10 Tips for Writing for Retention

Hi everyone!

My most recent video, "How to Steal Like a Game Designer", is receiving lots of views, which is always good. But more than that, the stat I'm really pleased with is "Av­er­age per­cent­age viewed", which is currently sat at 58.4%.

When it comes to the almighty YouTube algorithm, the two things it cares about the most is how many people click on the video, and how long those people stay watching. It's not enough to make a video with a clickbait title or thumbnail - you need to keep people engaged.

This is something I work hard on with all my videos, but this most recent episode has done particularly well in this regard. 58% might not sound astronomically high, but that's a good stat for YouTube (not to mention a world where everyone's attention span has been reduced to dust).

So in this Patreon-only post I wanted to share 10 techniques I use to keep audience retention high. Let's jump in.

You can read the whole script here, if you want a recap.

Tell a story

I begin the video with a story about a game everyone's heard about: Alien Isolation. Humans are naturally drawn to stories and want to stick around to hear more. And I think a real life tale is more interesting than a fictional or hypothetical situation.

A previous version of this video actually started like that - something like "imagine you're making a game...". But I felt a real narrative from the world of game development would be more interesting, and would also make the video's point stronger ("see, even a massive studio like Creative Assembly can make this mistake!").

The cliffhanger

I start with the story... but I don't actually tell the whole thing there. If you want to hear the complete tale you'll need to keep watching until almost the very end. I make sure to reference Alien a few times throughout, either in my words or in the video clips, to remind people that the story isn't finished.

Now you might think I'm just being a jerk - withholding the ending of the story until later just to keep people watching. But I think it's done in a justified way. And that comes down to the next part...

Structure

I think the most important thing to get right in a video is the structure and the flow. A random collection of thoughts can be hard to follow, but a well forged essay is much easier to understand.

The structure for this one can be broken down into a few key acts:

In act one, I establish the problem. Alien Isolation borrowed a mechanic from other games, but it didn't fit the game they're making.

In act two, I offer a solution. This is split into four sub-acts:

First, I introduce the idea of MDA.

Second, I show how it can be used to analyse mechanics, using Zelda.

Third, I show how to match those mechanics to a vision.

And fourth, I present some caveats and other considerations.

And in act three, I go back to the original problem and show how it was solved - this time, using a mechanic that changed the player's behaviour and feelings in a way that suited Creative Assembly's vision.

By thinking about the overall structure of the video in broad terms like this, I can make sure every paragraph is working towards the point I'm trying to make.

Catch up segments

I've definitely found myself leaving YouTube videos because I got distracted or lost the plot, and now I'm not entirely sure what the host is even trying to say. So my way to help that is to regularly remind people of what we're already talked about.

After I introduce the idea of MDA, I say...

"So, this MDA framework takes mechanics - and then puts them into a wider context, which asks 'how do they make the player act, and how do they make the player feel?'"

After I show how MDA is used, I say "So MDA lets us see game mechanics as powerful vessels for delivering emotions to players".

This is often paired with a repeated graphic of Mechanics > Dynamics > Aesthetics, to hammer it home.

Don't leave, Mark!

If there's one thing I know kills video retention, it's suddenly switching to another presenter. In my video on Rollerdrome, engagement drops from 65% to 57% in the space of just ten seconds. Why? Because I cut to interview footage with one of the developers.

I totally get it, of course. When I'm talking it's tightly scripted, sharply edited, and performed clearly using a good microphone. An interview is, naturally, a bit waffly and compressed like hell over Zoom.

So, ultimately I use these interview quotes sparingly. In many GMTK videos, including this one, I talk to developers but never show the actual interview footage in the video.

I also think about this with quotes. I've watched YT videos where the host reads an entire paragraph from a book, which just sends me to sleep. In this video I have lots of quotes - eight, in fact. But every one has been cut down to just the most important words.

Wake up words

Sometimes I get sniffy comments about me starting bits of the video with "useless" words like "so" and "alright" and "anyway". Why not just get to the point?

Well, I've found these little phrases to be good at getting the viewer's attention. If their mind is starting to drift, these snappy words can wake people up and say "listen, this next bit's important!" or "come back, we're onto a new thing now!".

Remove waffle

I've also found myself leaving YouTube videos because the whole thing has ground to a halt... because the host has gone on some wild, five minute tangent.

I try to avoid this by always picking my words carefully to avoid waffle. And by trying to balance the length of each part of the video, so I never get stuck on one part for too long.

For example, here's the word count for each part of the video:

• Introduction - 251
• Intro to MDA - 321
• Analysing with MDA - 240
• Using a Vision - 579
• Further Considerations - 417
• Conclusion - 237

It's pretty balanced, though the section on using a vision is perhaps a little long.

Motion graphics

A big part of GMTK's appeal is the fancy motion graphics. But they're not just there to make the videos look nice! They're all about making it easier to understand what I'm saying. If you don't follow my point then it becomes easy to get bored and click elsewhere.

For this video, the main graphics were these:

Here, I assign mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics their own little icons, which should hopefully hammer home what each word means.

And here I put MDA in a stack to show how one cascades down to the next. I can then bring this exact image back later in the video to remind people how MDA works, and what I'm talking about.

Keep clips short

I was watching an interesting YouTube video the other day, and listening along to the host's words. But then I realised my mind had drifted and I completely lost what they were talking about. What happened? Well, they'd used an interesting cutscene from Super Smash Bros to fill a gap in the video and I ended up just watching the cutscene and not paying attention to the narration! Whoops!

In this video, the longest clip is a 14 second demonstration of using a save station in Alien Isolation. Almost every other clip is less than 10 seconds. I'm constantly switching between clips and games (this video features more than 60 different games) to keep you engaged, and to focus on what I'm saying rather than what I'm showing. The clips should compliment my narration, not overpower it.

A bonus tip - when I edit my voice, I cut the spaces between sentences by a few milliseconds. It still sounds like natural speech, but it's trimmed for better pacing.

Test audiences

And finally, I try to get my videos in front of test audiences before it goes live on YouTube. That includes pro game designers, family members, and Patrons on the early access tier. This helps me find places where a viewer might be confused, so I can rewrite that chunk for clarity.

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So, those are my tips. Of course, all of this can be taken to the extreme. I'm sure Mr Beast has an incredibly high retention rate, thanks to the fact that when you click one of his videos you're immediately met with a barrage of yelling, split second cuts, and giant subtitles for every spoken word. It's like being punched in the face.

That's not what I'm going for. And so I never make these choices at the expense of information or video quality. Instead it's more of a guide to make sure I take the video I want to make - and deliver it in a way that is as engaging as possible.

Besides, if someone doesn't see my entire video, then I haven't really done my job!

Anyway, hope that was interesting or useful. Lemme know your thoughts in the comments. And I'll chat to you soon!