How to make YouTube Shorts for your game
2 min read
By Eduardo Orellana ·
YouTube Shorts are vertical videos up to three minutes long, shown in YouTube's Shorts feed. For a game, a Short is one moment of real gameplay with the hook in the first seconds, framed 9:16 with captions. Shorts reach new viewers fast; link each one to a longer devlog with YouTube's related-video link, so a viewer who likes the moment can find the game's story and its Steam page.
Shorts bring strangers to a channel that already has long videos
On YouTube, Shorts and long videos feed each other. A Short reaches people who never searched for you; a related long video gives the ones who liked it somewhere to go. A game channel with both grows faster than one with either.
Making one
- Vertical 9:16, gameplay framed in it, not cropped away.
- Up to three minutes is allowed; most game Shorts work at 15 to 45 seconds.
- The hook first: the moment itself, in the first two seconds.
- Captions, and the game's name on screen.
- A related video: link the Short to the devlog it came from.
Instagram Reels and TikTok
The same clip works on Reels and TikTok. Export without another platform's watermark and write captions for each. Reels suits games with a striking look; TikTok rewards a surprising moment; Shorts is the one that connects to your long-form channel.
Where Flockbay fits
Flockbay's Video studio cuts up to three vertical shorts from your real gameplay alongside each devlog. Social posts posts to TikTok today; you upload Shorts to YouTube yourself. Free in beta until 1 December 2026.
Questions
- How long can a YouTube Short be?
- Up to three minutes, since YouTube raised the limit in October 2024.