Well thanks COPPA!
271This is a "video" I did not want to have to make, and I'm sure none of you wanted to see.
Doubtless you have heard of the COPPA issues between Youtube and the FTC by now, but if you have not, this video does an excellent job of explaining what led up to this fiasco. https://www.Youtube.com/watch?v=pd604xskDmU
What he leaves out in that video, however, is that channels which mark their content as "for kids" will not only have personalized ads removed, but also their comments, notifications, end cards, playlists, watermarks, and basically all other useful features will be disabled for them. Videos marked as “for kids” will not even show up in search results. This is basically because without targeted ads, a video is not profitable for Youtube, and as a result Youtube will do everything they can to bury it – to make sure that as few people are watching it and taking up server resources as possible.
In the video linked below, emphasis is put on creators losing 80%-90% of their revenue. While that sounds bad, and would pretty much ruin the lives of anyone who has made a career out of Youtube, The ad revenue I made from this channel over the last three years has been minuscule compared to the time I have spent planning, practicing, recording, editing, proofreading, and polishing videos, and that does not even consider the time I have spent reading and responding to comments, or being active in the Starblast community as a whole. That is OK though – making videos has always been a passion project – the result of me wanting to share what and how I’ve enjoyed playing, with all of you. It has not been an investment of time I expected any sort of significant monetary return on. So make no mistake – if I was merely losing the ad revenue, I would not even be making this video – everything would remain as it has been.
I would even argue that my videos are not at all intended for kids. Even a clueless FTC worker mindlessly going through their daily quota of videos would probably not suggest that Starblast was intended for children 13 or under. None of the qualities that Youtube lists that “appeal to kids” fits Starblast. And in a reasonable world, I would not have much to worry about.
However, this is clearly no longer a reasonable world. A potential fine of $42,000 per video is utterly absurd.
There is simply no way I can risk being fined over $2,000,000 – even if the chance of that happening is minuscule, any chance above 0 is far too high.
That is why I regret to inform you that I will be setting all my videos to “Made for kids.” This means that starting January 1st 2020, my channel will basically be non-existent. My videos will still technically be here, but for all practical purposes they will be gone. You should still be able to search for X-27 and then find my videos directly from my channel page, but searching for any particular video will no longer work. You will not be able to comment on any of them, and you would not be notified of any new videos I uploaded if you had turned on notifications. You won’t even be able to add them all to a playlist.
I had plans for a few more videos and I might still make one or two before all this goes into effect, but there won’t be much point in making new videos in 2020 if you won’t be notified of them, and wouldn’t be able to comment on them even if you found them.
Other Videos By X-27
Other Statistics
Starblast Statistics For X-27
At present, X-27 has 1,652,107 views spread across 47 videos for Starblast, and close to 7 hours worth of content for Starblast published on his channel. This makes up 93.33% of the content that X-27 has uploaded to YouTube.