A slice of the PewDiePie (Or the money that is video games)

There's an important phrase — er, a noun — in the YouTube world: Let's play.

What is a let's play?

Here's some context.

Some context

Much like blogs have exploded so have independent video games. Literally thousands of games are developed each year, and there's few ways for gaming publications, or gamers themselves, to review them.

And so begins the let's play. Essentially, one gamer bites the bullet, and streams his or her gameplay online as a sort of "ride-along demo," giving their first impressions and often a review. And people eat it up. Even I do, as a gamer — I watch these because, despite their "amateur" status, are entirely informative and quite honestly, hilarious. We'll take a look at a few.

PewDiePie

Perhaps the most popular thing out of Sweden since their chocolate, Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie on YouTube, is the poster-child of Youtube success. He's a goofy, loud, and obnoxious host, and he boasts over 30,000,000 followers.

 This has made a healthy living off of his viral antics. How much of a success, you ask?

That popular.

That URL holds an entire catalog of merchandise based around the YouTube star. It has gone past money through viewers — that's direct merchandise sales.

Robbaz

Also hailing from Sweden coincidentally, Robbaz is often the first to be playing games that hit the market — much as they do with PewDiePie, companies will send him early copies of the game to generate hype. It's a crazy notion: this "vlogger" is as trusted as gaming conglomerates like IGN or Polygon, if not more trusted as he appeals to viewers as a "real player."

What does it mean?

It's tough to say if this realm of vlogging is over — these figures stand as "kings" of the realm, and it's unlikely any will dethrone them. But the notion that video games, often a medium that is seen as mere "games," is a lucrative and universally appealing genre of entertainment. 

It also puts value on humor: comedy can make money, when one is appealing to large audience of people looking to have fun. Fun!

Fun?!
That's right, fun is making money now. Normal people having fun, as a matter of fact, is making money. Even more, it's young normal people having fun. This is the best way to see the free market of the internet: these individuals are, through this trade, a bunch of different things. They're professional gamers, in the respect that their gaming makes money. They're comedians, in the respect that they often are commended for their humor (PewDiePie describes himself as "...a guy from Sweden who likes to laugh and make other people laugh.") and they are essentially gaming journalists.


That's a pretty decent resume!