Mobile Game Companies: YouTube's Worst Sponsors - YouTube

Oh! Damnit!

[Tape rustling]

[Loud tapping]

[Wii theme music plays]

All set.

Hi fellas. Hi ladies. Welcome to a piece of online content.

Today I wanted to talk about something that's probably a little bit present in your lives,

and very, very present in lives like mine, and your other fellow...

[gun cocking]

and your other fellow creators.

[gunshot]

ONLINE SPONSORSHIPS!

As many of you are probably aware the environment of YouTube and Advertising

shifted kind of last year as the "ad-pocalypse" happened

and many people, including myself, could start to not really rely on YouTube ads

themselves to pay the bills, and had to shift

unfortunately towards implementing more sponsorships from companies, brands,

and all the likes on their YouTube videos.

It's never fun to have to sell anything to anybody, in fact,

it makes me feel like when I was back in middle school and I had to sell "pizza kits" for my cross-country team

so we could all get sweatpants.

First of all, why are you buying

sweatpants? [gunshot]

It's a cross-country team!

Second of all, who the hell wants a "pizza kit"?

It was a Little Caesars "pizza kit".

You got the crust, and the sauce, and the cheese and shit and you could make like, three pizzas for like $25!

Why- if you're shelling out that much money for pizza you have to make yourself, and it's from Little Caesars?

What are you - what are you doing, guy?

Anyway, everybody knows, it's not fun to have to push things on other people.

Now, in my experience, I've had a pretty generally

"ehh" time working with brands.

There have been many brands that have been pretty unreasonable, and out of touch and,

and very greedy, and selfish with their demands and what they want for the promotion,

But there have been a couple brands that have been very very cool:

If you want to know, honest to god, the best brands that I've worked with personally:

They've been Incense Zen, MunchPak, SeatGeek and Dollar Shave Club;

[Dramatic music] But of all the brands that do business on YouTube

by FAR, the worst,

most cancerous, negative,

selfish, unrealistic, just downright

[Cocks and shoots gun]

STUPID companies on YouTube are

[Echoes] Mobile Games...

You guys got mobile phones? Do you like your cellular mobile devices? You want to play some fun activities on there?

Well, let me tell you a little bit about mobile game companies

and their presence in the YouTube world.

Now, just looking at you guys, I can tell that generally speaking, you seem to be a classy bunch of people.

I bet that, generally speaking, you watch comedy channels, maybe a little bit of commentary,

maybe a little bit of lifestyle stuff that's done well and isn't predatory.

So most likely, you haven't been exposed to some of these very cancerous,

mobile game ads from some of your favorite creators.

But if you have ever seen a mobile game ad on any YouTube video,

I guarantee you, that it has gone almost exactly the same way,

every time.

So what I have done just for you today is collect a series of emails that I've received from mobile game companies over the years,

I've reached out to other Youtubers who have received emails for mobile game companies over the years,

and I have compiled a general list of some of the things that mobile game sponsors want you to do for them on YouTube.

What I find eerie is the fact that even though these emails come from a multitude of different companies, brands, games, and just people in general,

almost every single promotion for a mobile game reads about the same.

So - you're a Youtuber. Let's crack into what a mobile game company wants you to do for their brand.

Now, I'm not going to be using the names of companies, apps, or other youtubers

that I've gathered information from or had first-hand experience with, pretty clearly,

because while I don't condone this

I don't exactly have the money or the clout to shit down the throats of... every big company in the world.

[gun cocks]

Let's start with some promotion that I myself have admittedly done for a mobile game app, over a year ago.

So I made one of my longer unconventional oven cooking videos,

and I threw in the sponsorship for a mobile game about poker and gambling.

You know, one of those things that your cigarette-ridden aunt plays so that she can win

free tickets to casinos where she thinks she's getting more money than she's spending

because they give her a free night, and she'll drop two thousand dollars,

and then encourage you to come take bonus points and play with her and get free shit.

You know... those apps.

Just looking back in my Gmail history here, I noticed that this interaction

was a 59 message email thread.

That is 59 individual emails

that were sent back and forth between me and the company,

to try to decide on what would work for us, creatively and business-wise

Now, the only reason I was entertaining any sort of sponsorship

particularly from a mobile game company at that time

was clearly because, I needed some extra cash-

as many Youtubers find themselves in, especially growing and coming up

as they start making their name on the platform.

After 59 emails, here is what the company still

insisted on getting from me for promotion.

Let me know if any of these talking points sound familiar or, if you've heard one of your favorite creators

talk like this in the past.

To begin my video,

this company wanted me to start right out of the gates

with a two to three minute talking point about their ad.

What? What is- What is...?

Of the roughly 500 videos that I've made, probably 10% of my catalog is even over 2 minutes.

In all the talks that I have ever had with mobile game sponsorships,

they will not fucking budge on the first 1 to 2 minutes- no exceptions.

So in these first 2 to 3 minutes, here's what I am supposed to be cramming down your slimy little consumer throat:

I am supposed to tell you, right out of the gates, that I found this- quote, unquote,

[Bouncy music] "fun, exciting new app that I just can't get enough of."

That sounds really genuine. You guys know me well,

I talk like a 50's sitcom dad.

[Old-school whistling] "Hey gang. Why don't you hop in here?

"I found this nifty new app that I just can't get enough of!"

I am supposed to tell you

three to five different features of the app that I specifically love.

So, for example, if I were talking about a poker game, I would say something along the lines of,

[Bouncy music] "Hey guys!

"So, I recently came across this cool new app called

"Gus's Fuckin Poker App ®.

"One of my favorite things about Gus's Fuckin Poker App ® is the 2v2, Texas Holdem

"no limit double draw limit down poker tournaments" -

"Guys, we're just having a casual conversation."

The next item on the list, after talking about the specific app features that I like,

is that I am supposed to tell a- quote,

"emotional and engaging story about how poker

"has influenced my life."

[screeching] WHAT?

An emotional and engaging story about how poker has influenced

[Dischordant Keyboard]

[Borat voice] my life!

[Several gunshots] UGHH!!!

[Somber music] Hey guys,

so, I just wanted to say that...

I was in a really rough place a couple of years ago,

and I was living on my parents couch,

and I was 43 years old, and I didn't have any job,

and I still wet the bed - or the couch I guess,

but then my cousin Ross came to town,

and started inviting me to some black market, backroom poker tournaments,

and I risked it all, and I had to do a lot of really bad things for money

[Echoes and whistling] But then poker got my life back on track! :-)

[gunshot]

So, after you, the brain-dead, mindless consumer,

just got done bawling your eyes out

over my "emotional and engaging" poker story

I'm supposed to show you at *least* one full minute of

gameplay of the stupid app;

and again, this is basically every mobile game sponsorship

it's not just specific to this dumb poker app.

So after you sit down, and you're supposed to believe me,

your reputable, trusted, loved, creator

try to fucking bamboozle you,

like you're three years old and you don't know what an advertisement is,

I'm supposed to... just naturally and organically,

whip out the app,

and show it to your fucking dumb face and say,

[Excitedly] "Oh, remember that thing that you and me-

"Buddy? We're buddies..."

"were just talking about naturally?

"Well, here's some gameplay of it.

"You guys want to see some gameplay?"

[Suddenly lower] You guys like gameplay, don't you?

You millennial bitch.

I know the main focus of this video is to shit directly on the companies themselves

for having unrealistic expectations

and my intent is to not condemn the creators who accept these;

I've been in the position myself, of needing a little extra influx of cash

and doing what I had to to try to make rent next month.

But some of the people that end up going through with the ads,

you can tell immediately,

that it's just the most horrible, fake, stupid way

to implement a brand into a piece of content.

Almost every single time, they'll start off the video saying what they're gonna be doing today,

and then somebody else will grab the camera, and they'll come in like,

if it's in a garage, they'll come into the garage,

and their friend will come behind them and be like, with the camera, they'll say,

"Hey Josh, you ready to get going? We're gonna film that video today"

and then - I'll be Josh.

[Bouncy music] "Oh, hey Travis,

"I'm sorry. You must have caught me while I was off guard.

"You see, my life has basically been non-existent the last two weeks,

"as I've been clinically addicted to this new Gus's Fuckin Poker App ®.

"Oh! You're rolling right now, you say?

"Well, seeing us the cameras up and running,

"didn't know that was gonna happen-

"anyways, let me just shift the phone here,

"so you can see that I'm playing

"a double-dip dipstick baby-drop-pop Doug Dimmadome, Texas Hold'em two-for-two, Julian Smith app game right here

"Is the three minutes up yet? Okay.

"Well, thanks for stopping by the garage.

"That's just part of my life that's going on right now.

"Catch you later, bitch."

[gunshot]

[Dischordant keyboard] This video is going off the rails.

So to wrap up this midlife crisis of a video,

sponsorships are just something that's gonna happen on YouTube

It's got to happen for your favorite creators so they can create the content that you want;

It's a part of the community now...

I- and many of my other creator friends- are very appreciative of people being so accepting of the fact

that most people can't really rely on the YouTube ad earnings fully

and they'll sometimes have to supplement income with sponsorships.

Especially the guys that make 30-second content,

that sometimes, after hundreds of thousands of views, you make

...three dollars

That is not an exaggeration.

If you want to see even two creators that just kill it with their sponsorship game, look at like,

Drew Gooden and Erik Comment Etiquette are great examples of people

that take this sponsorship and make content out of it.

And one final note, in a video where I complain about

sponsorships, is to mention, yet again,

that the most dope, and cool, and completely apathetic

hands-off company to ever do sponsorships with is

Incensezen.com.

You want to go buy like 20 fucking incense sticks where you burn them

and then they make your house smell really good?

Go get 20 sticks for, like, 2 bucks online use coupon code Gus for 15% off your order.

I've been working with Incense Zen for well over a year and they just...

they do not give a shit about what you do or what you say.

They don't even make me approve the videos before I post them. They don't care what I said-

I've literally said in videos, as a joke,

"Fuck Incense Zen," and their rep goes,

"Alright, great! That's good. I love it."

[Laughs] They just dont...

They get it! They're a cool company,

And if you want to support them, which does, in turn, support me financially

and "business-wise"

then go to incensezen.com and you can use coupon code 'Gus' at checkout: you get 15% off your order

So, check out Incense Zen if you wanna make that stank

[rhyming] go down the sink

thanks for watching the video and for supporting what I do.

Go ahead and follow me on Twitter for updates about the channel,

and for new content, and for some recycled old content

that I'm trying to whore myself out on

so don't forget to turn on that notification bell,

be good to one another,

and holy shit Icee would you fucking send me an email?

[into the mic] Bye boys

[gunshot]