Growing a YouTube Channel (Gotta Catch ‘em All)

foreign [Music] gaming podcast where it is our mission to explore the business and future of video games we bring together the industry's brightest Builders investors and thinkers to keep a full sun current events dissect emerging Trends and games share Lessons Learned and have a great time this podcast is also part of novik's growing ecosystem which ranges from free and premium research to Consulting and advisory services for more information visit www.navic.com now let's jump into the episode greetings welcome to the novik gaming podcast I'm your host Alexandra Takei and this is the interview and insight segment today we're pivoting to the other side of the gaming industry out of devs out of finance and engines and into players professional content creators and the video content business that buttresses and force multiplies what's already been built by video game developers some might say that video

content creators streamers competitive players and influencers are the vanguards of gaming culture and today we're turning our gaze towards YouTube what it's like to start a channel grow it find a niche and what some of the dark sides of being a video content creator might be and some hot takes on the future of the video format AI influencers short forms like Tick Tock and whatever else comes to mind and so to do so I've brought on Aaron Zhang a pro Pokemon trainer who has truly tried to catch them all and probably has caught them all multiple times over across generations of Pokemon in the Kanto region and the many others that came after Aaron has built and founded a YouTube channel called Cybertron VGC in 2014. his videos have had over 50 million views and he himself has won five Regional championships and two national champion ships he's placed third at the 2013 World Championships and fourth at the 2015 U.S national championships and qualified for eight different world championships between 2008 and 2017. he's also shout-casted for multiple International and World

Championships finals if his success in the world of Pokemon is not enough I am actually lucky to have him as a fellow classmate of mine at Stanford's Graduate School of Business so it's my pleasure welcome to the Pod Aaron so excited to be here thank you for having me yeah I am super excited to catch you before we depart on spring break uh where where have you headed I'm gonna be in Japan for spring break which I'm excited for ah amazing where where where what cities are you hitting up I think it's mainly Tokyo and Kyoto but we might do like a day trip elsewhere as well it's kind of tpd I think it's still with planning as we wrap up finals here yeah yeah um love a good uh we don't know what we're doing but we're going and the flights have been built exactly basically the the Stanford spring break planning protocol that's about as far as I've got as well so um we were like all right we've got the destinations planned out like we have the structure the shell of the trip but like the actual things we're doing we'll find out and play it

[Music] um so that's amazing and Japan will be a ton of fun and the perfect actually like so timely and perfect for the topic of Pokemon exactly um so let's dive in I mean at a high level I said we're going to touch on a lot of topics um growing the channel from zero to X like via what tools and how long the pro Pokemon VGC in general and how you know being a content creator has affected your personal and professional life um and I would also like again like YouTube has had such a little a little bit of a shake up with Susan wajiki leaving and you know trying to compete with the virality short form content of Tick Tock but before we we do all that I wanted to start with your your sojourn into video content creation um you know what made you what made you want to make videos and and why Pokemon yeah so I started making videos in 2014 and you know back then I was only just like a competitive player right I hadn't really ventured into content or commentating at all but I finished third at the World Championships which meant I was like automatically invited to the next year's World Championships and so I didn't have to go through the regular

circuit to try to qualify that was a pretty big deal because it just freed up a lot of time I was a junior at high school at the time and you know I was applying to colleges but at the same time I was like now let I guess I have some more free time like I would normally spend like competing in tournaments and practicing for them content creation which is always something that was really interesting to me I think for me specifically as like an Asian American like I grew up watching YouTube a lot because there was like a lot more Asian representation on YouTube than there was on like traditional media especially like a decade ago and so what was that guy um the guy that sings nice guys finish last yeah YouTuber's name and it was it was him and like I think uh Nigahiga like yeah they loved him like the faces of YouTube you know like a decade ago and so like I I loved watching them and I was this is so cool you know like someone you know that looks like me is making content like that and so super inspirational um and at the time in 2014 like competitive Pokemon in General on YouTube was just not like super I guess there like there weren't that many creators that made competitive Pokemon

cards to begin with and those that did were maybe kind of like players that were maybe kind of they enjoyed playing but they weren't like World Championship qualifying players and so for me I was like I see it as an opportunity right like no one else is doing this at the time and for me the main motivation was just hey like I really love this game and I had such a good experience playing Pokemon competitively I want to share back with everyone else like in the world and my goal was to just try to you know educate people let them know what the world of competitive Pokemon looks like and for those that are interested in like competing in tournaments you know trying to help them get to a point where maybe they could watch the videos then go to tournaments and put in good performances as well so that's kind of how it started I think I got really lucky because at the time like no one was really doing it and there were a lot of other Pokemon creators who were kind of interested in competitive Pokemon never really ventured into it though so I got to like do collaborations with a lot of people when I was you know first starting out and I think probably grew to like 10 000 subscribers within like just a few months and I feel like that gave me like some velocity to just keep scaling up and so yeah I've been doing it ever since it's been almost a decade which is really crazy I'm still learning

about the process of refining it consistently but it's been a fun Journey that's awesome um and I again I can't wait to hear about like the you know how what it takes to kind of continue to do video content creation for for 10 plus years but um can you just share sort of like what was the first video that you ever made and what was it about how long was it um and maybe what did you learn from doing it yeah you know it's so funny I think like the concept is actually exactly the same as what I do now like the main videos on my channel is me playing through like a couple of competitive games and narrating them live basically I mean like look this is like why I'm making this play this turn and this is kind of like how I'm thinking about it and so I think the very first one was just like one game maybe it was like eight minutes or so um and like I definitely rewatched it before in cringe a little bit because while my voice is super high pitched I have a bad microphone um I'm talking really really fast and uh but but you know the core concept was still there which was fun uh and so yeah like I think what was cool is seeing that people were just interested in watching that even though like the production quality was really bad I

didn't even have a webcam like there were still like a couple thousand views on that so that's that's what made me realize oh like wow this is this is content people are interested in so like I've actually never really deviated from that even in like the decade of making stuff like I ventured into new content ideas like video essays or something like I just started kind of trying to explore with um but the quarter like main videos that I've always made on my channel has been there since day one which has been fun that's awesome so your first video had a couple thousand views already off the bat yeah wow that's hugely successful um and um and it was still in the format it basically so like I guess like for the for those that maybe don't play competitive Pokemon or play Pokemon in our audience which you know would be surprising since it's you know the the staple gaming the staple gaming of uh of anyone's childhood but basically you're playing through a series of combats with the team um or a roster that you've that you've compiled and sort of seeing like how it goes and you're kind of you're a little bit more of like an educating the audience on like what moves to use and when

um as opposed to being that I guess like from the Twitch streaming perspective less about like the like funny I'm I'm entertaining situation is that is that right yeah I think you described it perfectly honestly like I was saying like more of an educator first maybe an Entertainer second I do think one thing that's interesting is as I've like scaled up and grown like a lot of people just enjoy watching like unique Pokemon like they find that really irritating right and a lot of people don't actually even really play competitively or follow the competitive scene but when you get to see your favorite Pokemon you know being used at a really high level can just be kind of fun especially because Pokemon like a lot of other competitive games you know there's like a established meta game and so when you watch tournaments a lot of the times it's like a lot of similar Pokemon compositions although I say there's a lot more diversity at a high level than a lot of people realize it's just people like like often hard on the fact it's like oh I see this one guy on like half the teams like you know that makes it so boring um but for YouTube I think what's fun is yeah I try to make like anything and everything work and sometimes like some compositions are harder to execute than others but you know give me like a day or two I can always try to like get some

good games regardless of the composition and so uh big picture-wise don't answer your question yeah it's more like entertaining it's not really like edited at all at least like the battling stuff it's really long forwarded like my video is like 45 minutes to an hour these days um and I think like one thing I've really I've been happy about is seeing like the retention on that throughout the years like the viewership generally continues to grow and like getting people to stick around for 45 minutes to an hour is like mind-blowing yeah that's a lot so I'm really happy like there is an audience even for that in the first place and I think for a lot of people it's just yeah like I focus on like high quality kind of education rather than like I don't know screaming Supreme in the microphone and making like crazy reactions which is totally like fine as a form of entertainment as well it's just I know that's not my personality and so I kind of focus on I think what fits me best got it and then this is actually a perfect jumping off point to talk sort of about you know Pro Pokemon again like you're anchored very much in like oh the goal here is that the pro level scene you know what are the best teams to take to the highest level um can you share a little bit more about

the structure of VGC Pokemon and how it maybe differs from the card format um and maybe even just say like what is VGC Pokemon in general yeah yeah yeah it's a great question uh so VGC first of all stands for video game championships and it's kind of like the official format that we play in competitive Pokemon the thing about competitive Pokemon is actually there's so many different like formats and like fan-made rule sets and Rule sets created by like the you know the actual company that you can play but these live in-person tournaments are yeah we use this one rule set called VGC and it kind of changed this every couple of months or so but the general idea is that you you know train up your team of six Pokemon going into a tournament um everyone kind of figures out what six they think best fits them and their playstyle and kind of what beats a lot of the meta game at the moment and then these tournaments you know there's like Regional level events International level events and the world championships and generally you accumulate points if you do well at like the Regional International level uh and the World Championships is kind of like the premiere event every year as you may imagine and so uh yeah it's really unique I think it's a Competitive Gaming

scene because I think you know unlike a lot of other games uh there is some one more structure but two it's like you know it's not like a team-based d-sport for example right it's like you buy your individual uh and the events are actually just open to everyone as well so it's not like oh you have to be in the top 16 or 32 players to attend this like major for example so this season's been exciting because with the new game Scarlett and violet we've had like 600 to 800 players attending these tournaments when back then it used to be maybe like 100 or 300 so the growth of the game has been amazing I think it's been more accessible I think like they have reduced a lot of barriers to entry in terms of like getting a good team together in game which has been great and so the Pokemon company International is kind of like the you know parent company of all of this they run like the international and the world championship level for the most part um and then like the regional tournaments are often delegated to like other tournament organizers uh and it's like kind of subsidized and they're the ones kind of running these events and normally it's like a couple of TOS that are running like multiple Regional level events um throughout the season and it's funny you

mention the card game and it's like the card game in the video game have two separate circuits but they're at the exact same tournaments as well so when I'm competing the video game side the card game players are explain the other side of the hall playing their tournament which is cool and I actually like started as a card game player um and back in the day like the circuits were not like combined and so you could actually do both but now it's like you have to pick one or the other if you're competing but there's actually a lot of like overlaps between skill sets I think for the two games which I think is fun sure tons of questions in there my first question is uh is there any kind of rivalry between the card game players and the video game players I would love to hear a little bit about the personalities of the people who play the video games the card game I would suspect that there's some sort of like a little bit of like some grief between the two yeah it's a really funny question I think it depends on like the level of player you're asking to me personally like I think all the high level players in both games respect each other because we understand how difficult it is to be the very best of these respective games and I actually

think a lot of us have like ventured into the other game at some point as well and realize wow like this is really challenging the guys that do well put in a lot of work and so for me at Percy like a lot of my friends growing up were actually card game players because I started there and I I just have like so much respect for all of them because it's really difficult um and part of the reason I left the game was because I remember I was on a tournament and I just like dead Drew meaning like I had no cards to play with at all for like two games in a row and I had like a consistent deck as well and I was like you know at least in the video game side I can like make my own fortune and even if I'm like in a bad position from turn one like I could figure out a way to play out of it with the cards it's like the deck just gave me nothing to work with at all and so that's kind of why I shifted over but I think it's funny like I If you ask like players from both sides which game is harder I think often the players will advocate for their side and sure um but yeah I don't know I think there's a lot of mutual respect honestly I think Pokemon is also just one of the best communities I've ever been in and I think people are generally like very respectful and understanding and uh yeah for me like I get inspired by a lot of the like top card game players because there's like a lot of consistency in a

game that does have like variants like both the card game and the video games have some you know variants in them but the best players are still like constantly into this and so it's like a reminder to me as a competitor that you know even though sometimes people complain about bad luck or things not going their way like there's always more you can do as a competitor to like be better basically but yeah I don't think there's really any rivalry there got it yeah Master mastering of both crafts is I guess is is important yeah um and it sounds like basically Pokemon International like as the umbrella company is the like Mastermind orchestrator of a lot of these tournaments and events and I was about to ask you know what is your relationship with Nintendo or other official Pokemon institutions um I would love to hear a little bit more about you know what it takes to enter a tournament um do you have to pay do you give get paid um it sounds like it's obviously grown a tremendous amount from you know you telling telling me back in 2014 100 people used to show up and now 800 people show up um but sort of you know walk me through how um what your relationship and also as a video content creator is with these

official institutions that help organize the tournaments themselves yeah it's really interesting I think because first of all my relationship with the Pokemon company International like I also work as a commentator for them and so they hired me in 2016 and I commentated like the World Championships that year uh and so you know I'm kind of like a contractor I would say for a lot of these like big you know Regional national International World Championship level events um and so like that's like a professional working relationship that I have with them I also actually write some articles for like the Pokemon website it's just kind of like strategic breakdowns on oh like a tournaments coming up here's what you might want to expect to see or this tournament just happened here's kind of like a rundown of like takeaways from it um so it's been really fun I think I feel really lucky to be able to work with the company obviously as you know great as them in like working capacity and it is just an experience I thought I'd really never have especially as a kid you know I was just like oh I like playing the games when I was growing up but to be able to work as a commentator is really fun um and yeah to also be a writer for them it's awesome I I think like for you know

like the regional level events since the Pokemon company International is not really involved of that level it's like I there's not really any I guess working relationship or relationship with the organizers you know they're generally people that I've known in the sense like I've known that they've run tournaments for a long time but I wouldn't say I know like the organizers personally um it's a fireless job honestly and so I think it's like they put in a lot of work it's funny though that you mentioned like uh whether or not you have to pay to go to these events because that's actually been like a really contentious point where it's like entry fees have actually risen exponentially um but when I first started I think up until 20 maybe 14 or 15 like all the tournaments were actually free to enter and so you could just literally show up or I just like play immediately um and then throughout the years like they started charging entry fees it was like maybe first twenty dollars the 30 and now we're at like 60 to 70 price point and so a lot of people are like oh my gosh it's creeping yeah like everyone's like yeah that's so expensive but you know at the end of the day I think um I like a lot of competitive games you know the people the majority of people that are playing are just there to have a good time like they're not they're to realistically win the

championship and uh at the end of the day like being at these tournaments it's like a nice celebration of Pokemon you get to meet other people that love the same hobby as you and you get a chance to compete and I think the thing with Pokemon especially is like you can play the game online but it's not nearly the same as like going face to face against someone in person you see them right next to you and you have that human interaction um and so yeah like entropies have gone up but I think from the business perspective at the end of the day like tournament organizers need to you know be positive as well like you're not trying to run these tournaments on a loss right it's really expensive to get the venue and hire contractors and x y and z um and so I think the main thing is the player base has been like well there's no transparency we like we just keep hearing about raising like these entry fees but we don't know what that's going towards and we have no explanation for why that's the case um that's where like the player base is a little bit frustrated because sometimes it feels like there might be like a disconnect between the player base and like the organizers right right that's that's really interesting and it's uh very much like uh like Union could be coming and yeah for the pro Pokemon players

um and it's just interesting that you know for a video game company at least from from the other side right with you know help launch the OverWatch league and and CDL like we very much like see that as an important part of the marketing and branding strategy for the game itself right so that all it helps like ship units and to fundamentally so it's interesting that um for you guys right that the price point for entry has gone up but it seems like demand has also gone up at the same time so I don't know how inelastic or elastic uh Pokemon tournaments are but it sounds like they're the their people are willing to pay uh quite a bit yeah and so you know in in that regard right now I know that we're on um scarlet and violet is the newest generation um and you're making content right now for first Carl and violet um is there any kind of friction for you for making content for the latest gen versus a generation that you're particularly passionate about um you know for me like diamond and pearl happens to be one of my favorite yeah you know when do you are you forced to shift over or do you just naturally

shift over because you know your videos won't get views if they don't um tell me about the the generation problem for for Pokemons there's like I don't know like eight nine I don't know how many yeah they are that's a really good a question I think for me because my focus is like let me educate people on like how to get good at the game currently I generally like you know follow whatever newest game is out right and so yeah like we shifted away from sword and shield like I haven't touched sword and shield since Starlet and violet came out like they're just not people playing anymore right and it's like maybe there's like a very small fan base that like likes to still go back to the games and play competitively but it's like you know when you the new generations come on it's like all the tournaments are in this game and you completely shift focuses and part of the cool thing about you know Pokemon competitively is like each generation like kind of builds off the last one but there's like new mechanic changes there's new Pokemon introduced it's honestly like it's just a different game right like the skill sets kind of transfer over but for the most part it's like the the metas and what you're used to playing against like are completely different um I do think it's interesting because there actually are a lot of Pokemon

YouTubers like don't do competitive content don't do things like messlocks which is like a brand of content where you try to have self-imposed challenges and try to beat these games so nuzlocks have actually been really popular and the thing about that is it doesn't matter what game you're playing man so like people will know it's like old games like we'll go back to Diamond Empire or even you know other games and and try to play through them but I'd say from the competitive side for the most part what's most relevant right now is you know what are the tournaments using and uh or yeah that's always in the newest generation that being said I think one genre of videos I want to start making is kind of like recap of like older Generations like oh here's a tournament I competed in back in 2010 like if this was you know multiple multiple games ago and generations ago like here's what I used and kind of what was like the the game what did it look like basically back then and so I think that's an interesting genre video a lot like doesn't uh like it hasn't really fully been fleshed out on YouTube and there's some creators that have done really cool like versions of that and so that's something I'm interested in but in terms of the battling stuff yeah it's always like the newest generation and the newest game got it and I'm sure that also like

contributes to the viewership numbers exactly what people are what people are looking for and so and I actually like that's a good jumping off point to sort of shift into growing your actual channel right like so you're you know you've decided like okay when new when new generation comes out let me shift on to that meta I'm going to make content for scarlet Violet off sword and shield off of whatever was before and so you know once upon a time though your channel had zero actually what sounds like you've never had zero views but you know once upon a time like you had zero views um at least before you had the first thousand and so before um I wanna you know we talked about the first video and you know what did it feel like when you looked at the first number of views um and uh it sounds like you had a really compelling start yeah but you know how did you motivate yourself to keep going even though maybe the second video didn't have like didn't double your numbers or something like that yeah I think you know majority is a content creator like I just started because I was like I love I love Pokemon I love uh you know playing competitively and I just want to share that with any number of people in the world it could

be one viewer it could be 10 viewers and I would be happy so I I came in with like no goals or expectations at all and I was like you know we'll just kind of see where it goes right I think I got lucky because yeah I probably had a little bit more like velocity than most people starting out because like some people create like hundreds of videos right before like it really like clicks and it like the concentration journey in general is difficult I think I got lucky in the sense that like at the time you know if you look at the market like there was just no other like there are very few other high-level competitive players who are like trying to compete at the World Championships that were also uploading content so like being you know first to the market in that regards like helped me a time and then yeah I was able to like collaborate and meet a lot of other like big Pokemon YouTubers who are interested in the competitive space at the time as well um and so I feel lucky in the sense of the first few videos I guess you did way better than I thought like I was expecting to get like 10 views right even like 100 or a thousand um was really exciting for me and then I think because like there were there was basically no one else really doing that kind of content on a consistent basis um I was just trying to upload like every day even I always try to upload

like every day or two and like have them having that level of consistency I think helps a lot um and so yeah yeah I'd say like I was never really a metrics focused but I guess the numbers are honestly better than I would have expected and it just like never really went away and I was like okay I'll just keep doing this and maybe like the subscribers with views will follow um and it really did and I think part of that was like being the first to do it or one of the first to do and also just being really consistent about it got it and so you mentioned Cadence and yet you upload almost every day right you know what are the most important aspects in your mind of maintaining and growing a channel you know in game development we talk about content and Cadence right and so how do you think about that and how is it actually influenced by the Pokemon Community specifically and maybe the Cadence of the structural tournament system yeah I think actually interestingly enough like most of my viewers probably I or not most but a significant amount like don't actually really follow like the competitive circuit that much I think a lot of people are just like oh like I think competitive Pokemon's interesting I like seeing this Creator use like my favorite Pokemon or whatever and so I think the cool thing is that the Pokemon

franchise overall is just huge right like the IP is just enormous and it's so popular it's like what you were saying like almost everyone knows Pokemon right now competitive Pokemon is such like a subset of it that being said because like the overall like I don't know Tam of like people who follow Pokemon is so big like even though like maybe it's only one percent or X percent that like follow competitive Pokemon that's still a huge number because of um yeah just how big Pokemon is the franchise is and I think for me as like one of my goals as a Creator is just to share with people hey competitive Pokemon is the thing you might not know about it right now but let me show you how awesome it is and hopefully I convince you to watch our tournaments or watch you know creators going into the future um so I think yeah in terms of growth what's interesting is I think some creators you'll see like huge spikes right and they'll grow exponentially and like scale up immediately for me it feels like it's actually been a little bit more like of a linear path from 2014 to now with like big one or two month bumps during a new game releases and so like I think I was at maybe like 150 000 subscribers right before scarlet and violet the channel is like closing on

200 000 which is really cool I think the first month or two of a new game is like the most important time to get things right because like you know everyone's searching up this kind of stuff on YouTube and so the algorithm will just like work in your favor a little bit more um and so yeah like the first month I had when the new games came out which was crazy where it was like the battling content which I was doing which before you know the new games was maybe getting like 20 to 30 000 views per video it was doing like 100 to 200k and that was like stabilized a little bit more at like 50 60 70k but that to me is awesome because I was like I want to just keep making the same content that I do and just like grow the overall viewer base of that right and so I think there are some creators that are like very hyper fixated on growth and it's all about how do I create videos that like really will either go viral or get a ton of views and subscribers um and I think it's really smart I you know one of my best friends is closing in on a million subscribers he um as I would say like the face of Pokemon YouTube um wolf ebgc is his channel and he's also like considered one-off if not the greatest player of all time so it's really interesting because like he also started with like the hyper competitive you know Niche but then kind of branched

off to more generic videos like he opened uh in real life Pokemon gym video about like I think has already two million views and uh I think you and I actually talked about that a little bit and so it's interesting his strategy because he'll do like really in-depth breakdowns of like you know tournaments on these one but you also do like more generic fun Pokemon videos and I think like his his model was really interesting because he's figured out like how do I capture like the core audience I already was watching myself but also introducing like you know tons of new people that maybe don't follow competitive Pokemon a time um into my channel as well I think for me I'm very much still staying in like the competitive subset slash you know uh Niche but I'm okay with that because I like just being able to you know continue to like be one of the bigger creators in that space and then how do you perceive then your actual you know you mentioned that your friends right is there any kind of like competition in between you the two of you for for to compete for like subscribers reviews right or is it very much of more of a collaborative environment where you know like a Pokeman and xqc will go get on and it'll

be like a little bit more like oh we're gonna lift each other we're gonna use each other's communities to like both bolster our brand um how walk me through that relationship for you and how many other like quote Pokemon VGC competitors do you feel like you have yeah that's a really good question I I'd say I you know my goal is to just get as many people into the game as possible and I think it's better if we all uplift each other and work together I think the cool thing about the competitive Pokemon community in particular is like a lot of us have like grown up with each other and so maybe we don't talk every day but like I have so much respect for so many of the really like creators that are out there making content in the same space and so I personally don't see this competition I think if any of us grow we all kind of win because then it gets more people interested in the game if more people are interested hopefully that viewership will trickle down to like other creators as well right and I think the competition part is a really interesting thing because I think that's one thing that can actually make YouTube kind of tricky especially for people that do it full-time I think that's so easy to obsess over metrics and they're like oh like this creator has more viewers or

more subscribers like and often you know I think one thing is like feeling like maybe you're putting out really good quality content but people just aren't watching it I think it's like jealousy is you know a nature that a lot of people have and that's understandable you know that's just how a lot of humans operate but for me I think it's a lot better if like you know we're all friends and we work together to try to grow you know the scene rather than feel like there's you know competition between all of us um and so yeah I say it's very collaborative like well for example um he's just one of my best friends as well and so I get even being able to be involved in content ideas that he does like being I was at his gym as like a gym leader which was so cool and you know we've done like collaborations where we battled against each other um yeah it's like I want to root for the success of everyone in the scene because I think it just like if someone wins like we all win and I think that's all mentality like a lot of competitive Pokemon YouTubers have which is awesome because at the end of the day it's like such a small subset of the overall franchise like we're all just trying to grow that subset so we can all eat at the end of the day you know like sure sure and then so I mean for you

you talk that you're not as metrics focused as maybe some YouTube um content creators but you know what are the metrics that you that you do look like I'm sure you're Guided by something right um and so what tools do you use to actually like drive drive growth um you know is it inorganic or organic have you ever really like paid are you using Video Tactics or certain sites to help Drive traffic um I I obviously it sounds like it's a very open and collaborative environment but even for the biggest right I'm sure that there's a lot of there's a lot going on there about a b testing videos and like what what what format that does better did you ever do any kind of that sort of like growth assessment on your own channel yeah I'd say I haven't done like a deep dive on my own like analytics which is interesting because I consider myself to be like super analytical but I think for me it's like you know the metrics I'm mainly looking at are views like click through rate and like kind of what what does results in your subscribers um what's interesting is because I do like iterate on the same video concept all the time it's like it's pretty consistent that's like oh I post a video maybe it'll get me up with like 100 or 200 new subscribers and

that's pretty consistent what I am now trying to venture into is like more edited content like I think video essays in general popped off on YouTube in the last you know a few months or years and it's a something that I really like because you can be informative and you know entertaining and like a well-edited video I think it's just like really entertaining to launch and so you know I posted one that broke down like this big finals that happened this year and that one was like got a little bit more views than normal but like the subscriber girlfriend that was crazy right because it's like oh this is a video concept but like you don't have to like watch for 45 minutes right and and just watch some guy play you know like four or five games uh let's completely unscripted and unedited um to get into it and so I think one thing that's also helped is just thinking more about like titles and thumbnails like I think obviously that's something that a lot of creators talk about on YouTube and for me it's mainly just like how do I capture the ethos of the video in a way it's not like super you know click baby right like you I want to give reason a reason for people to click and then have them click and actually get them to stay rather than like being like oh this doesn't really match what you know I was advertising your expectations exactly yeah and so

you know I think that's an important part of the game though I think like even just small optimizations I've done throughout the years like I think when I first started YouTube what everyone did would be like have a series and they would have like the number like number episode number four out of 20 or whatever like on thumbnail and I would do that even though it's like none of the episodes or videos tied to each other and I think like just removing that from the thumbnail and title help because I think a lot of new reviewers are probably like okay number seven 17 like I haven't seen one through 16 so why would I click on this so like changing that and then like for example my thumbnails it used to have like a logo and it was like oh this is the the series and I was like for this generation I was like you know I think it's fine to just get rid of that as a whole and just like have a very simple thumbnail where I have like uh you know a PNG of like the one or two Pokemon or in the video and just like make them you know pop out a little bit more and so there's so many different things that I've led to growth it's hard to say like this one or these two things like have directly changed things but I think the thing about YouTube is it's like always growing as a platform what kind what content people enjoy or watching is also always changing as well and I think if

you like ask you know YouTubers especially those that do it full-time a lot of just like studying the game what's working for other people that do content into the same space what's not working for them right like what kind of titles and thumbnails are like more optimal versus not um I do think it's important to kind of like you know maybe carve your own path as well and not always just like copy whatever you think everyone else is doing but I think like paying attention to the general trend is is really important right because there's so many good takeaways you can have from it and does YouTube help you with any of these things um share a little bit about your relationship with the with with Lord YouTube yeah I said there's really not much of a relationship I mean they have like a Creator you know set of tools I mean like I think the fact that they do give like robust analytics is pretty cool um yeah I know one thing that people talk a lot about is you know when you post a video like it will show you how the video is doing relative to the past 10 videos uh let your do like you've posted and so I think that's something that a lot of people like hyper fixate on it's like okay I just posted this new video concept I have no idea how it's gonna do where does it rank against like

the last 10 videos I've done so um but the live tracking is honestly really interesting especially because sometimes you'll post a video it's brand new and maybe it's like a seven or eight out of ten um but then after like um you know a few weeks or even a few days like maybe that grows like a two or a one so the fact like YouTube does keep track of that I think is really cool but you know I know like some creators probably have like someone at YouTube that's like their go-to person to talk to about stuff I've never really had that experience it's kind of just been like me trying to figure out things by myself myself interesting yeah and I guess like do you think that there are tools that they should have that would make your job easier um besides like the analytics dashboard I think from my perspective um again like having worked on some of the media deals or for twitch and for YouTube is that the the cpms for for YouTube or lower than twitch because it's uh twitch is like a higher like quote more premium audience um or like a more like twitch is more like a gaming Landing point right like people come to Twitch for gaming where people come to YouTube

for like lots of stuff so you're more guaranteed that the people that you want to watch your stuff are more are aggregating around this website um versus YouTube which is much more dispersed and so how do you feel that YouTube supports you guys having being maybe in a niche Actually I don't even think gaming is Niche anymore but a huge gaming category but Pokemon maybe Pokemon competitive Pokemon play and maybe being Niche with end gaming versus something like a Call of Duty um which draws a lot of traffic to the gaming portion of YouTube uh what could YouTube be doing better and uh or do you feel adequately supported by by the company yeah I guess it's an interesting question because I never like stepped back to actually think about it I was just like oh I'm kind of doing my own thing and whatnot I will say like and YouTube has added like new features in like that Creator Suite which I thought was interesting like it'll tell you here like the 10 channels that people that watch you are also watching here are the videos that people are watching um are also watching I think there's like been a newer feature was like here's what your viewers are actually searching on YouTube as well I would say for me personally I haven't

really like done a deep dive into any of those because I already have a sense of like who you know my viewers are also watching it's like exactly people who I imagine they'd be watching um I think the search feature is interesting where it's like oh if they're searching for things that don't exist maybe that's something I can leverage to my advantage um I think that's pretty cool um I I will save anything I wish like YouTube had more robust tools within like editing specifically like it'd be great to like upload a video and like have more functionality in terms of editing because often it's like oh if you end up like having a mistake or an error instead of like being able to edit it within YouTube like you have to like take it down and completely re-edit it and that's just kind of like a nightmare sometimes that's actually like the one thing I'd actually like want more than anything like sometimes my in-game audio is like too high or my mic is too low and I'm like oh my gosh I have to take this down completely and re-edit it in the editing software that I have to use and if YouTube had more functionality just to like make it easier in that regard I actually think that's what I would want more than anything um and like they have some editing tools you know you can like clip out certain things and you can like get rid of music but for example like I I had a video

that had like a copyright song even though we actually had the license for it um and you know YouTube was like oh like we have this tool where you can like remove the song instead of your audio and I was like okay that's really cool it was like a beta tool right so it's like I get it you know shouldn't really expect too much from it um but then I tried it and it just sounded like I was underwater for that like two minute segment and I was like well it's cool that they're trying things like that I want to see them continue to like you know maybe develop them and make them better but for the most part it's like yeah with even with that tool existing like it didn't get me the quality that I wanted so I was like okay I'm just gonna take you down and like change the song and whatever so if they had more like yeah tools to make editing easier after you upload I think that would be really cool and that's what I want more than anything interesting okay so for you it's the it's for you it's basically content creator tools that would make your life a lot easier yeah um and then also like I guess in that vein I want to talk about like monstation and income right and so like in a survey that was done um by ugub in 2021 the most popular dream job of teens male and female was professional streamer or YouTube Creator

um which is a vocation that obviously did not exist like 10 years ago definitely um and this dream that uh beats out typical aspirations such as doctor or nurse or musician or actor or professional athlete um and so for you you're doing this part-time but you know how would you perceive this as as if it were if it were your real career would you be making enough would YouTube basically have enough of an economic and monetization engine around your channel for you to be able to do this yeah you know it's a really good question I think it's something a lot I thought a lot about you know whether or not I even want to do it full-time and for now the answer is still no I think I used to be like never now like you know I feel like I have to at least entertain it as option I'd say long story short like it does generate enough Revenue actually just purely off like ads Alone um like makes it sustainable um at least for now like you know as a career but I I think the thing about content creation is like you never know where you'll be in a year from now right and like the world is evolving so

quickly and um for me like I I like doing this more as a hobby and I think like not having to rely on it for an income makes me just enjoy it more honestly because I think if we're doing it full time I'd be more worried about how much money am I going to make in a month you know am I making enough am I meeting my goals and then also like probably be hyper fix it a little bit more on growth and then I know I'm like innately really competitive uh as a person as well and I feel like if we're doing it full-time I would just like take that competition to the next level and yeah in a way that like maybe it can be done in a healthy way but it's like something that I I like have thought about I'm like me you know I'm afraid it would like consume me a little bit too much and so for me the main thing is I love it as a hobby it's really you know it feels really great to do it as a hobby and it's been really fun and I like wonder if I would to do it full-time whether or not that would like take some of the joy away I think for me also like being parents of immigrants and uh also just like having gone through like all this education being a GSB as well I'm like you know I don't mind like having a more stable career path while also like throwing this on the side like YouTube to me um I guess my Pokemon brand in general feels like a startup in some ways and so

it's like something that I want to absolutely continue to build up you know while while I'm working or while I'm in school and it's it's been balancing it's been good sometimes I do wish I had like six more hours in a day to like make more videos or you know script down more video ideas but yeah in terms of monetization for me as a Creator it's like mainly just ad Revenue you know you have like subscriptions uh paid subscriptions on YouTube as well that's just radio on that like wants to support you know it's like five bucks a month or whatever um sponsorships is obviously part of it I would say I've been a lot more um careful about sponsorships in general because especially for someone that like doesn't rely on it for income I think like the brand here that you can take if you take even one bad sponsorship can really dilute like your viewer base and uh get people you know just yeah make you lose supporters and followers and to me like the monetary gain from like a single sponsorship or two isn't worth like I guess like using that brand value um but I guess it's interesting because like now maybe like the pay is scaled up with sponsorships now that like the videos are getting more views as well um so something I'm like thinking a little bit more about like how do I continue to like make sure I'm taking sponsors that are relevant to the brand that also like

aren't like super super questionable for example um and so yeah like those are the main revenue streams uh from the content side but you know I also get paid as a commentator for events and writing for Pokemon as well sometimes they do like scripted videos for Pokemon like they'll like show uh during downtime of these big streams for example um I'm also part of a team called East Coast uh and I make content for them and so get paid by them as well so it's like a bunch of different revenue streams I haven't really like ventured into some other ones I think like you know naturally merchandising is something that a lot of people do that's something that I think I'd be interested in one day just like for now you know it's kind of a you know I'd say the bottom of the priorities um writing is something actually I really like and so it's like starting a substance back and maybe writing more is just something I'm interested in I don't know if he even has to be paid but I think it's just cool but yeah as a Creator I'd say most of the revenue is still coming from um just you know pure YouTube ads and I think one gaming monetizes uh decently well especially relative to some other brands or franchises or genres to like a lot of my

viewership base is like us like you know 18 to 35 like affluent young males and so I think like the CPM rates are a little bit higher um which is nice and then three because I make like super long form content it's like you know think about putting it out every like 10 minutes ish or so but for an hour long video like yeah just having longer form content where you can have those mid-rolls but that's a lot playing where it's incredibly obnoxious also just generates like more ad Revenue which is cool and so that's one of the upsides of like making videos yeah maybe like they get like a few reviews and like an eight minute video but because there's more ads dispersed between the hour and certain people are watching for that long period of time uh ends up being pretty beneficial yeah that is really Alex is really interesting and it's probably like an interesting examination of the trade-off between like time commitment and making really long videos right which is um you know yours like you said or 45 minutes to an hour versus something that's shorter at like The Tick Tock shorts like 30 seconds um but then sort of what is the ad trade-off between making a short form content video or a long form content video definitely um and so for right now like what is your time commitment like like per week

yeah I I like really love would love to try to make a video every day and I think when the new games came out in December and January I was like pretty good at that it's fallen off a little bit in February and March because like GSP just got so crazy with all the like classes and uh there's been a lot of going on and then I was also like yeah I competed in my first tournament in March and I think like I only have so much time in the day to think about Pokemon and so like you know the few days before this tournament in Vancouver was like the first Regional Championship I attended I was like instead of like making content during that time I'm just gonna like hyper fix they don't like practicing and like getting to a point where I feel like I could do well in the tournament um and so so like I kind of like allocate Pokemon time just in general you know when I make a video sometimes it's as short as like 45 minutes to an hour often it takes like two maybe two and a half hours um to like get the content you know put it together and then upload it um so it can be a decent time commitment I do things like balancing it while being at Stanford specifically has been interesting because there's so much going on here all the time um but for me it's something that I know I love and you know when I make a video and I feel like it's good and I posted it like makes me just happier in general

like oh you know I feel like I put in something I put out something really good today that I'm proud about um so in February and March it's like slowed down to maybe one every two or three days I'd love to get back on that daily Cadence and I feel like I was like falling behind just because I was doing so many other things outside of content creation but the good thing is the channel will always be there the viewers will be waiting for you as well and so even though like for me personally I do think as a Creator it's very easy to get filmed like I need to post every day I need a post every day um and I think reminding myself that I don't always have to do that is something that has taken me time to learn but it's been healthy for me as well yeah I mean I totally understand the the time commitment part uh and I'm yeah definitely don't make nearly as much content as you but it's definitely uh being at the being at school is it's a it's a huge challenge um and I think yeah you kind of get stuck thinking that your fans are out there and that you need to do XYZ um and you have this kind of parasocial relationship with your with your audience right because all people know a lot about you um and you're making kind of like you're blasting out a medium into a forum and so I want to learn a little bit about

how maybe this has affected your personal or professional life um you know we hear a lot about especially on the streamer side um you know you know two streamers get together they get shipped and put in a relationship and there's like on-screen breakups right um you know you're not making streaming content you're making bookend and video content but is there any kind of like times that you've been maybe negatively hurt or impacted by a Fan's comment or it's really gotten in the way of maybe how a professional firm has has perceived you right like if I'm a McKinsey and I'm looking at your resume right and I see oh this guy's in making Pokemon videos for 10 years you know how how has that gone for you in your life yeah all really interesting questions I'd say first of all generally it's been super positive I think part of it for me was always like you know I want to make sure the content that I'm putting out like whoever's boss whoever is my boss at whatever firm I'm working at like they can watch it and be like oh that's interesting or their kids can watch it also you know they won't feel

offended or what not into like and that's why I'm like my brand is like super PG you know I'm like I I never swear and I try to be as like professional as possible um I'd like to think that's kind of like my personality and I'm not like it you know obviously the way people present themselves on YouTube can be quite different from who they are as people but for me I was like I like trying to be as genuine as authentic as possible I think it just like resonates with viewers better so I don't have really too many issues there I think in terms of the professional side if anything it's actually probably benefited me more than it hurt me like I'd say I wouldn't be at Stanford if I you know or gotten into Stanford if I didn't do this Pokemon stuff like my entire application was kind of centered around it um even when I was applying for like undergrad like yeah Pokemon was kind of like the centerpiece of my applications um the first job I had you know before coming to Stanford was working for team liquids investment and ownership group and like I think just being a competitive Pokemon player uh gave me more like credibility there right it's like I understand the space and I think the funniest thing about working at that place specifically is I actually had met Stephen Victor the CEOs of liquid back

in 2015 to talk about competitive Pokemon and so like when uh basically I was like this is so cool like I've actually already met these guys before not from like the professional side of gaming or Esports but more because yeah I was a player and they were interested in the space uh and so yeah I think it's actually opened a lot of doors for me and for me it's like you know if a company is like oh like you do this uh Pokemon stuff like we don't really want to hire you like that's understandable that's fine I want to continue doing this you know for as long as I can in my life and so um it's it's fine you know it's like I if that's the expectation but so far it's actually been really good I'd say like yeah it's actually opened a lot of professional relationships because there's like a surprising amount of people that watch that are just like you know working professionals that do interesting things in life as well and I think it's also open like doors in terms of meeting other creators that are really cool I think um yeah it's always surreal to me when it's like someone that I am a fan of on YouTube also like watches my content is a fan of my content and that's probably like one of the most real things and being able to just like get to know people that I've been watching for years and starting to

like be able to talk to them and be acquaintances with them I think is really really cool so I say those are all the positive sides in terms of negative I think like it's something I actually thought a lot about because I think if you the more you scale up as a Creator the more like generic people are watching your content right like a lot of people that you end up getting viewers that just like don't really know who you are and they'll maybe stumble upon one video and then like I think that can often lead to maybe slightly more negativity um I think the Internet is just a fairly negative place like there's a lot of positivity I've got in a law firm and I think the way way you use it and conduce yourself on the on the internet in general also lends to it but yeah I'd say like one thing that I've spent a lot of time thinking about while doing this throughout all the years is like how do I think about negative comments um and especially from people that like don't know me you know often it's like oh someone just comes in and leaves something really rude like how does that affect me and I think yeah you have to be a you have to have a thick skin to be a Creator everyone says that but at the end of the day we're still humans right like I've never met a Creator yeah who's like oh yeah like none of these comments

bother me and I've had times where it's like yeah I've had a great day I checked my YouTube comment section read something just like I don't know really nasty and that like rarely happens but when it does I'm like well that just kind of ruined my day you know I kind of feel better at it and so I've always I've thought about this and I was like I try to be a little bit more intentional about like when I read my comment section like is it at a time in a day where like if I read anything negative I make me feel sad you know and so um and you know I think a lot of creators once they scale up it's they you're at the point where like you don't read your comments like maybe you'll have like moderators go through and filter stuff out or response people won't like them but for me because it's like still a smaller viewership phase like I really do enjoy reading everything myself and like leaving likes and comments for people um and so yeah I I could probably honestly like hire a moderator just to like go through and like maybe delete this stuff but for the most part I would say it's like 99.99 positive you just have that point zero one percent like every few weeks or months or whatnot and so yeah um I'd say overall though it's been it's been positive but I think it's taken a lot of time to get used to as well because especially because I started when I was like what 15 or 16 like and reading reading stuff negative

stuff about you at any age of stuff but especially when you're a kid and you're still growing up and developing as well so that's probably the thing I've had to get like take time to get used to most got it so I'm just picturing you grabbing that Piplup and plushie behind you and putting it in your lap and hugging it for for moral support essentially exactly stress ball all right I'm about to rematch you're just like um and so uh maybe it in that regard let's take the uh the last like um you know 10 minutes here to talk about you know the future of of YouTube and that Dynamic and maybe toxicity is a part of that Dynamic but um you know what's going on with YouTube right um you know it's been especially for gaming YouTube has had a gaming agenda for for some time now Esports us particularly well on YouTube um twitch is obviously much more for just chatting IRL entertainers platform or at least that's the way I perceive it right um what Market do you think you know YouTube gaming is specifically serving

and and how are you part of that and what do you think is sort of the future there um I know that YouTube is gone for a big push into YouTube shorts um and to compete with Tick Tock um do you think that they're doing things to reduce the toxicity and the kind of the hate speech and the commenting that you were just just alluding to yeah all great questions I think big picture wise YouTube still kind of feels like the king of platforms to me like I I think for so many creators it's like okay how do I grow my brand so that people come watch me on YouTube and I think the general reason for that it's obviously different between genres and different creators but at least especially like in the gaming space and people I know it's like building your brand on YouTube is so important because like generally it like monetizes well it's more consistent as well and you know even if you have like two million followers on Tick Tock like what does that translate to in terms of AD Revenue you know uh it obviously depends on what kind of space you're working in but for the most part I think a lot of creators now I know are just like very YouTube focused and obviously they'll still continue to grow their brands on Tick Tock or twitch or

Twitter for example but a lot of us trying to actually get people to funnel down to YouTube I think obviously like you know YouTube is such a big platform and I think there's been a fair amount of like concerns from creators as well I think one big thing was kind of the way they were approaching monetization and I knew some creators that were essentially getting demonetized because I think they would like swear maybe in the first like like 30 seconds of the video and like that once whatever would flag something and you know there were big creators of this actually get all of their videos demonetized immediately I think that's really scary right I think one of the toughest things about a Creator is like you're right you're at Mercy of the platform that you're on right so yeah what if YouTube arbitrarily decides that your stuff can't be monetized anymore right that's so stressful as a Creator because imagine you put like hundreds of hours making this video You release it and all of a sudden YouTube's like nope sorry you can't make money off of it like every view that you're getting during that period is like a view that's not monetized and for people that do it for their livelihoods that's really stressful so I think from a lot of bigger creators like they want to see maybe just like better communication about things like this and maybe having more people at the company that they can like go to directly when issues pop up

I've also had a fair amount of friends that just like have their YouTubes like hacked into um and you know like it ends up like it's all often I think just people that like change the channel completely and then suddenly it's like a crypto live stream and I think that's something like legitimately yeah yeah like rename the channel to something that's like Elon Musk for example and so like then people are like scrolling through their YouTube feed they're like oh why is there a live video like uh like it's you know it's recommended to me what is this video about click here but it's because like one of their old YouTubers that they were subscribed to I got hacked into and I know like the process of getting back into your account and like reinstating all your old videos is like kind of a nightmare sometimes as well and So like um and a lot of this like the hacking stuff is even with people that have like 2fa like you know on their channels as well so it's not like they they just like have a bad password and someone gets into it so I think that part's really scary as well especially yeah once again if you're doing it full time and suddenly you just don't have your platform anymore and you don't know when you're gonna be able to get your channel back I think that's really scary as well

um so I'd love to see everyone down there yeah and then like man this is something I had a problem with I've noticed that it's like toned down a lot in the recent like months but for a while like the YouTube comment section like there were just so many Bots and it was like automated Bots I would like pretend to be your name and they'd be like oh like message this name on telegram to get like a reward or whatnot right and it was like they would be able to get through the filters that I had automated because they would have like different unique like character you know in their um comments and that was really annoying I think a lot of creators were like this is crazy like we can't filter these out when like it's so clearly bonded as well um and so like yeah more tools to get rid of that I think would be helpful as well but I'd say in terms of the future like I think it's really bright as a Creator I think there's more value to be extracted from the Creator side right now than maybe ever I think like a lot of it is like content in general is growing a lot right you have people who are like breaking boundaries uh obviously like Mr Beast is an example that so many people talk about he's doing stuff like you know it's just kind of mind-blowing and then you also have like Ludwig I think is one of the most

interesting creators on YouTube because he's like constantly doing all these different things and he's really entertaining really Innovative as well but I think people have realized like wow like there's so many different ways to make content and uh like when I started Pokemon YouTube for example 2014 it was like everyone was doing the same things it was like the same playthroughs at the same games and now Pokemon YouTube and decade later is so much more Innovative there are people like breaking the boundaries of what Pokemon content can look like so I think part of the reason why I want to continue doing this is because I'm really optimistic in this space overall as a Creator I think obviously there's more let um you know the platforms can do but I understand it's honestly a tough task for them as well and then in terms of the future yeah I think like shorts is obviously something a lot of people have been hyper fixated on rightfully so it's interesting because I think a lot of creators see shorts as like a mechanism for growth right it's like for a lot of YouTube creators like they don't maybe care as much about um like what ad Revenue they get from shorts it's more like hey if I get like a million views on these shorts and it adds like even 100 or 200 subscribers to my main Channel and then those subscribers trickle down to watch my video videos I think that's more

valuable than anything else and so for a lot of these gaming content creators that I know it's like how would I like grow on Tick Tock or Draw on shorts to funnel people down to the fundamental content got it oh it's okay it's a top of funnel conversion yeah yeah at least that's all I say me and my friends see it but like we operate obviously in a very specific like gaming Niche relative to other creators and there are other creators that are like you know hyper focused on just growing on Tick Tock or growing on shorts and that's understandable as well um but for a lot of people that I know that do YouTube full-time like that's kind of the thinking behind it ah fascinating okay cool um so shorts are basically like a really cool view you're happy that YouTube has done shorts you don't feel like that's kind of degrading that the content ecosystem or kind of um damaging the way that YouTube is perceived yeah um I think they're okay they feel like pretty separate products to me which I think is important right like I think it's not like oh I go on my feet and it's like all just shorts recommended to me anymore and it's like I I actually don't really want shorts on YouTube um and I don't feel like I'm getting like blasted with them all the time but they've also been very helpful I know for some of my Creator friends in in

growth on their channel so it's been more additive than negative for me um even as someone who occasionally consumes short form content like I feel like it's still pretty separate on YouTube I'm glad that experience is not like oh like I'm just constantly being recommended shorts over long-form stuff that I want to see got it um so I want to conclude a lot of today's episode has been focused on being a content creator um but you obviously love Pokemon um and I want to know what's something that you're super excited uh for Nintendo to do either in games or anime or cards or Pokemon go um you know I have this theory that Pokemon nfts would do really well for example uh but what's something that you know you said the future of YouTube is bright but what's the future of Pokemon and howdy and and what are you excited for I think the competitive scene has grown a lot in the recent years and it feels like the world championship specifically is just getting bigger and bigger for example last year was the first time we were outside of North America in you know over a decade of War championships

in the video game side and it was held in London and I think like the venue we were in and just the audience like it felt like double the size of all the previous war championships it's going to be in Japan this summer so it's gonna be the first time it's ever going to be in Japan which is also really exciting and it feels like the world championships and that was no longer just a celebration of like competitive Pokemon it's just a celebration of Pokemon overall and so I I expect the war championships specifically to scale up consistently and become more like a convention catered towards any Pokemon fan rather than oh like you only want to attend if you want to watch like the best players in the world go up against each other which in itself is obviously pretty cool as well but you know it's like when I competed the World Championships in 2013 and there was maybe like 100 people watching in the crowd last year in London we had like a bleachers that like fit over a thousand people which was really cool there were way more people uh interested in you know being in that area than we actually had space for it would be really cool to me if we get to the point one day we're like yeah the world championship finals is in like a big venue that fits like tens of thousands of people that are watching at the same time especially as like a huge fan of Esports right I'm

like man that must be surreal like competing in these big venues where you're like there and there's like literally 30 000 people surrounding you or whatever number and so I I do think like maybe like we're not heading to that skill but the the future feels really bright in terms of like where the World Championships are specifically um and yeah I'm excited to see what they do with that I could learn a lot of big plans in the upcoming like three to five years and with the way that the franchises continue to grow and these brand new games selling really well as well like the future feels really bright that's awesome well it sounds super exciting um and I would you know hopefully maybe one day I'll come to one of your competitions and sort of feel the vibe and I can compare it to the League of Legends and OverWatch events that we've been to in Burbank and uh I'm sure it feels really epic I'm just picturing uh I'm the last sort I think the last Pokemon game I played was sword and there's like some really epic battle music like in the arena and there's like this so many funny memes about like trying to sleep in this region like the Pokemon just like Rises up

nobody yes you can sleep yeah because you're just busting it down like in in the Pokemon battle arena um but I mean that's epic and it's it's like such it's so cool to have such a healthy like competitive scene around around the game I think it brings it and allows so many people to interact with the IP that you know that they can't normally do if you're just sort of consuming the video game and there's a community which is just overall awesome um and so I guess you know people are uh interested in subscribing or reaching out to you or want to watch some of your content if they've been totally totally convinced that 45 minute to one hour competitive Pokemon is now going to be their Niche where can they find you or um how can they follow your channel yeah I'm on uh Twitter and YouTube and it's the same handle Cybertron VGC uh so yeah feel free to check out some of the videos reach out and I love talking about competitive Pokemon so if anyone listening has just any questions or is just curious about the space like always happy to chat with us as well all right and so on that note a big thank you

Aaron for coming uh thank you to all of our listeners and I'll be back in two weeks um until next time friends feel free to hit me up at Alexandra novik.com if you ever have any questions comments or concerns we'd love to hear your feedback and with that au revoir see you next time thanks Aaron if you enjoyed today's episode whether on YouTube or your favorite podcast app make sure to like subscribe comment or give a five star review and if you want to reach out or provide feedback shoot us a note at podcast navic dot Co or find us on Twitter and Linkedin plus if you want to learn more about what novik has to offer make sure to check out our website www.navik.com there you can sign up for the number one games industry newsletter navic digest level up your insights with our premium research platform novik Pro or contact us to learn about our wide-ranging Consulting and advisory Services again that is www.navic.com thanks for listening and

we'll catch you in the next episode