2023 Year in Review - Zilla Blitz - YouTube Wargaming & Boardgames Channel | Channel Update

[@davidmaher8365]

Thank you for your time and efforts; you have gotten me back into table top board games after probably close to 30 years.

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks, David! That's like the best comment ever. :) And I can relate too. Getting back into board games was one of the best things that came out of pandemic for me, so I'm happy to hear that it may have helped others return as well. I mean, I love technology, but there is something magical about playing a real game on a real table. :)

[@SoloBattles]

Thanks for producing a great channel Zilla, you are the gold standard! You are my inspiration for the kind of positive energy I'd like to have on my channel. It was fun seeing my face in this video.

[@ZillaBlitz]

I've really enjoyed getting together and playing and am looking forward to more in 2024! It's been fantastic getting to know you over the past year. :)

[@texigander5]

Although I enjoy the channel’s content, I so much more enjoy your enthusiasm. Your upbeat attitude is a joy to experience. Thank you.

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks so much for the kind words, I feel lucky to have a lifestyle that can provide time to play games, and there are so many fun games to play. :)

[@ThymeKeeper]

Many of the top wargaming channels feature some non wargaming content, from RPGs to sports games to just general board games. If that bothers people they aren't paying attention ;). I love the way the channel is going. I have been along for the ride for awhile now and I can absolutely say any new Zilla video, first gear or second :), is one of the best parts of my day :).

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks so much for the support and I'm glad to hear that you like the direction the channel is going. 2023 was a lot of fun and I'm hoping that 2024 can be a ton of fun for everyone. :)

[@CT2CA]

Great work! My 8 year old grandson visited us over the holidays and saw Snowrunner on my feeds and got hooked! Of course, I had to get the game on the PS4 so he can watch the show, then play the game. Ha! He's fallen into my devious plot to have a fellow boardgames a few years down the road.

[@ZillaBlitz]

Very nice! Before you know it, you'll be firing up Advanced Squad Leader with him. They grow up so fast. :)

[@coyi51]

In all the excitement forgot to comment. Its been a really enjoyable year watching with plenty of variation. Nice to see the channel growing and hoping 2024 lives up to your expectations. Many thanks for the fun times.

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks, coyi, and thanks for all your support! :)

[@housecaldwell]

I've purchased half a dozen games off of your reviews and play-throughs and I love every one of them. So I will definitely be watching through 2024 and beyond!

[@ZillaBlitz]

I'm very happy to hear that, thank you for sharing that. One of my goals in doing this is to help people find games that are a good fit for them, so this is music! :)

[@jonclark299]

Best of luck for 2024, would love to see more game play comments.

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks! Do you mean game play videos? (Sorry, not sure I understand 'game play comments'.)

[@chuckterrell6086]

Love the awesome game content for wargaming and your enthusiasm. It genuinely seems like you enjoy this as much as we do. I'm so happy to hear you might cover Crusader Kings! The channels get better and better!

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks! I'm glad to hear you're enjoying the videos. I'm really looking forward to Ck3 as well. I'll be making a different format of videos for them, so each episode will take a while, but I'm excited to learn and create content for the game.

[@vinsal072]

Great update! This is the best war-gaming channel.

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks for the kind words! Happy New Year! :)

[@russbarker9066]

I also wanted to thank you for all your time and effort.. I have not board gamed in over 30 years.. and am getting back into it.. I love watching your playing of games and seeing if that is something I would be interested in and the flow of play.. thanks again..

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks, Russ, glad to hear that you are getting back into it. It's been such a positive thing for me over the past 3 years, so nice to get away from screens and dig into history. :)

[@patrickols]

Congradulation on a great year, truly enjoy this channel I think you do a wonderful job of it. Your enthusiasm is showing a lot with you talk and that is very good. I do not follow your other channel, sorry about that 😊 but I am not much of a video game watcher except for Civilization which I’ve been playing since 1991. Wish you a wonderful new year with your family and friends and looking forward to 2024

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks Patrick! I'm glad you're liking the content and no worries on not watching the other channel. I hope people only watch stuff they like, and the realization that a lot of people were watching one type of the content and not the other was the main reason to split off the PC games. :)

[@lilesindiecorner]

Happy New Year, Mike! What a fun look back and also forward! I wish you all the best for this next year, and that you achieve all your hopes and dreams! Have a good one!

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks, Lile, and thanks for all your support in 2023! Your advice and wisdom have been a huge help. I appreciate you. :)

[@MrElliptific]

Your channel really resonates with me. Thanks a ton for the time, passion and energy you put into it. One thing that'd interest me a lot would be wargames design philosophy analysis rather than pitting wargames against one another (my least favorite series). For instance, what does bring wargame A compared to wargames B and C on the Battle of the Bulge. You did it already, but that is the aspect I think could be interesting to wargamers, more an accent on design choices and approaches. Very happy new year for 2024.

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks! And I like the suggestion, yes. I think these sorts of things could be done with a deeper analysis. With 20 games and a relatively fast pace, a deeper analysis is tricky, but I could see that in the future. I've thought about taking a much deeper look at our final 4 games, but I'm not sure I'll have enough time to do that between the Elite 8 voting and the next episode.

[@GrafStorm]

Thanks! I'm back into table top war games again as well I'm playing The U.S. Civil War by GMT games presently, yay!

[@ZillaBlitz]

Welcome back! How are you liking the The Civil War?

[@scotwilliams803]

Thanks for the update, love the channel and the UK hat!

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks, Scott! And thanks for joining the Patreon! Happy Days! :)

[@scotwilliams803]

Glad to help. Your play throughs are really entertaining. I’m wanting to get back into solo war gaming and I’m hoping to find some resources through your videos.

[@RonLWilson]

I too have had great game buying experiences with Noble Knights! Great source for online purchasing of board games!

[@RonLWilson]

That said, my last purchase was from Miniature Mart (Noble Games didn't have the particular game I wanted to buy) and I had very quick response form them as well so I thought I would give them an honorable mention here as well.

[@ZillaBlitz]

I've had solid purchases from Miniature Market as well. :)

[@whovian223]

Thanks for the great channel, Zilla! I've enjoyed both channels so much, and it's nice getting in a game with you now! For "breaking even," do you include the cost of your time in that? Or is that more part of the "hobby" part and the breaking even is just the money you spend (on equipment, software, maybe conventions, etc)?

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks, Dave! I'll get back to Wingspan this evening, sorry for the gap. Worked started up again and it's been a bit busy. "Breaking even" doesn't factor in my time. I do include conference costs, although 2023 didn't break even even if I didn't include conference costs. There were a number of bigger upgrades (PC $1.5k, studio lights $1k) that took a big bite out of the pie. It also includes game purchases. For the upcoming year, though, the only big thing will be to upgrade my tabletop camera, so I think I can make it all balance out. I think game purchases will be less and can be offset by culling the collection.

[@farpointgamingdirect]

Fantastic channel to watch reviews, replays, and tutorials!

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thank you so much, and thanks for all the support! :)

[@farpointgamingdirect]

​@ZillaBlitz My pleasure! Have a save New Years Eve and a Happy New Year!

[@ZillaBlitz]

Happy New Year to you as well! :)

[@bobbyfactor2207]

You’re a magnificent wonder, Zilla. Epic 2023 recap and loved hearing about your plans for the coming year. Everything on your channel resonates with me and you supply a heap of content that escapes my radar, so I’m super grateful for that. I have to agree with some other commenters who drew attention to your enthusiasm. It’s ever present and comes off as absolutely sincere. Love it. Best of luck in all your endeavors in 2024!

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks so much, Bobby, your comment made my day. :) And I'm looking forward to 2024, for sure!

[@shawnrynearson6114]

I'm really glad to see your channel growing and becoming a top destination for quality content, I really appreciate and enjoy your playthroughs of different games. Thank you for all the hard work you put into your channel. It's definitely become one of my favorites.

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks Shawn! I hope to do more playthroughs in 2024. Those are definitely one of my favorite things to make. :)

[@thecustardprophet8434]

Congrats on the success! Amazing to see how far this channel has progressed in the last few years. I think some of your ideas are super innovative and that really helps out stand out from the crowd. Good luck for 2024!

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks Custard! Right back at you! Let's have a great 2024! :)

[@steveoh9285]

No content creator can feature every comp game that publishers send to them; sometimes an unboxing video will have to do. Several channels don’t do negative reviews, so a few games never appear for that reason. Please don’t stress; you can only do what you can do, everyone understands that. No interest from me in PC/computer gaming, so focusing on historical boardgames is a good thing. The videos definitely show that you are having fun. Love this channel, thanks for all the great content in 2023 and looking forward to 2024!

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks, Steve! It's a lot better now, I learned a good bit from the end of 2022 and early 2023. The issue I was having was over-promising, which made it really had to fulfill everything. But I think I'm in a much better place now. :)

[@joeyj6808]

I guess I'm in good company as a fan of Noble Knight. I love the fact that I can get a "gently used" games for decent prices. Very happy to hear you're working together! FWIW, yours is my favorite gaming channel. My only suggestion is to keep doing exactly what you're doing! And thanks again for what you do. If you ever get a chance to go, GenCon is a MUST. My first was in 1981 (where my team won the AD&D Open, no brag LOL) and my last was like 2005. It's huge, it's wild, it's amazingly fun. And expensive. Which is why I haven't gone in the past decade LOL

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks Joey! And I'll have to check out GenCon, it sounds like quite the event. I do have to be selective in which conferences I attend, and I think I have 2 selected for 2024, but we'll see how things turn out. :)

[@joeyj6808]

It used to be a WI home event (UW GoBadgers?) But switched to Indy which is so much easier for most everybody involved. I hope to make one someday again. Origins, etc are great, but there's just something about GenCon that is different. You'll see what I mean if you go: It'll be there!@@ZillaBlitz

[@ParkeraNZ]

Great update and fantastic to see the continued growth of the OG channel and much more to continue in 24. Really did enjoy the interviews and so more colabs and things would be good to see. Main things are Don't Overthink things, back yourself and HAVE FUN!!!!! Happy New Year mate!

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks for all the advice over 2023 Parkera and for all your thought. Let's have a fun 2024! :)

[@lakingsgeek]

I've owned Crusader kings 2 and 3 for many years. I've never managed to put the effort in to actually learn either of them. I love the idea of that game. I just wish it were more accessible. Hopefully I'll accomplish that goal before I'm too old and infirm.

[@joeyj6808]

That's how I have been with my AGEoD games, like Russia Under Siege Gold, Alea Jacta Est and TEAW. I really want to learn them...someday...

[@ZillaBlitz]

Haha! I'm much the same as both of you, with a list of similar games. I'm happy to say that I've finally broken through with CK3. Committing to play 30 minutes a day helped get me over the hump. I'm not good at the game by any means, but the mechanics are starting to make sense. I'm hoping I can take the same approach with other games, too. I'd love to bring some Shadow Empire to the channel too. :)

[@PrimarchX]

Noble Knight is awesome. I live just a few minutes away and they are probably the greatest game store in the world! Their game storage is like walking into the Indiana Jones warehouse of gaming!

[@joeyj6808]

Go Badgers?

[@ZillaBlitz]

Envious that you live so close! I hope to get down to visit in the spring. :)

[@HissyCat]

Awesome update!!

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thx!

[@robertdelaney4332]

A suggestion: post a video of a game you are playing against a person. I am a miniatures gamer and watch a channel where they play a game live, so ot take 2-4hrs tto play and it's all natural and involves people from around the world chiming in. He then edits it down and posts a 1-1/2 edited version. You could try that or just post the edited version😮

[@ZillaBlitz]

I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about 2-player videos. I've watched a good bit too, and have some ideas, definitely a project I'd like to try at some point. :)

[@robertdelaney4332]

I support diverging into generic board games since we play them too. I was just given the Solo FINAL GIRL Game so.look forward to trying to survive movie monsters.

[@ZillaBlitz]

I keep hearing Final Girl in conversations, at some point I want to check that out. :)

[@robertdelaney4332]

Last is a subject request. I have been a WW2phile and am trying hard to branch out in both board and mini games into other eras. many of your recent games have been ww2. Any chance we can go to Napoleon or ACW or revolution. I hear there are really good samurai games. I thinks that's why I enjoyed woman's vote playthrough. A break from those dern tiger tanks 😀

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks for the thoughts. I definitely want to branch out into more non-WW2 content. The next playthrough on the channel will be A Most Fearful Sacrifice. I've been thinking about what to do for a Napoleonic playthrough, not settled on anything yet. Might be a good request for the next channel update. My Napoleonic game count is fairly low. :)

[@pterrok5495]

OK, wall-o-text incoming! About the Bulge-off: I think I'm not that into it since I have NO skin in the game--I don't know 19 of the 20 entrants and have NO idea what they are like at all. IF you had played a turn or two of each, or showed them off a little bit in a series, I might be able to vote them on what I thought looked interesting. But that of course means a HUGE lead time as you work to showcase them before the bracket. Which then leads to, yeah, you might just have to get out of the mindset that a bracket has to be 16. ;-p Nothing wrong with just 8 or even 4 as we'll trust you to have done the research you did to gather up the smaller set of games to start with. So refine the series idea: "Through the Decades". Or "Old vs New", or "Evolution". So in Bulge, find ONE game from each decade and see how far we have come. Meaning at most 7 games in a series. Throw in a wild-card 8th from any period and then after we've seen all the vids we can vote much more intelligently on the bracket. I found it neat that for the Eastern Front, I have Stalingrad (60's), The Russian Campaign (70's) and Russian Front (80's), all by Avalon Hill. And for me, Stalingrad was good, TRC was better and RF is the best! What came out in the 90's, 00's 10's and 20's? I don't know! Playing the REAL game! (Disclaimer: I am not a tax professional; consult an actual tax professional to determine your situation.) As far as I know, the IRS has a fairly low bar for when 'hobby' income must be declared as actual income and taxes paid on it. Once you reach that stage, then consider turning it into a business so you can write-off the purchase of games displayed on the channel! And travel to conventions should then be a legitamate expense as well, right? (As long as you make vids from it.) So the cost of becoming a business, vs the savings of buying fairly expensive games to showcase, vs the hassle of BEING an actual company. Heh--myself, I'd probably just stick with being a hobby...lol.

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks for all the thoughts, a bit to unpack here. :) - I totally agree that an event series doesn't have to be 16 games, even 2 would work in some cases. And originally I had the idea of surrounding Bulge Off with a bunch of other events/videos, but then I realized that I didn't have the time to add much more than I'm doing now. But with a smaller game set, it'd be much more possible to do things like you mention. ... tl;dr: I totally agree that the format and structure can be changed a lot. - And thanks on the financial thoughts. I did a schedule C for the channel starting in 2022 when it first generated income (via Google ads) and will do one for this year too. The income has been offset by expenses for the past 2 years, but I do not want to mess with the IRS.

[@ezzler]

Having enjoyed the Bulge matchups, I’d like to suggest some other themes for that format. Obviously need enough games made to match, so the very popular battles. Waterloo Gettysburg Barbarossa WW1 global WW2 global Civil war strategic Western desert WW3 tactical Some other areas with enough games by style. Air war WW1 Submarines Air war ww2 Solo series. B17. The hunters / tank leader etc

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks for the ideas! I'm looking forward to creating more of these types of videos, for sure. I want to still prioritize the existing types, but I think these will make a nice addition.

[@douglaspearson4853]

I .think you were a little hard on yourself. I would say it was a lerning experince. I will say I worry you are going to over extend yourself. I do like what you said. That being said I have really have fun watching you video and thefact you are enjoying it as well makes it more fun. I do not know how you do it. If I might ask If you want to do interviews I would like to request Carl Paradis. I contacted him about thet fact I enjoyed his game. Was I surprised when he responded. He even offered me to do a playtest for one of his games. I did have to turn it down do to lack time to be fair to him. But I have not seen him any interviewa and would like to. Btw I like the cheery Christmas Room. Tree looks great.

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks for all the thoughts, Douglas. I might be a bit hard on myself at times, yes, which goes back to why I really have to make sure that I emphasize fun. It's a mindset that I want to make sure I always keep at the forefront. That's a great suggestion regarding Carl. I've got a bit of a project list for them at the moment, but will keep him in mind going forward. Happy New Year! :)

[@douglaspearson1647]

I see your benig hard on yourself as a guarentee if quality. I am glad you liked my suggestion. Happy and safe New Year for you and your family

[@wayneclingman689]

Office Cat wants Sub games (On Wisconsin )

[@ZillaBlitz]

2024 will most definitely have to see a return of sub games. :)

[@coyi51]

Posted contact info earlier, hoping you picked up and deleted, rather than you tube.

[@ZillaBlitz]

Congrats! I don't see a previous comment, probably KZbin being KZbin. I checked spam and the "notifications" list, where sometimes I can notice deleted comments. Any chance you can repost? I'll keep my eyes open for it then delete once I see it. :) If it's an email, maybe separate with an AT or something to confuse the delete bots. :)

[@coyi51]

I have tried various ways, but clever little bot keeps removing. If you can advise when you will next be on line I will attempt again and on Twitter as well.

[@ZillaBlitz]

Thanks for trying, sorry it's proving challenging. :) Let's connect on Twitter? @gzblitz

[@coyi51]

@@ZillaBlitz replied to your twitter post of dec 28, my email still there.

[@ZillaBlitz]

Got it, thanks for your persistence! I've emailed you. :)@@coyi51

[@DavidBrown-hy4vm]

Rats, I didn't win. I did see some stuff on sale at Noble Knight that I was hoping to grab. Oh well.

[@ZillaBlitz]

Sorry you didn't win this time, there will be more coming. :)

[@leo_craft1]

Next game on the channel: Five Nights at Freddy's (1)

[@ZillaBlitz]

Hmmm. Not so big into horror games, but the tabletop one looks interesting, might be a fun theme to explore for Halloween. :)

[@leo_craft1]

@@ZillaBlitz At the end everyone will play it, even the 1 subscriber youtuber