Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
YouTube is the future of entertainment.
More than movies, more than TV, more than music, the world of YouTube channels and the
hugely popular personalities that run them is one of the fastest growing entertainment forms
in the world. In fact, according to a poll taken by Variety magazine, teenagers are now far
more likely to recognize YouTube stars than they are the most famous actors in the world
(the most-recognized non-YouTuber, Paul Walker, came in at a distant 6th place in the poll).
To put it even more into perspective, the videos YouTube stars make on their channels
often out-do huge music videos and movie trailers to become the most watched things on
YouTube, and the medium racks up many billions of views every month. That's right: bil-
lions, and it's not all just for fun either. Through the ads program which shows advertise-
ments before or alongside videos, YouTube channel-runners are able to make actual money
from their videos. When those videos start to earn thousands, then millions of views, they
earn more money with every view, making YouTube channels not only quite popular, but
quite lucrative as well.
Much of what these suddenly super-famous YouTube stars focus on in their videos is that
other titan of the “new” entertainment, video gaming. Particularly, stars upload sessions of
themselves playing and reacting to their favorite games in a genre of video know as the Let's
Play, a phenomenon in its own right that sits within the overall YouTube phenomenon.
Daniel Middleton is one such YouTuber who has combined this idea of Let's Play YouTube
videos with the world's most popular video game, Minecraft. His channel is called TheDia-
mondMinecart (
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheDiamondMinecart
), and on it he uploads
Let's Plays of Minecraft just about every day. TheDiamondMinecart, or TDM, has a very
large following, with 15+ videos with over 5 million views, 200+ with over 1 million, and
as of the writing of this topic, 3,349,246 subscribers to his channel on YouTube.
That last number is more people than live in the city of Chicago by about 500k. To call it im-
pressive is to understate massively, but how does this all work? What exactly do YouTubers
like Dan do, and how does it get so popular?
