YouTube is once again proving how lucrative it can be as yet another teenager claims to be making a living from the video site.
Student Fred Pye, 17, is making more than £24,000 a year in advertising on videos of him playing Grand Theft Auto V.
Pye has amassed more than 25 million views of his YouTube clips, which offer gamers advice on playing the action-adventure series, and is earning £2,000 ($3,300) a month from the comfort of his bedroom.
In two years, Pye’s YouTube channel NoughtPointFourLive has gained over 138,000 subscribers and receives almost 2.5 million unique visitors each month.
His videos guide gamers through the levels of the game, which comes with an 18 certificate due to scenes of violence and torture.
Pye, who is studying advanced maths, history, English and politics at Shrewsbury Sixth Form College, said: ‘I set up the YouTube page around two-and-a-half years ago, it was just for fun really and I started putting up videos of Call of Duty.
‘My friends thought it was quite funny and took the mickey a bit, as you would expect, but my views just kept growing and growing.
‘When Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V) came out, it revolutionised the gaming world; the graphics and everything about it was just so much better than anything before.
‘Rockstar, the company behind GTA obviously made it a huge success and as the game was so popular I thought I may as well start making videos on that game, which I did.’
Pye continued that his videos offer help, but also save other players time trying to work out where certain objects are hidden in the game, or how to make more money, similar to a walkthrough.
Walkthroughs are typically written articles that guide people through levels of a game.
‘I have had a great response from people online, most people just keep thanking me for helping them out and helping them to complete the game quicker,’ continued Pye.
‘It can be a bit time consuming as it takes around three hours per video, but I think it’s worth it as the more views I get, the more sponsorship I get.’
The game was released on 17 September last year and made £480million ($800million) in worldwide revenue in just 24 hours.
