YouTube is the highest-leverage platform for this niche and the most hostile to it. Both things are true, and understanding the second is what lets you use the first.
What actually gets you removed
Explicit sales pitches in the video itself attract far more enforcement than gameplay. A video that is a commercial reads as one; a video where the product happens to be visible reads as gameplay.
Links in descriptions are the most common trigger. Many creators in this space keep the description clean and point to a profile or an off-platform destination instead.
Thumbnails and titles do more damage than content. Aggressive keyword stuffing in the title is what gets a channel classified, and classification is applied to the channel rather than the video.
Repeated strikes compound. One removal is survivable; a pattern gets the channel terminated, and channels are not recoverable in practice.
How creators here actually grow
Lead with the game, not the product. 'How to win more fights in Rust' reaches an audience; 'best Rust cheat 2026' reaches an audience and a moderator.
Retention beats reach. YouTube's recommendation system responds to how long people watch far more than to how many click, and a niche audience that watches to the end outperforms a broad one that bounces.
Series work better than one-offs. A viewer who finishes one video and starts another signals quality more strongly than almost anything else you control.
Consistency over volume. Weekly for a year beats daily for a month, both for the algorithm and for the audience relationship that actually drives conversions.
Protecting the channel you build
Assume you will lose it eventually and build so that losing it is survivable. Get people onto a platform you control — a Discord, a mailing list — from the first video.
Do not put the entire operation on one account. Creators who lose a channel and had no other presence lose everything at once.
Keep a local copy of your content. Re-uploading is painful; re-recording is worse.
Read the platform's policies yourself rather than relying on what other creators tell you. Policies change and secondhand advice ages badly.
Turning views into referrals
Ask once, clearly, and move on. Repeated pleading reduces conversions rather than increasing them.
Put the offer where interested people go looking — pinned comment, profile, Discord — rather than interrupting the content with it.
Answer questions. In this niche the buying decision is anxious, and the people who convert are usually the ones who got a straight answer about ban risk from someone they trust.
Never recommend something you have not checked the status of. One bad recommendation costs you the audience you spent a year building.
Frequently asked questions
Will my channel definitely get terminated?
Not definitely, but treat it as likely enough to plan for. Creators who last are the ones who moved their audience somewhere they control early.
Should I use a separate Google account?
Yes. Keep this channel away from anything tied to your identity or to accounts you cannot afford to lose.
Is TikTok safer than YouTube?
Different rather than safer. TikTok's enforcement is faster and less appealable, but individual videos matter less because reach is not cumulative.
Can I be monetised?
Usually not through the platform. Affiliate income and direct audience support are how creators in this niche earn, which is precisely why the referral rate matters to them.
Join the program
Commission tiers and how attribution works are on the affiliate program page at /affiliates.
Your referral code is on your account's referrals page once you have signed up.
