I want to run an experiment about YouTube ads

Hi Mark, thanks for being so transparent about this. I’ll still keep watching and supporting regardless what you do, but I wanted to add to what someone else said. I’m in the US and have recently been getting a lot of Trump and (marginally fewer) Biden ads, and I occasionally get some pretty crazy conspiracy-theory-esque ads (I have personalization turned off so that might play a role!). It’s not a big deal and it doesn’t stop me from enjoying the video, but it is mildly disagreeable whenever I see an ad like that and I’m sure it has some subconscious effect. You might have already considered this, but if the idea at the end of the month is to get feedback from Patrons/Subscribers, might I suggest making a poll of some sort? I’m generally more comfortable giving negative feedback in an anonymous poll than in a relatively public comment thread. I’m hesitant to give unsolicited advice and you obviously know best what will be helpful to you, but I wanted to make sure you’re at least aware of that perspective.

William Ebeler

I've been a patron for ~3 years, and rarely comment or participate directly in your community, but will take this opportunity to jump in to say; go for it! I'm personally fine with a single ad at the start of the video. If it's significant money being left on the table that could be used for growing the channel, 100% go for it, it would be a waste to not take advantage of that. The people that really, really don't want to see them will adblock them anyway.

Harrison Dempsey

I’ve always loved that your videos start the second I tap on them, without any ads trying to get in the way. I’ve always thought it made the videos feel more personal—there wasn’t some other entity literally getting between you and the viewer before the dialogue begins. That perceived personal connection is part of the reason I joined Patreon to support Game Maker’s Toolkit at the highest tier. Personally, I am afraid that something will be lost with ads trying to play at the beginning. It’s my genuine pleasure to support this channel and ultimately it is your call. I’m not going to stop supporting the channel over anything as minor as a skippable ad, but I think that distinction set your content apart more than you may realize.

How Interesting

I'm on YouTube red/premium so this won't affect me. I'm interested in what you're trying to find out. While I appreciate the ad free versions you'll be putting here even if I didn't have Red I probably wouldn't use them. I usually watch on the TV and it's always a little awkward jumping between apps to watch stuff. Same thing happens with Nebula, I'm subscribed but rarely actually use the service.

Tom Jefferson

I support this decision and appreciate the non-ad version for Patreon supporters.

Matthew Chellew

Hi Mark You know I'm not opposed to ads per se as I understand that this is your job and it's not free to produce your videos. I think that it'd be a good idea to follow what many companies do and offer an ad supported version for non-patrons and an ad free version for patrons. I support several creators with this model and think its quite fair. That way the creator isn't expected to work for free and the patron isn't expected to deal with advertisements while forking over cash to support the creator.

I absolutely hate ads too, so I get YouTube premium. It saves me a lot of time (I watch a lot of YouTube), but also ensures content creators (and mega-corp, obviously) get paid.

Doug Richardson

I'm very curious what the revenue is so I support the experiment and I'm excited you wrote to us about it and are willing to share about the results. :)

I have to admit, I have a bad feeling about this. The sheer concept of ads is more than bugging me. I totally get that it means necessary monetization for many. This is how most of the web works anyways, for better and for worse. But it's always, always a battle, sometimes even an arms race (Adblocker vs. Ads vs. Privacy vs. Targeting vs...). To me, your wonderful content always was an island in that sea of toxicity and dark patterns. Your privilege of getting enough money out of Patreon is our privilege of enjoying your content ad free. I'd gladly give more as a Patreon if it can just stay that way. Also I don't really get your motivation here – how much money is left on the table? I mean, curiosity aside, the spectrum of how much money you "leave" somewhere because you don't do this or that is beyond measure, cause sort of a negative space. And how much money would be an okay threshold to stick to ads? Sorry, my cynical tone is not meant personally, I absolutely appreciate your transparency and honesty and I totally dig your high standards. But I have to disagree with that idea.

Mirko

I say go for it. I have to skip an ad on almost every other video anyway. If it gives you the means to improve videos/make more, then more power to you

Michael Owens

I’d like to jump on the “one pre-roll ad is fine, please god no mid-roll ads” train!

Kat (Pixel a Day)

Hey Mark :) That's great news, definitely give it a try! And remember that if your video is longer than 10 minutes you can put an advert right at the end as well (which usually doesn't bother anyone since the video is over). :)

Blackthornprod

Personally, I do understand the logic behind using video ads. And I can see that you have chosen the least intrusive option, which is good. However, I only agree to it because us Patrons will be getting ad-free version of the videos. Otherwise, I would be somewhat unhappy with it.

Damyan Momchev

Do you intend on saying/mentioning this to the non-patrons? The way I see it is I can see pros and cons for both arguments.

Pentbot

Yes, this is a concern of mine too and something I'd need to think about

Game Maker's Toolkit

Just to say: no one's opinion is ignored! If you're a Patron, you're a supporter for GMTK and so your voice is heard :D

Game Maker's Toolkit

Waiting to see what the outcome is first, but it will be a significant slice

Game Maker's Toolkit

Thanks for the feedback, I didn't know YT ran those sorts of ads. I'll try to look at that during my experiment (I'll use a VPN to see what the USA experience is like)

Game Maker's Toolkit

Hey Mark, thank you for being so transparent. My only real concern would be the effect it might have on those who would like to view your videos in universities or businesses (no mid roll ads are great for that, but it can still have an impact). If it is not too much trouble, or I guess personal, in the event that you do choose to continue to run ads would you make an announcement to non-patrons about this decision as well?

Joseph S Highe

I think this is a thoughtful and respectful way to approach seeing how ads will affect your videos, and I appreciate you running it by us! I'm fine with it - ads are an annoyance at worst and certainly wouldn't stop me from watching your videos even without the special treatment on Patreon.

Rich Stoehr

I have YT Premium (and am only a $1 tier) so my opinion can be ignored. With that in mind, if I did see ads on Youtube I would be fine with a single pre-roll, skippable ad particularly at my current pledge level. That was never a problem for me in the past, and I have Premium largely because Youtube is almost exclusively the only thing I use for video consumption.

Tukaro

I am perfectly fine with this. However, I am very amused at the idea of you promoting Raid: Shadow Legends right before an in-depth analysis on the enemy design of Hollow Knight

I support this initative 100%, and I really like the way you're taking to nake it happen. It's really transparent and professional. Looking forward for the results, my guess is a small figure but who knows!. If it's of any help, I think it could be a good idea to set some objectives beforehand, what do you expect to be a good figure and what not. Otherwise you may be biases by the result. Cheers!

I'd just be wary of one thing: YouTube is not a platform that caters to creators or viewers, it only caters to advertisers, which makes me wonder if there's going to be any repercussions to turning the ads back off, in terms of how the "algorithm" will treat your videos after that. But I admit this is pure conjecture. Either way, I am curious to see how this goes and I look forward to your sharing of what your findings will be.

Anya and Michael Scarpa

I have Premium so it doesn't matter to me. ...but I really like the idea of funding your content here in Patron. It is a fair relationship, you make content I like, I try to pay you back. So far so good. Adding ads to the equation somehow muddies it. Anyway is your content and you are the one who makes the decision. The care you put into it just legitimates you.

Manuel Alcoba

Mark, I really appreciate the thought, care, and transparency you put into this experiment. Good luck, and I hope it opens up more options for you.

I think there might be a prior to using youtube at all that you expect ads... don't want ads then youtube is probably not the place to both publish and consume content. In an ideal world the ads wouldn't be paying youtube and be going solely to creators or in most part. But thats not the internet we built... all that to say, I wouldn't worry about ads, but maybe seriously think about other ways of working (which it seems you constantly do anyways).

Ben Byford

"I will donate a percentage of the YT ad revenue gained in August to charities focused on video game accessibility." What percentage if you don't mind me asking?

It's a slippery slope, tread carefully

Boz

If you’re trying to identify how much money you can generate through YouTube ads, would it not be beneficial to use the more profitable unskippable ads? I can’t say I’ve seen any of these type play much longer than the usual skip countdown, plus the money’s going to a good home.

The fact that you put so much thought into it, and are being so open with us before you even do anything makes me trust your judgement 100%. Do whatever you want/need to I'll still be here.

You should earn as much money as you can and use it to make more amazing content. Nobody would be upset by you using ads to do that. For regular youtube users, ads are just normal. And your patrons already care enough about your content to give you money, so I don't see how any of them would have a problem with it. It just makes sense.

Marius Lobontiu

You do good work, and you should feel good about getting the full value of that work. I can speak only for myself, but you have my full support for monetizing your channel in any way you see fit, short of exploitative or hurtful practices. You should feel even more secure in this decision given how much you give back to your communities.

Daniel Zaleznik

Honestly Mark your integrity is second to none. I really applaud you for your transparency and engagement, and hope that you can keep doing what you do for as long as you want to. Your Patreon is the easiest subscription I pay each month.

SavvySausage

I have Youtube Premium so this won't affect me. HOWEVER, what I will say, is at least in the US, Youtube is known to run really toxic and unrelated adverts on their videos. Are you okay with having "Plandemic" and "Is Coronavirus a hoax?!" advertisements be shown to your viewers and to profit from that? If so, that's up to you. I personally would never compromise my own integrity and the safety of my viewers for any amount of money.

Ryder

Sounds worthwhile to me. Nobody likes ads, but I understand why they exist, and I appreciate that you're avoiding the more disruptive ones; I've definitely given up on a video instead of watching it due to excessive or intrusive ads. On another note, I'm looking forward to your level design video on the last of us!! My partner and I just beat it (the first one) and the level design was our biggest complaint. We kept getting lost and it was almost never clear where we were supposed to go, or what we were supposed to do. Over and over again it was just a headache of running in circles over and over trying to find something yellow because that was all we could go on to indicate what we were supposed to be doing lol. So I'm really curious what your take on the level layouts is!

Lisa Franke

I've got YT Red, so I won't notice. But I'm sad that I won't get to hear you strain out false enthusiasm for the latest mobile gem store game.

Josh Foreman

this won't effect me as I've had youtube premium since it was first offered. however, I'm grateful that you've put this much thought into this and it further cements my choice in supporting you. you make fantastic, well thought out content, and you have your heart in the right places! I'd love to sit down and play Minecraft or something with you for a day cause that would be better than buying you a beer!

walt m

My only recommendation would be to try and keep the funding streams separate so you don't come to rely upon ad revenue from YouTube. If YouTube changes the rules for monetization or decides to start demonetizing your stuff, you want to be able to walk away from that ad revenue without it being a big hit.

Tom Goldthwait

I have no problem with ads as long as they are skippable. Make as much money as you can because you can never know what will happen tomorrow, like a global pandemic. Go for it man

JoystickDrummer

I'd personally be fine with it and it's a great idea. But I wonder if there's data on how subscriber counts/views are affected on channels that turn on video adverts. If you turn them on, get a view count or sub drop, and then turn them off - You could end up reaching less people, having less patrons, and not earning the video ad revenue now it's deactivated again.

Christopher Ness

Just do it. It's not a big deal and no one would fault you for it or probably even notice since everyone is so used to it on YT now. I wouldn't say the same about mid-video ads, but having a skippable ad at beginning of a video is no big deal and really shouldn't be stressed over.

Seth Powell

With the care and respect you're putting into the decision, I'm sure it'll be fine however you end up deciding on this. But... I'm genuinely curious what you'd spend the money on. Not to intrude, I don't want to pry into your personal budgeting choices, I just can't imagine how extra money would affect the quality of your work after a certain point. And there's always the factor that others have mentioned, that is, some patrons may feel like their contribution isn't really needed after all.

Parachuting Turtle

Have you seen CGPGrey's: "This Video Made $3,388 at Auction. How Ads Work on YouTube."? His ballpark 2 years ago was 1000 views is $2.50. Do you have a sense what games that might run ads are launching in August? If your "video game" tag is catching that auctioning more in August than in December, your values might skew pretty wildly.

Peter

I pay for YT Premium because I don't like ads, so it doesn't affect me. In the end, it's your content and you're free to monetize it as you please.

Jon

This seems like a totally reasonable experiment. However, if you do try it, I think it would be best to post a video on the channel explaining your plan as well. Ultimately, the people supporting you on patreon and reading the updates you post here are a tiny minority of your overall viewers, and I can imagine that someone who just watches your stuff on YouTube would be annoyed suddenly seeing an ad on what they thought was a totally ad-free channel. Of course, just posting an update video like that is sure to attract all kinds of angry people (as YouTube videos do), so maybe disable comments on it haha.

Just for clarification, in the event that I did continue to run adverts on GMTK - the first two rules would always apply: one skippable ad per video (no mid-roll, no sponsors), ad-free videos for Patreon. All monetisation will be removed at the end of August and then I'll come back to discuss next steps with you before any changes are made. Your support is the single most important factor here, so I have no interest in doing something that would annoy everyone!

Game Maker's Toolkit

I would not withdraw my support if you kept ads because I want the extra perks here and I think you deserve it. As a video maker myself I know how much work goes into it. And as for what I saw one person say, if you did use the extra money for yourself and not put it directly into new content that'd be fine with me. Everyone deserves some time off or a nice treat once in a while or whatever you'd want to use it for. I definitely hate midroll ads but I know you won't do that. I have YouTube premium as well so I won't see the ads. Curious how that affects your revenue. I assumed most people have ad block so I thought those kinds of ads wouldn't be very lucrative, but you can't know until you try. Good luck! (:

Solarpunk Vegan

It would definitely be interesting, but I don't think I could stomach mid-roll ads on my videos for even a single month!

Game Maker's Toolkit

Totally understandable, thanks for the feedback! That's exactly the sort of thing I need to help drive any final decisions

Game Maker's Toolkit

One ad would be the max!

Game Maker's Toolkit

Appreciate the feedback! If I go ahead with anything beyond the experiment, I will be sure to discuss how the extra revenue would be used

Game Maker's Toolkit

Personally, I'd like you to try everything! If possible on different videos, try one skippable ad, multiple ads, unskippable ads, midroll ads, all the things! Data on different ad performance on YouTube is very scarce. Your back-catalog receives plenty of action to be a good measure of how much revenue each option can generate. It's only for a month. I'm sure you won't keep midroll ads. But knowing how much is that -- personally, I'd love to see that.

Hey Mark. I imagine you're familiar with Noclip, who I also support. I remember Danny doing a similar experiment and discussing it with patrons earlier this year or end of last year (time has lost all meaning). Unfortunately I can't find any posts discussing it, it might have been that he only talked about it during the member video updates. Anyway, as far as I can remember, he ran an experiment with pre-roll ads on their videos older than a year, and I believe they got some pretty decent revenue for it. I also recall that he said there seemed to be a (coincidental?) bump in traffic on those older videos, lending further weight to the theory that Google prioritises monetised videos. Might be worth reaching out, I know Danny is a fan of GMTK. Oh, and I subscribe to YouTube Premium, so it wouldn't make a difference to me anyway! But I don't think it hurts the quality of your videos to have a single pre-roll ad, especially on older videos.

Riccardo Margiotta

I fully respect not wanting to leave money on the table, but I personally will probably withdraw my Patreon support if ads become a permanent feature of the channel. When you have other healthy revenue streams, my support here seems redundant.

Blaine Talbut

Your work deserves to be compensated so I'm behind that decision especially since you're giving us access to the ad-free versions. Anything that helps you keep working on these videos is worth it!

Michel Billard

I'm a premium youtube user, so it doesn't affect me, however, even before going premium, I'd happily watched ads on your channel. Your videos are hands down some of the best produced and well-thought out videos that I watch. IMHO you should reap the rewards of your hard work. If I was to highlight any concerns however, I'd just say be careful not to end up like some channels that have ads 6 times per video. Not that I think you would, but thought it was worth calling out!

Sia Gholami

This sounds like you put a lot of thought into this experiment and are taking it very seriously. I appreciate the care you have around something like this! Looking forward to the results!

Virak

Personally, I wouldn't have become a patron if your videos had ads. Whilst I appreciate you having ad-free versions of videos for patrons, that'll of course split up your view counts and may put off people like me from becoming patrons. I'd also be a bit uncomfortable remaining a patron depending on what you used this additional income for. I like supporting you but if you were suddenly making a bunch of additional income from ads that went straight in your pocket, rather than fostering more content or something, I personally wouldn't feel good about that.

Yep - if it ends up happening, I'll definitely always give Patrons ad-free videos.

Game Maker's Toolkit

I have no plans to ever put mid-rolls in, so no need to worry about that!

Game Maker's Toolkit

More like a PS5 and an Xbox Series X, but same idea!

Game Maker's Toolkit

No problem 😊 Though it would be nice - if you choose to keep the ads up - to give patreons access to ad-free content like channels usually do 😊

Aye. That the reason why Ad-Blocking is such a common thing. Far too many ads that often get in the way of the content you actually came to see.

Zeragamba

I have Premium as well, and I'm actually curious to see how much Premium actually supports creators, though that might be rolled into the "Display Ads" setting mentioned above

Zeragamba

Yep, I agree on the pervasive advertising note. As for the charity percentage - I just want to see what happens before I make any decisions on that. I don't want to only donate 10% if the ad revenue ends up being tiny!

Game Maker's Toolkit

That's a very very different form of ad. With ads provided by YouTube, most users understand that there isn't a connection between the product and the content creator, and neither have an opinion of one or the other. With Baked In ads, these become more sponsorships that have more meaning, and could be used to construct a Conflict of Interest argument. I don't think baked in ads would fit well with GMTK, and frankly I'm tired of seeing Nord VPN, Audiable, SkillShare, and RAID SHADOW LEGENDS!!!!

Zeragamba

I always like to put graphs and charts into my updates, so yes - I will!

Game Maker's Toolkit

I'd take a note perhaps from creators like James Hoffman, because they create ads in their videos but read them in a different way almost every time. That honest read each time makes it feel like part of the show. Girlfriend Reviews also does an excellent job with this. I'm confident you'd never come across as boring or shilling for a cheap buck.

Ryan Spargo

Go for it bro

PropheticPotato42

Nobody likes ads but happy to support the work. The thought you've put into ensuring they don't become obnoxious is appreciated. Go for it!

Sean Hansen

It's really a great idea. I'm also curious about the result, can you just try to visualize it if it's possible? I can offer you help in doing this.

Giving patrons the ad-less video is nice, but won't that mean those views aren't counted on YouTube? Not that it matters in the great scheme if the numbers, but it'd be nice if YouTube offered some integration that meant patrons didn't get ads (you can already connect your Google account to Patreon). It looks like not even YouTube's own Patreon-like "channel membership" feature offers ad-free videos for the channels you're a member of though... Well, personally I hate video ads, so I have YouTube Premium anyway.

Tobias V. Langhoff

I've definitely noticed how your videos don't have ads, as the amount of ads I'm experiencing recently are so egregious that it regularly makes me give up using the site except for a few specific channels. I don't expect your videos to ask me if I wanna' watch 4 ads at the start or anything. Just saying that "it's kind of the norm now" that I'm seeing in other comments isn't a great argument, because shitty norms shouldn't be norms.

Albey Amakiir

One skippable ad at the start of the videos would be fine by me! And thanks for being so transparent!

Chris Tiemessen

Perfectly fine by me.

For what it's worth, I've never noticed that there weren't ads. I think we're so used to it at this point that it'll have a minimal effect on viewership and hopefully give you a little more coin in your pocket.

Jared Pace

This is a great idea. Go for it. If it gets annoying then I’ll start watching the ad-free patron versions, no harm done.

Tom Stuart

I'd say skippable ads at the start plus perhaps an explanation of why you started doing it in the first few videos for non-patrons. Or... some videos have ads at the end rather than the start, is that an option?

Qwertystop

Perfectly fine by me, at least with the format you propose. I don't mind shortish ads, provided they don't interrupt anything.

Matt Kimmich

This is a very valid point. I'm ok with it if it doesn't stifle you creatively, but the demonetization gods are capricious and vengeful.

Ian Easton

Lead-off ads seem like a safe place to start, and (for me at least) are somehow much less egregious than mid-roll ads. If you do, eventually, end up pursuing mid-roll ads, I only ask that you chose their timing carefully. At least put them between sentences if not between paragraphs. So many YouTubers generate their mid-roll ads automatically, shearing thoughts, sentences, even words in two, and it is very disorienting.

I mean, I say go ahead. since you seem to welcome feedback I will also point out a few things 1.) I have a youtube Red subscription (or whatever it is) that I was grandfathered into through google music forever ago. so... this won't change much for me. 2.) remember, pervasive advertising does affect people, even if they say "meh, I'm fine with it". the sum of money you get might be worth it, but you will be having a psychological effect on people, even if you never have to hear about it. 3.) what percentage were you thinking? I'm grand with you taking the money from the advertising, especially if it's something that can do some good in the world, but feels a bit more authentic if you put the experiment month money to charity, or even a non-charity program that does some good in the community. Barring that, or if there is something you have in mind to set the money to whether or not the experiment passes your bar, might be nice to know what amount or percentage would go to charity, even if it's like "any amount earned over £1000 will go toward charity" that said, I'm just making points for you to be aware of, you do you, you've always been pretty good about being transparent and doing what you feel is good for the community.

Ross Ramsay

I approve. Let's get you that Tesla you've been dreaming about :)

iammacio

Personally I'd rather if videos didn't have ads, it always seems to end with the YouTuber going through several hoops just to stay monetized. Absolutely test it during August so you actually know what you're saying no to, but try to keep it from negatively affecting your videos

BertIsTheWurd

I think you should absolutely run ads on your videos. 1. Ads are very much expected on YouTube and sometimes make up a content creator's entire income. I think ads as a whole are accepted at this point. Less annoying ads are always better, so skipable intro ads seems like a great approach. 2. Many people run ad blockers or have YouTube premium which pulls them out of the ad viewer pool anyway.

Shadoninja

Honestly, it won't affect me and if it turns out to be good for you, perfect. Thanks for being transparent with us on your whys, by the way, this is pretty rare.

This actually sounds very reasonable! Nothing is more annoying than putting a video to ,say, help me sleep only to be interrupted by a 5-minute long ad about some dude in the navy or whatever. Hope it goes well!

Toolbox

You gained another level of my respect. Only the fact you are so open about this and (almost) asking for permission, really sets you apart. About in-video ads ... they annoy the hell out of me. Especially when you can't skip them ... or if there are 1-2 playing sequentially. But I understand that 'free' money is something you need to explore, before you say "no" to it ^^ Maybe if you always give Patreons the option to view the videos without ads ... that might be an incentive for people to become a Patreon ... but on the other hand, it might also put some people off. So thanks for being so transparent about this and looking forward to hear your findings afterward.

Oskar van Velden

Sounds like a very fair and well thought out way of trying this! I think we are all use to just skipping adverts after 5 seconds at the start of videos. I am extremely intrested in knowing how this does!

Topottsel

Sounds great Mark. I figure make your moolah for your increased livelihood and for bettering the channel

David F Sanchez

I use adblock not because I don't want to support creators but because most ads are really, really stupid and annoying and I just was not able to stand it. Also I kept getting the same awful annoying yelling ads many times in a row. So...

I admit, I am extremely curious how this will turn out.

newdarkcloud

I'll also be honest and say I also use adblock, so this shouldn't affect me. If there was a way for me to disable adblock for certain youtubers, GMTK would be on that list.

Arvin

I've got youtube premium so I never see ads anyway. So go ahead :)

Krit Petty

Makes sense to me

Gotta admit you spooked me at first... but reading the details I can get behind that.

ZoidbergForPresident

To be honest I used an adblocker so I never get ads. Never the less I'm interested to find out the results too. I'm not really against ads per se as I work within Branding and to a degree it keeps me employed, but I respect those who have the means to opt-out and I love patreon's platform that allows us to choose how we support content creators.

Matt Hauke

I mean honestly just do whatever is best for your situation. It's not like if I see an ad at the start of one of your vids that I would stop supporting you. Yeah ads are annoying and that but it's sort of the norm now (which is a whole nother issue in itself). I have to admit, I'd never noticed that your vids never had ads on them, and if you had switched them on I probably wouldn't have noticed and not realised it was in your control anyway. So yeah, I appreciate the transparency and everything, but if it stands to bring you a more substantial income, and one that would likely translate into high quality content, then go for it mate!

John Fehlner

Cheers Mark for being so transparent.

Luke