---
title: 'The New Way to Start a Gaming Channel in 2026'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=y-EsrgslvXw'
video_id: 'y-EsrgslvXw'
date: 2026-07-23
duration_sec: 1278
channel: 'vidIQ en Español'
---

# The New Way to Start a Gaming Channel in 2026

> Source: [The New Way to Start a Gaming Channel in 2026](https://youtube.com/watch?v=y-EsrgslvXw)

## Summary

This video provides updated advice for starting a gaming channel on YouTube in 2026, emphasizing that personality and passion are far more important than metrics or tricks. The creator breaks down different types of gaming channels—Let's Plays, live streaming, reviews/news/guides, and personality-driven video essays—and offers strategies for each, including how to avoid common pitfalls like over-relying on a single game.

### Key Points

- **Personality is 99% of Success** [00:39] — The most important factor for a gaming channel is the creator's personality. Viewers connect with the person, not just the game.
- **Passion Over Tactics** [01:05] — Passion drives strong performance in videos. Following advice channels won't compensate for a lack of genuine passion.
- **Are Let's Plays Dead?** [02:27] — Game Theory's video suggests Let's Plays have declined in popularity due to the rise of Twitch and live streaming, but the genre has evolved.
- **Innovations in Let's Plays** [03:36] — Successful Let's Play channels now add narrative elements, challenges, and higher production value to stand out.
- **Live Streaming as a Base** [04:05] — Live streaming fits naturally with gaming commentary. Creators can repurpose streams into highlight reels, long-form videos, or sleep aids.
- **TV Viewership Matters** [06:53] — More people watch YouTube on TV, so creators should consider the TV-viewing mindset: higher expectations for quality and narrative.
- **Reviews, News, and Guides** [09:06] — These categories overlap. Creators should avoid relying on a single game long-term unless it's a massive title like Minecraft or Fortnite.
- **The Risk of One-Game Channels** [09:32] — Focusing on one game can lead to burnout or audience loss when the game stops receiving updates. It should be phase one of a multi-part plan.
- **Austin John's Strategy** [12:14] — Austin John built authority on Pokémon and Zelda, then expanded within the Nintendo ecosystem. He lost subscribers when he deviated too far.
- **Personality-Driven Gaming Channels** [14:25] — The most potential lies in channels that talk about games in unique, story-driven ways, making the creator the draw rather than the game.
- **Video Essays About Obscure Games** [15:50] — Framing a video around a personal story or problem (e.g., phone addiction) and tying it to an obscure game can attract viewers who don't know the game.
- **The Far Snifer Example** [18:19] — A new channel with a simple, passionate video about YouTube updates blew up despite poor thumbnails and no SEO, proving the power of a good idea and personality.

### Conclusion

The key to a successful gaming channel in 2026 is to focus on your personality and passion, not on hacks or metrics. Be the go-to creator for a specific audience by being authentic and telling compelling stories.

## Transcript

working on it for a while, you're in the right place.  And that's because the advice for these channels has been outdated for quite some time.  Even the points I've mentioned in the past are things I no longer
take a step back and I'm going to give you some updated advice on various types of gaming channels and what I would do to succeed with each one. Basically, what I wish someone had told me when I started, but
now in 2026. To begin, let's take some general advice from the road and the best comment on last year's video expresses it very well.  What many people don't understand is that you can play any game you want,
react to any game or YouTube video you want.  You can play quedrez, you can make vogs, cook, etc.  But the most important thing that will make people visit your channel, stay, and connect with you is your
personality.  That should always be the main factor.  No matter what you do, react, play, broadcast, etc., your personality is always 99% of your success.  I couldn't agree more, and that's why this video is
n't going to be about analyzing different metrics or tricks to improve your titles or thumbnails or anything like that.  We're going to focus on basically this.  The needs on YouTube boils down to passion.  Following every
YouTube advice channel in the world won't make up for a lack of passion.  And the reason I'm saying passion is because in my opinion, passion is what a very strong performance in a YouTube video.  When you're passionate about something,
it will be reflected in your content, and people will be able to take note of that directly when they look at it.  If you achieve this, viewers on YouTube won't have to think not.  It will all depend on your personality.  They connect with her or they don't.  If they do
convince them, otherwise they'll keep going and you'll keep making videos. Eventually, those who connect with that personality will find you and subscribe.  So if you already have that passion, then this next part of the
be a chapter below that perfectly describes the kind of channel you don't have that passion yet, that's okay because you're here to take different types of successful gaming channels that exist and maybe try
some formats for yourself to see which one best suits your new category we're going to look at today is, in fact, the one that led me to become a YouTube creator in the first place: Let's Play.  A recent
Game Theory video posed the question: are Let's Plays dead?  In it, they review the entire history of how the Let's Play genre really began on YouTube. then I highly recommend you watch their video; it's very, very good.  For example,
something Game Theory points out in this video is that when Twitch started to gain popularity, the term Let's Play began to lose that popularity.  They say complete shift towards the Let's Play genre itself, even comparing
the terms Let's Play and live streaming on Google Trends, which basically shows that the term Let's Play has become really unpopular.  If you're not this term.  Let me know in the comments.  In that case, let me
quickly explain what a Let's Play is.  It's a person recording background commentary. That was a good one, that was a good one, that was a reacting to things happening in the game in real time.  My opinion
on whether this is a declining genre would be both yes and no.  I have some ideas content genre has existed for over a decade and a half, so there have been some innovations that have made the content known as Let's Play
talk about those innovations in a moment.  In addition, they are very easy to make.  You start a game, press record, and just talk.  No script, genuine reaction to what's happening.  And whenever something is easy to do on the
well, your competition increases exponentially, which leads to that So, as I see it, to simplify things, we're just going to cover the two you're someone who enjoys doing live commentary while you're
playing.  The first is live streaming, and I mean, they fit perfectly with this content, don't they?  And it's perfect because you just have to press a button to stream and you can simply talk and play the game.  In
even have to edit anything and they are perfect for the audience, the kind of just watch someone play a game and experience it alongside them while also participating in the process with you.  But if you're thinking about doing
gaming channel, I wouldn't just limit myself to being live and then not being live.  There are other things you should think about. The broadcasts are super competitive. If you want to grow, whether on YouTube, Twitch, or anywhere else,
content formats.  You could re-edit your live streams for anyone hopefully attract a new audience. And this would allow you to eliminate all the the best parts of the stream.  You can use this and turn it into a
YouTube channel.  Personally, I like to take a series of broadcasts focused on a long-term challenge and put them together into one big YouTube video.  And this has my audience has told me that my videos help them sleep, which I try to
literally made those kinds of videos in the past, and the reason I made them is because I knew people would use them for that purpose.  They kept them playing sleep.  Another variation you can create from your broadcasts is
best moments, things like that.  Perhaps you've heard this advice before and Literally, if you like Instagram or TikTok reels, have a channel on each of those platforms and post as many shorts as possible.  Speaking of
platforms and live streams, I know someone might say, "YouTube is my live streams, but you could also do dual streams. What when you finish streaming, the content stays on your channel
viewers can come back and watch it whenever they want, and you'd be surprised how many people actually do this. If you give that stream a good title and thumbnail , in some cases it might bring in new viewers who don't
something they really want to watch, and they're going to watch it. That's not guaranteed, and those bots definitely shouldn't be your only resource for growing going to work, but it's interesting, and I 've seen a stream bot
become exceptionally popular, so it's something to consider. If you want to get more of your streams onto Twitch and use YouTube for longer-form content, that's a totally valid strategy. But remember, Twitch does
, so you still need to use clips or videos or something to drive traffic to your channel." Twitch. That's live streaming. But what let's talk about the innovations I mentioned earlier regarding
Let's Play content on YouTube. These days, the most successful channels that play a game and add their commentary— are doing a lot more production behind the scenes than you might imagine. So, if I were starting a channel
imagine for a second how many people are actually watching YouTube on a TV instead of a phone or tablet. Stop imagining it, and here are the facts. Over the past few years, we've seen articles like this one
talking about how YouTube is dominating in terms of TV viewership. So, as a creator—and not just of gaming content—you really need to be aware that more people than ever are watching YouTube on TV. And I'm
not giving you this advice because I think your videos should be upscaled to 1440p. I want you to think about the mindset of someone who's about to sit down When I'm about to sit down in front of a
I do, or maybe you keep it on in the background while you do other things like people behave this way; they watch TV for a specific reason and don't to find another video. And let's talk about the expectation of quality for a
moment, because when I sit down to watch a show, I'm about to give them between expectation is that the work put into that video respects the time I 'm about to give them. What this means for Let's Plays is that if
you really need to think about the narrative elements you can add to your videos. And as a viewer, I want to know exactly what I'm going to see. Your title and thumbnail. Are you taking on a challenge that others  Have you tried something
like no-lock in Pokémon or a 100-day Minecraft video before? Or play an old game? If you look at the videos that are on screen right now , just the titles and thumbnails already start to tell a story. Yes,
these creators are just playing, but they're also doing it with a channel category I want to discuss today, I'm going to call it reviews, news, updates, and guides, which I know is very, very long, but there's a reason I'm
grouping everything into one big category. Basically, channels that do one one of them. If you're reviewing games, that's news in a way, too . And a lot of review channels also do news about things that
you make guides and an update comes out for the game, you have to update your update video about the guide you made before. You know where I'm going with this? In a gaming channel of any kind, I've  I championed the idea of ​​Ani Charse,
and the way I recommended Ani Charse was, at least at the beginning of your YouTube journey, to choose one game and make that game your niche. Today, however, I'd who did exactly that, and in retrospect, perhaps it wasn't the best
decision, at least not in the long run. And it 's the kind of thing that makes me want to revise that advice a bit, because while playing just one game can work, it's no longer something I truly recommend. I know a YouTuber—I won't
think he might be watching this—but when he started his channel, he focused on one specific game, and his goal was to become the authority whenever something newsworthy happened in that game. If the game received an update,
made many guides when the game was new. This strategy worked perfectly. He had gained hundreds of thousands of subscribers, becoming the primary source of information for this game. But one fateful day, the
unimaginable happened, and the game stopped receiving updates.  Which meant that the content's audience—that is, the players of that game—started to leave. And as you can imagine, our YouTuber was a bit stuck because
updates were one of his main sources of content. And as for guides, by this point in the game, he had already covered practically 're currently in this situation or one day find yourself heading
toward one, here's my take. If your plan is to become an video game isn't called Minecraft, Fortnite, or Roblox, then one of two things is likely to happen. One, you're probably going to get sick of that
you're probably going to get sick of that game, or worse, two, your audience point. That doesn't mean you can't of your channel, but you shouldn't rest on that foundation forever. Because if you're going to
do that, then you need to consider that game as just phase one of a multi-part plan. Phase one, in this case, would be becoming an authority on that game, being a  A pillar in that community, right? But
becoming an authority, becoming the pillar of that community, is what opens the door to phase two, because phase two is taking that skill and using it in been talking about is still in phase
phase two, but he never fully committed . Phase two for him could look like many things. It could be taking that game and finding others that are similar in audience match. Or it could simply be playing games that exist on
the same platform as the first game he was playing. The point is, he's does. He covers news updates before anyone else. He makes very thorough guides on games, and he can simply use that for other things. But
an example. Let's look at a channel that has been the authority in multiple time. If you play any Nintendo games, you've heard of him. His name is Austin John Place. And he actually took the time to sit down with me and answer
a bunch of questions.  I always say there are three important things you need to know to have a successful YouTube channel. You have to be the first to do something. You have to be the best at it, or you have to be the
Ideally, you want to be two of the three, but it's impossible to be all three. What do you feel your niche is? And I mean, when is it okay to move beyond Pokémon and Zelda? Do you keep everything within the Nintendo world, or do you cover other things as well? Do you ever
consider covering PC games or anything like that? I play on PC; I have an extensive library on Steam. I have many games that I've sunk thousands of hours into, but as far as the channel in general is concerned, you have to focus on the
main concept of why this person decided to subscribe. They chose to subscribe because they watched three of my videos about a Pokémon game they more as updates were released. They want to
learn about this specific topic. And if I then switch to cooking videos, they're going to be like, "What the heck is this?" If I'm going to make multiple videos about anything right now, it's about any available Pokémon game,
any game.  about available Zelda games and the currently available Nintendo Switch hardware . Sometimes I do one- off things like the Denkim video, and sometimes the specials are just something interesting, and other times I just wanted to
interesting, and other times I just wanted to showcase a game I'm enjoying. Uh, I did a 100% walkthrough of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, one of my top five games. During those, I think 19 videos or something like that, I lost about
I think 19 videos or something like that, I lost about 20,000 subscribers. Now let's look at what I think is the gaming niche with the most potential on YouTube. what a gaming channel is in real time . And these kinds of channels
address a very common problem that gaming channels have. start to get a little successful, they come to us with a very specific question. People seem to watch my content only for the game. How do I get them to
watch the content for me? What I'm going to explain, I'll describe only as channels related to video games. They all look a little different, but what don't just play and stick to that content. They talk  about the games they
play, and they do it in many different ways. Without a doubt, these well-made channels grow 've discussed. That's because these channels are unique, and they're unique because they're personality-driven. In the past, I've used examples like Annie Austin, Idol, and
exciting thing about this type of content, in my opinion, is that any channel covering video game news, let's plays, or similar content could try this style of content on their channels and experiment with it. Idol
is my favorite example of this. A creator who made fun and creative MMO game content until he switched to video essays about MMOs and became a that this is the best type of gaming channel you can have online,
think of it this way. Imagine you found a very small indie game. It's very obscure, but you love it so much that you think, "This is the game I want to show my audience." But there's just one problem.
That little obscure game has 10 reviews on Steam, and basically no one has played it. when you make that video game? Anyway, well, nobody knows about it, so looking for it, then it doesn't show up in search results. Maybe YouTube will try it out on
the homepage for some people, but if they see it and don't really know what it is, the very low. So, what if you made a video titled "This unknown game Kuromi [insert problem here]?" Like, "This unknown game cured
thumbnail could just be a holding your phone and sitting next to no less than the 10 Steam reviews you're about to record a video that actually has a story to tell. Maybe
one day you looked at your phone usage metrics and saw that you spend 8 hours a day on TikTok, and then you decided you finally wanted to tackle that problem. a game on sale, one you'd never heard of before. Then you watched
and you decided to buy it.  And then what you do is take this experience of playing the game and tell your audience about it, about how it made you feel. You tell them about when you had the urge to pick up your phone again, but instead you
playing this new, unknown game. You can take all the footage supporting material throughout this video essay you're going to write. You publish this video, and suddenly there's a new viewer on your channel who's never
heard of this little game you discovered. I don't see a YouTube video about some random game. What I see is a video about someone who fell into a very common problem and found a way out and wanted to tell their story, and it turned out
that the way out of that problem was this really cool game. Videos like this exist all over YouTube and are very popular because they all have a story, but each one has its own unique way of approaching the problems. And when
that includes video games, you're not necessarily making a video about yourself. It just coincides with one of your favorite hobbies. As you can see, I'm trying to convince you about this kind of  Content, because the last time
Austin, and there were so many comments telling me, well, that's not a gaming channel, which is total nonsense. A gaming channel is whatever you say it is. And that's why YouTube is so incredibly difficult, because
produce, there are no rules. I want to at the end because, one, it didn't really fit anywhere else in the script, and two, I only saw it today, but I think it's the most important thing I'm going to tell you
today. I think it's the perfect encapsulation of what it means to be on YouTube. If you look at this, the YouTube algorithm is... As you can see, the thumbnail is an effortless image of an FPS game. The title even contains
an uncensored swear word, and the video is full of profanity. I think said in the video, so we won't see it here, obviously. But the topic of the video itself was that a
recent updates  that YouTube has done . They've taken a bunch of your all-time favorites and made this 10-minute video venting about the current state of YouTube. If you check out the channel, it's called Far Snifer, by the
just a couple of weeks ago, and at the time of recording this video, it's already incredibly successful. His latest video is absolutely blowing up, and by the time enough time will have passed for that video to have way more views than you
see now, or YouTube will have taken it down completely. Now, why am I showing you this? Well, as Far Snifer points out, this video doesn't have a proper thumbnail, no description, no tags, and if you look at the pinned comment, he's
pretty surprised by how successful it's been . And the whole video is him sharing his feelings, feelings that many YouTube viewers share. In my opinion, the reason this
particular video is so successful is because of the idea. It's a good idea. Think about this thumbnail, in the context of what the title actually says. If I, someone who doesn't watch shooting game videos, am  Watching this video on
Mi Fit, the YouTube algorithm is a "Yes, I'm going to click on the video. recommendations, and I want to know more." The most important thing that will get people to visit your channel, stay, and connect with you is your personality. This video
brand-new YouTube channel that started a few weeks ago, but the creator's main channel is over 12 years old and has fewer than 3,000 subscribers. He started this seems like he just wanted to vent. Even though, in my opinion, it doesn't have the
best thumbnails, it has video ideas that are resonating with advice to just be yourself, it sounds very cliché or pointless. But if channel that voluntarily called itself the Fart Fate-er, I think it's
Fart Fate-er, I think it's enough for you this year. Focus on your ideas and be true to yourself. Stop trying to hack growth to be successful. Make something you're proud of. Be something to someone.
For me, Austin John is...  who I turn to when I start a new Pokémon game. This year, I want you to be someone else's go-to YouTuber. And if you're starting out in 2026, here's another video for you. We're making a
bunch of these about getting started in the new year, so there you go. Also, a big thank you to Austin John for participating and giving like me to talk to about doing this in 2027, leave it in the comments;
maybe I'll reach out to them. Have a great year!