The popularity of gaming channels on YouTube is astonishing and already surpassed the influence of many leading print-based websites. Also, the huge array of indie games on Steam means it’s very easy to be overlooked and requires marketing from a YouTube personality or website. Ideally, indie developers would like to engage in an advertising campaign but this isn’t possible given their limited budget. As YouTubers become more powerful, there is a greater chance of personalities having a sense self-importance and making outrageous demands.
According to a post on Reddit, this appears to be the case as Ben Tester from Wales Interactive claims a very famous, undisclosed YouTuber asked for $22,000 to cover an unknown title. The developer in question created Soul Axiom and initially offered to send a review code. Ben divulged the course-of-events and said:
“On one of my normal PR rounds I received an email from a very popular YouTuber with a few million subscribers offering to have one of our games featured on their YouTube channel for a rate of either $17,600 for 2-3 talking points or $22,000 for 2-3 talking points AND a description link,”
“An interesting Tweet I saw from SteamSpy this afternoon claims there doesn’t seem to be much of a correlation between number of Steam sales a game has after it’s been covered by a popular YTer,”
He also clarified that the YouTube channel is genuine and declined the monetary offer:
“I must stress that I emailed the YTer first to ask if they would like to receive a free code for our game to play for their channel. The YTer did NOT mention anything about making a ‘positive’ promotion nor was this a scam from a fake YTer. Finally I’d like to state that I refused the offer.”
The traditional gaming press has a terrible reputation with consumers and often seen as untrustworthy. This now appears to be plaguing at least one major YouTube channel and it’s unknown how widespread this problem is. Perhaps, it’s always best to be cautious and not idolize and kind of celebrity to prevent disappointment.
Thank you Wired for providing us with this information.
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