Sitting just behind the music category on YouTube is the video game category that we all know (and wind up on) one way or the other.
Google shares some stats
While the popularity of gaming-related videos may come as a surprise, the increased focus on video-based marketing and fans making their own videos are both big parts of, well… being a gamer these days.
Warren Mills, Google’s industry manager for entertainment, spoke at the London Games Conference earlier this week and spoke on the category’s growth on YouTube, as well as some other choice topics.
Mills spoke on how gamers are searching for games approximately 39 days prior to launch, with 70% of gamers researching games before buying them.
He stated that views on game-related videos are up 30% from last year and pointed to the success of Machinima and Yogscast as examples of channels that are excelling.
Spoiler Alert! Gamers like watching things
Is there any denying that we use YouTube for our gaming news, information, and fandom more now than ever before?
Tutorials and general fan videos for competitive games like League of Legends and are more popular now than ever, and are even becoming engrained as part of gamer culture. Let’s Plays are growing in popularity as well, with more people looking to watch their favorite YouTube celebrities play their favorite games.
Video has been an effective marketing and entertainment tool since its inception, and on the internet (thank you, YouTube) it’s more powerful than ever. It’s exciting that gamer culture is becoming so big, but at the same time it’s hard to not worry about the direction the industry is taking as a whole.
Maybe that’s just me, though. I’m like an old geezer trying to chase kids off my lawn. At least they don’t want anything to do with my Sega Saturn.
Source: LGC: Video games is the second most popular category on YouTube
