YouTube’s massive end-of-year wrap-up for video video games is essentially the form of factor you’d anticipate: Sure, Minecraft continues to dominate, Roblox is quietly trucking alongside, and Fortnite hasn’t slowed down one bit. Curiously, nonetheless, the blog post detailing all of the 2020 highlights for video video games on the platform additionally incorporates a listing of the most-viewed uploads — and a few them increase eyebrows.
One of many prime movies of the yr is an easy one, with 197 million views going to a first-person Minecraft sketch. There’s an Amongst Us video within the prime eight, which is sensible, because it’s the most well-liked recreation of the second. And we all know that Grand Theft Auto 5 continually breaks sales records, so in fact it’s going to point out up on a listing of the most important gaming movies on YouTube. To date, nothing irregular. You may be forgiven for asking what “Parking Frenzy” is, however on the very least, it’s an add that exhibits competent gameplay footage of the expertise in query.
However then we arrive at a video titled “EM 3IN1 16: 9,” gibberish that precedes footage of a person repeatedly failing very simple puzzles. There’s nothing entertaining or attention-grabbing about it; this isn’t a case of a humorous fail or something like that. However guess what? Ninety-nine million views, child!
Polygon requested YouTube what the deal was, and didn’t obtain a proof in time for press. We additionally tried to contact the sport developer, however lots of the social channels and official webpages look like they haven’t been touched or checked out by one other human being in ages. The uploader, developer Prime Video games Inc., has a measly 7,000 subscribers on the platform, although cellular app tracker Sensor Tower claims that the sport in query, Evony, has been downloaded at least 500,000 times. However there’s little in regards to the video that means it’s been optimized for advice on the platform — the title doesn’t even title the sport!
A unique video within the prime eight record is simply as bewildering. “How To Loot | 230720 Offended animal” has accrued 207 million views on the platform, regardless of being solely 15 seconds lengthy. Just like the Evony video, How To Loot exhibits a participant in some way failing a really straightforward puzzle that ends in them getting eaten by a creature. Once more, nothing entertaining sufficient to warrant such an amazing variety of views, and but right here we’re.
A part of what makes this suspicious and unusual is that the video is unlisted. Unlisted movies on the platform can’t be seen except you will have the hyperlink, and due to this fact, the platform doesn’t publicize them. Unlisted movies don’t flip up in search outcomes or on a channel’s web page. Additional including to the fishiness right here is that the video has such an amazing variety of views with solely three feedback and barely any likes or dislikes. It’s as if no one is actively interacting with the video in any respect.
How is that this attainable? We requested a YouTube skilled, who had no clarification. We’re stumped too. The feedback beneath the Evony video counsel that, maybe, these movies are ads that seem in free cellular video games. And positive sufficient, critiques of Evony at the very least say the expertise is riddled with advertisements, with one person on Sensor Tower writing, “2 seconds of recreation play then 60 seconds of commercials. 2 seconds of recreation play then 60 seconds of commercials. 2 seconds of recreation play then 60 seconds of commercials. Do you see the sample right here? F*** you guys!” However that’s only a concept, and one we are able to’t presently corroborate.
All this mentioned, the official weblog put up detailing gaming’s year on YouTube is worth a read, because it’s filled with enjoyable information about what flourished on the platform. Do you know that FGTeeV was the most important content material creator of 2020 by way of views? Or that the most-liked gaming video of 2020 was about free-to-play recreation Ninjala? If nothing else, what’s detailed by Google is a testomony to how huge the YouTube ecosystem really is, as creators and video games you might need by no means heard of proceed to do gangbusters inside their very own niches.
