About Zap zockt – YouTube Gaming Channel and Games Blog

Info about Zap Zockt, the YouTube Gaming Channel, and Blog Site. News, Guides, and Reviews about Games and Gaming, Tech, Hardware, and YouTube.

Intro

Ok, hi, and welcome here at ZapZockt (German for Zap plays). This website was created around my YouTube channel, but today it also offers much more than just YouTube videos. Here you will find news, guides, tutorials about games and gaming, tech, hardware, and YouTube, as detailed written articles and as videos.

Zap Zockt – Compact – Info – Pitch Deck

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Zap Zockt – Gaming News and Game Reviews – My Content Strategy

If you’re considering having me do a review or create any other content about your game or product, here are a few key points to give you an idea of what to expect.

My content consists mainly of reviews and news, sometimes if a game totally captivates me I’ll do in-depth guides. My main categories are mainly strategy games, like building strategy, village building games, turn-based strategy, RTS or economic simulations, but also role-playing games and MMORPGs.

I also don’t say no to a good action game with an interesting story, and some puzzle games, adventure games, survival games, and farm simulations can also excite me. Pure shooters, battle royale games, most trading card games, purely competitive games, arcade, and jump’n’run games I usually refuse.

Games that are fun & have enough scope are covered with an in-depth review, in which I usually invest 10-30 hours for analysis, SEO, writing, footage recording + editing. This content then consists of a YouTube video of about 10-20 minutes (GER voice-over, ENG subtitles) and a written article on my website https://zapzockt.de/en/ (two variants of text in EN+GER), with about 1500-3500 words, screens, etc.

For small games, beta or EA titles, this can sometimes be less extensive. Maybe it will be a shorter review then, or just a written news article. If your game is absolutely no fun at all, or excessively buggy, I won’t mention it at all. I don’t write nasty condemnations, what is too bad simply goes unmentioned.

If the game has multiplayer features, and that would be possible, two or more keys to test the multiplayer might be helpful.

Product Marketing with Zap Zockt – I am available for hire but within very narrow limits

If you prefer more of a pure introduction video for your product or even need promotional or marketing content, then you can also order it from me for the appropriate payment. I have already created sponsored content here a few times, so I already have experience with this kind of content.

However, according to German and international law, this content is sufficiently and correctly marked as a marketing post and “sponsored content” and all links are then also marked accordingly with “NoFollow, sponsored”. Camouflaged guest posts and purchased link-building offers do not exist on my site. I wrote some details about my thoughts and ethics regarding the bad methods around guest posts and link-buying in this post.

Please also note that our site is youth and family-friendly and I reserve the right to refuse the following content: Objectionable content such as online gambling, sports betting, coin mining or trading, NFTs, weight loss products, Ponzi schemes, sex sites, politics, esoterica, homeopathy, or any other site or product that contains or promotes non-family-friendly content, NSFW content, illegal and/or comparably unethical content, or otherwise contradicts our ethical business practices.

Zap Zockt – QA-Testing, Bug-Hunting, and UIX Testing Service

In case you might provide me with an early alpha or beta key for your product, I would also be able to give you a bit of feedback and send in bug reports if you are interested in this. With several years of experience in bug-hunt, UIX, and QA testing, I can do this (in limited form) for free, or if you need more, I am sure we can find an arrangement. I already did this for dozens of small IndieDev studios as well as occasionally for bigger companies like Team17, Ubisoft, or Two Point Studios.

About Zap Zockt as a Person

Let’s get personal, I’m Zap, and in my late 40’s. As a nerd and gamer since about 1980, I’ve been playing almost non-stop since then. But I didn’t only play games, I also worked as a programmer and trained as a system and network administrator, and did some practical work in this field for a few years.

As a gamer I have probably played more than 1000 games during this time and spent tens of thousands of hours with computer games, but also board games, table role-playing games, LARP, and whatever else is available in the games section. So I’m a full-time nerd, geek, and freak, as you can imagine.

Nerd, you say?

This year I have my 42nd gaming anniversary. Starting with the PacMan & Asteroids arcade machines in the pub of my grandpa, Pong, Pitfall, and Decathlon on the Atari console, over to C16, C64, Amiga, and PC until today.

Besides that, I’ve been playing Pen&Paper, DSA (The Black Eye, very similar to DnD), Shadowrun, and Vampires for >30 years, and I’ve also played LARP for almost 10 years and helped organize some events, the big ones having over a hundred players and several dozen (human) NPCs that all wanted to be coordinated.

Currently, I’m working part-time and as a hobby as a journalist in the gaming and YouTube area and occasionally as a QA tester for game companies. I write at least 5-10k words about these topics every week and also create a few YT videos per month.

Besides that I’m a general computer freak, I did an education as a network and system administrator, >10 years of active programming, and at least earned some money with it. I am, as Leonard from TBBT would say, “the one who installs your printer driver”.

My bookshelf consists of 70% comics. I met my wife while doing Morrowind Modding and after years of playing Lineage 2 and WoW together, I fell in love with her. And now we are a couple for already 16 years, more to come.

I try to incorporate this long-time experience into my tests and reviews, but without the “everything was better in the past” approach. I am a person of now, today is the best day for me. And I don’t whine about the past and I rarely dream of a better future, but I always try to make the best of today.

There’s also an extra page where I’ve written down everything about the tests and reviews, my approach, and all sorts of information about it, and a complete list of all game reviews and hardware tests. If for some reason you want to contact me privately, you can also check out the imprint.

Zap Zockt – Professional

ZapZockt is (currently) still very small, and very far from being financially viable in any way, or even being run as a main job. There are ads on the videos and articles, but they just finance the server, some test copies, and a small part of my hardware, nothing more. One absolutely can not live on it.

But I have, like everyone, the stupid habit of eating every day, not wanting to freeze in the winter, and wanting to pay my bills. That’s why there is a part of my life that is pure work and that’s why, away from gaming, I am self-employed as a retailer and have run a successful store and local market business together with my brother for more than 16 years now.

And because that’s not enough to keep my brain busy, I offer my technical skills with my 2nd trade also for hire. So, if you have work in the following areas, just let me know, and I can be hired: PC technology, SEO, quality assurance (QA), web design and web hosting, content creation (text, audio, video), marketing, social media, and I do also consulting in all the above areas. More information on the website of my 2nd company ZZ Video Marketing (currently only available in German).

ZapZockt in Social Media

Of course, I am also represented on numerous social media platforms. If you would like to get to know more about me, have direct contact on your favorite platform, and follow my content (and sometimes my nonsense), you will find the most important channels listed here:

• ZapZockt at Twitter
• ZapZockt at Discord
• ZapZockt at Facebook
• ZapZockt at Pinterest
• ZapZockt at LinkedIn
• ZapZockt at Instagram

The ZapZockt YouTube Channel

There are more than 700 videos on the channel, guides, tutorials, reviews, and news in addition to Let’s Play gameplay videos, which I did in the earlier days. Except for the first beginnings, everything, of course, was commented on by me. There are videos from the areas of MMOs, Survival, Economic Simulations, tycoon games, strategy, or role-playing games, from AAA to small Indie games.

Initially, the channel had only Let’s Play formats. Meanwhile, the focus is strongly shifting away from Let’s Play gameplay to more news, reviews, and tips and tricks videos.

Background and Channel Development

The channel has existed for about 6 years now and there are new videos almost every week, depending on my spare time. Because despite all the nerd stuff I also have a private life, with family, wife, work, and other obligations. The channel is important, but not the most important thing in my life, please understand. I try to get everything under the roof, and the viewers and readers have a very high priority, but not always the highest, please respect that.

The Zap Zockt Blog and Website

First, just an additional way to point out to my videos, this has become much more now today. The blog site currently also offers news and posts that will not be published as a video, because there is not always enough time to make a video for everything.

I would like to expand this blog area even more in the future. More news, more tips, and tricks, enhanced with screenshots, spreadsheets, and other additional information that would often not work or would tank in video format.

In addition, I also write about topics such as news and reviews about tech and hardware and tips and tricks for YouTube, about which I (so far) do not make any videos, as this would not correspond to the focus and audience of the channel.

Recently, there have also been pages on certain mod projects, including from friends to Sims 4 or Skyrim. There could certainly be more to come soon because the topic of modding games is also always very interesting for me.

Can I somehow support Zap Zockt?

Below each video in the video description and also here on the site (right sidebar for example), there are affiliate links e.g. for Amazon or my partner side Gamesplanet. (more info about this partnership here: https://zapzockt.de/en/buy-steam-keys-cheap-and-legally/).

If you use those links and shop from them, not just the linked game, but whatever, it will not cost you a dime more than normal, but I’ll get a small portion of it as a commission. From that, I can buy better equipment, new software or hardware, and here and there maybe even a game. Ok, at the moment I can’t buy anything, because so far hardly anyone uses these links, but maybe that will be better if you like to use them from now on? Ideally, you simply exchange your Amazon favorite with a link from me and always buy one that would be a great support. Thank you in advance, if you like to support me like that.

Otherwise, of course, you can also send me games, hardware, other gaming stuff, or general things that you think might help the channel if you want to.

More questions about me?

For further questions, just join the Zap Zockt Community Discord server. There we can then discuss and exchange plenty if you want to.

Greetings and stay healthy and have a good time,
Ciao Ciao
Your Zap