PewDiePie made 4 MILLION dollars in 2013!!

Link to the story:http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/219305/Popular_YouTuber_PewDiePie_generated_4_million_in_2013.php

I always knew that guy made some serious cash, but 4 million dollars!!! Man, oh man. Congrats to him.

You see...this is why being a YouTube Let's Player is a perfectly valid career path.

Isn't he part of a network, though? He probably had to pay a lot of that out to whoever he's working under. YT networks suck a lot of money out of their content creators.

BRHD is next and he will publicly shun those of you who berated him.

If most of it was personal profit, pray that he saves it and doesn't blow it on stupid shit.

If you are smart, if you know what you're doing, and if you're lucky.

Keep in mind that most people making Youtube videos are none of those things.

Well it could still be used for some extra cash on the side. Even if you don't make that much off of it, you would still get a little bit of cash at least.

@behardy24:

never herd of him...

I subscribe him just to watch his "other funny Video" ........ the rest are Game spoiler

I wonder if he really gets all those hits or if he's using some kind of system that makes fake viewings to get add revenues. Anyhow, at first I thought he was super annoying, then he kind of grew on me with some of his videos. I like his Walking Dead playthrough videos.

Not if you're a boring gamer. Pewdiepie tries really hard to be funny which somehow appeals to a lot of people. Maybe its his Swedish accent or how his face can look really weird and dumb sometimes. Maybe it's because he's a terrible gamer who dies a lot and jumps at each horror games jump scares. Watching him isn't boring like a lot of other gamers who try to be funny. Some think that just cursing at things is funny when it really isn't. I can't stand those guys who sound bored and when all of a sudden something hits them. "you motherfucker! Piece of shit! Shiiiiittttttt!". It's like, come on man... that's not funny, try again.

You have to be interesting to be a successful Let's Player. Or a really attractive girl like, SSSniperwolf. She's an extremely boring person to watch, all she plays is Call of Duty and Metal Gear and talks about random stuff like shopping in her videos, but she's really attractive and she cosplays, so the subs just keep on coming.

If he did that he would be stealing millions from Google and his advertisers. I highly doubt he would have lasted this long.

good for him

it's like any other industry. there's a million people doing it, some will do it well and make a shitload of money. most will not.

Good for him. He knows his audience and panders directly to what they want to see.

I can't stand the guy, but if all it takes to make that kind of dough is to act like a moron on camera when I play games that aren't scary, I'd do it.

Congrats to him, he's not my favorite you tube gamer but I respect what he's done.

He's so influetional on gaming, any game he does a let's play on gets a spike in sales.

My favorite you tube let's players are markipiler, hc baily, cryaotic and naliff. (Although naliff is inactive currently)

Not really.

Because 1 guy gets load of money doesn't mean everyone can

The majority of youtube personalities seems to be proof you don't need talent or develop a skill to be successful.

- Have boobs, be a girl.

- Create misleading thumb images

- Create cynical videos telling us how things are shit

- Play a game and use a wacky voice (because that's how you do comedy)

Wala, your rich as ****.

Good for him. If the world is such a place that is largely populated by asinine halfwits, I'm not going to condemn anyone taking advantage of their idiocy. The guy is only smart enough to provide them with what they crave and desire.

One lucky bastard who makes millions with crappy gameplay videos while others more skilled gamers ( Lots of there on Youtube) hardly get any recognition who make actual helpful gameplay or tips videos. He is like Justin Beaver who got his fame due to idiot viewers and subscribers.

Pretty much this.

/thread.

Marketing at it's finest. This isn't over many more will make millions off social media. These days it is about having the most followers, everyone wanna be jesus or the devil.

I wouldn't be surprised if he got busted in future, his 27 million subscribers raises an eyebrow. YouTube busted the music industry for faking video views and likes, but they were claiming hundreds of millions or billions of views in like no time at all. PewDiePie probably does something similar on a smaller scale and a lot slower.

Holy shit balls, 27 million subs? That's three times the population of his home country, Sweden.

Ad-revenue can rake in some serious cash, particularly if you know how to target the main target audience of Youtube (12 year olds). Whoever knows how to best appeal to the lowest common denominator wins!

Youtube subscriptions have a snow-ball effect. There are a million+ channels that automatically subscribe to you if they find your username, and request that you subscribe back. Even my Youtube accounts, which I don't even use, have 1000+ subscribers. If I can get thousands of subscribers without actually uploading anything, Pewdiepie can get millions of subscribers without much effort at all. How many of them are real people? No idea, it's likely only a small fraction of that number.

Remember Gangnam-style and how popular it was? What if I told you that it wasn't popular at all, and that someone in Thailand simply amassed millions of views on the video using bots? Eventually you realize Youtube has nothing to do with talent, it's just marketing and exploitation. If Pewdiepie didn't exploit his circumstances which only exist due to Youtube's lackadaisical popularity sorting algorithms, he'd be a nobody. In the end, it's Youtube who decides who's popular, and whoever's popular just so happens to perfectly align with Youtube's best interests.

This also explains why many popular YT personalities hate Youtube - YT interferes with personalities whom they can't "puppet". This means that if Youtube can't utilize your image and personality to sell their advertisements, then they don't like you and will interfere with your channel. Plenty of Youtubers have come out saying that Youtube offers to write their material for them, if they simply do everything they're told - most YT personalities then respond by saying "**** Youtube" and uploading a bunch of angry rants to their channel. This is because YT often threatens Youtuber's who don't dumb their content down and make it safe for kids.

Sounds conspiracy-like, but it's actually common place and is more or less how Youtube operates. There's no "Scout's Honor" system in play, where the most genuinely talented people on Youtube get equal shots at becoming e-famous. Youtube is a very calculated website, with emphasis on generating money. It's a business, just like the majority of social media.

But there are quite a lot of Let's Players who make money that way.

Not a lot, a few now. Many of the people who had 4-500k subs doing those videos or gaming commentaries are basically making minimum wage. Still not bad but not nearly what they were making from before The well is pretty dry right now forcing those people who use to make over 100 grand to actually get a real job

You made me lol for real :) .

BRHD is no Mr. Chi City, that's for sure.

Stop watching this shit people, this guy is a fucktard.

I doubt anybody here watches the stuff. Ever since the inclusion of Google+ to Youtube, I noticed Youtube accounts now storing a lot more personal information, as well as real life photos for avatars. If you actually look at the comments from the G+ accounts, they're practically all little kids. I don't mean just read the comments, but actually go to each commentor's profile page and look at their personal information, as well as other videos they watch - the majority are no doubt kids. Like, literally, 11-14 year old kids. It's not like kids care about diversifying their tastes or seeking out obscure content either, so I wouldn't be surprised if his entire fanbase consisted of children.

Little kids love videogames, and if you're a kid who likes videogames, there's no doubt you've encountered Pewdiepie at least once on Youtube. I'm not saying that to put him down or anyone down, it's more just an observation.

The ironic part is Pew is a college drop out. Next thing we will see is in a few months a swarm of people trying to create a youtube channel thinking they will make miliions.

Good for him.

It's also great to see him use his YouTube popularity to help support various charities.

But his fan cult are the worst.

Shotgun. Mouth.

This is pretty much what it comes down to. He acts like a moron, but it could possibly be an act. Who knows? I'd never watch his videos, but a lot of people seem to enjoy it. You can get mad at him for stooping to stupidity to make money off idiots, but for $4million, who wouldn't do the same? It's not like he's charging people to watch his videos.

I WISH MrChiCity3 was on GS forums lol. Dude hasn't shot a video in years. :/

not worried though, probably doing his thang.

**** the haters. I've never seen this guy's videos, and if I did, I probably would think that they're shit. But that's neither here nor there, a lot of people are hating this guy because "I don't like him so he shouldn't be successful." And my tolerance for that kind of shit is rapidly diminishing. Whether or not his videos are garbage, he's creating content and giving people what they want. Meanwhile a lot of people want him to go away simply because "I don't like him." **** that shit. It's a lot easier to destroy than to create. It takes little effort to break down what others make, and a lot more effort to actually make something that people fucking want.

Think his work is shit and he doesn't deserve his success? If it were so freaking easy to get successful doing what he does, then everyone would be doing it.