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PewDiePie responds to talks about how much he makes

RE: revenue generation for devs / pubs...

For every major game that he's covered and generated sales for, there's other games that people haven't bought but still got the majority of the experience for free by watching his videos. Is that fair to the devs / pubs who made those games? Don't you think they should at least be partially compensated by getting a share of the advertising revenue?

Again, genuine interest...

I personally don't feel that way. Hell, there was the Skate incident, where a game being glitchy and stupid was reason enough for so many people buy it after his videos, that it was reprinted years after release.

So I assume if people are willing to buy broken games just because his videos about them were funny, watching a good single player game won't make them less likely to buy it than they were before.

I've played Catherine quite a lot already, but I've been wanting to replay it for some time, and his recent playthrough didn't really help with that, actually, just made me want to play it even more.

But yeah, I guess it depends on how you personally feel about full playthroughs. The only cases where I even watch a full playthrough of a game I didn't play myself are cases where I'm very interested in the story but I have no plans to buy any of the platforms I can play it on. So they're not really losing a sale from me, I wouldn't buy it anyway. On the contrary, if I like it and maybe someday they port it to a platform I own, they might have a sale from someone who maybe wouldn't care anymore.
 
Ok that video was great, his response to the comments was fantastic, got big respect for this guy even if I don't like the videos.
 
It doesn't matter actually.. the same could be said about youtubers who show off the newest tech gadget or cosmetic products. If anything, his endorsement generates more sales.

I could buy the same products and make my own youtube channel: None of the products he has are limited to him.

As I understand it he gets paid to play unreleased games by devs / pubs these days due to his massive success so that's not true. He does get access to games other people don't have.

His endorsement can generate sales for sure - what about if he says he doesn't like something? Surely that can harm sales? Or what about people who were on the fence about a game and decided since they could get the majority of the experience for free by watching his videos that they won't bother buying the game? Is that fair to the devs / pubs who invested years and millions into that game?

Ultimately, I feel the devs / pubs deserve a slice of the pie since I feel it's the games that make the majority of his content - but again, I'm biased since I make games.
 
It's basically obscene that YouTube personalities make this kind of money but it's nothing new, looks at sports and music and film etc

But in the case of pewdiepie he is truly infantile and utterly talentless so he's legit on the level of contempt I have for people like Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian.

Just because he can edit a simple video about video games doesn't make him somehow better than any of the other vapid celebrities out there.
 
The thing with Youtube guys like him is that it's actually incredibly taxing and long.

I mean - look at Game Grumps. Just some dudes playing video games,right?

They have to produce 3-5 videos per day, usually with a variety of extra stuff they have to add, every day of the week. Watching the videos, even if they're only 10 minutes long, that's a lot of content to do PER DAY, and having enough to keep the weekend with more content as well. Listening to those guys, they tend to play a bit of the game beforehand as well to make sure they know what they're doing, and some times they're there till 2AM.

And at the same time, some of them still work their ass off doing awesome animation stuff, and have a band where they've seemingly made an album each year worth of content.
 
As I understand it he gets paid to play unreleased games by devs / pubs these days due to his massive success so that's not true. He does get access to games other people don't have.

His endorsement can generate sales for sure - what about if he says he doesn't like something? Surely that can harm sales? Or what about people who were on the fence about a game and decided since they could get the majority of the experience for free by watching his videos that they won't bother buying the game? Is that fair to the devs / pubs who invested years and millions into that game?

Ultimately, I feel the devs / pubs deserve a slice of the pie since I feel it's the games that make the majority of his content - but again, I'm biased since I make games.

If you make games you are doing something that is both far more technical and far more creative, required far more education and presumably takes far more man hours.

There is no reasonable reason that this guy or any other YouTuber like him should earn more than you. End of story.

I don't care if he is entertaining and I know it's true of so many other fields like reality TV stars etc. but that doesn't change the fact that it's absolute fucking bullshit.

Keep doing what you do because when you and pewdiepie look back on your life's work, sure he will have tons of cash but in any true measure of a man's labour you will far surpass him.
 
As I understand it he gets paid to play unreleased games by devs / pubs these days due to his massive success so that's not true. He does get access to games other people don't have.

His endorsement can generate sales for sure - what about if he says he doesn't like something? Surely that can harm sales? Or what about people who were on the fence about a game and decided since they could get the majority of the experience for free by watching his videos that they won't bother buying the game? Is that fair to the devs / pubs who invested years and millions into that game?

Ultimately, I feel the devs / pubs deserve a slice of the pie since I feel it's the games that make the majority of his content - but again, I'm biased since I make games.

I don't think the time/money invested argument is really relevant.

All the games I don't give a shit about and don't buy also required a ridiculous amount of work to be made, all the games I play and think are trash also required a lot of work and money, the team dedicated their lives to it, and I think it's garbage.

If you can get a way to properly quantify how much of the money he makes comes from people who would buy the game if he didn't cover it, and how does that compare to people who only bought the game after watching his videos, then we could start having this conversation. If you're including the money he made from the ads I watched during his Catherine videos, a game I already bought twice, then it's nonsense.
 
I don't think the time/money invested argument is really relevant.

All the games I don't give a shit about and don't buy also required a ridiculous amount of work to be made, all the games I play and think are trash also required a lot of work and money, the team dedicated their lives to it, and I think it's garbage.

If you can get a way to properly quantify how much of the money he makes comes from people who would buy the game if he didn't cover it, and how does that compare to people who only bought the game after watching his videos, then we could start having this conversation. If you're including the money he made from the ads I watched during his Catherine videos, a game I already bought twice, then it's nonsense.

We're not talking about games that people wouldn't buy anyway - they aren't lost sales.

We're talking about games that people would have bought but decided not to because they could view the game through a playthough video for free anyway. They are lost sales.

For example the five hour playthough video of the order 1666 (not saying that was PDP) - apparently that absolutely killed sales for Sony because people could get the full experience for nothing so why bother? Yes, the game wasn't much good to start with but it generated a lot of video hits so people were interested in it.

My question is how many of his 37 million are people like that / how many games has he reviewed that have led to these lost sales? Don't those games deserve some of the advertising revenue (even if it's a tiny sized good gesture slice) those videos have generated?
 
If you make games you are doing something that is both far more technical and far more creative, required far more education and presumably takes far more man hours.

There is no reasonable reason that this guy or any other YouTuber like him should earn more than you. End of story.

I don't care if he is entertaining and I know it's true of so many other fields like reality TV stars etc. but that doesn't change the fact that it's absolute fucking bullshit.

Keep doing what you do because when you and pewdiepie look back on your life's work, sure he will have tons of cash but in any true measure of a man's labour you will far surpass him.

oh wow, thanks for that - much appreciated! :)
 
We're not talking about games that people wouldn't buy anyway - they aren't lost sales.

We're talking about games that people would have bought but decided not to because they could view the game through a playthough video for free anyway. They are lost sales.

For example the five hour playthough video of the order 1666 (not saying that was PDP) - apparently that absolutely killed sales for Sony because people could get the full experience for nothing so why bother? Yes, the game wasn't much good to start with but it generated a lot of video hits so people were interested in it.

My question is how many of his 37 million are people like that / how many games has he reviewed that have led to these lost sales? Don't those games deserve some of the advertising revenue (even if it's a tiny sized good gesture slice) those videos have generated?

This is impossible to quantify. It's the same reason why piracy doesn't amount to lost sales, either - there's no way to know if someone would have actually bought the game if they couldn't watch or download it for free.
 
We're not talking about games that people wouldn't buy anyway - they aren't lost sales.

We're talking about games that people would have bought but decided not to because they could view the game through a playthough video for free anyway. They are lost sales.

For example the five hour playthough video of the order 1666 (not saying that was PDP) - apparently that absolutely killed sales for Sony because people could get the full experience for nothing so why bother? Yes, the game wasn't much good to start with but it generated a lot of video hits so people were interested in it.

My question is how many of his 37 million are people like that / how many games has he reviewed that have led to these lost sales? Don't those games deserve some of the advertising revenue (even if it's a tiny sized good gesture slice) those videos have generated?

But how do you quantify that? I would never buy The Order anyway, the game looks terrible to me, if I watch a playthrough because I know the person playing will probably hate it as much as I would and I'd like to laugh at their comments, would you count that as a lost sale? Probably not, judging by your posts, but how do you identify my personal experience when you look at the numbers?
 
He make no money = nobody care
He make money = everyone suddently care

Its all about money money money ....

He can make as much as he wants. Doesnt affect me. I dont really understand who get mad at him. Really. Why? Jelous? Then get out off your fat ass and do something!
 
My issue is I feel like he tries to present himself as "self made man." Talks about working at a hot dog stand and says that money isn't that important. Of course money was never important to him, there was already a lot of it available to him.

That’s the difference between someone like him taking a job selling hot dogs, and someone who needs a job taking a job like that. When you know you can walk anytime and have a safety net, it can be a lot of fun. When you’re dependent on it for your survival, that's completely different. He doesn't know the difference (quoting someone else here because they worded it better than I could).

I don’t hate him or what he's doing (the whole shtick is grating, but that's not what I take issue with).
 
This is impossible to quantify. It's the same reason why piracy doesn't amount to lost sales, either - there's no way to know if someone would have actually bought the game if they couldn't watch or download it for free.

oh I dunno - I'm sure publishers spend money on metric unit testing and could probably come up with reasonably accurate data to quantify it one way of the other. I don't believe they would be paying him to play their games if they didn't have data to say it was a good idea for example?

It's all hypothetical anyway but here's a thought experiment - have you bought all the games you've ever watched a playthrough of?

It's more the principal of the matter - I think the devs / pubs should be getting paid (even a small amount) for the amount of page hits the playthroughs of their games generate. Trying to gauge gamer attitude to it as I'm curious
 
If you make games you are doing something that is both far more technical and far more creative, required far more education and presumably takes far more man hours.

There is no reasonable reason that this guy or any other YouTuber like him should earn more than you. End of story.

I don't care if he is entertaining and I know it's true of so many other fields like reality TV stars etc. but that doesn't change the fact that it's absolute fucking bullshit.

Keep doing what you do because when you and pewdiepie look back on your life's work, sure he will have tons of cash but in any true measure of a man's labour you will far surpass him.

Yeah man. He may have his millions and a big house and legions of people who adore him and everything else but he will never have the satisfied feeling of having done a 9-5 dead end job for 30+ years and retiring with barely anything to show for it. You totally got that over him.

The salty bitter people that these threads bring out are always good for a laugh.

LOVE IT! :D
 
My issue is I feel like he tries to present himself as "self made man." Talks about working at a hot dog stand and says that money isn't that important. Of course money was never important to him, there was already a lot of it available to him.

That’s the difference between someone like him taking a job selling hot dogs, and someone who needs a job taking a job like that. When you know you can walk anytime and have a safety net, it can be a lot of fun. When you’re dependent on it for your survival, that's completely different. He doesn't know the difference (quoting someone else here because they worded it better than I could).

I don’t hate him or what he's doing (the whole shtick is grating, but that's not what I take issue with).

Was he loaded already or something?
 
I think most of the criticism toward him is less toward PewDiPie and more "Really? This is what kids like? Couldn't they like something better?"

There's nothing really wrong with the guy (I assume he stopped making weird rape jokes? For some reason that's what I remember him most for), but at the same time I think he's kind of like the transformers of youtube. Big, loud, dumb, but still draws in millions of people while the rest stand around asking "why?"
 
I don't understand the hate he gets for making money. The guy started with 0 subscribers just like everyone else but has built his channel and has become incredibly successful. The fact is that he provides entertainment for millions of people who want to watch him and his reactions to games. It's the same way that actors/musicians/sports are all paid to entertain the masses. Most of the hate stems from jealousy that he's successful and they're not.
 
oh I dunno - I'm sure publishers spend money on metric unit testing and could probably come up with reasonably accurate data to quantify it one way of the other. I don't believe they would be paying him to play their games if they didn't have data to say it was a good idea for example?

It's all hypothetical anyway but here's a thought experiment - have you bought all the games you've ever watched a playthrough of?

It's more the principal of the matter - I think the devs / pubs should be getting paid (even a small amount) for the amount of page hits the playthroughs of their games generate. Trying to gauge gamer attitude to it as I'm curious

Well, I mostly watch playthroughs of stuff I already played, so.

Also, Youtube isn't charity, if PewDiePie is making this much by playing games on youtube, you can bet Google is making a lot more, should Google pay devs and publishers too?

I feel like reactions to how much youtubers make with the "some of that should go to devs" are out of pure envy. Surely Google could afford to give the devs a cut without taking a cent of the youtuber? Not that I think they should.
 
I don't understand the hate he gets for making money. The guy started with 0 subscribers just like everyone else but has built his channel and has become incredibly successful. The fact is that he provides entertainment for millions of people who want to watch him and his reactions to games. It's the same way that actors/musicians/sports are all paid to entertain the masses. Most of the hate stems from jealousy that he's successful and they're not.

Is he successful because of the games he plays or because of himself?

People say it's both (but my question remains - how successful would he have become without the games?) - so that means both parties should get a share of the money but right now, the people who made the games get nothing.
 
If you have issue with how much money he makes, let me tell you about the financial sector, where they make the same money, except also do so by ruining people's retirement savings and slowly tearing the fabric of society.

Whoah, where did my soapbox from from?
 
Yeah man. He may have his millions and a big house and legions of people who adore him and everything else but he will never have the satisfied feeling of having done a 9-5 dead end job for 30+ years and retiring with barely anything to show for it. You totally got that over him.

The salty bitter people that these threads bring out are always good for a laugh.

LOVE IT! :D

I'm a doctor, if anything makes me salty and bitter about my life it won't be a dead end job, but sure, I'm unlikely to have any millions or a big house, particularly as I specialise in diseases of the developing world.

But yeah carry on worshipping the perverted economy we live in.
 
If you make games you are doing something that is both far more technical and far more creative, required far more education and presumably takes far more man hours.

There is no reasonable reason that this guy or any other YouTuber like him should earn more than you. End of story.

I don't care if he is entertaining and I know it's true of so many other fields like reality TV stars etc. but that doesn't change the fact that it's absolute fucking bullshit.

Keep doing what you do because when you and pewdiepie look back on your life's work, sure he will have tons of cash but in any true measure of a man's labour you will far surpass him.
Yea shame on him and others that make entertainment that you don't like..
On his death bed he will look back at his life and see what a waste it has been!! /s

That's what I got out of reading your post..

Hopefully the person you replied to will make great
games and feel that his time making them are spend correctly:)
But to insinuate that what pewdiepie does is just a cash grab is a little silly, because it's hard work to maintain popularity on YouTube for longer than a day..
I'm sorry but it seems really childish to use so much energy on something you don't like.
But have great day/evening and don't let other people succes get you down :)
 
Youtube isn't charity, if PewDiePie is making this much by playing games on youtube, you can bet Google is making a lot more, should Google pay devs and publishers too?

I don't know how the advertising payments work on youtube - do the advertisers pay google who then pay the youtube celebs?
 
Keep doing what you do because when you and pewdiepie look back on your life's work, sure he will have tons of cash but in any true measure of a man's labour you will far surpass him.

Sure, he's doing the work he enjoys and is payed good money for it, while others work their shitty desk jobs that they need in order to feed their kids. And they cannot wait to leave the office at the end of the day, and they can only dream to have that kind of life where you can do what you dreamed of.
But clearly the latter are better off. Everyone will look up to their life and admire them for their hard labour.

How many people do you think actually love their jobs?
 
His parents are. And I do realize wealthy parents don't have to give loads of money to their children. But I believe his socioeconomic status made a difference when he started out.

Even if he was rich when he started out (and he wasn't necessarily, his parents might have had some money but that didn't mean he had a bunch) what would it matter? I think people tend to forget that he didn't start YouTube trying to make money - there was no PewDiePie before PewDiePie, gaming wasn't really a hot sector to make money from YouTube in.
 
I'm a doctor, if anything makes me salty and bitter about my life it won't be a dead end job, but sure, I'm unlikely to have any millions or a big house, particularly as I specialise in diseases of the developing world.

But yeah carry on worshipping the perverted economy we live in.

The amount of jealous "people like me should be this loved and rich and popular" that's leaking through your posts is almost sad.

I would legitimately feel bad for you but jealousy isnt endearing. Try not to let the success of others make you this bitter. :)
 
His parents are. And I do realize wealthy parents don't have to give loads of money to their children. But I believe his socioeconomic status made a difference when he started out.

How do we know this? I mean, also in that video he said he wasn't able to pay the rent and a new computer. It doesn't look like his parents were helping him so much at all.

I don't know how the advertising payments work on youtube - do the advertisers pay google who then pay the youtube celebs?

Advertisers pay google and youtubers get a 30% cut of that once a certain amount of views is reached, if I understand correctly.
 
You do have good intentions OT.

However, linking to one of his videos or a website article is part of the problem or the problem people have with the personality and the situation in the first place. The information should be openly disscussed in this topic and devoid of any type of compromises or attachments.

Btw, i have no qualms with this youtube personality. Infact, i find it kind of amazing what seems to be an average person (at least his gaming and comedic skills) could find so much fortune in todays world.

Hmm? I don't understand what the OP did wrong? What's the problem?
 
Just watched a PewDiePie video for the first time. I'd heard the name, but never seen or heard him, so I gave it a look.

Obnoxious and annoying, obviously. But I'm not surprised by his success. And his popularity/wealth doesn't seem any more ridiculous or unfair than tons of cases of people who make it big in Hollywood, or whatever.

Of course, I'm opposed to the way our economy and social structure is set up in the first place, which allows people like this to be fabulously wealthy while other people are dying on the street. But as an instance within our system, this PewDiePie thing just makes me shrug.
 
Even if he was rich when he started out (and he wasn't necessarily, his parents might have had some money but that didn't mean he had a bunch) what would it matter? I think people tend to forget that he didn't start YouTube trying to make money - there was no PewDiePie before PewDiePie, gaming wasn't really a hot sector to make money from YouTube in.

It's still surprising to me that a gaming related channel ended up being this popular.


I don't know. You would think the most popular channel would be about something more mainstream.
 
Even if he was rich when he started out (and he wasn't necessarily, his parents might have had some money but that didn't mean he had a bunch) what would it matter? I think people tend to forget that he didn't start YouTube trying to make money - there was no PewDiePie before PewDiePie, gaming wasn't really a hot sector to make money from YouTube in.
He inherited his parents YouTube follwers! Didn't you know?
 
His parents are. And I do realize wealthy parents don't have to give loads of money to their children. But I believe his socioeconomic status made a difference when he started out.

Other than the fact that he quit college to sell hotdogs to make ends meet and then sold some of his artwork to buy some new equipment to record videos on.

Yeah he was totally born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
 
I can't watch the video right now but does he state that he does in fact make that much?

Cause that is crazy impressive if so. Youtube man, some of these people on it are killing it.
 
Even if he was rich when he started out (and he wasn't necessarily, his parents might have had some money but that didn't mean he had a bunch) what would it matter? I think people tend to forget that he didn't start YouTube trying to make money - there was no PewDiePie before PewDiePie, gaming wasn't really a hot sector to make money from YouTube in.

See my post above the one you quoted. Quitting uni and getting a job selling hot dogs for shits and gigs so one can make game videos is a luxury that a lot of people will never have because of real life stuff and things.

Yes, semantically speaking everyone out there could do the same thing. Making YT videos is available to all, but when average-joe's channel isn't bringing in enough ad revenue to put food on the table, tough cookies. PDP essentially had a free pass to give the YT thing a shot and it worked. Had it not, he would still have a nice safety net to get back on his feet.
 
See my post above the one you quoted. Quitting uni and getting a job selling hot dogs for shits and gigs so one can make game videos is a luxury that a lot of people will never have because of real life stuff and things.

Did you even watch the video?

He got a job so that he could live, he couldn't afford a new computer to record on till he sold some artwork he made.
 
Not really much of a follower, but I have seen some of his videos here and there. And I'll admit while most of the time it's a bit over the top, he can sometimes be pretty funny. Besides, he knows his audience and kids love that type of humor. He's worked hard to get to where he is at (making that many videos, editing, rendering, etc is no joke) I really don't see why people gotta hate, if you don't like it, don't watch it. That simple no one is forcing you to care or watch, so just avoid it if it's not your thing. Pretty much, just seems like a good guy who went out and pursued something that he enjoyes doing. Became successful and gathered some haters along the way. But, congrats to him on the success. Hopefully, he inspires more kids to pursue their dreams.
 
How do we know this? I mean, also in that video he said he wasn't able to pay the rent and a new computer. It doesn't look like his parents were helping him so much at all.

Advertisers pay google and youtubers get a 30% cut of that once a certain amount of views is reached, if I understand correctly.

So he made 7.5m post tax and that's ~30% which means he's bringing in ~25 million after tax for google. Not to sound like a broken record but that's not pocket change is it? The devs / pubs deserve some of that - you could quantify is easily enough by going on individual page views per video and using a base percentage.
 
See my post above the one you quoted. Quitting uni and getting a job selling hot dogs for shits and gigs so one can make game videos is a luxury that a lot of people will never have because of real life stuff and things.

Yes, semantically speaking everyone out there could do the same thing. Making YT videos is available to all, but when average-joe's channel isn't bringing in enough ad revenue to put food on the table, tough cookies. PDP essentially had a free pass to give the YT thing a shot and it worked. Had it not, he would still have a nice safety net to get back on his feet.

is this sarcasm? :|
 
I have this bizarre wish that all money making Youtube stars should just be belligerent assholes when the money thing is brought up. Just real braggart ego inflated dicks. I don't even value them being humble anymore.

I think it is just because I am bitter and resentful towards jealous internet usernames who think they can do something better but don't even try. (Don't worry, i'm referencing Youtube, not GAF) I want this guy to just rub his money on the screen while saying "Too bad."
 
See my post above the one you quoted. Quitting uni and getting a job selling hot dogs for shits and gigs so one can make game videos is a luxury that a lot of people will never have because of real life stuff and things.

Yes, semantically speaking everyone out there could do the same thing. Making YT videos is available to all, but when average-joe's channel isn't bringing in enough ad revenue to put food on the table, tough cookies. PDP essentially had a free pass to give the YT thing a shot and it worked. Had it not, he would still have a nice safety net to get back on his feet.

Where has he ever said that he sold hot dogs for shits and giggles? He got a job doing what he could when he dropped out of college because he says it made him happy and he liked to make YT videos because it was fun. There was no "gaming YouTube money" to chase. It didn't exist. He happened to be in the right place at the right time and capitalized tremendously on it.
 
So he made 7.5m post tax and that's ~30% which means he's bringing in ~25 million after tax for google. Not to sound like a broken record but that's not pocket change is it? The devs / pubs deserve some of that - you could quantify is easily enough by going on individual page views per video and using a base percentage.

Why do they deserve some of it?

They got paid when he bought the game.

It's swings and roundabouts, his Skate 3 videos got the game back into the charts, his Amnesia videos were very popular and probably made the developers a decent amount of money. It wouldn't surprise me if pubs/devs give him games to feature on his channel.
 
some random guy on youtube makes peanut cash compared to some bank ceo's

and the whole internet cries.

Funny thing internets
 
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