PewDiePie generated $4 million in 2013

According to The Wall Street Journal.

To put some perspective on how much money can be made by the biggest Youtube Let's Players (most of that $4m is profit). It also helps to show why game companies seem desperate to get a piece of the pie. I knew PewDiePie was by far the biggest Let's Player out there and that he made a bunch of money, but holy crap!

Source

Prepare for ressentiment in 3, 2, 1.

I wish I could get million bucks from being an obnoxious jerk.

@beachthunder: lol

Not just "lets player" but isn't he the biggest thing on youtube in general? the one with the most subscribers.

I generally don't find his shit funny, except for some of the early happy wheels stuff.

If that guy can make his nut playing video games on the internet, then fair ball.

I wonder how much of that he gets. Generated and earned are very different things.

@tothenines: He is. And the let's play model makes it easy to put out daily videos, which is just money in the bank. He also still keeps pretty strictly to the max 10 minutes long videos rule, which is a good way to get even more ad revenue.

I don't care for his act myself, but I don't really mind him. I'm not his target audience at all, tweens are, and that's fine. The whole "rape joke" thing he does (or used to do? Heard he has toned that shit down) is a bit unfortunate though. He has also raised a bunch of money for charity etc.

What a world, man.

Well to my knowledge there are a lot of 12 year olds on the internet.

I don't find his stuff entertaining in the slightest, but good on him for finding a way to make a living(and then some) doing something he enjoys.

All the best for him. I don't watch his videos. I actually despise them. But they bring entertainment to others, so who am I to say he shouldn't make the money he does?

@finaldasa: Well, the article says that most of it is pure profit. I'm sure his Youtube network takes a cut, but other than that it's my understanding that he works without a big team. So I'm guessing it's a substantial part of that $4m.

@video_game_king: Interesting diction.

Again, wouldn't it be interesting if Pewdiepie formed a religious cult (like, even more of one)?

Welp glad he is someone who likes him

I don't find this number that impressive considering he has the biggest youtube channel overall, not just in gaming. If the biggest channel on the 3rd most popular website in the world generates 4 million it doesn't sound like that much.

Bananas. Not a fan but hey good for him for makin it work.

"At this time, my flock, I believe we should remember the words of Amnesia 3:43. Most of them are 'rape'."

Good for him I guess. Honestly I wouldn't have been surprised if it was more.

He's really hit or miss. Some of his stuff is hilarious, and some of it is grating. However as a person, he's a great guy, and the shows he does with his girlfriend are often really funny or touching etc...

I mean don't get me wrong I watch a very specific slice of stuff in the same ballpark but not him, he is just screechy and awful most of the time. People like our resident Hamst3r who does The Hamster Alliance he has great Let's Plays and some kickass music to boot. Witty and informative is a much better combo than what I think Pewdie offers, he is for a much younger demographic imo.

His "humor" is really horrible but don't go worrying about the decline of humanity just yet, his audience consists basically entirely of children, who don't have the most discriminating tastes.

I'm still wondering when the google ads bubble will burst, but I guess at this point it never will.

This makes me sad. That enough people would watch him that he would make that much money...

Ugh.

Definitely feels like I wasted 4 years in college and can't get a single interview while he plays video games in the internet and talks like a retard all day.

What a world we live in, right? Shit man, we need to stumble on to the next big thing. Come on duder think tank, let's make some money!

@insane_shadowblade85: GB community naked digital calender? I just need to hit the gym for about three years first to get in shape!

Let's review a game while we're angry- oh wait...

You have to relate to the majority of your audience. It's Youtube, friend.

And to think he only really began to blow up in 2012. It's kind of inspiring in a way. Proof that it's never to late to start something, even if what you're doing has been done a million times before.

4 mil eh? that's gotta make someone who earns a normal wage in the games industry covering games for years pretty irritated i guess.

Good on him. I know there a huge trend to hate him, but he's harmless and making a great living doing something he seems to enjoy.

I'm outside his target audience by a good stretch but followed him for awhile. His LP of Walking Dead S1 is quite enjoyable..funny and he tones done the screechy spasticity a shade. Thought I read he has more followers on YT than Miley Cyrus (or maybe Lady Gaga)...crazy!

Gamebomb.ru had the right idea!

More power to him. Don't like his stuff one bit, but hey people like dumb stuff. If people want to give him views for acting the fool, I can't blame him for taking it.

Hope he does something actually productive with the money .

A generation of no talent making millions while people are starving left and right just dont make sense to me.

I'm jealous and full of anger right now.

@xolare said:

This. In the world of the internet, where eyeballs are ad revenue, all you need to do is get clicks. Entertainment has changed and you don't need money to buy it anymore. As long as they can click, they are income.

PewDiePie has certain things working heavily in his favour to get the money he gets out of this.
1. PewDiePie is a Swede that now lives in Italy (I think). When it comes to Youtube and regional promotion, he gets promoted in a pretty wide region.
2. If you reach a certain viewer count, the Youtube machine just takes over and promotes the hell out of you without any input on your own part. Notice how PewDiePie videos are nearly always on the front page of Youtube? He doesn't pay for that.
3. His videos are designed to maximize revenue. They're not something heavily edited in the vein of CorridorDigital or Jontron, but rather short 10 minutes clips of literally just him playing video games. This lets him output more videos, which then leads to more advertising exposure.

He does some stuff for charity and is apparently a pretty nice guy in person, but I personally hate his content.

I've never watched a video of his to be honest. I'd like to make money playing video games though.

I'm not about to click another one of those types of youtube shows if it is what I think it is (a 20 something who looks and dresses 12, pretends to be funny, laughs at his own jokes, makes nothing but pop culture controversy of the week references to boost clicks, for example todays video would have the words Tracy Morgan in the title for no reason, along with a thumbnail of giant breasts, and makes a bunch of annoying noises with no shot that lasts more than a third of a second because you tubers can't read a full sentence without needing to cut 100 "umms" and "okay so"s) . Like "Fred", Shane Something, the crying Britney Spears tranny etc. am I correct? No need to ever see another one of those.

Anyways, child stars like that blow all their money on drugs and rental Ferraris by the time they're 30, and at least BEING Edward Furlong or Mulcaly Culkin is something to be proud of, and to cash in on later in life. Temporarily possessing 4 million dollars until your 30 ain't worth the shame that in 13 billion years of organic life and all mankind has accomplished, your brain cells and rational thought brought into existence just one of ten thousand annoying teen brat click bait unfunny youtube channels.

Let gamer culture burn.

I'm pretty sure this kind of stuff has been going on WAY before Pewdiepie was even born.

Shame? What shame? I think there's absolutely no shame in what he does. You may find it annoying, that's fine, I think everyone over the age of 14 does, but what he's doing isn't shameful, it's damn smart. I wish I had jumped on the LP band-wagon at the same time, so I could spend my days playing video games and not having to work. I wouldn't give a shit what people think of me.

To be honest, I expected the biggest thing on Youtube to make more

Good for him, in the none-youtube interviews he is nothing but positive, not like the rest of the internet

@random45: There were people doing LPs before Pewdiepie much better than Pewdiepie and still aren't popular in the slightest. It's about playing the right games, so only Minecraft and Amnesia and Goat Sim and shit like that. The creator of video LPs as they are known today only has 22k subs.

It was the explosion of Youtube and he was right there doing LPs when it happened. Right place right time

The chosen games helped too

I think it's more about how you act. If you can act REALLY REALLY scared (the more over the top the better), then you'll get more views. The worst of the worst of Pewdiepie comes from when he fakes his fear while playing horror games, but I think that's the stuff his fan-base likes best. Another way to get views is to act REALLY angry at moderately difficult games, and just do shit like that. I typically like it when people don't act over the top, but these guys know it's what their core audience wants. If you actually watch a Pewdiepie video where he isn't acting like a complete idiot, it's actually pretty tolerable. Granted, now-a-days he is ALWAYS an intolerable screaming idiot, but when he was first starting out he wasn't always so bad.

@corruptedevil: thanks for posting this, that's the FIRST thing I thought of.

But yeah..... now I'm questioning everything about my life if this guy makes it. I still prefer Giantbomb Quicklooks, since it's an extension of the site, podcast and other things they have written. Like when Jeff says "this game is odd." He will elaborate on it.