a bit of people in these forums have a YouTube account, showing of what they're working on. As do I.

I show off game play of the games I work on, 2 programming time lapses, and a tutorial (hopefully in the future I can make tutorial plural), and comment other people's work some times.

But sometimes I'm curious if this is what the audience wants. Maybe some people don't that kind of media, just showing off the game. Perhaps some people want to see further down into how it works, what's going on.

And this leads to my question, want do you like seeing from a game developer. Unfortunately I don't have a camera nor a webcam that's functional , so if you have any ideas, let me know, because there's always room for improvement.

Some things I thought of were these (you don't have to pick any one of these, just tell me what you want to see):

• Showing off the game (usual videos that I make)
  
  Programming time lapses
  
  Things I do when I'm not programming - I play video games (GTA: San Andreas Multiplayer, osu (music game), some DDR)
  
  Tutorials

This list is just some things I thought of, NOT things you HAVE to choose from. I just want to know what people now days like to watch, I don't want to bore the hell out of people. D:

My YouTube channel can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAustech?feature=mhum

Thanks for reading, as always. : )

[K-Bal]

In short: I like educational parts in dev videos but I want to see interesting concepts, not code. I don't care about the code because it's not hard to implement something when you understand the concept behind.

Regarding everything else, just keep it entertaining. Do videos you would like to watch yourself, something you know you will be proud of in years.

[Khearts]

I agree with K-Bal.

When I saw the name of this thread, I wanted to be the first one to put: education, but obviously, someone got to it before I did. I like concepts more than code also. I think that should just go for all teaching styles of whatever material.

[Van-B]

I like to see the theoretical side more than anything, dry board diagrams, discussions, code experiments. The 2 diaries I watch are ES (obviously) and Suckerfree Games - both teams explain quite a lot, but it's not a big issue if your using a different platform than them. There are so many variations to language, engine etc that these days there is little point in showing code examples, theoretical and specific examples are more useful. I love to see the randomness in game development - weird AI reactions and stuff like that.
I remember a few years ago, I wrote a game based on Cannon Fodder, so 4 characters running around a map, shooting aliens and looking for guns and ammo. I remember laughing my actual ass off the first time I tried to get the soldier dudes to aim I messed up the hand gun animation - so they'd hold the gun under their chin, pointing straight up as if threatening to commit suicide. Stuff like that cracks me up, stuff you don't get to see usually... every developer has these mad occurances, I want to see other peoples.

We tend not to see too many of the technicalities in 2D game development, most 'diaries' from professionals are for 3D game, and they'll show you the horse rigging, weapon rigging and animations, character ragdolls if they are impressive, level layout - but we never see 2D elements that often. I would like to see more 2D pixel work in progress stuff, see the techniques people use.

I would prefer to see a little less arrogance, a return to the original idea of making a game without the dollar symbols and lofty expectations - there are too many developers out there who expect to make a fortune on XBL... not enough of a reason IMO, if your in it for the money then you'll give up long before your first pay check, or you'll be forced to release a turd just to try and make money and keep going. The other thing I dislike, is when there's 1 poor programmer and nobody else really has a clue, even though they really should. There is no place in indi development for game designers, if your gonna design games, then you better be able to program, or draw, or at the very least design the game down to the technical assets (level design mostly). There is one particular team out there guilty of this, no names required :D.

[GroundUpEngine]

Agreed with K-Bal


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