9/15/2023
Why?
Some of you may wonder why I chose to do Mod Reviews/Showcases and where I got the idea of how I'd go about doing them in my own way. Well, there are a few reasons why I chose to merge into doing Mod Reviews from my previous videos. One being; I have a kid now since I began and is still growing, I watch my kid throughout the day as my wife is at work and while I work from home. This gave me even less time to record, so I had no choice but to change up my content and having to sacrifice the amount of content I can have per week. The other can be considered depressing, but may not be as what I'm about to tell you is still unknown...A long time ago I used to watch a YouTube channel (even before I started doing content and some while after making content) that was focused on LSPDFR, yes I know it's not Project Zomboid nor is it a Survival Game at all. Project Zomboid was my choice of game, but I'll get into more of that later. His channel was called "FirstThirtyMinutes" and he covered Modded vehicles for us (the viewers) to decide if we wanted to download them or not by what he could give us in details and how it looks. Mind you this was his own way of doing it, I do mine in my own way so yeah his stuff will be different, but who wants to watch a clone channel anyway? I'm me and he is himself, so yeah there will be a big difference, heh (not to mention the different type of game and view of the camera.) I would watch his content even if I wasn't interested in the vehicle he was displaying because I liked his content that much, it didn't matter if I liked it or not but sometimes I found myself liking it after I watched what he had to show, so yeah it was beneficial to watch what I didn't like judging by a thumbnail that was similar to mine but totally different.
Then later he just (out of nowhere) stopped creating content and uploading. I have not heard from him anywhere nor has anyone else from his social media. The rest remains unknown (if you have heard, please let me know as I hope everything is fine.) I will always remember his content and won't forget him as he is one of the content creators that inspired me to create content.
When my wife and I had our kid and things started to get rough with me finding time to record as my kid is extremely active (like I used to be when I was a kid so I kind of deserve it, heh.. I still am...) I then thought to myself, (within the time of coming up with different ideas and none would fit the time I was limited to) I use a lot of vehicle mods along with others and I'd love to share them to others in Project Zomboid. Then I began to research mod pages on Steam Workshop and found a lot of people asking questions like "How much capacity does the trunk have" or "How well does this vehicle drive, has anyone tested it out?" These questions were left unanswered and there were many others besides those. So, I looked on YouTube and found no one doing anything on this material. So, I found a hole and I went for it. I have gained so many subscribers in so little time (for the views I get) since I started doing that. It took FirstThirtyMinutes a while to grow as well (as most do), but man did he ever. Myself, YouTube continues to play hard to get with viewership and it continues to be our little game of where YouTube shoves a giant thorn in my confidence the size of a frickin' saber tooth tiger fang and leaves me with a 3 inch pair of tweezers to pull it out every week. I've gotten much better with my confidence, I'm sure if you watched me since the beginning you can tell. I'm more me than I ever was, but yeah I still will continue to get even better.
Now, I am almost at 3,000 Subscribers (Huge thanks to you guys) and continuing forward, but at this slow rate there's only so much time left that I can continue to do it for little money as if anything were to go wrong I may end up dropping YouTube all together for a full time job as a software engineer when my kid goes to school (yes, YouTube is a part time job to me as it is a lot of work with editing, planning and recording) as my family comes first and it should. I hope to do this for many years as I am an entrepreneur with YouTube and I would love to have it as a full time job to expand my content, but not limited to just that but also with more game creation, website expansion and much much more. I am a(n) Software Engineer who knows more than 10 languages and I continue to try and expand my knowledge with programming every day by one way but not limited to; giving myself challenges on the community website. My current one is to make a system for storing your Key Codes after purchase within your Account Page, so you no longer have to do so... many steps to just activate a code. You purchase, visit your account page, activate and you're done till you decide to do it again. They automatically accumulate by the way, that system is already in place. You can activate several and it will keep rolling.
There you have it, there's the "Why" on my choice to change my content into Mod Showcases/Reviews in case you were wondering. Yes, I could of made this a video, but unlike others that have used bigger channels to gain their viewership.. I choose not to do that as I respect the FirstThirtyMinutes channel way too much to make any profit from it. That to me should not be done.. ever... especially due to the circumstances (unknown.) Anyway, thanks for reading this if you are left with any questions feel free to ask me, I don't bite ;D. Catch you in the next Mod Showcase, goodbye for now...
9/12/2023
Hey guys, the latest mod review video is up and ready for your eyes. This video didn't do too well with viewership and things have been on a down hill lately with viewership as it is. It seems according to my data people prefer a more calmer opening now-a-days. So, what this means is.. yep you guessed it... No more "HELLO DRAGONS!" This will be replaced with my usual opening after the yelling. That doesn't mean I won't do it anymore though.. I'll just be saving that for Live Streams for now instead.
The reason for this change is because when viewership goes down, it can mean one of two things: your content is just isn't what people are after at the moment or... you need to change it up to see if numbers increase. I'm going to try the second one and see if that changes things as there isn't much else I can change as it's my review of the mod and showing you a new vehicle you may choose to use in your next play through. That is the point my content really, is for you guys to decide if you like the mod and want to smash that Download button (subscribe button on steam workshop) immediately or to take a hard pass and call it a day.
On that note, all of my content is me and unwritten. I do not script any of my content, all I do is make some notes to touch on the features of the mod and everything else is all me and the video actually is about 40 mins to an hour. Yeah, you're like... WAIT WHAT?!... or not.. but still yeah, the videos are down to 2 - 3 mins because I do a ton of editing with all the boring stuff that I have to do before getting to the things I need to point out. What you are not seeing is stuff you would want to skip past anyway as it is me just going from one place to another or setting up for something I'm gonna touch on.
I thought about live streaming while doing one of these just to show you what I do while making these and this is something I could do if you guys wish me to. If I do this though, I'll will be ignoring chat during the key moments to ensure it can be edited to a smaller form unless they choose to watch the live stream version to see if they missed anything. I'll probably do a Q&A during those down times also to touch base with you guys. You can also hit me up on here though as this site is completely secure so I know you're not a bot and a real person ;). If you spot anything wrong (bug wise) with this site, let me know on my Discord and I'll get fixed right away.
As always, huge thanks to those of you who enjoy my content and want it to go on for years to come! I'll be making my decision next year if I should keep going to just quit and go back to full time software engineering, so the more support the better! Smash that Subscribe button and those like buttons if you wish to keep me going, cause us smaller YouTubers can only last so long with making 40 - 50 cents a day for our hard work with editing and content making... Yeah, no one wants to work for pretty much free. If you wish to support me even more to keep my content rolling, you can do so by Ranking Up on this website or choosing to become a YouTube Member for only $1! That dollar goes a long way, trust me. Imagine 20 - 50 members, I'll even be happy with 10 - 15 Members instead of YouTubes 40 cents a day, heh but I digress.. Thanks again guys catch you in the next Mod Showcase, goodbye for now... ;D
8/30/2023
(Latest Mod Showcase Video)
Hello Dragons,
Many of you know that I was doing a test with Shorts on this channel months ago. The thing is I have come to the conclusion I'm not happy with the outcome, more on that coming up. When I first started this test I wanted to see how they did (when shorts were new to YouTube as I never planned for short form content to be a thing on this channel.) I also thought about maybe doing a TikTok with that short form content if it did well. Well, the beginning it did very well on YouTube as shorts were still new, but then things started to change and pretty quickly. I started my TikTok channel (which some of you may know about already) a couple months after starting the test. My views on my shorts tanked here on YouTube however my views were much much higher on TikTok. This also started to hurt the views on my new and long form videos because YouTubes algorithm seems to run on Momentum, so if a video doesn't perform well then my next video will be treated like it's garbage, even though you guys enjoy it and want them to keep coming (yes I see all them likes and those comments and huge thanks for that as it drives in some extra views for others that may feel the same ;D.)
Today was the icing on the cake and will be my Last Shorts on YouTube, it has had less than 200 views this whole day with just 3 likes while my TikTok (the same video mind you) hit 1,000 views with tons of likes and tons of support with follows and what have you. This is not the first time, this has happened many times throughout this experiment. This is why I came to the decision of why there will be no more Shorts on this channel. This doesn't mean that I'm done doing those shorts, they do take extra time to cut the original version down a bit and I don't mind doing this for those of you who don't have the time to watch the full version or just seen the thumbnail and just want a quick look instead of all the extra information I give. You will still find these shorts on my TikTok channel here: tiktok.com/@emberdg
Those of you who do like my long form content, no worries there.. as it will still keep coming. As will the Mod Showcase Rewinds where I smash some older ones together that you may have missed into one set of 5 mods based on one type of Vehicle. This also helps bring new people to my content as they are much longer videos and the more people watch of my content the more YouTube delivers to others who may like it (yep this is a thing so big thanks to those of you who watch from beginning to end of my videos.)
If full time becomes a thing, then I'll be doing even more of them on other mod topics as I used to as well as things I used to do, being: other survival games, run community servers to play with you guys and more. Right now income on here isn't enough to fuel Full Time status, but it is a part time job to me at the moment and I enjoy doing it and I enjoy it so much I'd love to do it Full Time; again if that becomes a thing. For those of you who may not know, I love to entertain and I hope I'm doing that for you guys, my content is not just playing a game for you to watch, this channel is to bring new things to you and hopefully entertain you at the same time (none of my content is scripted by the way, it's just me with a few notes and whatever I say happens...) Judging by the likes, my confidence has risen quite a bit from when I began as you guys seem to enjoy my content. (Which was like almost 3 years ago, 3 years ago if you count me streaming on Twitch.)
That's enough of my babbling on and on cause I'll do it for frickin' ever if I don't stop.. one more thing though, thanks so much for your support in my content (those likes and subscribes it means a lot and keeps me moving forward, I really appreciate you guys.) Oh and Hurricane or No Hurricane, there will be a new Mod Showcase Video this Friday! ;D ;)
TikTok Channel: www.tiktok.com/@emberdg
P.S. I am a Software Engineer/Game Designer so you can expect More Content to come to this website in the form of More Games to Play, More Items to Spend on the Coin Shop, More Social Features and More! (If Full Time becomes a thing, then you can expect it to come sooner!)
7/19/2023
Hello Dragons, if you haven't noticed yet then you will now. The branding of Ember Dragon Games LLC has changed. There is a new image that represents the Company, it's above looking sexy as ever. Hopefully you guys love it as much as I do and I cannot wait till I can wear a shirt with this frickin' gorgeous looking logo stealing eyes everywhere it faces. If you're wanting one yourself (I don't blame you,) don't worry that day will come.
Thanks for all of your support with those likes and subscribes and a huge welcome to you new Dragons who recently subscribed. I hope to keep bringing you great content in the future. When I can get to full time, you can expect even more content on YouTube. Not only that I'll be working on this website as well with more games, more items in the Coin Shop and many new features to come to help you guys come together in this great community. There's a new Mod Showcase coming your way this Friday at 8 AM ET US Time, catch you in that video but good bye.. for now ;).
7/06/2023
I will be releasing a new Mod Showcase Rewind on Friday instead of a new Mod Showcase though, so you'll still have something to watch. If you're unfamiliar with Mod Showcase Rewind (the series) these are videos I edit and put together to form one focused video on a type of vehicle with my previous Mod Showcases. I also update the audio cause I know my audio was very terrible when I first started these (being really low in volume and what have you.) So, if you couldn't bear with that, there's nothing to worry about with this series as all of that is fixed.
There will be a total of 10 mod showcases in the Mod Showcase Rewind this week, so yeah it's a pretty hefty video and yeah they still require a lot of editing but not as much as my mod showcases, I spend countless hours on those because they are usually 30 mins to 1 hour videos turned into 2 - 4 minutes. Not sure how I manage to make that happen, but it is the end result heh. Thanks for your support as these videos take a lot of time and work to make. I appreciate each and every one of you who watch my videos from begin to finish and leave likes as it helps with distribution of my videos! Don't forget to subscribe if you want more mod showcases and to help support my channel it goes a long way! Goodbye for now..