Hi everyone. It's been a little while

and unfortunately no, the title is not

clickbait. At the end of this year, I

will be retiring uh the Armure Historian

YouTube channel. I won't be deleting or

dellisting any videos, so you don't have

to worry about that. But there will be

no new content going forward next year.

Unfortunately, as well, the YouTube

production team that I've had, the

animators and illustrators um and

writers and researchers, they're no

longer part of the team. So now it's

just me here. And so even if I were to

come back in any capacity, it's not

going to be that same armchair historian

that maybe you're used to. Um, I've got

a few reasons for this. We'll try to

make it brief and I'll go over a couple

of the reasons. You don't have to worry.

We don't have any kind of uh

crowdfunding campaign. We don't need any

of your money and we're not in in any

financial trouble either. Um, so don't

worry too much about that. Uh, but we'll

get into those reasons. Now, before we

do, I do just want to say thank you to

all of you guys and thank you to my

team. Without them, it wouldn't have

been possible. Without you guys, it

wouldn't have been possible. Um, for the

last couple years, I've been doing

relatively less than when I had first

started this channel, when I was doing

the animations and creating little

drawings and stuff to go along with it.

These guys have really kept the channel

floating. And my website members, um,

you guys have also, uh, been keeping us

alive. Probably the last two years,

we've been fully subsidized by our

website team or our website subscribers.

So, I'm deeply thankful and appreciative

uh, of you guys and of course, just all

of our regular viewers, too. Um, you

guys have made all of this possible. So,

I just want to be appreciative and and

say thank you guys. And, um, speaking of

the website, all of our website content,

a lot of the exclusives and original

videos, those will all be released this

year. So, that's the type of content

we're releasing. That's why we're not

closing down right away. And we've got a

year of content for you guys all from

the website. Now, unfortunately, that

does mean if you are a website member,

you've probably seen a lot of these

videos. But, if you weren't, this will

be a great time for free to be able to

see all those videos. And furthermore, I

won't be putting any sponsorships or ad

messages on them. I might put out a

shout out to a personal project at the

end of some of those videos, but I won't

be interrupting the first couple minutes

uh to to shout out other sorts of

brands. But now, let's get into the

central question as to why uh I'll be

retiring at the end of this year. Um

it's a couple different things. Um I

can't boil it down to one thing, and

ultimately I have no one else to blame.

So, don't worry. Again, I'm not uh this

isn't like a complaining video and

calling someone out or or YouTube out or

anything like that. But I will say the

platform uh YouTube as a whole um is not

the same as what it used to be. When I

first started there weren't shorts. A

lot of the content was a lot different.

There were fewer YouTubers too and fewer

uh videos coming out. I think because of

the way the platform is today uh the the

different trends, the way it's shifted

naturally. Every generation uh YouTube

is going to change and shift and it's

going to have different trends. Um this

is a natural thing. It's not necessarily

better or worse. That's for you to

judge. Um, but I think as things have

changed and I've given it my eight or

nine years here, um, it's a different

platform than when I first started and

when I first started, I would I would be

looking for videos like uh the Battle of

Stalingrad and instead I would get a

1-hour black and white documentary. And

I grew up watching documentaries like

that. So, I loved those. But part of the

motivation to start this channel was to

create more accessible historical

content that was maybe more entertaining

to watch, especially for uh younger

generations. And so we focused on

animation and making the videos more

digestible, like 10 to 20 minutes long.

Uh nowadays, if you search up Battle of

Stalingrad, you'll get like a 100

results of all sorts of animated

channels and many videos that far

surpass our own quality, too. Um but

that being said, uh you know, there's

only so many times you can cover

Stalenrad or Berlin or Normandy. So

there aren't um too many more big

exciting topics that that I'm interested

in covering. And the platform, I think,

has shifted more towards that short form

uh one minute YouTube short style

videos. If you go to your homepage, I

think you're only going to see two,

maybe three long form videos before you

get a whole row of shorts. Um, and so I

think the platform has changed. Again,

for better, for worse, it's it's for you

to judge and and not for me to tell you.

Um, and I think it's very natural. Every

generation YouTubers come and go. And I

think this is I think this is our time.

So, I'd rather leave on a high uh and

leave on a good note with our longer

videos and not have to bring in uh you

know, someone to to buy our channel out

or to ask you guys to to fund us even

more. I'd rather leave it on a high and

um and just be proud of what we've all

created. And shorts is just something

I'm not willing to do. Some have

suggested playing the YouTube algorithm

a little bit more, playing around with

tags or titles. you know, at my

channel's peak when we were getting

millions of views uh on a video almost

effortlessly, I wasn't even setting any

tags and I wasn't really click baiting

with any titles or thumbnails. I I don't

think you need that to survive on

YouTube. I think it's just the type if

if people like your type of content,

they're going to watch it. So, I don't

really have the algorithm to blame or uh

not using certain titles or or something

like that. I think it's just audiences

will come and go, channels will come and

go, and trends will, too. And every

generation is going to pick up that

torch and innovate in a new way. And I

think for me, it's time to to take a

step back. And I suspect if if I go any

further, um it it wouldn't be fair to

you guys or the people who work on this

channel if I didn't see too much of a

future for it. I think if we go uh

further, I don't really see new things

for us to innovate. And I'm happy with

what we've created. I'm proud. I don't

think there's any reason to kind of

continue things on if if I just don't

see a good direction to go. Um I won't

be leaving permanently. If you want to

follow me elsewhere off of this channel,

I do have a separate channel called

Armchair Interactive and that's where I

create game development logs because um

over the last couple years I've been

working game development. If you don't

know, I released a game a few years ago

called Fire and Maneuver. And that game

got a lot of attention, but it didn't

really perform too well. I know a lot of

uh fans were a little disappointed with

it. I know a lot of reviewers were. And

um it was a huge lesson for us um and a

huge lesson for me in uh game

development, game design. Well, last

year in October, I released my second

game, Master of Command, which relative

to Fire Maneuver, I wasn't really

advertising too much, and my channel uh

last year is certainly not as big as it

was during Fire Maneuver. But despite

that, the game performed much much

better. And so, despite me seemingly

having a larger audience here, uh we

found a a bigger audience over on Steam.

And um really, that's turned into its

own separate thing. And I know you guys

are here for videos. not not a lot of

you are going to play uh the types of

games that I make and some of you may

not play video games at all and that's

totally fine. That's why I don't want to

push it too heavily onto you guys and

that's why I'll be doing a separate

channel for that. Um but I don't want to

flood this channel with a bunch of other

videos that aren't related to history

content. Um so you can follow me over on

Armchair Interactive. I also have a

personal channel called Behind the

Armchair. I don't know if I'll use it,

but that's another channel you could

follow me on. And I've got all those

links down below. I also have included

the links of all of our uh uh the

portfolios of many of the team members

who worked on this channel. So if you

have your own YouTube channel or a

production company and you want to work

with the very talented people who made

this channel, um you can do so. You can

check out that link and there are

amazing people who worked on this

channel. They did not contribute to me

shutting down at all. Uh in fact,

they're the only reason I didn't shut

this down two or three years ago. Uh

both my team and and you guys and your

support of course. Um so we couldn't

have done it without all of you guys. I

really wasn't I wasn't very present even

last year. And so even though you saw my

face on the camera, I I wasn't as

involved as maybe I should have been.

And so these guys have really really

done an incredible job uh running the

channel. I think that's about it. Um so

really between the YouTube platform

shifting and me having sort of giving

given everything that I can contribute

here and finding a passion for game

development that I think I'm getting

better at. not great at it, but I am

getting better each game I do. Um, I

think those are really the main reasons.

So, I don't have anyone else to blame,

and I'm not blaming the people on

YouTube or demonetization or anything

like that. In fact, we really haven't

had a problem with demonetization in the

last year. Really, the problem is just

slowly declining uh the viewership a

bit. And um and just having less

sponsors available, things like that.

And uh it's not a huge deal. You know,

maybe there could have been ways to to

to sort of cut corners and scrap a lot

of the animations and stuff to keep it

going, but I think the whole premise of

the channel was built on those

animations. And I'd rather, again, I'd

rather end things on a high instead of

uh cutting down more and more. And who

knows where we would be if we cut out

too much. So, that's about everything uh

today. Um I could try to answer some of

the top questions if you want to leave

comments below. Maybe I can write uh to

a few few of you guys. Um but yeah, go

follow me over there if you want to on

Armchair Interactive and uh otherwise

throughout this year I'll be posting

that um Armchair History TV content

which you can follow um as well. But

that'll be it and um I will see you next

time. Bye.