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TH E GAMING INDUSTRY How Important Are YouTubers?

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Opinion

How Important are Youtubers to the Gaming Industry?

YouTubers, the growing market for game advertising. With over 15 years of building up relationships and sub counts, YouTubers have become an integral pillar in most major industries. This can be from children unboxing LOL dolls, How To guides by B&Q or your local middle-aged dad, to playthroughs of some of the most obscure games.

Just how important are they to the gaming industry?

If you’re reading this then you’re probably not interested in the tedious background of YouTube as a platform. Also if you’re here, you’re likely familiar with the fact that YouTube has an entire playerbase of gamers and content creators. So, instead, we’ll discuss some of the major gaming YouTubers that have come to fame from releasing their content.

Pewdiepie currently holds the title as the most-subscribed independent YouTuber at 111 million subscribers. While he is now primarily a variety content creator, his fame was amassed during his Lets Play series, specifically when he played Amnesia 10 years ago. Since then he’s done series on Minecraft, Happy Wheels, and even tried some extremely random and obscure games such as… Princess Sofia Caesarean? These days his content has more react and challenge videos but who can blame a guy that’s been going as long as he has?

Jacksepticeye is another family name in the world of YouTube with over 28 million subscribers. His fame was founded with his Happy Wheels series over 8 years ago with the help of some exposure by his now friend, Pewdiepie. Some of his other major Lets Play series have included Minecraft, The Last of Us, and more recently Subnautica Below Zero. Since some health and personal struggles have hit the Irish prodigy,

Jacksepticeye has also been dabbling in short-films and comedy skits that have been incredibly well-received on his channel.

Lastly, while ever-changing and perhaps not as popular as they once were, Yogscast pioneered the Minecraft craze in the early days. Their Minecraft series that started over 11 years ago helped to shape the popularity around the sandbox wonder and exposed just how many possibilities there are with their Shadow of Israphel series. At the time, they could have been argued to be the most popular Minecraft YouTube Channel. Since 2010, Yogscast has become a company with many YouTubers collaborating together to produce content for the channel and they still have over 7 million subscribers.

Totalling the three YouTube channels’ subscribers puts us at almost 150 million people. Some of their subscribers probably overlap a bit but it’s still incredibly difficult to ignore the power people with this many viewers have over an industry.

Pewdiepie often reaches between 2-10 million views per video, Jacksepticeye reaches around 1-8 million people per video, and Yogscast often sees between 200k-600k views. If any one of them plays a game that’s recently been released, that game will immediately have either thousands or millions of people knowing about it, even without other advertising measures.

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That kicks us off with the first evidence as to how important YouTubers are in the gaming industry. If, somehow, an independent games developer with little to no money for paid advertising can get their game into the hands of one of the major gaming YouTubers, they could instantly be making hundreds more than if they’d paid to begin with. YouTubers have the power to give free exposure to either small or AAA games if it’s something they’re interested in which can be immeasurably helpful to game developers. There’s definitely some reason behind thinking that this method of advertisement could be more effective than YouTube ads or billboard payments. Due to the parasocial dynamic between a YouTuber and their subscribers, seeing the familiar face play and enjoy a game can be extremely influential in a purchase of a game. There’s a lot more trust put into them than the company that created the game since it is more like listening to the opinion of a close friend rather than a stranger who will make money off your purchase. I’m able to account on this on a personal level, lockdown 2020 led to a binge-watching obsession with Jacksepticeye which ended up encouraging my purchase Phasmophobia and downloading Among Us. Since Jacksepticeye was also locked down and couldn’t see friends, he was looking for games he could play online that were fun, interactive, and sociable, a similar situation anyone who enjoys games found themselves in at the time. By seeing

The Yogscast, Poster from Minecraft series - Moonquest

Pewdiepie photographed by Ryan Pfluger for TIME magazine, June 2016 Issue By seeing someone in the same situation find a solution, it was a major influence on many people’s activities during the ‘plague’. YouTubers can also encourage the development of games that were originally released as ‘early development’.

When a YouTuber plays a game that has an early access release, it brings customers and therefore motivation to get that game finished as quickly and in as high quality as possible. The movie “Indie Game: The Movie”, showcased just how scary and isolating it can be to be creating a new game, therefore having the knowledge that you’re doing it for people who are already excited for the release and that there will be a payoff could help with those feelings.

As well as this, they’re often paid for partnerships with companies as a specific part of the advertisement chain.

While it’s clearly an ad when the YouTuber releases the video, there’s still an element of trust in place there. The creators are perfectly able to refuse the partnership offers so if viewers sees a paid advertisement on their channel they still know that the creator genuinely enjoyed and likes the developer that created the game. Similarly to this, there’s also the opportunity of creating affiliate links between content creators and game companies. These sorts of situations often benefit everyone in play! Again, YouTubers can decline these offers so subscribers trust their reviews and since their favourite

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Opinion

Jacksepticeye at The Game Awards 2021

creators benefit from buying through their link they may feel more inclined to purchase. The YouTuber gets views, likes, and subscribers from the video as well as a cut from every purchase made through their link, and the game developers get more exposure and therefore more purchases. The fact that it’s a paid ad or affiliate link is often overlooked anyway, it’s certainly not uncommon for people to simply buy a game just because a creator they like played it and seemingly enjoyed it - I bought Academia: School Simulator because Sips (Yogscast) played it and enjoyed it, I didn’t check out any other material about it!

Also, as a minor point, it’s very good entertainment! According to Healthline, many serial gamers have ADHD, a symptom of which is hyperfixation. As you can imagine, this often latches onto games and just general game-related content. However, as well as hyperfixation, people with ADHD often have to have their minds permanently engaged in order to distract from racing thoughts. YouYouTubers and streamers can provide a brilliantly ideal situation for these people. They are able to have their mind fully engaged by both playing something and watching something at the same time as well as fulfilling their gaming hyperfixation by having both options be related to video games.

The importance of YouTubers in the gaming industry has

somewhat already been recognised as high. Jacksepticeye has done so much more than play games for the gaming industry due to his status as a prolific YouTuber. In 2016 he co-hosted South by Southwest’s SXSW Gaming Awards, in 2017 Forbes released an issue including a ‘Top Gaming Influencers of 2017’ segment in which he was included, in 2020 he presented an award at The Game Awards, in 2021 ‘Free Guy’ was released that had multiple scenes about YouTubers including Jacksepticeye, he also presented another award at the 2021 The Game Awards. Jacksepticeye has done so much towards the gaming industry, either as a YouTuber or because he is a YouTuber.

In summary, YouTubers create free advertising, encourage game developers, produce sales, act as a trustworthy source for gamers, boost traffic towards a game, and of course act as a form of entertainment for those that hold the gaming industry above water: the gamers. It’s clear to see the influence of content creators from the amount of people they entertain alone, they are catering towards the same people as anyone else in the gaming industry so of course they are important. As is fair to assume, here we’re all for YouTubers, streamers, and any game-related content creators. They are all vitally important in the gaming industry for an abundance of reasons that will likely only expand as the future of gaming becomes more and more limitless.

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