Gaming
AI Voiceover Guide

Not all gaming content is equal in the faceless format. The highest-performing categories don't require gameplay footage and can be produced entirely with existing art assets, trailers, and stock footage:

• Lore and world-building breakdowns — Explaining the deep lore of Elden Ring, Dark Souls, or Hollow Knight attracts intensely engaged viewers who watch multiple times.
• Top 10 / ranked lists — "10 Most Overpowered Items in Final Fantasy History" — formulaic but consistently high-click content.
• Game history and "rise of" documentaries — "How Minecraft Became the Biggest Game in History" — these attract general audiences, not just fans of the game.
• Cut content and secrets — "Features They Removed Before Launch" and hidden in-game secrets tap into the audience's love of exclusive information.
• Tier lists and analysis — Works especially well for games with active competitive communities (League of Legends, Valorant, Pokémon).

CPMs in gaming average $3–$8 but volume makes up for it. A channel that consistently hits 200K views per video on a $5 CPM earns $1,000 per video in AdSense alone.

Most major game publishers have explicit YouTube content policies. Here's what you need to know:

• Nintendo — Has the strictest policy; monetisation may be claimed or blocked. Focus on analysis and commentary (which has stronger fair use protection) rather than raw gameplay.
• Activision, EA, Ubisoft — Generally permissive. Monetisation allowed provided you add commentary and transformative content.
• Indie developers — Almost universally supportive; many actively encourage YouTube coverage.

For faceless gaming channels specifically: game trailers and official art are published by developers explicitly for promotional use. Using official screenshots and trailer clips in a commentary or lore context is considered transformative use in most jurisdictions.

Always link to the game in your description. Developers know that YouTube coverage drives sales — your content is marketing for them, which is why the vast majority tolerate and encourage it.

The biggest gaming channels own the broad terms. To grow efficiently, focus on specific games or specific types of content within games:

1. Own a game's YouTube presence — Create the definitive lore channel for a single game series with a passionate but underserved fanbase. Hollow Knight, Disco Elysium, and Outer Wilds all have millions of dedicated fans but thin YouTube coverage.
2. Ride new releases strategically — A lore primer video published 48 hours before a major sequel's launch captures enormous organic traffic from curious players.
3. Build a Shorts pipeline — Extract the single most interesting fact from each long-form video. Gaming Shorts frequently go viral and drive main channel subscriptions at low cost.
4. Community cross-promotion — Reddit, Discord, and dedicated fan wikis are traffic goldmines for gaming. Share useful content (not spam) and you'll build a loyal subscriber base faster than relying on YouTube's algorithm alone.