PewDiePie's Tuber Simulator

About

PewDiePie’s Tuber Simulator is a freemium mobile game developed by Outerminds Inc. for iOS and Android devices. In the game, YouTuber PewDiePie instructs players on how to become a successful vlogger on YouTube by creating videos on trending topics. Following its release in September 2016, the game immediately became the top downloaded app on Apple’s App Store.

Gameplay

In the game, players accumulate subscribers and view counts by publishing videos on a variety of topics. To gain levels, the player must purchase objects to be shipped to their room, which arrive after a set amount of time depending on the level of the item. Shipping times can be decreased in the “Puggle” mini game by dropping a pug dog into a food bowl. The in-game currency “Bux” can be purchased with real money, and are used to provide a number of bonuses and unlock items. Additional views and subscribers can be earned by tapping an eagle that randomly flies across the screen.

History

On September 29th, 2016, PewDiePie’s Tuber Simulator was released on the Apple App Store^[1] and Google Play.^[2] That day, PewDiePie released a trailer for the game, which gained over 4.6 million views and 32,000 comments in one month (shown below).

Online Presence

On September 30th, 2016, the /r/TuberSim^[3] subreddit was launched for discussions about the game. On October 3rd, the /r/TuberSimHouses^[5] subreddit was launched for people to share screenshots of their in-game rooms. On October 7th, Redditor sir_jeff_jeff submitted a screenshot of YouTuber Philip DeFranco’sTuber Simulator room to the /r/DeFranco subreddit (shown below).

Reception

Within 24 hours of release, PewDiePie tweeted that the game had been downloaded over one million times (shown below, left).^[6] On October 4th, PewDiePie tweeted a graph showing that Tuber Simulator had surpassed the game Kendall and Kylie in cumulative installs (shown below, right).^[9]

On October 7th, 2016, RollingStone^[8] published an article titled “Why PewDiePie’s New Game Is Proof We’re All Doomed,” which quipped “I wasn’t sure if I was playing a game or being integrated into a human milking machine.” On October 10th, On October 18th, Kotaku^[7] published an article titled “PewDiePie’s New Game Is a Bleak Look at Being a YouTube Star.”