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YouTube's Biggest Draw Plays Games, Earns $4 Million a Year

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Re: YouTube's Biggest Draw Plays Games, Earns $4 Million a Year

#31

Post by fekberg »

sixQuarks wrote: post #4

When I was a kid, I always promised myself I would never become one of those lame adults that said things like "kids these days, look at the junk they listen/watch etc...!". PewDiePie has single-handily made me break that promise. WTF are kids watching these days????

I'm close to 30 (oh my, can't believe I just said that) and I still find some of his videos amusing. It's like any type of tv-show, sitcom or movie: we all like different things and have different humor. His channel appeals to a lot of people and he's probably inspiring a lot of people (hopefully).

Re: YouTube's Biggest Draw Plays Games, Earns $4 Million a Year

#32

Post by vinceguidry »

MichaelGG wrote: post #26
vinceguidry wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> startups who "growth hack" their way to success These exist? I mean, obviously the 'growth hacking' exists. Is there an example of a startup who managed to build a real business solely on the basis of these tactics? One that 'you can't argue with'? I wouldn't call Groupon a real business.

Reddit setup fake accounts/content. RapGenius seems to have had a guy doing some underhanded promotion. LinkedIn still does this stuff (or maybe it just started). Safe to assume there are others.

None of these examples are unqualified successes. Neither Reddit nor RapGenius have business models yet that are making any money. LinkedIn made roughly $5,200 per employee last year.

Re: YouTube's Biggest Draw Plays Games, Earns $4 Million a Year

#33

Post by jimejim »

sixQuarks wrote: post #4

When I was a kid, I always promised myself I would never become one of those lame adults that said things like "kids these days, look at the junk they listen/watch etc...!". PewDiePie has single-handily made me break that promise. WTF are kids watching these days????

To be fair, many of us used to watch He-man and a variety of other really bad tv before the internet came along. Now, there's just way more options to waste time.

It gets worse though. My daughter likes to watch some girl make up stories with barbie dolls and other similarly sized characters. Every one of the videos I've looked at has millions of views, so she's not alone. It's a little weird.

Re: YouTube's Biggest Draw Plays Games, Earns $4 Million a Year

#34

Post by jsnell »

nikster wrote: post #24
sixQuarks wrote: post #4

When I was a kid, I always promised myself I would never become one of those lame adults that said things like "kids these days, look at the junk they listen/watch etc...!". PewDiePie has single-handily made me break that promise. WTF are kids watching these days????

I have a 7 year old son who loves nothing more than youtube videos of a guy playing Zombies vs. Plants and commenting on it. Of course being a kid his video time is strictly limited. But the fact that he would choose that activity on his iPad vs. playing all sorts of games makes me think there is something huge there. Huge as in the future of mass entertainment. You know all those cheesy Sci-Fi books and movies where…

A colleague of mine told exactly the same story about his ~8yo son (even down to the game being Plants vs. Zombies). I thought he was exaggerating until I observed my 7yo nephew, who would spend the whole day watching MineCraft videos from YouTube if possible. Despite not really even playing MineCraft.

I don't understand the appeal at all, but you're almost certainly totally right that there's be something huge there.

Re: YouTube's Biggest Draw Plays Games, Earns $4 Million a Year

#36

Post by levifig »

I'm a 32-year old who has recorded some LP videos and who, not recording anymore, still watches other 30-some playing Minecraft on YouTube… :) I don't particularly jive with PewDiePie and the like but I watch others like Etho (ethoslab), BdoubleO (bdoubleo100) and a slew of others… :) It's fun!

As a developer-designer, I've had a few ideas around potential services around this stuff that I wish I had the time and resources to execute because I can totally see this market exploding right now… :)

Re: YouTube's Biggest Draw Plays Games, Earns $4 Million a Year

#37

Post by Vigil »

vinceguidry wrote: post #32
MichaelGG wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit setup fake accounts/content. RapGenius seems to have had a guy doing some underhanded promotion. LinkedIn still does this stuff (or maybe it just started). Safe to assume there are others.

None of these examples are unqualified successes. Neither Reddit nor RapGenius have business models yet that are making any money. LinkedIn made roughly $5,200 per employee last year.

Do you have anything to support those numbers? Honestly curious.

Re: YouTube's Biggest Draw Plays Games, Earns $4 Million a Year

#39

Post by quink »

fekberg wrote: post #30
aclements18 wrote: post #23

Not to take anything away from this young man (and Maker Studios) success here, but I thought it might be a good time to point out how YouTube math works. If his channel generates $4 million in ad revenue, Google/YouTube keeps about 45% and issues a check to Maker for the remaining $2.2m. Maker then takes another 10-30%. Still a substantial sum in the end, but I felt the title may potentially be misleading.

> The 24-year-old Mr. Kjellberg, who created PewDiePie five years ago, has parlayed his persona into a brand name that pulls in the equivalent of $4 million in ad sales a year, most of it pure profit. If it's $4 million "mostly profit" I would take that as what he gets before taxes. If he pays his taxes in Sweden I think closer to 70% of that would disappear.

What do you mean, 'disappear'? I'm pretty sure taxes charged on income doesn't just flow into government and then suddenly vanish without a trace.

> The 24-year-old Mr. Kjellberg, who created PewDiePie five years ago, has parlayed his persona into a brand name that pulls in the equivalent of $4 million in ad sales a year, most of it pure profit.

And I'm pretty sure the title isn't misleading - it's $4 million after YouTube's cut, which seems to check out, having cross-correlated other sources.

Re: YouTube's Biggest Draw Plays Games, Earns $4 Million a Year

#40

Post by vinceguidry »

Vigil wrote: post #37
vinceguidry wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of these examples are unqualified successes. Neither Reddit nor RapGenius have business models yet that are making any money. LinkedIn made roughly $5,200 per employee last year.

Do you have anything to support those numbers? Honestly curious.

The LinkedIn number I got from their Wikipedia page. Just divide the net income of $26 million by their 5k employees.

Article from last year about Reddit's struggle for profitability:

http://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-is-trying-to-become-pr...

Article on RapGenius's own struggle:

http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/01/rap-genius-enterprise/

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