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A really civil engineer
There’s a corner of YouTube for everything. In the corner carved out by Matt Holmes, you can find daily videos blending his experience as a real-life former engineer with citybuilder gameplay – a winning combination that has earned him 2.79 million subscribers and counting.
Real Civil Engineer was born during the COVID-19 lockdown when Holmes, like many others, found himself blessed with the gift of time. “I suddenly gained an hour or so that I would have spent commuting,” he tells CORQ. “After several months of researching YouTube, reading through many Reddit forums and learning to edit videos and use Photoshop, I decided to give [YouTube] a proper go.”
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Holmes spent a decade in corporate engineering. But the higher up the ladder he climbed, the less engineering he found himself doing. His passion provided the granular knowledge needed to craft some of his most popular content to date, such as “Can engineering STOP A 1000FT TSUNAMI in Cities Skylines?” (9.1 million views), “Engineering the perfect ONE TILE city in Cities Skylines!” and “Spanning HUGE GAPS the engineering way” (both have eight million views).
“There was an extreme amount of luck involved,” Holmes says. However, he also admits that making Real Civil Engineer a full-time gig was the goal from day one – something he has since achieved, with every video exceeding 100,000 views this year and even building a successful line of merchandise.
Niche focus
Holmes followed a simple ethos when growing his channel: Make content you want to watch, then make it better.
The idea to fuse engineering with gaming content came from a viral video. “My strategy when I started was to base my entire channel around [an] idea that I had seen in various forms of a professional playing a video game of their job,” Holmes says. “These are videos that are interesting to almost anyone, [seeing] how realistic a video game of a certain job is.”
Holmes was a highway and drainage engineer and didn’t design any bridges during his career, but learned the basics during training. After hearing that the popular game Poly Bridge was releasing a sequel, he saw its launch as an opportunity to kickstart his channel.
“I thought it was my best chance to get noticed,” he says. “It was pretty risky to put all my eggs in one basket and base my entire channel branding around a single viral video concept, but it turns out it worked, as it hadn’t been done before.”
Gameplay as a blank canvas
The world of gaming content is vast. What helps Real Civil Engineer stand out is the fact the gameplay is second fiddle to Holmes’ personality.
This was always the goal. “Part of my channel concept is to show that civil engineers are just normal people,” he says. “They’re often seen as really intelligent and serious. I wanted to show that, while some may be, we’re also just normal people [who] love to have a laugh.” Case in point: “My ‘strongest shape’ joke is one that I am, somewhat unfortunately, known for.” (The triangle is the “strongest shape” in the engineering world, but in Holmes’ videos, the top spot goes to something a little more inappropriate).
Over time, he has drifted from a rigid focus on engineering. “I have sort of run out of engineering concepts that I can show in games without repeating myself,” he says.
To diversify his content, he is increasingly spotlighting indie games, which he’s noticed tends to drive strong engagement. “People seem to really be into the incremental and clicker games recently, I think because they have constant progression, which makes for an interesting watch.”
Launching Civil Draft
To celebrate his five-year online anniversary, Holmes launched Civil Draft, a trading card game inspired by his love of Pokémon that features references to half a decade’s worth of YouTube content.
Unlike his channel, this wasn’t intentionally designed as a money-maker. “I actually expected to make a fairly significant financial loss, but how often do you get the opportunity to have trading cards made about you?” says Holmes. “I spent literally hundreds, maybe thousands of hours creating this, with so many easter eggs and references crammed into every card, which is part of a fully balanced and playable game.”
The response was, says Holmes, “mind-blowing.” Based on the performance of previous merch, he expected to sell 1,500 units in a month. Civil Draft hit that target in an hour.
Holmes has two theories on why the game sold so well. One is that his community recognised it as a “pure passion project.” Another is that a recent resurgence of interest in Pokémon cards opened the door for alternative takes on the concept. Whatever the reason, Civil Draft began its overstock sale on 27 March.
Growing a Discord community
Community is key to Real Civil Engineer’s success. Not only do subscribers rally around projects built within the world established by the channel’s content, but they’ve also populated a third space designed by Holmes on Discord.
The Real Civil Engineer Discord is where more than 18,600 members “make friends, crack jokes and discuss structurally superior bridges.” The community is incredibly active. At the time of writing, 3,300 members are online. Unlike some creator-led communities, Holmes often joins in conversations. “As my community saved me from corporate hell, the least I can do is talk with those that want to talk to me.”
While its following is considerably smaller in size than his YouTube, Holmes considers Discord a “community building” tool. As the Discord membership grows stronger, so does interest in his YouTube content, and vice versa.
Notably, the lines between the two platforms rarely blur. “I try to keep everything I do as a surprise for my viewers [and] community,” Holmes says. He does, however, use it for feedback, especially “if a video wasn’t so well received.”
The launch of Civil Draft has only increased activity in the group, with the #civil-draft-tcg thread buzzing with conversation over each member’s burgeoning collection. Looking ahead, Holmes hopes to reward those who’ve endorsed his passion project by expanding it further. “I still had many ideas left over that I was unable to get into the game,” he says. “And it means those that supported the game have supported a future thing rather than just a one off item.”
By Chloe James, insights correspondent for CORQ.
