530°

PewDiePie isn't just a popular Let's Play YouTuber, he's the $4M-a-year king of YouTube

The Wall Street Journal sets out to explore the metamorphosis of Felix Kjellberg into YouTube superstar PewDiePie, a YouTube phenom who creates Lets Play videos for 27 million subscribers, but it's likely the only thing you're going to remember from the story is a single fact.

pwnsause_returns4009d ago

when you think about it, this is why youtube(Google) is looking into buying twitch..

xHeavYx4009d ago

Damn, $4M for playing video games and editing videos. What a stressful life that must be /s

Timesplitter144009d ago

people like to give him shit but honestly I think he's a great guy and he's living the dream so there's really no reason to hate him except jealousy

cellur1114009d ago

4 million for screaming at the camera and acting like a 12 year old is more like it.

M-M4009d ago (Edited 4009d ago )

He's highly over-paid.

@Timesplitter14

He isn't a great guy, if he were to lose his fan base and had no chance of getting it back, you would really see what type of person he is. NONE of these people care about their fan base, it's all about that Youtube money. PewDiePie is set for life though(if he doesn't end up like every other failed "big" Youtuber that made bank then lost it all). You can try to call me jealous, but that's what every 12 year old PewDiePie fanboy says until they grow up and realize the truth lol.

miyamoto4009d ago

The only he plays mostly on is the PS3.
He popularized Shadow of the Colossus & The Last of Us too.

xHeavYx4009d ago

@miyamoto
"He popularized Shadow of the Colossus & The Last of Us too"
Yeah, like those 2 games needed to be "popularized"

Gazondaily4009d ago

I'm not really a fan of him. I just don't get his appeal. All he seems to do in his videos is scream. But some of his videos have been amusing.

Anyway, the hate train aside, good on him for making that paper.

johndoe112114009d ago

@Timesplitter14

Serious question here, does anyone older than 13 watch his videos?

johndoe112114009d ago (Edited 4009d ago )

@miyamoto

"He popularized Shadow of the Colossus & The Last of Us too"

What the hell are you smoking????

wsoutlaw874009d ago

thats just terrible. Make some stupid videos and get 4M$. And think there are people with real jobs lol. I dont really understand why people watch his videos but good for him i guess.

Timesplitter144009d ago (Edited 4009d ago )

@johndoe
probably not a whole lot. I myself never watch his videos, or think he's entertaining. Will you explain to me why would this even matter, though? Do you think the Reading Rainbow guy is a fucking asshole because his show appeals to a younger audience?

@M-M
Why does it matter if he cares about his fanbase or not? If I made videos, I'd do them either for me or for money, but never for other people. Becoming a fan isn't some kind of transaction where you say "okay I am your fan now so you owe me". Maybe it's you who should grow up and stop disliking anything that's popular "lol"

Whitefox7894009d ago

DarkSydePhil seems to think those qualities are too stressful. :D

-Foxtrot4009d ago (Edited 4009d ago )

So this guy gets 4 bloody million for screaming, telling out of date "jokes" and talking about rape

Well done guys...giving him hit after hit to a guy who doesn't deserve a bloody penny.

You could say I'm jelly...that would be correct but wouldn't you be if a guy like this is super rich for doing absolutely nothing when most of us have it rough and have to earn the stuff we want.

Want to know why this guy has so many views and has become popular...not because he's a good guy or has great videos but because years ago when he was first starting and you didn't have much fighting over viewers (very young Youtube) Youtube used to promote him on their front page BECAUSE the more views HE gets the more money YOUTUBE get.

Find it sickening how idiots like him get so much money for hardly doing anything yet soldiers who fight in the middle east get hardly nothing despite risking their lifes for us and their country. When they come out, are discharged or loose a limb they are usually tossed to the side and forgotten about

SilentNegotiator4009d ago (Edited 4009d ago )

Don't underestimate the work that goes behind entertainment. No one becomes as popular as him with a lot of marketing, going over a lot of paperwork (from publishers that send him games, lawyers, accountants, etc), working to secure titles to show off (or at least, he did at the beginning - now publishers probably beg him, pay him, etc to get just one video on their game), and getting a lot of other details straight. Granted, he probably did a lot more work back in the day before he was popular, but I'm sure he still does a lot more than you're making it out to be.

M-M4009d ago

@Timesplitter14

All I can do is laugh at your arrogance.

shivvy244009d ago

Just checked out one of his vids
"my name is pewdiepie, and here is cutie pie"
Okay I'm f'''ing out !

UltraNova4009d ago

@Foxtrot

Agreed but,

" Find it sickening how idiots like him get so much money for hardly doing anything yet soldiers who fight in the middle east get hardly nothing despite risking their lifes for us and their country. When they come out, are discharged or loose a limb they are usually tossed to the side and forgotten about"

Lets cut the patriotic act here for a moment, we all know what those brave souls truly fought and suffered for, and is sure as hell wasn't ONLY for their country.

Fu@@@@ politics.

Bimkoblerutso4008d ago

At the end of the day, I'm just more baffled than I am enraged. Pewdiepie makes some of the most ridiculously stupid crap I have ever seen, and yet...he has the power to make even Flappy Bird a cultural phenomenon. How stupid are we getting that we give a man like Pewdiepie this much power and money?

Denethor_II4008d ago

"I think he's a great guy and he's living the dream so there's really no reason to hate him except jealousy"

Why would any one be jealous of a guy who earns $4M playing games? Yeah I'm not jealous.

darren_poolies4008d ago

Everyone who makes Youtube Let's Play videos would love to be in his position. Fair enough if you don't like him but he has an audience and they like what he does. He started from the bottom and has made his way to the top so good for him, no need to be bitter.

ravinash4008d ago

A lot of people out there get lucky by doing the right thing at the right time.

You may not like his stuff, personally I never heard of him till now. But fact of the matter is he was doing something he enjoyed and he managed to make money out of it.
If any of us were in him shoes, we would have done the exact same thing.

ocelot074008d ago

I don't get why this guy gets a lot of shit? Now I have watched a few of his video's. He is ok I suppose. What he does is not really my thing.

All I can say is well done to the guy. He took the risk and started making silly video's. It paid off people like what he was doing. It could of went another direction people could of seen his video's and thought wow what a tosser. No one would of watched his video's and he would of been sitting there with noting other than embarrassing video's of him self on the internet. Pewdiepie did something what me and am pretty sure a lot of other people won't do in there life time. That is make silly video's on youtube for all to see. So well done to him he took the risk and it paid off.

Look at boogie2988 am a fan of his. Now he is a funny guy with his Francis character. Am pretty sure he gets a decent amount of money from youtube (over 1 million subs). Now look at the guy he is a big guy and if you look in the comment section he gets a lot of shit because of his weight. Now am nowhere near as big as boogie. But I do have a big bear belly. Now I can't see my self doing what boogie does. He goes on camera and tries to make people laugh. But he takes the hurtfull comments in his stride and makes fun of him self. I honestly couldn't do that. If a bunch of people started calling me fat and horrible things I would close my youtube account down. So well done to boogie he deserves what ever money he makes from youtube.

Then you have youtubers like Totalbiscut. I like totalbiscut. All he does is first impressions of video games. But what ever money he makes he deservers it. Because if it was not for him I and many other people would of wasted there money on poorly made PC titles.

Nerdcubed funny guy he reviews games and does comedy with them at the same time. If it was not for him I wouldn't give a shit about indie games. I would of missed out on titles like Trine 2 ect.

FrankieIn1080p and JackFrags. If it was not for these 2 I would not of known about DayZ. Frankie mostly does entertaining video's of Dayz and JackFrags mostly does entertaining video's of Battlefield. Both have a lot of subscribers and both deserve that ever money they get from youtube video's.

Then there are youtubers like Ashens. This guy gets sent shit from fans (not actually shit) and buys crap from poundshops and reviews said items. It is entertaining to me and many others. The guy even made a god damn movie for his fans. So yes he deserves what ever money he gets from youtube.

Sorry for the big statement here. But what am getting at. Anyone can do what these people do. Anyone can go on camera and review games or scream in front of a camera. Or review items from poundland. If your winging about them making money. Then why not try it your self? You never know if your entertaining enough then you may also get paid a lot of money from making youtube videos.

I simply won't because I simply don't have the balls to do any of what them youtubers I just mentioned do.

I do have a youtube account my self and I have made a bit of money from it. Simply by making gaming video's. Without scraming down the mic or acting silly on camera.

JD_Shadow4008d ago (Edited 4008d ago )

Good lord, not many people who actually DO LPs knows what goes into making them.

You have to, for one, play a game you're enjoying and are good at, have a good personality that people are going to want to listen to (they are coming for you more than the game itself, though the gameplay helps), know a lot about either Sony Vegas or Adobe Premiere and things like audio leveling, have a good game capture software program (I use Dxtory), take the time to encode the video correctly, and upload it to YouTube (or wherever). It's harder than you give it credit for.

For instance, my Watch Dogs playthrough work consists of me taking a day to record a whole bunch of episodes, getting them all encoded to MP4 format (because AVIs are way too large for both YouTube and my hard drives), getting the sound quality to a respectable level, sometimes queuing them into a batch encoder program, then uploading them to YouTube. Uploading alone can take up to three hours, depending on length and size of the video (I render all in 1080p, which means it will take a good bit). Not to mention that I know some of what I'm doing with Dxtory, Premiere, Photoshop, and Audition.

Not to mention that you need to have a passion for the work you're doing. Some people just want free stuff. The people that really succeed (like PDP and Jessie Cox) do so because people who watch them know that they care about what happens in the industry, and have a passion for what they do. You may not like some of them, but you should give the devil its due sometimes.

Rute4008d ago (Edited 4008d ago )

...how can he be unpatriotic for USA when he's not even American? He's a Swede.

BLAKHOODe4008d ago

@Timesplitter14

You are basically right, but I don't think it's necessarily jealousy. It's the same as Justin Bieber, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and the Kardashians' fame. People tend to turn against anything that becomes popular. We naturally rebel, but for some odd reason still buy into it. We're all mental.

4008d ago
Kidmyst4008d ago

27M subscribers and I've never heard of him until now. But then I very rarely go on Youtube unless following a link. I'm more a liveleak person myself.

360ICE4008d ago

He apparently gives a fair share to charity, so that's something. I like PewDiePie. Sure, I don't think he's the best YouTuber, but he's pretty funny.

MetaReapre4008d ago

I don't get all the hate that he gets, he supports charities to convince people to donate to them, he donates his own money too. I've never heard of him being such a bad guy and he respects his viewers. Why the hate in these comments?

Stoppokingme4008d ago

don't worry, fifteen minutes from now he'll be somebody that you used to know.

Or in my case, somebody that I never knew.

+ Show (28) more repliesLast reply 4008d ago
Matt6664009d ago

I can't stand him he so annoying

Blaze9294008d ago

he's not even funny or entertaining. It's almost Monopolistic because of those high number subscriber counts and people just flock to bs. smh

+ Show (2) more repliesLast reply 4008d ago
Geekman4009d ago

I bet Tobuscus is letting off a bunch of "God Dangits" right now.

Conzul4009d ago (Edited 4009d ago )

I find them both annoying.
They are little more than prettyboys with expert command of the cutesy nonsense that the YT crowd seems to love.

And PewdiePie is the worst. Back in the day I made the mistake of starting to watch his TLOU playthrough....and when he wouldn't stop yammering right up till Sarah's death I wanted to reach through the screen and punch his disrespectful, narcissistic ass!!!

Geekman4009d ago

Thanks for spoiling the game.

SilentNegotiator4009d ago

It's not like any of us are waiting for the HD remaster. Thanks a lot.

Conzul4009d ago

It.
Has.
Been.
One.
Year.

Get over yourselves.

Export4008d ago

Dont tell them about ellie dying in the end then.... oh yea Spoiler!

ravinash4008d ago

No one dies...they all live happily ever after.

+ Show (2) more repliesLast reply 4008d ago
KonsoruMasuta4009d ago

I don't like this guy's content but ipI have to say that he must live a nice life. He makes money doing what he loves and that's what matters.

xHeavYx4009d ago

He does a lot of charity too. I read that he has collected $1M towards different charities so far

wsoutlaw874009d ago

i dont really know anything about this kid and didnt even know who he was until a few months ago but a lot of people can collect money for charity. Just read the article and it explains his contributions. All he has to do is say he supports it then all the money the actual organization raises gets said as him helping raise that money. Supporting and helping charities is a lot different than donating your own money. He donated a total of 10,000 on his own charity and did it on the condition that he got x number of views (which he gets paid for).

xHeavYx4009d ago

@Above
Let me know when you collect $1M for charity

SilentNegotiator4009d ago

@Heavy

It doesn't count if he takes the time to use his celebrity to help move a million dollars towards charities. I mean, he may as well have not done it at all. /s

TricksterArrow4008d ago

@SilentNegotiator

My opinions on PewDiePie aside, I honestly believe that anything you can do pro-charity is commendable. The people in need don´t really care how you raise the money to help them fight hunger, poverty...

You´re basically saying that if Angelina Jolie agrees to make a commercial and the millions of fans she has just so happen to follow her advice and donate, I shouldn´t kudos her for flocking everyone, as well as for the people donating because reasons? :|

MadLad4009d ago (Edited 4009d ago )

The face of gamers then . . .
You pander to the young, you get a young audience. People then wonder why games still are often times looked at as a kid's thing from those not in the know. When Pewdiepie, and to a less extent Tobuscus, are seen as the kings of Youtube gaming - a strong arm of the gaming scene as a whole - well, you get what you get.
More power to the guy. He's making a great living having fun, I just don't approve of his idea of "comedy".

0P-Tigrex4009d ago (Edited 4009d ago )

And he has a hot girlfriend. This guy is livin it.

Double_O_Revan4009d ago

Well, when you make 4M a year, I'm sure there are plenty of hot girls that are suddenly 'interested in the nerdy guy that plays video games for a living.'

cellur1114009d ago (Edited 4009d ago )

He was dating her before he got popular.

cyguration4009d ago

He doesn't look nerdy at all.

In fact, even if he wasn't a millionaire most people would probably consider him above-average.

Elda4009d ago

Absolutely!!..money makes the world go round & when a guy has a few million in his bank account alot of women in their eyes & mindset will presume he looks fantastic.

Elda4009d ago

@cyguration..he looks like the nerd "Monroe" from the 80's sitcom "Too close for comfort"

specialguest4009d ago

Whether you hate his videos are not, he didn't just accidentally stumbled into 4mil. It takes a special kind of personality(like it or hate it), timing, and dedication to win over so many subs and hits, and he managed to do it. He made the money. The money didn't make him. You can't just discredit the guy for being a millionaire. He earned it and one of the side effects of it is hot women flocking to him.

+ Show (2) more repliesLast reply 4009d ago
dodgemoose4009d ago

Just looked her up. Hot, but can imagine that voice getting old real fast.

Show all comments (149)
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Welshy714d ago

Wasn't this touted as a feature of Stadia previously and never came to fruition? I swear I remember a whole thing about "watching a youtuber play Assassins Creed? Just hit the embedded play button and immediately jump to exactly where they are in the game!"

just_looken714d ago

It was then it came out in beta i tried it then like alot of google stuff poof gone into the either.

Now its back no doubt behind there youtube paywall crap after you buy the game sense they supported stadia so well you know this will get all that support also.

gold_drake714d ago

google should be more focusing on their google play games to function on pcs already.

i dont wanna wait any longer haha

just_looken714d ago

Windows 11 can do that right now
https://www.androidauthorit...

Though yes janky it would be nice if it was from google but like m$ and its xbox pc app these trillion dollar companies take there time on everything.

GoodGuy09714d ago

Makes sense. Youtube is...a very big platform and been around very long lol. If I could go to a game streaming tab on my youtube app instantly, that'd be cool honestly.

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Ozzy24071067d ago

PSVR version has the original vector game in it. Plays great in VR