popular youtuber asked 20000$ from dev studio to feature their game

[zMeul]

source: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/3kefgi/asked_to_pay_22000_by_popular_youtuber_for_our/

 

Hi all, Ben Tester here from indie game devs, Wales Interactive (developers of Soul Axiom, Master Reboot and Infinity Runner)

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.

Upon reading this my jaw dropped. Is this real? Are there developers out there that pay that sort of money to have their game featured in one video?

OK, so it's obvious that receiving a LP'er or YT star feature your game is great promotion and will certainly help spread the news. It will also no doubt have some sort of effect on your sales, right?

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 (in this example, they used TotalBiscuit and up to a period of 20 days after the feature of an indie game on YouTube).

  

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wow! some take this living off youtube to a whole new level

if he asked 22k for a simple coverage, how much would he ask for a positive review?  <_<

 

in a bit of relevant news, it appears that Machinima paid youtubers tens of thousands of dollars to promote the Xbox One launch positively without declaring it - contrary to FCC rules

Xbox One Promoter Settles FTC Charges That it Deceived Consumers With Endorsement Videos Posted by Paid ‘Influencers’

 

According to the FTC’s complaint, Machinima and its influencers were part of an Xbox One marketing campaign managed by Microsoft’s advertising agency, Starcom MediaVest Group. Machinima guaranteed Starcom that the influencer videos would be viewed at least 19 million times.

 

In the first phase of the marketing campaign, a small group of influencers were given access to pre-release versions of the Xbox One console and video games in order to produce and upload two endorsement videos each. According to the FTC, Machinima paid two of these endorsers $15,000 and $30,000 for producing You Tube videos that garnered 250,000 and 730,000 views, respectively. In a separate phase of the marketing program, Machinima promised to pay a larger group of influencers $1 for every 1,000 video views, up to a total of $25,000. Machinima did not require any of the influencers to disclose they were being paid for their endorsement.

[Real_PhillBert]

He has an audience, and the dev wants access to it. 

 

I have no problems with this. 

[soaringchicken]

Why TV is slowly becoming obsolete.

[Paralectic]

They should publish who it was.

[DarkBlade2117]

Wonder how much PewDiePie makes now. Imagine him asking to play one of there games..

[flibberdipper]

I'll take 22K to cover a game...

[DarkBlade2117]

Why TV is slowly becoming obsolete.

Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime. I agree is slowly taking over. You can find most shows from those three sources.

[DannyRyu]

He has an audience, and the dev wants access to it. 

 

I have no problems with this. 

yeah but 22k for a couple days of work?

[soaringchicken]

Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime. I agree is slowly taking over. You can find most shows from those three sources.

The next generation will almost barely have a use for TV. Sure, I find it nice to have a TV in the house, I don't have to choose what I watch and it's just easy to do after a day of school/work (for whatever reason). But yeah, it's going definitely going to be slowly phased out in the coming years.

[Lays]

yeah but 22k for a couple days of work?

 

 

It doesn't have anything to do with $/hour or how much work it is, it has to do with getting his review to thousands/millions of people.

 

Some companies have millions of dollars in advertising budgets, and $22k to get their product to be seen by thousands/millions is a good deal on their part.

[exyia]

this isn't news....been going on for years and totalbiscuit brings it up every time the topic comes up

[soaringchicken]

yeah but 22k for a couple days of work?

"He has money, I don't, I don't like him". 

That is your mentality. You can't honestly say that you wouldn't take 22K for that.

[givingtnt]

hey ! if you lend me 20k i ill make you rich !




no problems here. thats called buisness

[Real_PhillBert]

yeah but 22k for a couple days of work?

 

That audience is worth money to people who want exposure. The audience is worth exactly what someone will pay for it. 

[C0LL0SS0S]

youtube just isn't about "us" anymore, way should it, we consume more and more videos and they get more and more money to make them, the problem is that the children from 10-15 really fall for that kind of ads. Youtube is one of the biggest ad portal that exists 

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

Heh? Advertising a starting price of 22K? Is that guy/gal trying to not do business?  :lol:

[ImBleu]

And I thought Minecraft Youtubers that were asking several thousand dollars for an Episode was rough.

 

Damn.

[Bouzoo]

As I see it, the problem is when someone pays you that amount of money, can you really believe what he says about the product? If he makes a review can you believe it was an honest review? It's really a double edged sword.

[Sauron]

Put that in perspective - something like a cod game will bring in millions, 20k is nothing by comparison. and something like cod lives off of exposure like that.

[Sauron]

As I see it, the problem is when someone pays you that amount of money, can you really believe what he says about the product? If he makes a review can you believe it was an honest review? It's really a double edged sword.

 

doesn't need to be a piloted opinion, the exposure alone can make a big difference.

[Trik'Stari]

People who work in marketing are slowly rising to the top of my list of "scum of the Earth". Right now they're just below lawyers, whom are just below politicians, whom are just below corporate shareholders.

[Bouzoo]

doesn't need to be a piloted opinion, the exposure alone can make a big difference.

I'm aware of that, but he said to talk about it in few points. I've no idea what points mean in term of Youtube videos, but I meant can you believe anything he says about it? I'm sure you know what I mean.

[DannyRyu]

"He has money, I don't, I don't like him". 

That is your mentality. You can't honestly say that you wouldn't take 22K for that.

Honestly no that is not my mentality please don't make false assumptions. I'm just saying thats a bit excessive. And Yes If I had the opportunity I would probably take the 22k.

[Sauron]

I'm aware of that, but he said to talk about it in few points. I've no idea what points mean in term of Youtube videos, but I meant can you believe anything he says about it? I'm sure you know what I mean.

 

I do, but that goes for most ads - you know they're ads, and that can be fine.

[Castdeath97]

Let's be honest here, celebrities do this the whole time. In addition, most celebrities would ask for even more than that.