the entire history of Gaming YouTubers, i guess

June 6 2005 is when the first gaming YouTube video was released fast forward a few years and gaming YouTubers have broken the internet through many controversies insane amounts of growth and some incredible video games let's go over the entire history in the early days of YouTube it was just a small platform that looked very different from the version you guys are watching on right now after the first gaming upload of a PSP tutorial a spark was lit and video started to appear rapidly showing raw

footage of the biggest games at the time like MMOs GTA and of course the occasional means with a very famous one you may recognize dragons oh my God he just ran in heading into 2006 YouTube evolved drastically as a platform and this is when channels started making consistent gaming videos but it wasn't the type of content you're thinking about right now rather it was machinimas which featured games in skit-like comedic formats creators like oxhorn I'm suck Great Name by the way and many more ot

her videos going absolutely viral at the time being the first gaming channels to hit a thousand Subs if we take the trail we'll be perfectly safe if we jump we could hurt with ourselves LOL Noob ooh our Scaredy Pants through their talented storytelling and Charisma while using popular games like Halo 2 and World of Warcraft at the time they became the biggest gaming Youtubers of this era it's very surprising to see the amount of effort they put into these videos during a time when being a YouTub

er wasn't a career that paid rather it was something that was looked down upon and you were a weirdo if you did YouTube unfortunately even with those struggles you could tell they were passionate about what they were are doing and then in 2007 something interesting happened a new type of gaming YouTuber started to emerge gameplay quickly became a very popular form of content through 2007 channels like EXO Outsider and next-gen walkthroughs including loads of others provided montages gods and how

to do different things within certain games from exploits to showing viewers how to beat a boss these videos were completely opposite from machinimas having no commentary raw footage and rock music blasting viewers love this content showing that informational and entertaining gaming content can both go viral on YouTube but back then no one really knew the insane potential of gaming YouTubers but this all changed in 2008. when one YouTuber within a year gained over 200 000 subscribers yes he wen

t by the name of Dean Wayne wins here's a clip of him explaining how he was gonna do it before it even happened I had a genius plan World of Warcraft most popular game 9 million people play it I just played the game we were actually plotting that out like okay so we need an audience how do we get a global audience how do we listen that this was the intention from the get-go it's marketing it's marketing it's being brilliant by becoming a larger than life character in his videos playing arguably

the most popular game at the time World of Warcraft while being one of the best players and I think from memories best budding of the server ballot group but also the world and clickbaiting his objectively attractive girlfriend and titles and thumbnails for a male audience a theme built a recipe for Success so ahead of his time I wouldn't be surprised if he was from the future as other gaming YouTubers wouldn't figure out these tricks until years later eventually though he was dethroned from the

number one spot two years after he took it in 2010. nowadays athene is allegedly a cult leader but that's another story for another time but you know what's not the subscribe button I know you're looking at it you should definitely click it oh you did thank you very much all right let's back up a bit and talk about January 15 2009 one of the most important dates in gaming YouTuber history because of a dude named Cod father AKA blame truth when one day he decided to talk on a mic over some gamep

lay record it and upload the first ever Call of Duty commentary video on YouTube uh hey guys this is uh blame truth um one of my viewers suggested that I narrate or do commentary a revolutionary thing at the time that birthed a whole new type of gaming YouTuber as before this it was pretty uncommon that creators would actually talk over their videos while playing a game this added so much personality to the content allowing viewers to connect more to the person they like watching as they could a

ctually hear them doctor disrespects talking about is some pain Deliverance plus MW2 releasing later in the same year arguably the best Call of Duty of all time especially with those lobbies that only a special type of person could survive in if you know you know Call of Duty was a revolutionary first person shooter that became super popular around the globe that caused loads of channels to grow at speeds never before seen in gaming YouTube let's take sea netters one of the fastest growing chann

els at the time December 2009 he was at 20K subs two months later he has 81k six months later he has over 200k wild Call of Duty became the game to play as a YouTuber with early channels like zurka uploading kill cams if you recorded yourself throwing a knife or getting a no scope last kill you could go viral just like that nowadays what you have to do oh my goodness the future was looking bright for gaming YouTubers playing video games and making a career out of it was looking like a possibilit

y unfortunately though there was a massive issue that could ruin it all for everyone as YouTube grew YouTubers started to get paid for uploading their videos through ad Revenue but this didn't apply to gaming YouTubers as many gaming companies didn't want creators to get paid for playing their video games not realizing at the time the videos uploaded on their game getting hundreds of thousands of views is free advertisement so single-handedly greed and copyright laws almost ruined gaming on YouT

ube as no one could become a full-time gaming YouTuber if no money was coming in luckily networks like Machinima popped up and saved everything seen a massive opportunity Machinima became the solution where if YouTubers signed under their platform and uploaded videos on machinima's YouTube they would get paid sixty percent of the revenue off of their video sounds like a pretty bad deal considering you got a 40 pay cut but it was one of the only ways to guarantee pay so many creators sign the con

tracts I joined Machinima when I was a relatively small Channel I was just starting out on YouTube making Mission about the biggest gaming YouTuber for years as everyone's content was being uploaded on their YouTube it's actually a genius strategy when you think about it they were the first gaming channel to hit a million Subs all the way up to five mil by 2012. making them even more attractive to join as smaller creators get featured on a massive Channel everybody and their granddaddy wanted to

join Machinima not realizing something darker was going on in the background as by late 2012 there was no need for Machinima as gaming YouTubers could get paid for uploading their videos on YouTube finally once gaming companies realize the benefit unfortunately Machinima signed so many craters under contracts that lasted for years sounded contract and it's for three years and I'm just like yeah whatever like it's three years that's not that long of a time if you think about it as in those early

days no one knew the crazy potential of YouTube and how fast you could really grow with just a few videos going viral or just popping off so Machinima went from a solution to a problem for everyone signed by them Machinima are taking 40 of my earnings for absolutely nothing until the contracts ran out and Machinima faded out of existence as all their content was being produced by other people while Call of Duty games are becoming the face of gaming YouTube in 2010 hiding in its shadow was a new

form of content that would eventually take its place known as Let's Play videos test test test okay here we go this is players commentary the first one ever released on YouTube was by slow beef featuring footage of him beating an NES game while talking about different features in a multiple part series a node and a door key my God viewers were obsessed with these type of videos as it was like watching your friend beat a game you enjoyed but this friend has an insane personality and is incredibl

y entertaining but once again audience when we left off I killed a throng of zombies at least and now it's time the Minecraft Alpha was one of the first games to really take off of these Let's Plays YouTubers like Paul Suarez Jr blue Expos AKA your cast and others posted some of the earliest videos on this blocky world game not knowing how big this game was really gonna get with its infinite possibilities through building surviving and adventuring Paul sources Juniors how to survive your first n

ight video when viral showing the world a game that didn't look like anything they've seen before everybody wanted to try it out shown by the hundreds of thousands of views on every Minecraft video of a random indie game developed by one dude scary games are the other form of Let's Plays that really took over 3 2010 into 2012 as there was just something special about watching someone's struggle playing a horror game getting traumatized by constant scares while you're under the cover shielding yo

ur eyes I'm not speaking from experience by the way a very small creator that you may not know about by the name of was uploading many different scary game videos leading to never before seeing growth on YouTube let's take one of PewDiePie's early vids and another one a little over a year later they look pretty similar but the sub count differences between these videos are insane thank you for 2000 first of all it was 1 000 subs and then I postponed it 100 000 I try to do it in my fingers and I

realized I don't have enough fingers it's been ridiculous like we've been in the fastest growing Channel on YouTube uh and we still are and uh I I don't get it I'm not gonna lie PewDiePie's dedication improving his content constantly Swedish personality and posting one to two videos a day caused him to grow at speeds never before seen in game in YouTube influencing a whole new era of gaming YouTubers what's up YouTube what's going on this is Corey kitchen what's going on dudes and hey guys [Musi

c] around 2013 to 2016 is what I would consider the Golden Era of gaming YouTube as around this time there were so many amazing games already out and releasing it was like a candy shop which led to so many different types of gaming YouTubers from FIFA to GTA 5 to Call of Duty to Minecraft the list goes on and on let's cover the main ones by mid-2013 PewDiePie was that guy and the biggest gaming YouTuber being the first to hit 10 million Subs which was gained mainly through scary game playing thr

oughs a feat that would be impossible to do nowadays with that method other channels like Corey X Kenshin and markiplier also went down the scary game path with the Five Nights at Freddy releases really giving their channels a jump star plus their amazing Immaculate entertaining personalities while he was extreme it's no surprise they went on to become some of the biggest gaming Youtubers of all time still uploading horror games to this day almost a decade later same problem where they didn't ge

t in the same game and going back Sports YouTubers were also becoming huge in 2013 especially with the release of FIFA 12 and then 13 you really start to see football YouTubers spawn out of nowhere mainly from Europe getting millions of views and subscribers creators like Rota Shaw and KSI really took gaming YouTube to another level while incorporating themselves physically in the content whether that be challenges Stakes or them just doing crazy stuff on the screen like raging I'm done with thi

s in my opinion it made a game like FIFA that doesn't have a lot of high adrenaline moments apart from scoring way more entertaining to watch especially with those Pack openings you're not expect as years went on and more FIFA was released the content only got crazier with British YouTubers through billion IQ thinking finding the perfect formula of combining gameplay with their entertaining personas leading to viral videos that help them become some of the biggest Youtubers of today [Music] what

I find wild nowadays is that some of the biggest Youtubers of today started from gaming videos another Sports Community we can't forget about is 2K which gained a lot of popularity with the release of 2K13 a Creator by the name of Chris Smoove for years was Paving the path for 2K YouTubers it was my career series tutorials and iconic catchphrases which opened the door for many others that came along later like flight cash nasty so Illuminati pretty boy Fredo and loads of others similar to FIFA

YouTubers they knew how to make exciting videos creating the Perfect Blend Me 2 in real life entertainment and gameplay if you like basketball as a kid you probably watch one of these guys and even though over the years 2K has been dying as a game many of these YouTubers through their personality alone have managed to leave the game behind and succeed in other ways there were so many good games but I feel like I'm forgetting something oh yeah Call of Duty Minecraft and GTA were the faces of gami

ng YouTube as majority of creators were playing one of these three or all of them together let's start with Minecraft which really started to pick up momentum in 2013 with two YouTubers leading the pack Captain Sparkles being one of them and really the first Minecraft Youtuber to gain millions of subscribers in a very short amount of time this was mainly achieved through his Minecraft custom map macho cases and music videos the views on these Minecraft music videos holy moly I don't even think t

his is possible with any game right now Captain Sparkles really show the uniqueness of Minecraft and how anyone can customize it in a million different ways we've spawned on this very small land mass in the middle of Oblivion this became a major turning point in gaming YouTube where instead of creators just showing gameplay of a face gaming commentary content became the focus in making the most entertaining experience for viewer gained you a lot of subs and Views whether it was cool Concepts or

just someone's funny personality this is why Captain Sparkles became the biggest Minecraft Youtuber to have my channel passed a million subscribers until someone else appeared known as Sky Does Minecraft gaining almost 7 million Subs in about a year during 2013. growing at speeds that only PewDiePie the biggest gaming YouTuber at the time was beaten so what did Sky do to achieve this growth well Step One play Minecraft jail as when you compare him to Captain Sparkles their content was actually p

retty similar a major difference though was their personalities just by comparing the two you can see who's more entertaining we found the mutant zombie and apparently is having a seizure Gary related items to go over and let's get started Sky Does Minecraft's hyperactive Charisma and Stupid humor was perfect for the younger audiences interested in Minecraft but also Skye introduced a formula that broke the way viewers like you guys watch YouTube a leveled up gaming content into what I like to c

all the TV show format in most of his car content he had one or more reoccurring guests that became actual characters in his videos from an outside perspective of a viewer it just looked like friends playing Minecraft together but quickly they became an actual group known as Team Crafted consisted of Minecraft youtubers all collaborating which helped grow all their channels to insane Heights he really has to heal me I shouldn't tell you but oh and that carries them down no no no no no no no no a

s you go to watch your favorite creators bounce off each other having fun a formula still used by some of the biggest Youtubers of today and when you think about it it's just like a TV show with actors but a little bit more real let's not talk about a lot of people's favorite childhood game Call of Duty even though I swear it's m rated but aside from that it remained one of the best games to make videos on with a new release every year since 2003 keeping the game Super popular and fresh and the

emergence of cod Clans single-handedly changed the way people could become gaming YouTubers oh hey what's up it's face temper as clans were originally teams created by Call of Duty players that recruited YouTubers to represent them as back in the day everybody wanted to join FaZe to make cool trick shot videos montages but also compete in Esports where if you were good enough at a video game you can compete competitively and become a professional player earning money through tournaments hosted b

y many companies with the prize pools increasing year by year a new pathway literally opened in gaming YouTube where you could create a career for yourself being a really good video game player showcasing your skill through YouTube videos Black Ops name as years went on Esports tournaments only grew with Clans becoming actual organization and businesses with Face Clan really leading the pack on YouTube growing at speed running speeds and having some of the most popular members and being the most

subscribed gaming team on the entire platform everything was looking good for Face Clan fast forward to today and things aren't looking too good but we'll talk about that a bit later last but not least one of the biggest games of this YouTube era we have Grand Theft Auto 5. released in late 2013 this was a game where you could watch your favorite creators become criminals in a virtual city of Los Santos mapped exactly like real life Los Angeles just imagine a lawless world where you have nice c

ars infinite money and a lot of pedestrians to run over which grew Channel knows especially VanossGaming to insane Heights reaching the top of YouTube in a very short amount of time with his funny montage videos a form of content made popular but the Swedish man himself PewDiePie have you ever had a real black large juicy meatballs the tens of millions of views speak for themselves people love the fast-paced and high intensity moments in these montage videos that you could achieve in GTA with al

l its Mayhem VanossGaming really leveraged this type of content and funny montages weren't exclusively to GTA 5 either other wacky games like Gmod Happy Wheels got the same type of tree man during this time if you're playing all these games and providing hilarious chaotic content there's a good chance you could create a YouTube career for yourself and to this day VanossGaming is still successfully making this content with all sorts of games I'm on top of the bus can't get 2013 to 2016 was a very

Immaculate time to be a gaming YouTuber the sky was the limit they were dominating the platform being some of the biggest channels at the time and for whatever reason was so many really good games to play every year you saw new faces popping up getting millions of subscribers like quick let's just say PewDiePie he's the perfect example of how insane things were getting 2014 20 million Subs 2015 33 million Subs 2016 41 million Subs goodness gracious and year after year things weren't slowing dow

n for gaming YouTubers it was only getting faster until early 2017 when YouTube was flipped upside down with the arrival of the ad apocalypse one of the darkest times would be a gaming YouTuber as advertisers were pulling their ads off of YouTuber videos that were edgy geez oh my God what the [ __ ] significantly reducing the amount of money creators were making to the point that any type of slightly offensive or even extreme violence in a video game could be demonetized leading to a massive att

itude shift in the gaming YouTube Community where people had to become a lot more family friendly or risk making no money and having to quit I'm going family friendly now so no more swearing I wish I was joking I'm not pretty much YouTube became what it is today where you gonna bleep certain swear words like and dance around certain topics pretty much bending the rules when you can at the time though when this was happening it scared a lot of creators as many thought YouTube was over it was done

luckily that wasn't the case because you wouldn't be watching this video as 2017 was moving forward out of nowhere the Battle Royale genre was born gaining ridiculous amounts of attention mainly because of the release of pubg and fortnite two Royale games that provided highly unpredictable adrenaline gameplay where 100 people would battle it out on a massive map with all sorts of weapons to see who was the best of them all oh [ __ ] background becoming such a high demand form of gaming content

viewers are looking for to the point that if you were one of the best fortnite players in the world showcasing your skill you could quickly become one of the biggest channels on YouTube oh my God what the [ __ ] this game about and one man by the name of ninja managed to achieve this feat creating content and streaming since 2011 he was initially a Halo professional player gaining a decent sized audience to be my new YouTube but he really didn't take off until he switched to playing battle royal

e's leaving the Esports scene and becoming an Entertainer take a small little break ski um uh from from Halo focusing more on other games and streaming this one decision changed his life forever getting his start with H1Z1 and then pubg both Battle Royale is the prep ninja perfectly for fortnite's release allowing him to develop his talent grow his audience faster than ever before and showcase himself as a performer little [ __ ] as soon as this cartoony game dropped the world exploded and every

body and their grandmother was playing fortnite myself included ninja conveniently swooped in and started dominating being prepped from playing those other two games along with a few others you may recognize getting wild amounts of attention the weirdest part about fortnite YouTubers is that most of them were twitch streamers first and still managed to become massive on YouTube whatever just by looking at ninja's videos it was mainly just clips and footage from his streams showcasing his skill r

ather than content specifically for YouTube which goes to show just how big fortnite really was him being known as the best fortnite player and proving that time and time again through grinding every day showcasing that skill rolls him to the top [Music] idea right on me right on me right on me wow being at 100K Subs March 2017 fast forward two years later over 20 million Subs holy goodness playing fortnite with celebrities indented the New Year's Ball drop that was cringe by the way going on mu

ltiple big name shows getting a contract rivaling top professional athletes streaming to over 600 000 people at one point at the same time so I'm behind is ready up in a little bit the rise of ninja was something never before seen in YouTube and it could be said he was the first ever gamer to go mainstream showing that you can really change your life through consistency hard work and taking advantage of the opportunities that come your way [Music] in late 2019 approaching 2020 fortnite was start

ing to dwindle as a game even though you saw a few creators actually start to make content through different unique ways it wasn't at the same level that it once was with people losing interest this was really seen with Ninja the face of the game not receiving the same level of attention he once did a common problem that happens with almost all gaming YouTubers especially when you focus on one title your entire growth becomes based on how your game is performing and unfortunately all games start

to lose popularity and it's very rare to see one making a comeback but that's exactly what happened in 2020 with a few well-known games I mentioned earlier it's crazy that came back to life opening the door for new creators to pop up on the scene as when the world shut down a once in a lifetime opportunity spawned for gaming YouTubers viewership just started Rising across social media platforms as most people were inside doing nothing else so they could spend more time watching YouTube games li

ke Minecraft and GTA 5 essentially came back to life years after their peak in popularity with Minecraft having help from the man himself PewDiePie who randomly started playing it as a let's player for the good old days and it just blew up which only a small percentage of creators could actually do starting off with the ultimate game of all time Minecraft morning ladies my name is Jacksepticeye and welcome to Minecraft my name is Markiplier and welcome to Minecraft guys what you see in front of

you is Minecraft oh and Pewdiepie by 2020 past the legendary 100 million subscriber Mark which when you think about edges look where he came from it doesn't even make sense to me it took so many uploads just for me to hit even 100 subscribers and hitting a hundred subscribers was huge PewDiePie congratulations on passing 100 million subscribers while older games are making a comeback a few gaming YouTubers started to pop off someone I really want to highlight is dream the green smiley face man a

nd his other fellow Minecraft youtubers dream gained like 30 million subscribers in two years from literally playing tag and I'm not even joking his Manhunt series gained hundreds of millions of views where he would attempt to beat Minecraft while being chased and hunted by his friends which were other Minecraft youtubers that were also growing rapidly as if you remember earlier I mentioned the TV show format dream implemented this tactic in each of his videos while he increased the difficulty o

f his Manhunt series keeping the concept fresh and exciting this genius video concept created so many higher adrenaline moments showed how freakishly good dream was at Minecraft a game that recently became super popular again the manhound videos were designed in a way to keep you glued to your screen and watched the entire thing which signals YouTube to make your video go absolutely viral creating dreams billion IQ viral recipe for Success while Minecraft youtubers were making a comeback on the

scene one game was really starting to gain Traction in 2020 known as Among Us a Indie multiplayer game that released a few years prior and was perfect for a time when the world was completely offline with its simple but fun gameplay where you have a large group of innocent people in a small group of bad people and no one knows who is who and you have to figure that out while the bad people try to destroy everyone oh miss click Miss click I was in electrical and KSI killed Victor some of the most

popular YouTubers started spamming videos on Among Us and the views were absolutely bonkers the unexpected moments plot twists and surprises in these videos made them super entertaining especially when you saw a bunch of well-known YouTubers that would normally never interact play together and have fun in like this weird crossover event we are playing Among Us for one hundred thousand dollars we have corpse PewDiePie dream jacksepticeye it was looking like Among Us was gonna Dominate and become

the face of YouTube but unfortunately it started declining massively in popularity mainly because of the lack of updates and because you can't progress in the game it gets boring really fast so no Creator could use it for a long period of time to grow to the massive Heights of YouTube as the game died off too quickly even though some creators still make content it's nowhere near its peak popularity which leads us into a big issue with gaming YouTubers are facing today that could completely dest

roy the genre forever for the last few years especially in 2023 there hasn't been any new YouTubers taking over the gaming scene things have definitely been stagnating every time a game Takes Over YouTube for a good amount of time you see new YouTubers pop up on the scene but when there is no main game to play the uncomfortable truth is that most gaming YouTubers don't push the limits for Content apart from a few other Minecraft days is equal to 33 hours in real life and that's how long I'm spen

ding in real life Minecraft it can arguably be said that gaming YouTube is pretty similar to how it was 10 years ago apart from better quality games but why is that the case one reason is that many of the biggest gaming Youtubers of today have been in that position for a long time and the way they blew up initially was completely different to the way you have to blow up today it was a lot easier back then when you could pull out a webcam be super entertaining with raw gameplay that ain't working

today the difficulty on YouTube has risen tremendously you really have to offer something super unique to make viewers want to click and watch your video just take the biggest YouTuber on the platform Mr Beast year after year he evolves his videos if someone in game and YouTube was able to do that I guarantee the Takeover but I wonder who that's gonna be time will only tell you should definitely check out this video next this is a quick message to my subscribers I know I've been gone for a whil

e but I'm back permanently and it's time to take over the game thank you for watching thank you for the continued support I appreciate it and I'll see you guys in the next video peace