As UberGizmo reports, PewDiePie’s channel now has over 37 million subscribers and over 2,300 videos with a total of 6.65 billion views. That places him as the largest channel on YouTube as nobody else gets near a subscriber base so large.
PewDiePie’s real name is Felix Kjellberg. Despite what many may assume, Kjellberg actually does more than just play video games for money. Destructoid notes how he will become a published author this autumn and has done extensive charity work in the past.
It is the efforts of his YouTube channel that remain the best known. The fame has brought him exceptional wealth from advertising contracts to the extent of $7.45 million in profit in 2014 alone, according to Swedish tabloid newspaper Expressen.
The enormous figure represents a $3.45 million increase over 2013 when PewDiePie Productions AB earned a mere $4 million. Kjellberg’s success highlights the extraordinary stories that YouTube has created by providing a platform that anybody can use to make videos on anything that they choose.
Watching other people playing video games has proven to be exceptionally popular in the past few years, creating big business for people like PewDiePie. As Forbes put it last year, Kjellberg earns his millions by “playing games while talking, screaming and swearing” and has attributed his success to his relationship with his fans beyond anything else.
As Destructoid notes, it isn’t all rosy though. Increasingly, game developers and game publishers have been suggesting that they should receive a cut of the revenue generated from people like PewDiePie playing their games. When this kind of profit is involved, it is easy to see why and Expressen’s report could ignite new disputes between developers, YouTube and YouTubers.
