How to Start a YouTube Gaming Channel in 2026

Here's how to start a gaming channel in 2022. Strategy number 1: How often to upload. If you produce good gaming content, over time your channel will get traction. Now, what's good content since isn't that subjective? And how often should you upload it? Well, good simply means that it gets its intended audience, which in this case are gaming fans, to click to watch your videos and then keep them on YouTube, ideally on more of your videos. And I'll reveal how to do that in just a second, but first How much should you upload? No, you do not need to produce daily videos to grow a gaming channel in 2022. You can if you can produce quality content, and we'll go over that in just a second, but I would aim to upload at least one gaming video per week. As for how long your videos should be, I would simply take the amount of time that it takes you to produce content with no filler, no fluffs, and that has a huge advantage of doing well. Strategy number 2: play only one game on your channel. Now, as a gamer, you probably enjoy multiple games. However, I encourage you to only focus on one game, ideally your favorite one, in 2022. You can still play other games for fun, but I would recommend focusing on as few games as possible on your channel. You'll notice that a lot of the top gaming channels out there like Beast Gaming, LuckyMaker, LS Meme, and Nott all do this. Now you might be saying, well, there are some big channels out there that do play multiple games, and while that is true, a lot of them actually grew playing one or just a couple games and they got known for that. Here's why specifically I recommend starting off playing one game. When one of your gaming videos takes off, your entire channel and all the other videos on your channel will be benefited by it because you have a channel full of videos from a single game. Because of this, you'll get a higher view-to-subscriber ratio, your subscribers will watch more videos on your channel, your viewers will watch more videos on your channel, and this is a key indicator for YouTube to then push your content more. Strategy number 3, how to actually make your gaming videos. If you're gonna be recording your gameplay, I recommend using a free software called OBS Studio to record, and then at least getting a decent USB mic like a Blue Yeti Nano. I would also suggest getting a facecam for your gaming videos. You can start off with a webcam like a Logitech C922X, which has great quality, and then eventually when you can afford it, you can get a DSLR like a Panasonic GH5, and then connect it via an HDMI cable into your computer with something like a Cam Link 4K, which essentially turns your camera into a super high-quality webcam, and it's how I'm recording this video. Now you might be asking, do you absolutely need to show your face if you're running a gaming channel? No, you don't need to show your face, and I actually run a channel with over a million subscribers, not in the gaming niche by the way, but I'd never have shown my face on that channel. However, for gaming channels, I would recommend showing your face if a lot of the top channels in your niche that play the game that you're gonna be playing do so. You'll notice that some types of gaming content like gaming walkthroughs, or if you're making top 10 lists of other people's gaming videos, like the channel Top 5 Gaming, they don't necessarily need to show their face. So it depends on the type of content, and I recommend doing a little bit of research into the videos that are performing well on the game that you're going to be playing. Then I do recommend editing your videos, taking out any blank space where you're not talking or nothing's happening, and some free editors are OpenShot, Shotcut, and HitFilm Express. Express, and my favorite paid editor is PowerDirector. I recommend editing your video similarly to other videos that are performing well in the game that you're going to be playing. Don't directly copy them, but if you notice that a lot of the top channels don't have intros, they have a lot of fast cuts, and they're growing really fast, this is a really good sign about what you should incorporate also into your videos. Strategy number 4: Make sure there's demand for your game. To make sure you're not wasting your time with your gaming channel, given you wanna get a lot of views with it and potentially make money from it, I recommend doing a little bit of market research to make sure you're not playing some super obscure game that'll hurt your chances of getting views and subscribers. To do this, you can simply go to YouTube, search the game that you're thinking about playing, and then making sure that there's at least a couple videos with over 100,000 views on them. And I would make sure that there are videos consistently going up with a lot of views about your game. All you have to do when searching on YouTube is click filter and sort by the most viewed videos uploaded in the past month to make sure that there's videos continuing to go up about your game that are getting a lot of views and that it's an evergreen game like Minecraft, for example. Now you might be asking, are there some games that are just too saturated and too much competition that I shouldn't go into, like Minecraft, for example? That's a great question, and we're gonna be covering that in strategy number 6 in just a second. But first, let's go to strategy number 5, which is how to find what videos to make. Here's how to never run out of ideas for your gaming channel. You can use this as a checklist of places to get videos from. Number 1, other popular videos on YouTube, and these can be found by searching your game on YouTube, clicking the video, seeing the suggested videos that pop up. There's thousands of video ideas right there. Number 2 is keyword research, and number 3 is new gaming features. So for other popular videos, you can subscribe to some of the top channels in your niche that play your game and then see what the most popular videos on their pages are and then recreate them for yourself. For keyword research, you can use tools like vidIQ to search keywords relating to your game and then sorting by the top overall score keywords, which will show you keywords that have a high amount of search volume and a low amount of competition so that you can start getting easy search traffic. And this can be a great way to initially find videos to make for your gaming channel. And then finally, you can join communities of the games that you're playing on places like Discord, Reddit, online forums, and more in order to discover big updates that are coming to your game so that you can potentially make videos about them. Also, by doing this, you'll see what the community at large is interested in. And whatever you do, remember this when it comes to growing your gaming channel in 2022. In order for your gaming channel to do good, you need to provide value. And value can be in the form of educational value or entertainment value. Walkthrough videos that teach people how to do things in the game would be educational value. And entertainment value would be just doing something fun and entertaining in the game. Both can work great, and definitely keep in mind when you're producing your gaming content that you're providing value to the end viewer. Now, like I promised, we're going to get into strategy number 6: how to determine if there's too much competition for the game that you're going to be playing. And before we get into that, make sure to hit that subscribe button. Now here's how to do it. Now at this point, you might be asking about saturation and if it's even possible to grow a channel in the game that you're thinking about playing. Now here's what most people on YouTube do not understand about competition. Now saturation up into a certain point can actually be a good thing because you can get into the suggested video feed of other popular videos that are playing your game. However, there can be such a thing as too much competition if you're not producing content that's better, and better simply means a higher click-through rate and a better audience retention, more watch time than the competition. Everybody talks about too much competition, but what most people fail to account for is that viewership is and has continued to increase accordingly. So even though there is more competition, there's more viewers as well. And out of the competition, how many of them actually produce good videos that perform well? And how many of them actually know what they're doing and are actually applying a good strategy like you're discovering in this video? I mean, how many Minecraft let's play videos have you seen out there that have no editing whatsoever? They have a title that nobody in the world would ever search for, no custom thumbnail and no voice in their videos. So yeah, that's a ton of competition, but if you can produce videos better than that competition, then I believe that you can grow. And here's the secret: if you can produce videos better than the competition, then it doesn't matter how much saturation there is. So this is what I recommend you do just to make sure that you can grow your gaming channel. Watch some of the top gaming channels in the niche and the game that you want to play, and be honest with this: can I produce content as that's similar to the content that they're producing. And really ask yourself this, because if you can't produce content that's at least equal to what's already performing well on YouTube, then you might not be able to compete on the same level as them. You might still be able to get thousands of views or tens of thousands of views, but in order to get millions of views and compete with those top channels, just ask yourself if you can produce content similar to them. And if you can't, do not worry at all, because you can learn how to make these videos over time with your gaming channel. Just for example, look at some of the first videos on some of the most popular gaming channels out there, and you'll see that everybody starts somewhere. They're usually really crappy videos, and with the strategies you're learning in this video, you might even be better than some of the biggest channels with over a million subscribers when they're first starting. And if you're this good now, imagine where you'll be 2, 3, 5 years from now with your gaming channel. And the big gaming channels that are out there, their first videos typically aren't the ones that go viral. And if you really wanna run a big gaming channel and you wanna know what it takes, It usually takes uploading a lot of videos with little to no traction until one of your videos takes off, feeds all the other videos on your channel, and eventually hopefully experience exponential growth. Now most gaming channels out there can't handle uploading 30, 60, 100 videos with little to no traction, and a lot of them give up. But if you're serious about doing this, and I believe in you if you are, then it typically takes a significant backlog. But trust me, at the end of the day, it's worth it. If you can make a living doing something you love, playing a game you love, it's 1 million percent worth it. Now here's 3 secrets to make sure that you do this the right way, to make sure you succeed with your gaming channel. Secret number 1 is fair use. Now video games are copyrighted works, and you might be wondering, how can you avoid copyright problems when playing games on YouTube? Now the good thing is that most video games out there provide licenses because they realize it's incredibly beneficial to get all the free advertising that comes from YouTubers who play their video games. I recommend going into the terms and conditions of the game that you're thinking about playing, and luckily most video game publishers put this right out there on YouTube if you search for this, and making sure that you can play their game on YouTube for commercial use, which simply means that you can make money from your videos. Just search things on Google like, "Can I stream this game?" "Can I make money making videos about this game?" and similar terms to find one that the creator of the actual game published. Secret #2: Making good thumbnails and titles. Even if you have the best gaming video in the world, if you don't have a good thumbnail and get people to click to watch that video, you won't get as many viewers as you possibly could. The way we can increase the chances of people clicking to watch our videos is by having good thumbnails and titles. For your first 30 videos especially, I recommend modeling what has already worked in your niche and making similar thumbnails and titles. Again, this does not mean copying exactly, but doing the best practices that are currently working. And you can use tools like Canva and Snappa to make great thumbnails easily. And secret number 3, how to grow your gaming channel fast. The key to growing your gaming channel fast in 2022 is having an optimization loop in place that will ensure that your gaming channel grows over time. First things first, we don't want to be just guessing in the beginning and uploading random Minecraft let's play videos with no editing or voiceover or anything. We want to be modeling what already works for our first 33 videos. If we notice that the competition is producing 10-minute videos successfully, then this is where I would recommend you start as well. Then once we've uploaded 33 videos on our channel, and remember, we're not just guessing with these videos, we're seeing what's already worked, recreating videos in our own way based off of those videos. Then I recommend analyzing the analytics of those 33 videos and doing a deep dive once they're uploaded. We wanna look at the audience retention rates for your individual videos see where people are clicking off, and see where people are watching more. If you notice people are dropping off during your long intros, then I recommend simply cutting out your intros and your videos will do way better. Next, look at your click-through rates and see what style of thumbnails are getting the highest click-through rates and getting the most people to watch your videos. And make sure that you have at least 4,000 impressions in order to get statistically significant data as well. And don't worry at all if you don't have this yet. Don't worry if you don't have it after 30 videos. It typically takes some time for YouTube to test your content, but they will, especially if you optimize it correctly. And if your content performs good in YouTube's test, then they'll continue to push it more. Then upload another batch of 30 videos based on these improvements, and if you do this over time and you repeat this process, your channel will grow. And it's very likely to do better over time because now you have an actual system in place rather than just guessing. And by next year, you'll have an established gaming channel getting regular views and subscribers Type yes down in the comments to affirm I believe in you, you got this. Now check out this video in order to see how to create an actual gaming video from scratch. You'll see me create a gaming video in front of you from scratch, so if you want to see it, check it out right here. Thanks for watching, see you there.