YouTube and League of Legends

For majority of players in LoL, the way to get "famous" in the community is to get high ranking and stream/become pro. Whilst this is true for a lot of cases, YouTube is a great platform for people to share their content, whatever it might be. Back in 2009, I wrote an article for a small Runescape fansite about YouTube and the game, and back then you had to choose what type your channel is, such as "Guru" and "Director".

"Just flicking through the first few pages of most subscribed gurus of all time I can see at least 7-8 Runescape video makers that I recognise, there's probably more."

Now since then YouTube has grown considerably, and this system no longer exists for me to compare, but you've only got to take a quick search and see the amount of LoL content available. If you're an avid user of reddit, take 5 minutes to refresh r/leagueoflegends/new section to see the amount of short "Big plays!" or "My first commentary, let me know what you think!" trying desperately to get to the front page and noticed.

Even the ones that make it to the front page are usually one hit wonders, for example the recent Ashe and Thresh big plays video. That was the creators first video, and it has 117k viewers at the moment, with 38 subscribers. Now he might go on to make good content and build from there, but chances are he'll always have "that one video" that got him noticed the rest will get a couple 100 viewers.

So with this in mind, who are some examples of YouTubers who aren't "pro" by the normal definition? One good example is Sp4zie, although he is Diamond V, his videos aren't based around analysing his playstyle. Majority of his videos are funny moments recorded from his stream, with a small amount of commentaries from good games he's recorded. Even the commentary games aren't necessarily ones where he's played flawless and gone 15/1/14, theycan just be any game that he feels will be entertaining for people to watch. This is what makes him popular, yes he's a good player, but his videos aren't based around him showing off how good he is, they're there for pure entertainment value.

Secondly there's SivHD, who you may remember was shown at the Season 2 Grand Final. Again he's an entertainer, especally since he started streaming about 6 months ago. He only produces 2-4 videos a month recently, but the quality that they're produced is to a high standard. Most of his entertainment comes from his stream now.

All of his games (maybe not all, just always seems to be whenever I've watched) he invites 4 people from his chat room on the client to play with him in normal queue. Couple this with his stream having no delay, it allows the fans in the game to interact with him via ingame chat. Very rarely do you see anyone raging on his team because of this, but whenever someone does Siv will calmly talk to them and set a great example for the community. There's also vlogs on his channel speaking about rage in solo queue and how to deal with it.

 

So how do I get known on YouTube?

Well as mentioned above about the "one hit wonders" on reddit, unfortunately this is usually one of the best ways to get yourself out there. What's important though is that you realise not every one of your videos will blow up like that. You need to look at that video, take note of the comments and feedback and figure out why people enjoyed it. From there you can find your niche/style and develop your following.

Since there's so many video makers, it's quite difficult for you to do something that hasn't been done before since chances are it's been done. But it's important that you aren't just doing what everyone else is doing and that you put your own slant on the same thing.

As well as reddit, fansites are a good way to advertise your videos too. When I used to make Runescape videos, I had a blog written on a fansite which linked to my vlogs on YouTube also. But I had that one video that blew up, and had 5,000 views because it was of the clan I was in at the time and got passed around a lot.

I hope this has given you a bit of insight on the different medias that League of Legends is a part of and given you some help onto how you can get involved.

Also, please don't use Windows Movie Maker, unless you're making a lyrics video for Fallout Boy.