Gather 'round, all you bros and non-bros,
as I tell you the secrets to becoming the WORLD'S
MOST POPULAR GAMER!
(GT Intro) First captioned by FarmYard Gaming
Hello, Internet!
Welcome to Game Theory!
Played Amnesia,
Didn't scream.
Meet Felix Arvid Ulf-
(Take 2) BLEEP
Meet Felix Arvid Ulf... Kudjie...
(Take 3) BLEEP
Meet Felix Arvid Ulf Kuhjhel...
I don't even know how you pronounce this... IT'S SWEDISH!
Dear Sweden:
(not on screen, spoken) Don't put K's and J's together and expect me to understand the sound my mouth's supposed to make, OK?
other languages,
Am I right, guys?
Jeez, err...
America...
Meet PewDiePie,
Or should I say, PEWDIEPIE!?
A 23-year-old gamer, who...
in about 30 days, will overtake Smosh,
And become the number 1
Most subscribed channel on YouTube!
Love his videos
Or hate 'em,
There's no denying that he is:
THE WORLD'S
MOST FAMOUS
GAMER.
But he's not alone:
Gaming Channels are quickly dominating
the YouTube lists.
Currently, they take up
16 of the top hundred subscribed Channels
On YouTube.
Which MIGHT not seem like much
at FIRST.
But when you eliminate the 18
Vevo Channels up there,
Y'know, the music Channels
With the obnoxious backgrounds
That're always telling you about
About the newest and lamest
Britney Spears songs?
SORRY,
Britney,
"Ooh la la" DOES NOT rhyme with
THE WORD STOP!
And knock out the 20 or so
that belong to large companies like:
The NBA,
Red bull and...
HA HA!
YOUTUBE,
which currently ranks as number 11
on it's own website!
You see JUST how powerful
Gamers on YouTube are!
And of those 16,
The vast majority simply feature
People playing and commenting on games.
None of this... Flash
Animating, photoshopping fufu over analysis
stuff other channels like to do.
Wait, that's what WE do...
DAMN! [BLEEP]
In return,
YouTube is making everyday gamers
into online celebrity millionaires!
With PewDiePie leading the charge
and gaining 1.5 MILLION subscribers
in the last 30 days!
And 212 MILLION VIEWS.
Pewd's numbers are staggering when you consider
Smosh, the current number 1 Channel,
gets LESS THAN HALF
of that.
He EVEN crushes MACHINIMA
And they're MOTHER of F-
YOSHI!
Machinima!
So what's the secret to this type of
exponential growth on YouTube?
HOW did this sandy-haired Swede
do it?
I'm not sure even HE knows the real answer!
But I do!
And by the end of this episode,
So will you.
To TRULY understand
How gaming is taking over YouTube,
we have to look
WAY,
WAY BACK
to 2005.
And the BIRTH...
OF
YOUTUBE!
Y'see, back in the dark ages,
None knew how this kooky online video
experiment would work.
And the heads of YouTube had ONE BIG PROBLEM:
When anyONE can upload anyTHING,
How do you make good stuff easier to find?
Well, one option was the front page,
anything involving cats.
The other was to make that decision be a clicks.
A.K.A. VIEWS.
To them,
Or, rather, the agent Smith's
working inside YouTube's algorithms,
More views meant
Better content,
and thus, deserved more promotion.
And, in a lot of ways,
it worked.
With creative, funny, shareable videos getting
hundreds of thousands of views.
THIS, in turn, got that more free promotion
on YouTube,
and videos went viral.
But, if the glowing spirits of Illusion of Gaia
have taught us anything,
it's that when there's a way to cheat the system,
People will do it.
Realizing that the human male is just a bipedal horn dog,
People started to use...
Well, let's just call them
misleading thumbnails...
People would click on a perfectly good thumbnail,
Hoping to learn how to cook this vegetarian curry,
Or see how well this girl handles the Wii remote,
But would instead be confronted,
NOT with expert cooking tips,
But a video that makes you turn down the brightness
on your monitor
and turn the screen away from your mother,
who's sitting on the couch opposite you watching
THE BACHELOR.
In other words,
the video wasn't meeting what they were expecting,
and people would leave in the first few seconds.
But it didn't matter;
The video already had the clicks and in YouTube's eyes,
That meant that it deserved more visibility,
Leading the Scottie the Scuzzbucket here
getting 18 million views off his misleading thumbnail.
Needless to say YouTube quickly learned
there was a glitch in the system.
Fast-forward to March of last year,
when, with a flick of the switch,
YouTube changed EVERYTHING.
They realized that, "Hey, if a guy clicks on a picture of
vegetarian curry and meets a bunch of boobs,
chances are he's not going to like that video and click off.
So instead of VIEWS,
the more important factor became RETENTION TIME
or people watching most of the video,
And, more importantly, was that the video enticing them
to watch more!
YouTube wanted people to watch for longer and longer sessions
and Channels that encouraged this got more and more
free promotion.
And THAT, loyal theorists,
opened the door for gaming's domination!
What's YouTube's algorithm shift have to do with
PewDiePie, or gaming in general?
Think about the Chuggaaconroys,
the HuskyStarcrafts,
the SeaNanners
and Game Grumps
and of course, the PewDiePies of the world.
Unlike most other types of content,
Let's Play videos,
where the editing is minimal and most of the talking
is improvised reactions,
are able to be produced MUCH FASTER
than, say, a well-researched, heavily scripted show
with a significant amount of editing
that can only be done every other week.
And NOT ONLY are there constantly new videos,
but they're each, 10, 15, 20 minutes long.
Wrap your head around this:
A recent study of the top 241 Channels
on YouTube found that the average comedy
video lasts for 3 minutes and 25 seconds (3:25)
Gaming videos, on the other hand
clock in on an average time of
9 minutes and 36 seconds (9:36).
Add that to the fact that average non-gaming channels
post between 1 and 2 per week.
Top gaming channels, on the other hand,
upload 8 OR MORE.
And while some people might tune in for their once
a day fix,
most viewers binge-watch.
They tune in at the end of the week during their
Little Red Hood sesh (Session),
to listen through the 8 new uploads they missed.
PLUS, since you're watching a playthrough of the game,
it's a series of videos that
encourage you to watch from one to the next to the next
in a serialized format.
Remember: It's watch time across the WHOLE viewing session.
And the Let's Play channels are perfectly designed to
have you watch LONG videos in LONG stretches...
Well, you do other stuff!
So assume for a second that you're PEWDIEPIE!!
from a year ago.
OR LADY GAGA!
And you have a million subs.
Every new video you upload reaches
500,000 views in the first few days.
Assuming each one is about 15 minutes
and every viewer watches about 2 videos per session,
by the end of the week of 7 uploads, you have
500,000 views times 7 days times 2 videos per view session times 15 minutes=
105 MILLION MINUTES OF WATCH TIME EACH WEEK!
THAT'S NEARLY 200 YEARS OF WATCH TIME EVERY 7 DAYS!
YouTube is like,
"WOW, this channel gets a LOT of watch time!
Let's promote it even more!"
Which, in turn, gets it more subscribers,
more views
and EVEN MORE watch time,
prompting YouTube to give it MORE PROMOTION
AGAIN.
It's a perpetual, never-ending loop
of growth!
Compare that to other channels that upload shorter
videos once a week, like Smosh, for instance,
and you see how the Baron of Bro Fist
has been able to roll over everyone in his path!
In fact, it's very much like rolling a boulder up a hill.
You reach a certain point and the YouTube machine takes care of the channel.
With Pewds gaining more and more momentum,
simply by uploading new videos!
But why... THIS
Let's Play channel?
There's thousands out there!
Well, there's one OTHER reason the algorithm loves
PewDiePie:
He's international.
Y'see, YouTube promotes channels locally.
If you live in California, your videos will be served up in
California more frequently than in other areas of the US.
And if you live in the US, your videos will stay in the US
until you gather enough views from other countries to
merit them sharing your stuff there.
PewDiePie has a unique advantage over most other channels
because YouTube considers his channel Swedish,
since he started it when he was living in Sweden.
Makes sense. Since then, he's moved, meaning that he
lives and uploads in Italy, but he also speaks English.
So since YouTube promotes locally, he was able to gather
a strong Swedish following in a market where there was less competition.
BUT now that he uploads from Italy, he gets promoted
THERE,
and since YouTube is most heavily used in English speaking nations,
he had a much easier time crossing into the US and UK than a channel from HERE,
Would have doing the reverse.
In short, by moving, he was able to conquer viewers
from all around the world to add to his fan base,
which, in turn, all fed back into the retention loop,
prompting YouTube to skyrocket his channel in
multiple countries to the top of the charts.
Now, none of this is meant to downplay anything he does.
People love his videos.
If they didn't, no amount of algorithmic help would save
the channel, and in fact, he's a great guy.
constantly raising awareness and money for charity!
Even now, he just released a video raising money for a
clean water initiative.
Likewise, his fan base definitely does their fair share of
promoting his content.
But in the end, growth like his would be impossible
without a system working in the background.
And if you're still sitting there with one lingering question,
and that lingering question is:
"WHY is this an episode of Game Theory?"
Remember: YouTube is made up of the same parts as the
latest XBOX release.
And whether it's misleading thumbnails or conquering
retention based algorithms,
YouTube, in essence, is a big game, a strategy game
that comes with its own rules, tricks, shortcuts.
And those people who play by the rules or, more importantly,
know the best way to use those rules to their advantage.
THOSE are the ones that end up on top of the leaderboard.
A LOT of life is like that, actually.
So think about that.
And think about joining MY team to help me in my quest
to win the game of YouTube.
Subscribe if you haven't
and watch a few more videos because I have A WAY
to go if I'm gonna catch that, guys.
Stay awesome, Theorists. I know you will!
Here comes the Theorist Fist! (Oh, GOD...)
Never mind, that just sounds dirty.
Anyway, it's JUST a theory...
A GAME THEORY!
Thanks for watching!
[HOLD UP!]
Welcome back, to the:
SUPER AMAZING END CARD TOURNAMENT!
Where last week, the beast bowled over the brain
but the brute beat the bunch!
While working on this video,
I've been researching for a street fighter episode.
Which got me thinking:
What would YOU rather go on a date with:
Chun Li or Crack Attack Cammy?
Buns or buns?
If you catch my drift!
Click one to cast your vote and when you do,
you'll be taken to my Channel.
While you're there, check out some other videos.
Explore some of the older stuff. I'll make a playlist.
There's some GREAT theories back there.
I can't pump out these videos quite as fast as the old Pewds.
So, I need your help to boost my watch minutes by
watching a few episodes in a row.
Anyway, those buns aren't going to click themselves
CAST YOUR VOTE!
(SCREWATTACK)