If you have more than the slightest interest in Hearthstone and frequent YouTube and Reddit, the name "Trolden" should ring a loud bell. In under ten months after his channel was created, Trolden has become synonimous with the "funny and lucky" side of Blizzard's card game, entertaining fans every week as he collects memorable moments and edits them for his audience's pleasure.
Today, Trolden's YouTube channel boasts more than 230,000 subscribers. His 92 videos have amassed almost 40,000,000 views. Each time a new video is released, it skyrockets to the top of the Hearthstone subreddit, his most popular one scoring at 840,000 plays. In between all that, there's a lot of travelling involved too, as Trolden recently provided commentary for the BlizzCon EU qualifiers and Viagame House Cup, working with other prominent personalities like Artosis, Gnimsh, Savjz and Reynad.
It is during said House Cup that I first meet Trolden and we seclude ourselves for the longest interview I did that weekend. Spanning over an entire hour, we talk about not just Trolden as a YouTube brand and what he deals with on a daily basis but also who's the person behind the alias, why has he fled Russia, what he wants to do in life. What makes Trolden and Andrey Nolden different.
This is the first part of my interview with Trolden, where we talk giving birth and maintaining the YouTube channel. Part 2, to be released tomorrow, covers topic about Trolden's life outside the internet and sheds more light on the A. Nolden persona.
The second part of the interview can be read here.
Let's start at the beginning. You're known as the guy who makes funny videos and puts them on Reddit. Everybody knows the Trolden name. Tell me, where did the idea came from and why Hearthstone?
The idea came from my frustration with one of Blizzard's patches of Hearthstone. I think it was somewhere in December where they nerfed a lot of cards but Mages remained untouched. It was the time where Freeze Mages wrecked everything and everyone and were so frustrating. I played against some of them in a row and decided to make a video about it. There was a "Hitler reacts to latest Hearthstone patch" video which picked off on reddit. So I thought "OK, that was funny, I want to do something else". Then in a few weeks the Mage nerf came and I made a "Dimitri reacts to Mage nerf" video and everyone loved that as well so I thought I should start doing something like that.
I sometimes know exactly what people want but I didn't know where to start. I've been making montage parodies but they have a small audience, as they have too much editing and not everyone prefers them. Then I was travelling with my friend and we were watching some shows, each episode of which started with a funny video, so I thought that could be my thing, something different than what GiantKiller was already doing with "Top Plays".
I took examples from others, applied my own tactics, reduced the amount of unnecessary editing and made it simple. Hearthstone is a simple game and I want my montages to be like it. "How to Magma Rager" is a good example.
"Most of the stuff I find myself. A lot of people don't realize it but that's how it is, maybe 75% of the content is found by me."
You mentioned that there was already channels like yours in League but in Hearthstone you were the first. Was this the thing that helped with your recognition the most?
Of course, when you do something you need to be the first one. If you're not, it'll be hard to succeed. You always need to find your niche. There are people who do similar stuff to mine nowadays, but they don't get that much attention, because I was there first.
Had there been another Funny and Lucky guy in Hearthstone, would you've considered doing something else, like video editing or are you all about the comedy content and nothing else?
I just do montage parodies. If there was already a guy doing "Funny and Lucky", I'd go for montage parodies like "How To" videos, like the "How To Magma Rager" which is still one of my most successful videos.
Casting the Viagame House Cup. F.l.t.r. Mlasic, Reynad, Trolden, Pappastoma
Are you getting a lot submissions nowadays from viewers?
No, actually most of the stuff I find myself. A lot of people don't realize it but that's how it is, maybe 75% of the content is found by me. Let me give you an example: In more than a week I got 36 messages. Say, 20 of those are 36/36 Lightspawns OTK'ing Miracle Rogue and some Lorewalker Cho/Divine Spirit set-up for which people think they're the first ones to do it. Another 5-8 videos will be of terribly quality so I can't use them anywhere. The rest might be somewhat funny and I might consider using them.
I have a lot of problems when I have to use user-submitted content. Say, a guy sends me something but later I see Noxious doing the same. I'll use guy's submission because I want to promote him and then I get shit-talked in the comments when the video has too many unknown people. People want to see Amaz, Reynad, Noxious, Forsen... I have to keep the balance between known and unknown people. After all, I'm getting hits by using other people's footage so I justify it by helping in return.
"I have to keep the balance between known and unknown people. After all, I'm getting hits by using other people's footage so I justify it by helping in return."
Do any of those unknown players come back to you after you promote them to express gratitude? How much do you affect their popularity after they get "Funny and Lucky"-ed?
They actually get thousands of followers after the video. There was some German guy who yelled when he opened a pack and got three legendaries, two of which golden. I got a version of that without his music where he was just yelling "Was ist das?", put my own epic music on it and the video blew so hard that it brought tens of thousands hits to the original version.
Some of the videos can't blow up without me putting my own touch on them but I have to always be careful to not become repetitive.
How many hours do you spend for every episode?
It's random. Sometimes I can make one in an eventing, sometimes I will struggle for a whole week.
This includes searching for stuff?
No, I don't include searching.
Often, the works process goes like this: Sometimes I'll make something, review it and then see it doesn't work and then I stop and start re-doing it all over again.
For example, there was this idea of Jaina and Anduin adventures video series. Jaina and Anduin go to Naxxramas to get cards... I wanted to make it look silly, like the stuff happening in Naxx HS actually happening in World of WarCraft. The idea was to have no artificial voiceover, no parody, but use real voices of real characters, I just cut them and glue them like I did for "That's not how you sax bro" for Malfurion. But making one sentence can take a whole fucking day - you're looking for quotes from Hearthstone patches, then you find that Jaina's voice in HS and WoW are slightly different, so I had to edit the voice overs as well.
"I can't post something on my channel that is not perfect. For me, it's not about doing something in order to get paid."
I wanted the characters to feel and talk real so I spent insane amount of work before I realised this is not going to work. The jokes were going to feel so pushed because how limited I was with the voiceovers, the real comedy wouldn't happen.
One of my biggest problem is that I can't post something on my channel that is not perfect. For me, it's not about doing something in order to get paid, I want people to enjoy what I do, so I have to keep up the quality that I have and that's the bane of every YouTuber.
With Kolento (left) and Forsen (right)
Haven't you considered developing this into a crew of people, find voice actors, get video editing help while you're the director of everything?
Voice over actors are not the problem. I have a lot of friends who can do that for free for me. Most of all, I need someone who can do social media for me and that would probably be my girlfriend. I will teach her everything but she's not in Czech Republic at the moment and is still in Russia.
She'd be like kind of a manager to because doing everything yourself is kind of a pain in the ass, more than people realize. Going to Twitter, or Facebook, or Reddit, replying to YouTube comments - which I want to do in order to feel connected with my audience - that's a really complicated thing that takes a lot of time.
"I don't want to get anyone to do editing, I think editing is a very intimate thing. I will never be happy with someone else's."
I don't want to get anyone to do editing, I think editing is a very intimate thing. I will never be happy with someone else's. I'm sometimes not even content with my own "perfect" videos and nitpick about some tone being played three seconds later.
I guess the goal is to grow to the size other YouTube brands, say how TotalBiscuit is in gaming or RWJ for the more mainstream audience?
My self-esteem is not on top of the world like that of some other personalities. For me, it's a little different. Sometimes, I won't get sleep because I feel I need to improve myself. I will just be lying there for an hour, then go to the computer and edit stuff, just for myself, to justify that I'm working on something. For me, there's never an end stop, I must keep improving and doing it until I die, probably.
Related:
Trolden denied BlizzCon visa, "not a real media" the embassy says
Trolden as a guest on the HearthCenter podcast:
