There is a lot of amazing gaming content that I come across every day. Among them are a lot of undervalued even more so almost earning nothing for their hard work. Sadly all true to the case I’m leaving them not being able to do anything at all. It is not that they were bad or anything like that. I just could not within reason determine ownership of the content most of the time. Otherwise, it is not what the community I am in is looking for. As such I just have to say “skip.” It’s something I do far too many times a week to the point it is almost heartbreaking.

While it’s tempting to shout at the top of my lungs I also do not want to be bogged down 100+ hours a week with questions like “could you look at this post,” “could you tell me what to improve on.” Your content should be your own and you should post the way that makes you want to be around on Steemit for a very long time. Trying to adhere to other people’s standards will not end well for many.

You also have a lot of people out there form an individual sense to a giant community trying to find gamers and reward the content they create. What I might be looking for is not the same as others. In fact, my standards tend to be rather higher than most community out there.

I have broken this down into 2 sections:

• Quality
• Authenticity Of Ownership

Quality

First off I’m going tell you what most curators avoided giving a full answer on what so ever. It is not that they are trying to be deceptive it is just a long answer. Once you have answered it a dozen, or hundreds of times you are just tired of it. Not to mention if someone sees you as “google” well they are going start treating you like one with endless questions.

Often times they will use the scapegoat answer of:

We are looking for quality content. Please check the following channels for examples of what we are looking for.

The other scapegoat phrase is:

Quality is subjective and it is different for everyone.

How do I know this? Well, that is the answer I see many giving including myself. It’s not that they don’t want help. Like everyone else, they are just busy and often times very short on time. They give up time they could have spent creating a post or engaging with others in another way.

A post that I might “skip” on another person 100% wants to do everything in their power to get it some rewards. I see this often which is great. Everyone should want and find different things to reward on Steemit.

My Answer

These are my own personal views. Everyone is different and every community is different out there as well. There are a lot of ways to go about Steemit. This is just the path I have chosen and what I look for.

Effort:

Did you try to make an honest attempt at presenting an idea, following through on it, proofreading, and targeting an audience?

This does not mean write a 10,000-word document on why to play video game X, Y, or Z. No, I do not want to read 1000 10,000 word blogs a day. I’m lazy more days than not. I have also read 500-word blogs or shorter that kick the pants off 3k+ word blogs.

I will never be an English professor and for good reason. I’m not here to grade your work in such ways. I just want to see some efforts were made. Perfection is not a reality I search for as it does not exist. I would know I’m the mighty killer of many professors red pens as they smear it all over any written work I’ve ever created.

Detail:

This is where most posts that are earning nothing seem to have trouble with. They simply do not give any details what so ever. They do not have a story that progresses from you starting off as a beginner in the game and advancing to mid game among other things. Many read like the comments “nice post.”

Example:

I just unlocked this achievement  Insert photo.

Is there anything necessarily wrong with someone doing this? Not at all everyone should post to the level they are happy with and want to keep going on Steemit. It’s just not what the community I am in is looking for. So it would be a “skip” from me.

If such a post wanted to give detail they could write about:

• Why this achievement was important to you.
• The struggles you endured to earn it.
• How to go about earning it.
• What benefits such an achievement gives if any to you.
• How rare or special that achievement is.
• Along with a bunch of other ideas and topics I could go on and on.

Uniqueness

You know that game review you rush out on day one of release? Well so did a bunch of other people. After I have read a few of them that all talk about the same things because they played the game for 30 minutes they are nothing special anymore. They took screenshots of the first 30 mins of the game and or used press release screenshots on the game's website. I’m bored and without even trying my eyes skip over your now generic post. Even more so if you use the screenshot that the game developers used on everything. I just end up thinking I must have read that post already.

Not everything gaming related needs to be a game review. Granted I love writing about them on occasion. They can be wonderful. There are also a truck ton of other topics and viewpoints you could look at a game from outside of just a game review

Some of the most amazing gaming posts are not full on game reviews:

• Character guides
• Gear or weapon guides
• Tips and Tricks
• Economic outlooks
• Written playthroughs (yes it is a thing and they can be amazing!)
• Roleplaying
• Evaluating the mechanics of a game
• Thoughts on upcoming changes/current changes to the game
• Lore exploration
• Achievement hunting
• So many other topics I am going stop right here

Passion

This one is hard to define. You often see it when someone leaves a comment and the author leaves a monster of one back. You can see it in the writing and the way they engage with people. They enjoyed writing about it.

Instead, I’ll tell you something I’m willing to admit to. I sometimes think and I’ve noticed others are the same way.

I don’t think anyone would be interesting if I wrote that.

If you have talked yourself out of writing something you have a passion for that is heartbreaking. Writing to the masses and not what you would have enjoyed instead I believe will lead to: burn out and loss of passion. I have written about some very niche games or topics and they can do amazing.

Engagement

One thing shorter posts tend to make up for that those massive ones don’t is the turn out for engagement. When I’m looking for posts and I see something at 50 cents with 40 comments. OMG, I want to know what is going on and why can I not get those kinds of engagement numbers! I am even more curious when the author does not have a lot of SP to give massive votes on comments.

While it’s not expected you answer every comment or right away. If your last comment was weeks ago I fear you are not really interested in growing on Steemit or care much for the platform. While something amazing won’t get skipped over for lack of engagement it does leave me with quite a few questions. Many of those questions can cause me to “skip” if I don’t like the answer I find.

Misconceptions People Have

You might have noticed I have left some things out and for good reason.

In gaming related content unless the screenshot/photo is the certain of attention it not that big of a factor. Yes, posts with 0 screenshots/photos do get upvotes from the community I’m in. In fact, that is less research I have to do to be able to help them out if I can.

While formatting is nice you really don’t need a lot of it to go a long way. As long as it’s not thousands of words all in a single block of text and I can get through it.

I have not stated a word minimum. While yes there are tools at my disposal and I can have filters with minimums. I more times than not just go into one of the dozen or so tags I check out and just start hunting manual style. Write to the length of blog you are conformable with. Just because someone else received a massive or small upvote on a long post does not mean you will as well. Stop making yourself miserable.

Authenticity Of Ownership

The hardest part is after finding that amazing content and you find out elements of it are posting elsewhere. Sometimes you do what you can other times you just “skip.” It sucks but you can’t take a risk of rewarding possibility stolen content unless you can find some answers.

Have I had to hunt down the official Facebook page and find a post dating back from December 2017 where the guy shared his Steemit profile link? Yes, and a good thing as well or it would have been a “skip.” As he was posting from other websites as well that had no mention of Steemit and you start to think the worst.

There are some basic things people should keep in mind that just makes it easy on anyone wanting to find and reward great content no matter what you consider great. Think of it from a business point of view. If you are posting on a few sites why would you not tell everyone all the places they can support you? That just makes sense to me and it's strange when you are not including Steemit.

Written Content

Some things I look for in specific to this kind of content.

If you are posting from another site include your Steemit profile link on those other sites as well. You already have your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat listed under a contact us or find us in sections. If Steemit is missing I fear the worst and I’m dealing with stolen content.

If you are posting from multiple sites please try have it posted on Steemit within 24 hours of the first place you shared it. I’m not interested in rewarding written work you did from 1999. Even if it is cool at that point it is just a report.

If a screenshot/photo is not your please just include a link out to where you got it from. As far as gaming posts go it makes little difference to me if you took the screenshot or if you got it somewhere off the internet. I do look them up and I have to make a judgment call if it's your or just borrowed with no citation. False positives happen and I understand this as things are not always as unique as we think they are inside of a video game. I also know before even searching which screenshot should be 100% unique without a doubt unless you are posting on other sites.

When you write bilingual posts this is what guidelines I have written for the community I am in uses. Best practice is to post all versions within 24 hours. While it is preferred that a single post is created it is understood that is not for everyone. In addition, it is considered courteous but not required to include a link to your other versions of the same work in those posts. Even more so if they fall outside of the 24-hour window. Curators hate getting burned on these kinds of posts if they missed it being a translated repost. They will straight up just ignore anything you create moving forward. A little honesty goes a long way here.

Video Content

When it comes to video there are a few things that are looked for.

For whatever reason, there are a lot of people making video content where they never speak. In the community I’m in that is just not what we are looking for unless you provide a nice written summary as well in the blog post to the silent film you have created. I have also noticed Dlive and Dtube are just not interested in those kinds of videos either.

If you are only making Dtube or Dlive exclusive content shout it if you have to and let the viewers now right at the start. Along with your Steemit name that way it is now known this is yours and if someone steals it well they have that to deal with it in the video.

Example:

Good Afternoon Dlive! This is Enjar here and today I’m bringing you…

While a bit generic it’s basic and to the point as well. You might notice YouTubers and Twitch streams like to bring up there name and platform right away. I wonder why that is? Oh, right people steal content all the time. They also want their viewers to know they are making "exclusive" content towards them.

If you are using something like Dlive consider finding and using a “custom” overlay. I’ve seen many use one that even had cool things like showing upvotes, how much the post is earning, and it’s branded Dlive all over the overlay.

Some even go as far as to have a t-shirt on or something in the background with Dlive/Dtube branding. Hints that are clearly not just edit it can go a far way to connecting the dots.

Engagement between you and your audience if you are using Dlive can be very important. You may never know if you are interacting with someone from a community looking to reward content just like yours. It is also just another clue that the content was made just for Dlive.

Have a friend or someone stop by to make sure the video is working and there are no major issues. Like the mic not working for instance. I don’t know how many live streams or videos I’ve come across where they had black bars and quality issues or the video was not working at all. If the video looks like it was from 2010 most are not interesting in old reuploads off YouTube.

If you are posting from many platforms some consider it reasonable to do so within 24 hours. Include your Steemit link profile on those other videos. Even share a link to that other video while you are at it. We find them anyways and when there no mention of Steemit well that is a “skip.” Not to mention people like to file reports that they “found” the content another site and then you get that annoying comment of such.

Final Thoughts

This is only one point of view. Some might follow things I have brought up in here while others do not at all. There are so many low earning or nonearning posts out there I just wish they knew a couple of these things. I hope they find communities that appreciate them for being themselves.

This post was an extension of a comment I left a few days back regarding low earning posts.

Information

The screenshot was taken and content is written by @Enjar.

Are you a gamer who produces outstanding gaming content here on steemit? Come to check out Archdruid Gaming on discord: https://discord.gg/nAUkxws. We are always looking for new and old amazing authors.