Is the channel part of a wider network? Yes, we are part of Gamer Network, a UK based network comprised of both YouTube channels and games media sites. It’s been nice to work really closely with those guys, grow the channel and as part of that also work very closely with the guys over VG247. It’s great to be part of a UK based network so we can still grow things together. What kind of sponsored content have you worked on? With regards to sponsored content we work on, I’d say it’s always something we take very seriously, but we’re also very particular about it. We will only ever work on sponsored content if it’s something we genuinely believe in. So, talking about products for example, we are sponsored by HyperX and we do that because they make genuinely good products. If someone says to me ‘What’s a good headset?’ I’ll point them directly to HyperX and I do that because they’re quality products that I am perfectly happy to work with. The same thing applies for games. If someone comes to me with the offer of doing a sponsored video for a game, I would do it if it’s game that I would normally play or if it’s within the spectrum of things I would play. But on the contrary, if someone came to me and said ‘Hey will you do a sponsored video for this football game?’, chances are I’d probably say no because it’s not something I have any knowledge of. It’s not something I feel passionate about or that I feel I could then honestly go to my audience and say ‘Check this game out’. Do you work with publishers and developers on upcoming games? Yes, at least to some extent. If a game I’m really keen on covering is about to launch, I’ll be in touch with the publishers to try and get an early review copy because that’s a massive help when it comes to content creation. If you can get videos out early then people come to you for information, which is great.
But on top of that, from a production point of view if I have a game early it means I can spend time making the videos to get them ready. Whereas if I have to wait until a game launches, there’s this mad rush. It’s really important to have that relationship with publishers and I think that’s something I was able to solidify thanks to my time working at Microsoft. When I did account management, I learnt very quickly how to work with publishers and developers, and I think that’s really benefitted me. What are the plans for the channel in the future? We definitely want to expand, to try to bring more voices in. So I mentioned at the beginning that I run the channel with TwoSixNine. Matthew does a lot of stuff behind the scenes: SEO, content planning, analytics, as well as livestreaming, whereas I do a lot of the video production. But as we cover more games my time gets spread thinly. So we cover a lot of what we call lifestyle games or games as a service, those games that basically never end. You just keep coming back to them and the problem with that is that every time we add a new game like that to the channel, I have even less time to try and become an expert in that game. To try and provide detailed information requires a lot of time and investment and that is where we start to fall short. We’re already working with another friend of ours, Welcome To Paradise. He is also a streamer and he’s done some videos on the channel already. That’s our first step towards the future plans of the channel. Basically try and introduce more voices so we can provide that broader coverage across many more games without necessarily having to sacrifice quality. So moving forwards, think about Arekkz Gaming more as a group which will then gradually bring more people in and is hopefully going to last. Arekkz Gaming is managed by Henry Clay at Hype Management. For business enquiries, you can email at henry@hypemanagement.co.uk
Arekkz Gaming’s proudest moments “Destiny was the point in the channel’s history that springboarded us into doing daily content. Before that it was a little bit sporadic but then, given the recurring nature of a game like Destiny, this game-as-a-service, that springboarded into doing daily content. So that was a really big growth for the channel and something we were quite proud of back then.”
“We’ve also been able to somehow replicate The Division’s success with Monster Hunter: World recently. Monster Hunter are games I’ve been playing for about eight years now, since the Freedom Unite version on PSP. I worked really hard on some tutorials. They take a long time to make, and they are probably the videos that I am most proud of.”
“The Division was a big game for us because we covered it a couple of years before it even came out. We were covering news and then it launched and a lot of people came to the channel because we were one of the main people in the community. We worked very closely with the publishers and devs and in terms of channel growth it was really good.”
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