Mark's Improv Class and Current Humor

Markiplier's LP of To The Moon is comprised of 8 episodes. View counts are based on February 8, 2016.

1: Released on Nov. 19, 2014 (1,470,394 views) 2: Released on Nov. 20, 2014 (752,480 views) 3: Released on Nov. 21, 2014 (614,955 views) 4: Released on Nov. 22, 2014 (617,095 views) 5: Released on Nov. 25, 2014 (599,499 views) 6: Released on Nov. 26, 2014 (504,227 views) 7: Released on Nov. 27, 2014 (559,711 views) 8: Released on Nov. 28, 2014 (668,865 views)

Now I'd like to look at the other videos that he released on those dates.

1: Amnesia: META (I) Released on Nov. 19, 2014 (931,840 views) 2: Amnesia: META (II) Released on Nov. 20, 2014 (834,026 views) 3: Amnesia: META (III) Released on Nov. 21, 2014 (436,458 views) 4: Don't Starve Together (V) Released on Nov. 22, 2014 (869,208 views) 5: The Most AMAZING Time!! Released on Nov. 25, 2014 (967,346 views) 6: Heavy Bullets Released on Nov. 26, 2014 (1,958,340 views) 7: Happy Wheels Highlights #65 Released on Nov. 27, 2014 (1,862,867 views) 8: Binding of Isaac (I) Released on Nov. 28, 2014 (2,310,039 views)

Looking at the data, one of the things that I notice is that the average view count for his To The Moon Playlist is around 728,409.5 views, which is lower than the average view count for his other videos which is around 1,271,265.5 views. That means that the difference between the other videos's view counts and his average for the To The Moon Playlist is 542,856 views. This means that on average, a little over half a million people have viewed Mark's other videos produced around the time of his To The Moon Playlist.

A person might ask, why is this difference of 542,856 video views significant? The content Markiplier's playing in his other videos differ a lot from the To The Moon game, of course he would have more views on it.

But that's exactly the point.

To the Moon is subtle and relies a lot on atmosphere and pacing to elicit emotional reactions. The subtle details in the game's story and gameplay are necessary to the RPG genre that the game belongs to. As the game's story begins to unravel, that's the when the emotions come out (as evidenced by the spike in viewership in his last To The Moon episode). The story and subsequently, Markiplier's reactions to the game are based on how much of the story is revealed in a given episode. It also explains why his viewership of his To The Moon series is stable fluctuating around 504,227 to 1,470,394, unlike the other videos released during that time, which vary wildly from 436,458 views to 2,310,039 views. The stability of his To The Moon video views means that it's extremely likely that the same chunk of Mark's audience and perhaps, same demographic, is watching the other episodes of To The Moon.

But the other videos that were released around the time of his LP of To The Moon are a mix of different video formats and LP's, like Horror Games, collaborations, vlogs and rage games. Most of these types of games, with the exception of The Binding of Issac, are all fast-paced games that rely on visuality rather than story to elicit a response from Mark. In the case of Horror Games, like his LP of Amnesia: Meta, Mark's reactions are easier to see and access due to jumpscares, atmosphere and the fast-paced nature of the game. In the case of Rage Games like Happy Wheels, his angry reactions come from the absurd difficulty of the game. In the case of collaborations, collaborations where Mark can play with and play off of his friends or fellow YouTubers mean more reactions to the unpredictable, which again, allow Mark's reactions to be more visible and it's easier for him to respond to another human being instead of a camera (which makes for more entertainment). In the case of his vlogs, Mark's more personal approach to his audience always garners views. In all of these instances, the emotions are much more visible on Mark, which means that the audience members (us) can easily and quickly see how Mark reacts to a game before determining whether the series is worth watching or not.

Compared to the stability of his video views in the To The Moon, the video views from his other videos are more unstable. Some videos have less viewers than a To The Moon video, and other videos have way more viewers than a To The Moon video. This also points to the idea that different demographics of people watch those videos. With the variety of different formats and different content, he's able to reach out to another audience and appeal to them with his different types of videos. As more people view his videos, the idea that he's playing to more than just the fans who like his more subtle emotional LP reactions like To the Moon become more of a certainty than a possibility. Since there's a discrepancy between the large amount of views on the other videos that he's released and his LP of To the Moon, it speaks to the idea that Markiplier reaches more people by being very emotional, very quickly, since the other LP's and videos he's made capitalize on his emotions.

In addition, this data also reveals important findings between a series playthrough vs. one off playthroughs. If one looks at the view counts collected from Markiplier's To the Moon playlist, one can see that from episodes 1-6 the viewcount for the videos decrease over time, while 7&8 have a slight increase in view counts. Similarly, when Markiplier played Amnesia:META, the view count steadily dropped as he was going through the playthrough from 931,840 to 436,458. However, in a lot of the one-offs, like Heavy Bullets and The Happy Wheels Highlight reel, they get tons of views compared to series playthroughs. This points to the idea that Markiplier's audience (us) are more inclined to watch Markiplier play one-off, single sessions of games than to follow an entire story. A trend that kinda holds true currently, especially if one looks at Markiplier's video view count for Boring Man, a game he played as a one-off (at the moment), compared to his latest uploads of Subnautica, Slime Rancher, and Emily Wants to Play, all games which have multiple parts.

Now, I will be the first to admit that collecting data by analyzing video views is flawed. The view counts don't necessarily reflect the popularity of the games by Markiplier's audience at the time they were released, and many people could have contributed to Markiplier's video views by watching them long after they were first uploaded. But I believe that from the data collected, there are some reasonable assumptions that could be made as to why Markiplier doesn't go "out-of-the-box once in a while, for [his] other fans."

1) Markiplier's other videos, ones that involve instant, and immediate reactions such as Horror LP's, Rage Game LP's, and Vlogs, reach more people and are viewed by more people, compared to videos like ones that are more subtle and subdued in their emotional impact, and thus, the Let Player's reactions such as To The Moon. One could reasonably assume that Markiplier, by playing games that elicit those instant reactions, is trying to reach out to more people that wouldn't have checked out his channel otherwise. The large view counts on those videos that are based on instant, immediate reactions by Markiplier shows that he's reaching out to more people than just his active subscriber fanbase. So by playing more of those types of games (like Horror LP's and Rage Game LP's), he's able to appeal to a larger part of his fanbase and to get some people that maybe wouldn't have checked him out otherwise.

2) Mark knows that the longer he plays through a game, there's a big chance that many of his subscribers won't want to watch him play more than one part of it. In terms of video editing, making a singular game into a series takes a lot of time. Time that could have been spent on other games. In order to get the best return from the amount of effort he puts into it, he needs to appeal to a large audience. In making a singular game into a series, there's the possibility that less people will feel inclined to view it for one reason or another. As a result, the amount of people he can appeal to plummets. The less people who watch his videos all the way though, the less money he'll make from ad revenue that may play before and after his videos. It could also be the reason why he staggers the uploads of his LP's as opposed to putting them all up straight through, since the emotional LP of To the Moon appeals to the part of his audience who likes more subtle, emotional reactions, while his LP of Amnesia appeals to the part of his audience who likes his more immediate and exaggerated reactions.

Since the more emotional LP's don't allow him to reach a wider range of his audience and cost him more views, possible subscribers, and ad-revenue; I would imagine that he's more inclined to go with easily react-able Horror or Rage Game LP's in order to reach more people, convince people to subscribe to him and gain more income so that he can keep his audience happy and give them what they want. It's also my opinion, but besides Undertale, I haven't heard the community (in general) request for a game that elicits a reaction similar to the indie game, To The Moon. So it's also possible that he hasn't gotten as much fervent requests to LP games that elicit emotional reactions, than for game requests that are based on him being scared or frustrated or both.

I hope that works as an explanation. I'm currently typing this out in Notepad, so I hope my point, despite the wall of text, comes across clearly. Thanks again for creating such an interesting thread.

/r/Markiplier Thread Parent