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From The Desk of Nerd³ - December 2023 Edition
🕑 Added 2023-12-01 15:29:37 +0000 UTCDearest Patreons,
Welcome to a new monthly update post, the purpose of which is to have a single place where everyone can receive the latest updates from the world of the Cube Meister, without you having to listen to me witter on in a podcast that’s about as focused as a massive telescope in the desert pointing directly down at the earth. And yes, before we start the updates, I promise to never call myself the Cube Meister ever again.
Return of the King (Of Editing)
The first and arguably biggest update is that I am returning to the world of video editing. From the Christmas Day special onward, I will be editing almost all Plays/Challenge videos moving forwards. My biggest regret of 2023, (aside from that thing I did with that Belgian bun) was that I released just nine videos. Nine! I used to release nine before breakfast, and that was on a bad day.
There’s a reason why, aside from the fact I spent most of the year writing a silly book, and his name is Matt. Now, it’s not that Matt isn’t as good or as fast as me at editing, he bloody well is, it’s just that he’s editing a video he never saw recorded. Before editing, he has to watch the footage, sometimes 2-3 hours of me jabbering on, making notes as he goes, trying to find the narrative path, and then he can start the edit. Me? I’m editing while I record. I know what’s going to work, where I’m going, what ideas I’m dropping. Yesterday I recorded ninety minutes of footage and edited it in sixty. So, I’m taking that mantle back in an attempt to return to some god damn uploads. The plan is one a week, but I’ll be honest, I won’t be happy until it’s two.
RIP Shorts, Yay TikTok
The Fab Game Friday experiment is essentially over, and it’s time to look at the results. Firstly, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Whatever’s are rubbish. About four people watched them, and they’re all mad. While the concept of short recommendations is popular, these platforms just aren’t. So, they’re done, dead, finito.
However, TikTok has been wildly successful, with some of our videos reaching close to a million views, which is crazy for a new channel. I’d be a silly billy to let that slide, so TikTok will continue… but with a change. As we’re no longer held down by the single minute time limit of YouTube Shorts and Instagram Thingys, going forward the recommendations portions of Fab Game Friday videos are going to become longer. I’m thinking 2 – 3 minutes per game, giving the words time to breath, and myself the same blessing. The plan for these is to release one Fab Game Friday every three weeks, with the TikToks going up weekly.
Dad³: Endgame
Since the very start of 2018, Dad³ has been documenting his lovely little life on a weekly basis to a solid group of fans. You’ve seen thousands of dinners, hundreds of beach walks, a car crash, several weddings, and that one time he was actually arrested. After all of this, today we’re announcing that, on the 31st December 2023, after exactly six years of vlogging to the second, Dad³ is hanging up his camera and entering a well-deserved retirement.
He’ll still pop up from time to time, (Father and Son-Days Forever!), but this will bring his channel to a close after over a decade of videos. As spin-offs go, he was the Fraiser to my Cheers and, as we all know, Fraiser was better.
I think I speak for all of us when I say…. YAAAAAAHHHHOOOOOO!!!
Advent-ures
Ah, Advent. A time of year I now dread, and rightly so. Today, on the main channel, my yearly awards begin, with a cozy, casual vibe this year, mostly because I didn’t have the time to write them, and slightly to see if I could get all loved up and excited for my favourites. (Spoilers: I can) Then, over on Ashens’ channel, A table breaks my spirit, Ashens dabs something on my tongue, and… they… return. It’s our traditional, nightmare filled calendar openings! Abandon hope all ye who open up the little cardboard doors, and enjoy the part where I slightly blind myself.
Paradox Paradox Paradox Paradox
The Paradox Paradox is still moving, with Unbound currently in the process of performing what’s know in the biz (business) as a structure edit. Basically, it’s the edit that makes sure that the reader can read and understand the book, and that characters act consistently. I’ll have those changes returned to me in a couple of weeks, rewrite where I deem fit, and will be handing in Draft 4 in January 2024. There’s still a bunch left to do, fine edits/design/cover etc, but it’s still moving, and I thought you should know!
Prints!
Prints are again moving, with a set having just slapped themselves onto whatever part of your house you keep under your letterbox. The next set are signed, packaged and will be shipping soon, with the next two after that about to go to the printers. We are catching up! Sorry that these have been remarkably inconsistent this year, but worry not. If you’ve paid for them, they will arrive! Slowly, sure, but still…
YouTube’s Done a Stupid
YouTube has recently changed it’s monetisation system from a simple set of choices that gave you control over the adverts that appeared on your videos, to… *sigh*… a single button that doesn’t.
On the old system you could could choose exactly the monetisation settings you wanted. For example, you could keep YouTube Premium (which is apparently not called YouTube Red anymore?!) revenue on, but turn off pre, mid and post-roll ads. This meant that the video would be equally promoted (videos with monetisation off aren’t recommended as much), you’ll get a little slice of that YouTube Premium pie, but you won’t have irritating adverts all over your videos.
Now, because this system worked, YouTube have decided to ruin it. You have one choice. Monetisation on, or off. Actually, two choices, you can also thankfully keep mid-rolls off, but that is it. That’s the entirety of the settings. Essentially, you now have to choose between adverts and a video that is promoted, or no money at all and no external viewers. While we’re not exactly chasing views, we do know that around 30 – 40% of our views come from external sources, so it’ll be nice to not lose that.
The current plan is… we don’t know. Matt’s having a tinker right now, tweaking some videos to see what happens. We’re hoping that a video that receives limited ads might still be promoted, (yay for swearing) but we’re not sure. There might be a future where we need to turn on the adverts button just to keep the channel alive, which would suck, especially as one of the reasons we started a Patreon was to turn the bloody things off. I’ll keep you in the loop, but if you see any ads on our videos, let Matt know on BlueSky.
Change, my dear. And it seems not a moment too soon
Finally, you may be thinking that this seems like quite a bit of movement for this tiny group of weirdos that I love and, you’d be right. To keep out of the boring money side, a very nice pile of money that we were expecting has failed to materialise, and that’s sodded us right up. For the first time in twelve years, I’m actually having to run the company as a company. We all have weekly and monthly tasks, I made a Trello to track them, I’m even up in the mornings like a barbarian. We can’t afford to bugger about anymore, aside from in the allotted buggering about times.
Short term, we’ll be mostly okay. Medium term, we’ll probably be okay. Long term… we’ll see. I’m hoping that with more videos and consistent streams (which we’ll start when everything else is in place), we’ll be able to bring more people over here to support us and get back on track. This year, my focus on the book dented that, and I need to un-dent it as quick as possible. More stuff, more reason to support, more supporters. That’s the plan, and I think it’ll work.
That’s all from me for today. Thanks for all the support you lovely lot. It means the world to us.
Love and monsters,
Daniel
xx
Comments
Oscar Unwin
Bluesky codes 😊 bsky-social-uphvl-t7fvm bsky-social-d4jrr-3kf6a bsky-social-2zooj-zhthn bsky-social-by6m7-56j4l
Dave's Venture Studios
Dan or Matt. If you are behind on editing videos at any point and like some help ill be happy to edit one a month for you.
Anna Klick
Bluesky codes: bsky-social-jyi5c-3owcb bsky-social-b5dwv-kljw4 bsky-social-7g46s-e7zi5
Johnflipper5
I just used the first one. Thank you
Stuart O'Hara
Bsky codes for people (please comment if you use so people know) bsky-social-xsvpq-a6dqk bsky-social-ejlg6-yhvxa
Sean Bowry
Hi, could we please get an update on which art prints are for which months?
Angus Noble
Lol never mind
Angus Noble
Is there a podcats coming soon?
George “Sheffield’s Biggest Hater” Spence
happy to hear that Steve's taking it easy. I know he enjoyed YouTube but it's the fact that even if you enjoy it then you have to cope with that level of performativeness. I'm looking forward to seeing whatever comes next :)
Uniqetz
also, if you really want patreons to have a non ad version, you could just keep doing the patreon versions here unbleeped and then if necessary bleep the one that goes out for everyone else?
Uniqetz
agree completely with this one. get tiktok viewers over here by watching more short videos, getting them interested and then they can click a linktree (or similar) link in the accounts bio.
Uniqetz
if you need to turn on the ads, just turn on the ads. 99.9% of people will not care that the ads are back on as we all know it would be very beneficial to you all i am subscribed here because i love everything you do. i would stay subscribed here if the ads are re enabled and im sure many others would.
James Barber
Been watching you guys for ages, wouldnt mind the ads if you guys need to, youtube is a shitshow so whatever you guys need to do. Hopefully everything turns out alright!
Riley Beachgrave Music
Are there any plans to record more of the podcats? hope you are all doing well
Luke Frost
Thank you
Mr Rebecca
bsky-social-gzlfc-owisi :)
Charlotte (Char10tti3)
It's great being able to read in your voice and quickly without being one of "those people" who crank up to 2.0 speed 😅 Thanks to Dad3 for sharing his recipes and stories over the years. I checked back every now and again and saw him still up to it all. I still remember how to cook a chicken from his first few recipes - not that we even cook meat anymore. Happy Retirement!!! Hope you're all good in the medium-long term x
Luke Frost
If anyone has a blue sky code it'd be much appreciated if you could send it to me :)
Leila Harrison
Thank you for the update! I sent a message about getting my address updated for some of the backlogged art prints and never got a response. Is there a better place to message about that? Thanks again!
Sarah Wayland
Never remind me or love and monsters again please Dan
Greg Rademaekers
hey all of wonderfull people, I am glad to hear you are doing alrighty let's put it that way. first of all a massive thanks for the updates so we know a bit how things are going and let's hope you will be doing okayish in the future as well. I saw a few updates of people not minding adverts if it helped the company, I am in that same boat and it might be an idea to put them on patreon ad free. the downside is that if you swear like one teeny tiny bit it will be instantly de-monetised so you would need to make 2 videos. one patreon swear versions and one.. oh look at the bumblebees frollic version... let's just hope things look up in the future so we don't need to go down that route. wishing you all a merry wonderfull holiday season :)
Coire Halfpenny & Alex Milne ❤
Shout out to Matt for doing such a fab job! Glad he'll have less on his plate ❤️ happy for ads to return, would rather that than N3 dissappear altogether.
Fionnuala Munro-Legg
I am thankful for Matt in this season of goodwill to all (except Ubisoft, ActiVision Blizzard, Rockstar, Tories, royalty/ nazis, people who partake in any kind of hate ((except towards those who started the hate first (((looking at you, Rowling and Kissinger))))), people who use too many parentheses in one list and Scandinavians ((I'm sure they're all lovely and I'm just actually really jealous of how nice and easy they seem to have things. I'd love it if my biggest problem was whether or not a polar bear had stolen the milk)))
Mr_Ozzy71
Honestly, turn on the ads if it means y'all can stay afloat. I'd prefer to see plenty of content with some ads rather than none after a while. I think we'd all understand the necessity of adverts
Nathan (Mxter_Chestnut)
huh, yeah fair enough!
Mattophobia
Out of everything I do, editing is the thing I do the least at this point. Managing admin, finances, books, prints, etc (along with all the other misc stuff) takes up so much of my time. It's one of the reasons videos have slowed down, since even if Daniel has been able to record I've been swamped with other stuff. I'll still be editing the FGF/TikTok stuff, as well as any podcasts, and all the advent stuff. We'll probably readjust a bit next year when we're all back on track and everything has stabilised. I'm editing 60 videos this month.
Jude
Maybe look into short clips of full-length videos to push more external traffic over to YouTube? Same for stream announcements if it guarantees revenue, have a placeholder short title video and have Dan record a quick "We're on Twitch streaming GAME!" You can always look into deleting those afterwards (if it won't hurt TikTok growth) so it's only relevant for while you're streaming. I'm going to review my own finances and see if I can commit to upping my tier!
Thomas redding
I hope I can speak for most people here that if adverts come back, that’s fine by us. We are all (mostly) adults and understand that a job is a job and you need to be able to put food on the tables of all that rely on this income stream. You keep up what you’re doing and we will be here to support you in doing that! Keep up the good work
Nathan (Mxter_Chestnut)
asking cause I'm curious with Matt letting go of the editing side and some of the business stuff, what will Matt be doin in the company going forward? (I hope thats alright to ask!)
Simon Robinson
Return of the King indeed. For myself, I can deal with the ads. It makes sense with YouTube, it's the nature of the beast I suppose. I hope all goes well for everyone.
Joseph
glad to get a clarification, quite frankly i was worried for all of your mental states :/ glad things are ramping up again and for the adverts on videos, i don’t care about that on your channel as i understand this is a revenue stream for you i keep watching (potential) adverts = you keep making videos WIN WIN SCENARIO hope everyone is well and we’ll always support you no matter what, i have been for coming on ten years now which is MAD to think about
Nathan (Mxter_Chestnut)
its been said by Jon on a livestream and dan in a past patreon podcast that it has been recorded. its probably just waiting to get edited a bit before release but will be up at somepoint soon I guess
Emma Goodall
Thank you for keeping us updated with everything Cube Meister sorry Daniel (I do like the name Cube Meister though lol) as I said in my comment in your last podcast I wish NerdCubed LLP all the best for the future, we love and support you all the way and can't wait for future things and for Father and Son days to come back!! Love the picture! That would be a great patreon Christmas card haha!
Jochem
Just to be the person that says something that we're hopefully all thinking: I don't mind the return of ads on the youtube videos, especially if that means you can keep making them. I support this patreon because I like what you and Rebecca and Matt do, and love the community you've built. The extras are nice, but they are just that: extras. If too many patreons don't like ads on the videos, is there an option to upload the videos ad-free to Patreon maybe? Or do embedded videos not have ads anyway?
Karl Blythe
Ok, so I'm glad I clicked on the view on patreon button, just for that photo xD
James Taylor
Podcats?
Spencer Johnson
Hope the best for you guys! Been watching you since I was a wee-lad and can't wait for future videos! Hope everything goes well <3 Also glad to see you edit again, wonder if that will make a difference in how the videos feel, Matts has been pretty damn good though.
