KSP youtubers impact

[problemecium]

Technically I was introduced to KSP by kurtjmac, but I didn't play all that much afterward.

Watching Scott Manley's "Reusable Space Program" series got me much more interested, but I didn't outright buy KSP until I'd played a whole bunch of the demo, which wasn't until several months later.

EDIT after watching the video: OMG PewDiePie sucks at this game! xD

Edited May 15, 2015 by parameciumkid

[moogoob]

Whackjob got me into it through posts he made on Fark. Youtube helped me learn though, certainly.

[Yellowburn10]

I kinda did and kinda didn't get into KSP by a youtuber. You see, I was playing the mobile game Simple Rockets, and I happened to notice that they have a link for a game called Kerbal Space Program. At first I thought, The little green things look weird, but the mechanics look too complicated for me. SO for the time being I stuck to just SR. Later, as I was trying to search up videos of Simple Rockets, I happen to come upon a review of it by (take a guess,) Scott Manley. At the time I didn't realize that he was really into KSP, even though he did mention it a couple times in the video. But even then, it wasn't until later, when I saw that a certain Kurtjmac also happens to play this game, that I really started to gain interest. Since I was more into Minecraft at the time, I was more inclined to watch some of his KSP videos and learn more about it.

Of course, the rest is history.

[Fel]

Pewdiepie gets millions of views. If 1% of his viewers buy the game based on his video, then Squad makes thousands of sales. The vast bulk of established KSP YouTubers' audiences already own the game.

Why do people misuse statistics like this? This argument boils down to advertising and nothing more. These Internet celebrates are like any other celebrate who goes on the air and says "When I have masculine itch, regular itch powder just doesn't cut it, that's why I use Macho Powder Supreme, for those embarrassing masculine moments." The people who are susceptible to such advertisement have an increased chance of purchasing what is being endorsed, others consider it to be yet another advert.

We also have to consider the audience that the celebrity holds, and if they would be the kind of people who would buy the product in the first place. If my fictional celebrity's audience was all women, no one would buy "Macho Powder Supreme" despite the endorsement. If someone isn't likely to have bought something on their own, that person is much less likely to respond to endorsements. From another perspective, if you don't like FPS games it doesn't matter who endorses it you still don't like FPS games after all is said and done.

See, statistics are often misused to predict favourable outcomes without the slightest bit of data in support; and even if someone attributes buying KSP due to some youtuber, the question of false attribution does remain. Humans are notorious for self-modifying their memory, if someone was already considering buying KSP and said that "seeing x person playing it was the final straw" how do we know that the person wouldn't have bought it anyways? This may seem like semantics, but it is very important when it comes to judging just how effective a route of advertisement really is. One could easily claim "100% of all customers bought our product after seeing our store sign" as a point of the false attribution.

[Mitchz95]

I wouldn't be here if it weren't for Markiplier.

[Superfluous J]

Why do people misuse statistics like this?

I'm not a marketer, so I don't think that way. My math and logic holds, no matter how much you think I'm trying to use it to spin people into a buying frenzy.

I also stand by everything I said except I should have said "tens of thousands" instead of "thousands." But technically that's still "thousands," just a lot more of them than people usually mean when they say it.

Why do people find it so hard to believe that there are viewers of Pewdiepie who haven't tried KSP but might like it, and could be moved to try it once they saw him play? Squad ARE marketers, and they think it was worth it.

[Fel]

I'm not a marketer, so I don't think that way. My math and logic holds, no matter how much you think I'm trying to use it to spin people into a buying frenzy.

Of course your math holds... that was the point of the post that you graciously ignored; but statistics isn't about math, statistics is about data analysis and while you can argue that someone MAY buy KSP because of seeing that guy play it, trying to push thousands of sales even is still a baseless number and given what has been said about the guy, the audience of Scott M...w/e is more likely to purchase over the audience of PDP.

To push the argument a bit, if only 1% of potential software-pirates find a cracked version to be too unplayable due to hidden drm code, then DRM is worth implementing. I make a claim, but I ignore EVERYTHING about what I said, the marketing, the sociology, the problems it causes... this argument is absurd! But it is math is "sound." By making a blind claim, I can make it seem as if something is the favourable choice... but it is blind, and dismissing the lack of data in support isn't going to help me.

[Fraggle]

Ye. Whos PewDiePie?

Cynical Brit, Angry Joe, FrankieonPC, QuickieBaby and The Mighty Jingles.... I know.

Never herd of this chap though. But looking at his channel I agree with a few of the above statements... Probably the wrong crowd.

The shotgun approach to publicity only really works of you can get into enough places quickly enough with enough material. But for this kind of game, I dont feel it would work too well anyway.

I think KSP requires a more targeted approach.

Face it, KSP is going to have a smaller player base than Battlefield.

[TinfoilChef]

My initial introduction to KSP came from subscribers telling me I should try it. Not long after that I saw Kurtjmac's early KSP series followed by Winter Owl, Scott Manley, HOC Gaming & a few others. Bought it shortly after 0.16 came out and immediately realized it was one of the best gaming investments I've ever made.

as for pewdiepie... that thing is . . . something I won't say in polite company. Certainly wouldn't have been my choice to associate KSP with. The only reason he's popular is because he's so good at pandering to the lowest forms of "humor".

[Superfluous J]

Of course your math holds... that was the point of the post that you graciously ignored; but statistics isn't about math, statistics is about data analysis and while you can argue that someone MAY buy KSP because of seeing that guy play it, trying to push thousands of sales even is still a baseless number and given what has been said about the guy, the audience of Scott M...w/e is more likely to purchase over the audience of PDP.

I get your point, but I wasn't quoting any statistics. I was simply making an educated guess. Saying that nobody from Pewdiepie's audience would buy the game is at least as skewed as saying thousands of them would.

[Norcalplanner]

For me, it was an old friend posting an xkcd comic that referenced KSP. Tried the demo, bought the game a few days later, and have been having a blast ever since.

[Tw1]

an xkcd comic that referenced KSP

Same here.

https://xkcd.com/1106/

[gom jabbarwocky]

The story of how I found out about KSP was actually because of an article I read on a blog just after the Curiosity landing. Someone was speaking with the JPL guys and they mentioned how they played this game, Kerbal Space Program. I had no idea what it was, but I figured that if actual NASA scientists and engineers were interested in this space game, it was worth investigating. Some additional reading, a few youtube views, and I downloaded the demo. Then I was hooked. This must have been, I think .19, or .20? I didn't join the KSP forums until much later, when I was struggling with a particularly pernicious bug which plagued my program in .90.

As for the article which started this all, I can't for the life of me remember the name of the article, the journalist who wrote it, the blog it was on, or the people interviewed, but memory is funny that way.

[Nansuchao]

I discovered KSP back in the 2011 in another forum about space. I played for a while, and saw some Scott Manley videos about it.

Then, I almost forgot about KSP for sometime until, one day, I saw one of the first episodes of Interstellar Quest and I came back, much more interested and with a little more free time.

[KSK]

Youtubers had no impact on my decision to buy KSP and, with two notable exceptions, very little influence on how I play and how I learned to play. First exception was Pebblegarden's excellent tutorial series - they got me to the Mun back when I was playing the demo. Second exception was (go on - have a guess.. ) Scott Manley - I watched his series on aerodynamics when I was trying to figure out why I could never land my planes.

There are a couple of specific videos that I still love - and anything by Nassault (and more recently, Nassault and collaborators) is well worth watching. But I only got into them after I'd already bought the full game.

What prompted me to buy KSP was this piece in PC Gamer. After that it was the free demo more than anything and then having a native Mac version right from the outset. The demo made it a no brainer to at least try this interesting looking mini-game that I read about in PC Gamer and having the Mac version was a fantastic example of 'make your product easy to buy and customers will buy it.' I probably would have bought the PC version and played it in Bootcamp but I surely do (and did) appreciate the native version!

[Rainbow-Dashie]

I'm a big fan of the Yogscast, pretty much watch one of the member's daily. One day, Duncan of the yogscast did a bit of a sandbox playthrough of KSP, landing on the Mun and Duna. I had the demo by the third video and bought the game the the fifth

[Sattorin]

I first heard of KSP when Markiplier picked it up.

[WWEdeadman]

I first saw the game on Markipliers channel. After that I started actively searching for KSP on youtube, and found all the popular KSP youtubers, and then I bought the game. And I still can't get enough of watching other people play KSP, when I'm not recording it for my own channel.

[michaelsteele3]

So nearly half of us are here because of youtubers? (Including me, thanks Markiplier )

[BrainiacBlue]

Nerd3 convinced me to get the demo. The demo convinced me to buy the game.

Likewise

[mrclucks]

Saw a friend launching a rocket and asked what he was playing. Forgot about it four about a month till I was bored at work and remembered kerbal space program. I watched a few random videos and my friend told me some guy named Scott Manley was a genius so I searched for him and watched an episode of interstellar quest. After that I was hooked and binge watched the episodes up to episode 90 something. I then bought the game and learned how to play from rewatching the whole series and watching all of his tutorials

[KerikBalm]

Its sort of a combination for me...

I saw a reference ot Kerbal Space program on XKCD.

Then one day I was looking at other space related video's on youtube... and saw a Kerbal Space program one in the sideview - I remembered I had seen a reference to it before, and looked at it.

I clicked on it....

I think it was some orbiter player trying to build and fly a spaceplane...

I looked at more videos...

I googled it.

I got the demo

[Francois424]

Someone named Dr. Hawk lead me to KSP. He very seldom does other things than "Radio blogs" on youtube, but at the time we both where on the Star Citizen chat, and he posted a livestream of KSP landing on the dark side of the Mun with a quad KV-N lander (back in 0.22).

I was intrigued by the game and bought it the same night. Was about 25$ so really cheap, so why not ?

Glad I did.

It's only after that I started checking youtube for tips and tricks and found Scott Manley.

[Ival70]

Well this is rather interesting. I expected a decent percentage of players to have joined from youtubers, but not nearly half! Youtubers have had an even bigger impact than I thought.

[CelticCossack51]

I'm a big fan of the Yogscast, pretty much watch one of the member's daily. One day, Duncan of the yogscast did a bit of a sandbox playthrough of KSP, landing on the Mun and Duna.

Same as me. I watch the Yogscast daily. It's a shame that Duncan dropped his space program.