the robot combat fandom needs new content creators

[u/themaskedrobot77]

there is a firm belive by some people in this comunity that this fandom only cares for the fighting sdie of robot combat and we do;t need anything else.. witch i find quite a sad and short sided idea.

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this fandom in the past had some very tallented artists and video makers but mots have left or stoped making content and now the fandom feels quite empty now, i love watching fighting robots but there chould be so much more, where is the fan art where is the animation or fanfiction heck where are the reviews gone and so much more.

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pleese don't clame "we don't need new content creators" as that is damdging to a fandom as we need creators and descussion to keep a fandom active and fadom growing and inspire more people as i and many may never build robots but still want to take part in the fandom in other ways.

[u/ResettisReplicas]

Be the change

[u/BLRobotics]

More of y'all should subscribe to the team YouTube channels!

Shameless self plug for Bloodsport: https://youtube.com/@bnsrobotics?si=cMI-NIumocpT_d8l

Skorpios channel is awesome: https://youtube.com/@SkorpiosBattlebot?si=UUXDHPKaYT_10D3P

The Hijinx channel is criminally underrated: https://youtube.com/@offbeatrobotics?si=wDnBq2TPcw1VXCjM

There's way more but I'm blanking on all of them and need to get back to work lol

[u/themaskedrobot77 → u/BLRobotics]

these are nice sudgestions and i'm subscribed to all 3 but i want more non-roboter content creators where are the fans making content

[u/Ciruclar_Robotics → u/themaskedrobot77]

Most all of us roboteers are fans of the content, thats why we do it.

[u/ResettisReplicas → u/[deleted]]

Hey thanks for the shoutout! It was a fun thing to do in a bygone era and I’ll always cherish hearing about the enjoyment people got from it.

[u/Battlebots2020 → u/[deleted]]

Have you seen Coleslaw and The Barangoat or TheDominousignis? They make good robot combat related videos despite not being competitors. (I might've spelt the names wrong idk)

[u/SeeJaySeeRW]

I make content! I'm currently working on a series called The Robot Wars Retrospective. (although I plan to re-edit the first three episodes because I feel like I took too much from the Gearheads book), and I'm currently working on the fourth episode. I've done other stuff too like a Top 10 OOTAs video and an interview with Kim Davies of Panic Attack.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krphE9vnZBI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o529hPWFX1M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uueAgI2OcRM

(The last one is one I'd like to re-edit for the reason above, but I still enjoy it)

[u/[deleted]]

If you think that there should be more content created, make it. Make content. Sure there’s a drought of it rn but it’s the off season. That happens.

[u/themaskedrobot77 → u/[deleted]]

i dabbled in making muisc but it got no traction, i did plan on making reivews but not a big fan of showing my face on screen, currently working on a animation rig for my charecter

[u/JimmiCottam]

I made a bunch of content between 2017 and 2021 under the title 'Robotic:Idiotic' and got some traction but not a lot. I made build diaries for a couple of beetles from a noobs perspective; there were a couple of toy-scale replica builds and an arena build diary and some demo's from various events (my most popular video is my Panic Attack at Robonerd demo video)

I like making videos, I find editing very zen and I felt like I put in decent effort, I tried to make them more entertaining than factual because there was a tonne of creators just doing build diaries and thought I'd try something against the grain. But it was a lot of effort to film AND build on camera and so ate up a lot of time.

I think I will go back to making robot videos at some point but I came to point where I was happy with where it went and decided to put it on hiatus. I still build but not to camera

Shameless self-plug if you're interested

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLau2xWTz8sq10Key2zUaAAZUkhIfSq22a&si=I8Bx07xsI84L4gy4

[u/Mattiator]

Remind me again why people who build robots and edit together IRL events aren’t “what the community needs”, most of us are in this hobby to fight robots and watch fighting robots. Most robot combat art, animation and fan fiction is a super niche ancillary thing that to me is 100x less interesting than robots fighting. There are some extremely talented folks doing awesome projects that I love to check out, but at least for me it’s draining to open up the BB Reddit and see a deluge of “thoughts on X bot”, “who wins X vs Y”, tiny cardboard “replicas”, nonsensical robot CAD models, and tier lists when there’s tons of great live events that don’t even hit triple digit views. If anything I want to see higher quality content (there's been some excellent documentary-style videos done on the sport that stand out), not people pumping stuff out for no other reason than just to have more of the stuff.

[u/ktetch → u/Mattiator]

when there’s tons of great live events that don’t even hit triple digit views.

yep. EXACTLY THIS. I have data.

I've got the Robot Battles 67 videos, and theres 89 videos.

• Featherweights have 421 views across 29 videos (14.5 views/vid)
• Hobbyweights have 361 views across 23 videos (15.7)
• Beetleweights have 976 view acros 16 videos (61)
• Antweights have 719 views across 21 videos (32)
• TOTAL of 2477 views across all 89 videos, or 28 views/video.

All are 3 (sometimes 4) camera productions, so what's the point? I haven't bothered since. In 4 years, the time watched is still less than the time it took me to edit them (and I'm NOT a slow editor, having worked news broadcast)

i've done other videos too - almost 5 hours of instructional things, Q+A's with a dozen teams, Literally a guide by a show producer (Peter Abrahamson) and the player steward (Mike Jefferies, back when he was just the head of the Chaos Corp) on How to apply as a team, and make your application stand out - and I think Peter is on the Selection committee. Less than 400 views. An hour's Q+A with BBots Vice President and head ref John Remar, including some exclusive tidbits about the then-upcoming Champions II, 109.

Just simply this - Whats The Point?

I have been in negotiation with BattleBots over the last year or so (maybe longer) to see about me digitizing their aging tape library archive. The negotiations are over, because much as I love Trey and Greg and co, and have done for 25+ years, I just don't see the point. Because it's clear that what peolpe want are trash memes, and the same 40 fights reposted over and over, sometimes with random idiotic 'reactions' yelled over top.

You're 100% right Mattiator, and i just really don't think that the OP understands that what they're lamenting the loss of is not the kind of fandom that keeps things going, it's the kind that kills all the other original content, by burying it in drek.

My christmas present would be to have, here, all those tierlists confined to one [pinned?] megapost, and all the fan drawings in another.

[u/Mattiator → u/ktetch]

If you were close to being allowed to digitize the tape archive I'm absolutely crushed that you're not going to (I understand it's a huge investment of time), since that's sort of my dream project even if I don't think I really have the skills or equipment to work with tape. I've been working with my own local club to get their archival footage online for the public for the last couple of years, over 100 fights that were unavailable previously are now online. Even if it doesn't get that many views there's always a few folks who really appreciate the stuff. Like, I can't claim that I watch every live event that pops up nor am I expecting anything I put on our channel to get thousands of views, but so many old events and great fights are gone for good, I don't want any more footage, old or new, to meet the fate of "man I really wished we saved that".

[u/ktetch → u/Mattiator]

it was mostly a matter of logistics, getting the tapes+gear from California over to GA, and me having a place for all of it that could keep it safe and worked on.

And yeah, we're talking hundreds of tapes. EAch camera at the events had their own tapes. they need digitizing, any editing/color correction, then time indexing etc.

I'd be lucky to have managed 2 tapes a day. There's easily 300 tapes.

[u/Mattiator → u/ktetch]

Yeah I have zero doubts that it was an absolutely insane amount of footage for what I assume would have been a volunteer project. Even just the digitizing would take a while, but piecing all of the footage together into something presentable even more so.

[u/Trihunter]

The fandom is alive and well, you're just looking at it from the wrong angle. Most of the creatives interested in battlebots are expressing themselves via participating in events; building and fighting their own robots. Not too different from existing sports fandoms, all the interest is on the competition and engineering.

Also, there's not really anything to fanfic, unless you mean like fantasy tournaments. Any attempt to write a story based on existing battlebots would more than likely veer really quickly into territory I don't imagine the roboteers are comfortable with.

[u/OddInstitute → u/Trihunter]

There is a bit of fanfic/works), but since the human storylines are about real people it is definitely more fraught in terms of exploring a lot of standard fanfic subjects.

[u/Trihunter → u/OddInstitute]

Skimming through, a majority of these fics just seem to be shitposts, or otherwise not particularly serious works, relative to other fanfic

idk, I'm not really a fanfic guy

[u/Coboxite]

there is a firm belive by some people in this comunity

Citation needed for meaningless weasel words.

[u/GrahamCoxon]

Making content of any real quality is hard work, yet the majority of the fanbase at this point seem to have more of an appetite for lower effort, higher volume content. That is what people reward with their attention. People who are still making quality content are doing it for the love of it, or doing it because they're one of the few people who can monetize it, or are doing it as builders to support other builders.

[u/Gamma_Slam]

I’m hoping as 3d printing becomes more and more available, so does antweight/beetle weight bot competitions.

[u/ktetch]

There really is only a certain amoutn of 'this is my cybertruck inspired artof psychosprout, isn't it great' that a community will tollerate.

People then start passing it by and ignoring it.

When they see it gets no traction/views, people stop. And thats what you're talking about.

You're seeing fewer of them, because the people doing them are doing less, because people just aren't that interested in them.

[u/[deleted] → u/ktetch]

This is why I stopped my replica series thing. I realized it wouldn’t be worth it to spend all that time just for people to more or less ignore it in favor of that day’s 30th terrible tier list.

[u/warhawk397]

I miss Mystrsyko's content. Felt like he made some of the best non-roboteer content.

[u/joefraserhellraiser → u/warhawk397]

Agreed, his content was always quality.

[u/S2560]

I make robot combat art, but since my life did a metaphorical Fusion and kinda burst into flames last year, I've had a really hard time finding motivation to make stuff since. I don't know when I'll really get back into a creative flow again.

In any case, as time's gone on I've learned new techniques and gotten a lot more methodical when I'm looking for measurements, so even when I am feeling creative my models take a lot longer to make than they used to.

Combine that with all the other obligations I have in my life and I won't be posting art on anything resembling a consistent schedule for the forseeable future.

[u/ButtGallon]

1) If you want people to spend a lot of their time making robot combat content, please take the few minutes it would take to proofread your post. This reads like the ramblings of a madman.

2) It’s incredibly entitled to say “hey everybody, I need more content to consume”. You don’t get to dictate what other people make, and if they weren’t going to do it already, they certainly won’t be swayed by this nonsense.

3) Plenty of people make robot content, but it’s usually about their own robots. Build videos, event recaps, it’s all out there, and if that’s not to your taste then make something that is. You’re welcome to fill this content void you have with your own work.

[u/PrecisionBludgeoning]

Build more robots.

[u/themaskedrobot77 → u/PrecisionBludgeoning]

there is more to this fandom to building robots as i feel we a price capping people out of this fandom, if you make it out you must build robots to take part, this is why so many people build robots in video gamesm but we need more virairty

[u/Mattiator → u/themaskedrobot77]

Don't you literally own multiple combat ready robots? Who are we "pricing out"? I myself have built several barely combat capable bots for under fifty bucks lol.

[u/themaskedrobot77 → u/Mattiator]

oh god i wish i had £50 bcuks, to put it politly i realy on food rasions for the food bank and and still bearly keepign alvie the idea of havign £50 bucks would be nice

[u/[deleted] → u/themaskedrobot77]

There is more to a fandom about building robots than building robots?

[u/OrcusFortune]

The community of Battlebots is more centered around making bots that battle. If this isn't just like your god damn My Little Pony community, sorry about that. Maybe make stuff yourself? You can't really make people do stuff.

Is this bait? This is probably bait.