Asian Dragon, 16.9M+ Views, 50K+ Subscribers, Youtube Monetization

Asian Dragons are awesome. So I made a very basic video with an Asian Dragon because I wanted to see how it looks like in Unity. Here's the video:

For that scene I took World Creator 2, created a terrain with it, added Meadow Environment, distributed textures and vegetation using Vegetation Studio Pro, added Enviro for light & clouds and finally added an Asian Dragon to it which simply flies forward. Nothing more. With those excellent assets the scene can be done within 1 hour in Unity. You can find links to those assets in the youtube description

For some reason which I have no information about the video gained attention and went viral. It was not my intention with it. I use Unity only for fun, I just like to create game prototypes and toy around with it in my spare time.

However, after a certain amount of subscribers and views you can join the Youtube Partner Program. The most advantage I personally get from that is that the videos in my channel are very quickly encoded using VP9 which gives my videos superior quality compared to AVC. AVC was always too blocky and too highly compressed. So I applied for it.

Then some of my Unity friends suggested I should monetize it. So I decided I'd try out that experience and see what that is about. It's just a simple button which you need to activate.

This however showed me what youtube actually means and which impact it has. I didn't expect that. I'm really not in it for the money, Unity is just for fun for me, just a means of creating something. So I don't make a secret of what this video got me. If you have questions, just ask. Here's the statistics as of today for the interested ones, since I get this asked quite frequently:



You can see, you don't get rich from it. Initially I was told that 1 Million views would be 2.000 €. Well, it's not. It depends on various factors, especially the length of the video. Mine is very short. You can also see that it flatlines and then makes jumps upwards every now and then regarding view count.

But all in all it does have a positive note: That many viewers for a just-for-fun project is very motivating feedback. That's not something money can buy you. And the most positive feedback I got so far is that the video I created is even mentioned in a school book:

https://wansbeckprimary.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/YEAR-1-FINAL-WC-18.01.21.pdf

So my personal conclusion is: If you create something just think about sharing it. You might get surprised with the attention you can get unexpectedly

 

Here are some statistics for the intersted ones.

You can see the power of WhatsApp and Facebook in this one:


Naturally mobile hardware is leading the charts because of this:


And here's the monetization. But please do keep in mind that this is just a spike now. See the flatline that otherwise occurs. And as I said, I don't do this for the money. I create those videos just because I have fun making them. But it's nice to get some kind of payment which in turn I can use to buy other assets to try out.

 

And if you get into that situation or have some other questions, just ask. When this started I had no idea how it would turn out. Or what to do for that matter. So I'm happy to help

 

The question came up on discord about the cyclic view by day as seen in the first image to the right. It seems to be because of the geographical location of the viewers:

 

brb making a "relaxing 12 hour spinning cube on a flat clean scene with peaceful piano music" video

Joke aside, cool video And interesting insights - thanks for sharing them!

 

Thanks for sharing this! So strange that particular video stands out from the others you have but I guess "asian dragon" just sets it apart enough. Even the updated video you did was 1+ million views while all the others are normal (and respectable) at a few hundred to a few thousand. Very interesting. Now I need to make more videos

 

I know that dragons are a legendary creature in Chinese mythology, Chinese folklore, and Chinese culture at large. I'd guess that this is part of the reason why the video went viral in the first place, but that's just speculation and we'll likely never know the exact reason for it - unless Rowlan makes a survey/poll

Have to say, I like such Asian things - especially instruments.

 

We had that discussion in the Messy Coder discord. Actually as of today 33 views are from China according to the youtube statistics. So it doesn't seem to have anything to do with China. Which is quite interesting.

 

Could be, but do not forget that Chinese people also live in other (non-asian) countries. Additionally, dragons also exist in Japanese and Korean mythology and folklore. Even Vietnam, who's on the list on your screenshot. Philippines, also on the list, have a serpent-like dragon called Bakunawa (among others).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dragons_in_mythology_and_folklore

Oh well... It's complicated, but interesting!
.

 

The video crossed the 25 Million Views barrier this week:



I'm not sure yet, but the interval at which the view count goes up seems similarly distant. Only time will tell if that's really the case.

Also, that revenue isn't really that good. Looks nice in Google, but once tax comes into play it's considerably lower. So, not really worth it, but the view count is nice though for something that was created in a very short amount of time