YouTube Video Game Star PewDiePie Earns $4 Million Per Year

[McNeil]

All news copied from a Gamespot article:

He dropped out of college and started selling hot dogs; now, 24-year-old Felix Kjellberg AKA PewDiePie is a leading force on YouTube with 27 million subscribers.

Swedish YouTube phenom Felix Kjellberg, better known to gamers as PewDiePie, has 27 million subscribers and pulls in around $4 million in ad sales per year. Most of this is straight profit, according to a profile of Kjellberg published in The Wall Street Journal.

Kjellberg, 24, created PewDiePie five years ago. In December of 2012, he signed a deal with online video content creator Maker Studios, which sold itself to media giant Disney just a few months ago.

He is best known for his funny videos that aren't video game reviews, but rather "Let's Play"-style programs where he plays a title and narrates his experience. In the past two weeks alone, he's posted more than two dozen videos featuring games like Among The Sleep and Next Car Game. With the exception of one video that went up today, all of these videos have attracted more than 2 million views.

Kjellberg admits that the kind of videos he's making are, in some ways, encouraging developers to create games that are not only fun to play, but to also watch others play. "It's cool to have this kind of influence, but at the same time it's kind of scary," Kjellberg said.

Before he rose to fame as a YouTube star, Kjellberg went to college in Gothenburg, Sweden, uploading videos during his spare time. He later dropped out of school and starting selling hot dogs instead.

Where did the name PewDiePie come from? Kjellberg says the original name for his YouTube account was PewDie ("pew" for the sound of a laser gun and "die" for death), but after he lost his account password he had to come up with a new name, so he added "Pie" to it.

His prominence on YouTube is somewhat unsettling, he said. "I'm so central to YouTube now, and that puts me in the spotlight and raises a lot of questions like 'Why is he so big?'" Kjellberg said. "I'd much rather prefer to have something like 5 million subscribers."

Love or hate the guy... but I would love to earn that money by playing video games. I'm personally not a fan of all his work, I did like some Dark Souls and The Forest playthoughs he made. But I can understand why people find this guy so annoying, I wouldn't like hearing his voice all day...

Also not sure if this belonged in the Video Games or General subforum.

[Anium]

I have a feeling he earns 7 million a year, and that's just from youtube!
He's a top guy, entertaining as fuck, although it may not be the greatest most intelligent channel to watch he still gets my vote
Just goes to show you can do what you want when you put your mind to it. That being said he's dedicated years to this.

[-aiko-]

Insane, completely insane.

I find a lot of his stuff funny but I would never be able to explain why he is so popular. I'm jelly.
I have 100 subscribers and my highest viewed video only hase 60k views.

[Sainur]

Fuck him. Don't know why he is so famous, I watched a video of him playing Slender once... didn't even bother subbing. Also I don't find him funny at all.

There is only 1 entertainment channel on YT that am I subbed to, the one and only ELPRESADOR.

[SoulForge]

I had never heard of this guy until this thread.

Probably still won't remember him later!

[Deleted]

That's insane. Very nice work of him though. I'm sort of jealous now

I follow a few YouTube people, but all of them on Feedly. Guess I should also subscribe them on YT so they earn a little bit of extra cash :P

[zito]

He himself doesn't even know why he is popular

:l

Just proves further that collage is a waste of time and puts you in debt for the rest of your life :l

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

Absolutely disgusting.

[Nekovivie]

Guy gonna be set for life from just playing vidya gaims and he's only a kid.

[Deleted]

Good for him, i dont really watch his videos so i don't really care, but its nice that people can earn so much money just from youtube.

[Crackleslap]

He makes donations for charities all the time. Which his fan base contribute too. In total so far, Felix and his "bros" have contributed $1 million to charity.

[zealo]

Good for him but can't say i particularly care very much about him either. His content is very clearly not aimed towards the demographic i am in but i wont judge others for it. Even so i find it slightly insane he has so many subs in regard to the style and theme of his videos.

[MrLordDariusCrowley]

Fun video that could be part of the reason PewDiePie became so popular a Youtuber, but that's just a theory, a Game Theory.

Couldn't resist posting this video, just couldn't.

[Antbregante]

I watched him do a few play throughs when I would rather watch a game then go through it myself. The truth is he puts a lot of work into his stuff. He drops a ton of videos and must spend a ton of time playing and editing them. I really don't see it as any worse then one of those highly paid company executives. Good for him.

[dd614]

I've never heard of this fellow until reading this. Is he one of the best gamers on the planet or just a very entertaining one? Can't watch videos atm so I'm asking.

[Terahertz]

I was already aware of how much money YouTubers make. Just fill in the name of the YouTube channel and you can find an estimate of how much money the channels makes per month and per year as well as how many viewers they get each day: http://socialblade.com/youtube/user/pewdiepie

Kinda insane.

[Deleted]

As for those wondering about Pewdiepie's popularity, this might be a good place to start:

EDIT:

Your post wasn't there when I posted mine QQ

Fun video that could be part of the reason PewDiePie became so popular a Youtuber, but that's just a theory, a Game Theory.

Couldn't resist posting this video, just couldn't.

[RoKPaNda]

The only reason I've even heard of him before this thread is because a streamer I watch was talking about this guy being a total bigot.

While I think it's amazing that a gamer can make good money just being a gamer, this guy .... ehhhhh.

[Alvito]

Fuck him. Don't know why he is so famous, I watched a video of him playing Slender once... didn't even bother subbing. Also I don't find him funny at all.

There is only 1 entertainment channel on YT that am I subbed to, the one and only ELPRESADOR.

Reasonable reaction to something you don't like, but others do.

[Deleted]

Reasonable reaction to something you don't like, but others do.

A common reaction on the internet unfortunately, not liking something instantly turns to hate.