PewDiePie Kickflips PS3 Classic Skate 3 Back to Life

Posted Thu 28th Aug 2014 00:00 by Matt Suckley

Take that, Tony Hawk

Videos inspire reprint four years on

PewDiePie: hilarious and harmless, or scourge of the gaming community? Adored by his legions of subscribers and seemingly hated by everyone else, the Swedish YouTube star always seems to split opinion. But whatever your take on the gurning personality, it's impossible to deny his influence.

The success of the sensation's Skate 3 videos, in which he exploits the notoriously buggy nature of the game for comic effect, has actually led to publisher EA reprinting the 4-year-old game. The video series garnered over 12 million views on the first entry alone, and those kind of figures are hard to ignore – even for a company as big as EA.

The direct influence of PewDiePie, and possibly other popular YouTubers, has led to a 32 per cent increase in the skate-'em-up's sales since last year. And GAME, the UK retail chain, reported so much in-store demand that it actually requested a reprint.

EA, recognising the requests, happily obliged with a budget re-release in the PS3 Essentials range. Four whole years later, and after the release of next-gen consoles, it seems almost unbelievable. But if this unexpected spike of renewed interest continues, maybe the firm will even consider a sequel, which otherwise seemed dead in the water. Well done, PewDiePie – you did good this time.

[via vg247.com]

"scourge of the gaming community?"

I never understood why he gets so much hate. Seriously, he does absolutely nothing wrong. He's literally a guy who enjoys video games with fans that enjoy watching him play them. That's all.

PewDiePie is incredibly important to the gaming industry, and we should be thankful that he exists. And I don't even like his videos.

K bros. Pewds needs to play Fez next to show Phil Fish that Youtubers don't steal anything

True. He gives huge exposure to some video games, Skate 3 is a good example, but Amnesia is a better one in my opinion.

Ugh.. no thanks.
His fanbase............. -____________________________-

I follow the Youtube gaming scene closer than I do the videogames sales scene, and the impact that he has (and other Youtubers of similar size) on a huge number of games is insane. Five Nights at Freddy's is the latest game to undergo the "PewDiePie" effect.

I do not know who this is, but 12 million views in a week?! Convinces people to buy 4 year old game? That is almost scary how powerful some guy on YouTube influence could be.

I think Markiplier was the first one making Five Nights at Freddy's quite popular.

But well, of course he can't do as much as Pewdiepie, the latter's subscriptions are way too big.

Still never seen one of his videos... Probably never will.