The Dramatic Downfall of PopularMMOs

[Music] hey what's up guys this is pat from popularmmos.com and i am doing a first look for atlantic online today i have with me my girlfriend jen hey guys and we are playing an adventure map today called the walking dead yes we are a few months ago we decided to break up um and it's been something that we've been thinking about probably for a year get right in the middle and then just enjoy yourself all right here we go i think that's perfect here we go come on you got it yes good work that was amazing what is going on right there hasn't been a video on the channel well even like one or two in like the last like couple weeks you're probably like oh my god [Music] it's pretty insane to see how quickly some people can go from having their life completely together to then having everything fall apart sometimes in a time period consisting of only a few short months on top of this there's really nothing that makes you sadder than seeing someone you love crumble from the chaos of life popular mmos is a longtime youtuber who went from a nobody just trying to promote his website what's up it's pat from popularmmos.com to an internet superstar gaining approximately 240 million views per month a number so insane that throughout 2017 there wasn't a single month where even pewdiepie could get more views than popular mmos when the channel was in its absolute prime between 2015 and 2018 it really didn't seem like anything could possibly bring the channel undone however in july 2018 things started to change for the channel popular mmos began to randomly start losing viewers minecraft began to decline in popularity pat the creator of the channel seemed way less motivated to make content and most importantly the couple that made the channel so successful in the first place pat and jen announced they would be divorcing leaving the goodwill of the channel in a questionable state over the last two years i've watched the channel go from getting an average of 240 million views per month to sometimes less than 50 million in recent times a drop of approximately 80 this video will cover every aspect of the popular mmo's uprise followed by the popular mmo's downfall so guys buckle up and join me as we cover the rise and fall of popular mmos our story begins in early 2012 when a then 23 year old connecticut college student by the name of patrick brown began a website titled popularmmos.com the website provided reviews features and descriptions for different mmorpg games in an attempt to help users find the best game for them to play the website suggested games such as forsaken world runescape and atlantica online however after the website assumably got minimal traffic in the beginning the creator patrick brown decided to create a youtube channel to complement the content on the website well when i started i started with gaming reviews and the reason i started with them was because i made a website i was like i'm gonna make a website i actually started youtube because i thought it would complement my website well the popular mmos channel was then created on the 18th of april 2012 with the goal of uploading reviews and descriptions on mmo games kind of like what was done on the website only in video format the first video was then uploaded on the popular mmo's youtube channel on the 8th of may 2012 about 2 weeks after initially creating the channel this first video was titled runescape gameplay where he basically just gave an outline of what could be done in the game runescape should people want to try it out hey everyone this is pat from popularmmos.com and we're going to take a first look at runescape following this video pat realized that there was a huge audience for people just wanting to watch gaming content rather than find out information on games as he attempted to lay out on his website that didn't go so well so i thought then i was like people watch people play games i want to play games just play it through them i know that seemed like a really fun idea so i went with that instead and yeah and i was like screw the website i don't i don't care i still have it though after making this discovery popular mmos altered the content on the channel slightly to cover mainly guides on various different games such as runescape money making guides hey what's up guys this is pat from popularmmos.com and i'm doing a money making guide for runescape for pay-to-play players and world of warcraft choosing class guides what's up guys it's pat from popularmmos.com and i'm going to be going over how to make the right choice for your professions in world of warcraft following these uploads pat decided to once again go against his own mmo branding and upload a video discussing a new game that was more of an open world sandbox game the game we're talking about is of course the now popular minecraft what's up guys it's pat and i'm doing a first look video for minecraft and i'm going to show you uh some of the cool features of the game uh show you a little bit about how it works tell you a little bit more about it after innocuously displaying the mechanics and what you could do within minecraft popular mmos then decided to upload more content on the game however rather than showing the mechanics of the game he decided to just display his own gameplay by starting his very first let's play series titled minecraft survival what's up guys it's pat and i'm doing a let's play series for minecraft and i am basically brand new to this game just wanted to point that out um i've jumped into the game a little bit a little bit um i decided to purchase this game because you know this looks like a pretty cool game however even after switching the content style to something more relatable for the youtube audience growth was still very slow after pumping out 55 videos over a two month period popular mmos finally hit 100 subscribers on the 5th of july 2012 with the upload to subscriber ratio displaying approximately 2 subscribers per video and understandably this kind of growth wasn't really satisfactory for pat perhaps he felt as though he was putting in too much effort for what he was getting back so what he began to do was send out a bunch of messages in an attempt to have people come and view his channel how have you gone about getting people to watch your vids um in the past i used to just send out messages to people and video responses stuff like that i may have messaged a lot of people in the past um to watch my channel um when i first started it was really hard to get people to watch my videos and i sent out a bunch of messages however pat eventually discontinued this growth strategy as other youtubers were getting banned for it it's something i stopped doing months ago um just because you know i actually noticed a couple people got banned for sent for um sending out messages and stuff so yeah back in the past i had sent out quite a few messages and that may be how you first saw my channel but um i don't do that anymore however after hitting 100 subscribers on the channel in july 2012 something bizarre started to happen the views and subscribers started to increase so much so that only one month later in august 2012 popular mmos was at 1 000 subscribers it seems as though popular mmos had discovered the intuition for what makes a channel grow because by the end of the year he was ready to upload his first 3 000 subscriber question and answer video hey what's up guys it's pat and i've actually gotten a couple requests that asked me to do a question and answer type video so if you have a question i have an answer now the most iconic part about this question and answer video was when someone asked pat what he would do for a job if he had one he stated that he would love to play games for a living but didn't think he'd be able to do it an ironic statement for later parts of the video i don't really have something that i would like love to do i mean of course i'd love to like play games as a job but who wouldn't i think everyone who you know has a youtube channel is like i wish i could do this for a living of course you do because you can sit at home and play a game it's fun i probably won't be able to do that let's be honest during the q a a fan also asked what his goals were for youtube pat stated that his goal was to get more viewers and just basically get better what is your goal with youtube of course to get more popular more viewers and just get better you know well he most certainly would get better because only eight months later in july 2013 popular mmos was at 100 000 subscribers and today's a very special day we finally hit 100 000 subscribers honestly i can't believe it and i just wanted to say thank you so much to you guys by this point pat was uploading almost exclusively minecraft content with a few world of warcraft videos thrown in most of the minecraft uploads on the channel were getting up to one million views while the world of warcraft videos were barely cracking 10 000 views so it began to seem pretty obvious as to which game would be better to focus on for this reason in december 2013 popular mmos decided to leave world of warcraft and all other games behind to focus purely on minecraft content this decision turned out to be excellent for the growth of the channel because in the six months between december 2013 and june 2014 popular mmos went from 250 000 to 1 million subscribers hey guys it's pat and welcome to a special video that's right guys we actually hit 1 million subscribers i can't believe it it's absolutely insane to celebrate the achievement pat uploaded a video titled 1 million subscriber special once again doing a q a type video answering some questions from the fans toward the end of the video his then fiance jen was brought on to answer some of the questions with pat jen's been a big part of my channel for a while now guys and some of these questions are for both of us this is extremely awkward right no it's not it's fine jen had been in numerous videos prior to the million subscriber special and the audience was well and truly familiar with her on the popular mmo's channel so it's probably a good time to introduce her into our story hey guys it's jen and pat and we are going to be doing the adventure map dungeon of heroes jen and pat met while in high school after working at an animal shelter for cats together where did we meet animal place you don't need to answer so quickly you can be more thorough it's not a race it's a shelter for cats since jen was also into gaming she was naturally introduced onto the channel as an extra character on the show so today i'm with me my girlfriend jen hey guys and what we're going to be doing is a bunch of different challenges in skyblock she began to build up a reputation on the channel as a kind light-hearted character which appealed perfectly to the younger audience at the time by the time popularmmos was at 1 million subscribers she was well and truly an established character on the show so established that it would be detrimental if she were to leave which will be important for later parts of the downfall [Music] jen and pat together through hard work dedication and a load of minecraft grew the channel to 2 million subscribers only 4 months after hitting 1 million welcome to my 2 million subscriber video i can't believe it we're up to 2 million subscribers by this point the popular mmo's channel was getting over 5 million views per day equating to around 150 million views per month likely earning around 300 000 per month in ad revenue alone but this was really only the beginning as only six months later in early 2015 the channel was getting double that minimum 200 million views per month every month and so began the reign of popular mmos as one of the most viewed channels on youtube by early 2015 pulling pretty similar numbers to other top tier youtubers like pewdiepie and dantdm however 2015 wasn't only significant for the popular mmo's view count something else extraordinarily significant happened in this year jen and pat got married we just got engaged we just got married [Music] this was followed by them buying a new house together a few years after showcased in a video uploaded by jen in december 2017. this is the perfect hurricane room i know this will be part we'll be hiding back here it's gonna be really cool oh and look it's our wedding picture we brought that over too we have like all kinds of cool stuff at around that same point where jen and pat bought their new house together late 2017. pretty much all of the videos on popular mmos were collaborations between both pat and jan hey what's going on dudes it's pat and welcome back to another mod showcase hey guys they were very much at a point where without pat or jen the quality would naturally diminish significantly but this wasn't really a negative because the fact that they worked so well together on screen made their view counts skyrocket in 2017 the popular mmo's channel added 2.9 billion views to the total count approximately 450 million more than pewdiepie's 2.45 billion in 2017. just to give you an idea of how big that number is 2.9 billion views equates to approximately six million dollars in ad revenue alone for the year assuming around two dollars per thousand views the reign of pat and jen's insane view counts continued onwards with the first half of 2018 averaging around the same as 2017. however by mid 2018 signs began to pop up here and there that things were starting to go sour for the popular mmo's channel but before we go any further guys i'm going to give a shout out to the sponsor of this video expressvpn if you don't know what a vpn is it's a private connection that simply put basically means that your internet browsing can't be traced back to you what this means is that your internet activity is private ultimately resulting in high levels of privacy and significantly reducing the risk of being hacked while 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month however looking back this month seemed to be the beginning of the end after getting 231 million views in july 2018 the stats began to take a bit of a dip only three months later in october 2018 the channel gained only 120 million views from 32 uploads about half as many as july despite having uploaded the same amount of videos over the next six to eight months the view counts continued to slowly dwindle down to 100 million per month in may 2019 at which point a video was uploaded possibly explaining the drop in views on the 25th of may 2019 popular mmos uploaded a video titled we are breaking up where pat and jen explained that they were breaking up and getting a divorce but um basically um a few months ago we decided to break up um and it's been something that we've been thinking about probably for a year maybe longer they explained that the reason was because jen wanted to have kids while pat did not one of the reasons you guys could probably even think of is we've been asked about a million times do we want to have kids jen does want to have kids i do not want to have kids and that's a big issue because that's something that's really important to me yeah and now it's interesting to see how this manifested itself considering in a question and answer video from june 2015 they both stated that they had no plans to have any kids question number three are you going to have children um no no no no we have a cat that's good enough for me we have a child his name is alice and it's a cat i guess this kind of highlights that things change over time and while that fact isn't super relevant to the story i thought it was an interesting observation worth adding regardless one thing was for sure pat and jen were no longer happy together and were most definitely ending the relationship that made the channel so successful in the first place despite announcing the breakup and everyone expecting the collaborations between pat and jen to stop they actually continued to make videos together appearing to be extremely happy to be making the content and spending time together right now jen is walking to the entrance but little do you know this is the back of the building and she can't actually get in we went to the front and there were no parking spots all right let's see what happens when she gets to the door however something seemed off a majority of the comments began to relate to the fact that they were broken up followed by some comment on how the channel didn't feel the same or something like that it all seemed like a bit of an act and the vibe was that they were just pretending to be happy to keep their fan base happy rather than actually being happy and it makes sense people aren't stupid they know that breakups are messy and it's rare that each party comes out happy on the other side so the automatic assumption is that they were just putting it on to keep their audience happy however despite appearing happy on the surface it was pretty obvious that things were going on behind the scenes hindering their emotional states and ability to make videos this was probably best explained by popular mmo's upload schedule before the breakup the popular mmo's upload schedule was still extremely strong uploading 30 videos in april 2019 a month before the announcement this was then followed by an understandable dip to 16 uploads in july 2019 two months after the announcement especially given everything that had been going on 16 uploads in a month still wasn't bad however in august 2019 only three months after the announcement only six videos were uploaded on the channel this was then followed by only five uploads in september 2019 and then seven uploads in october representing an average of six uploads per month over three months approximately 80 percent less than 30 videos per month that were being produced one year previously it was quite clearly articulated that pat's motivation and time to make content had taken a bit of a hit from the breakup judging by the upload schedule then 2020 rolled around a year that has so far brought about another situation that stirred up some controversy pat began dating a new girl oleni alleny first featured on the channel with pat in december 2019. today i am going to be playing with my friend eleni hi and for obvious reasons wasn't received very well by many other fans a massive quantity of the comments began to relate to wanting genbak or the potential replacement of jen for pat's new girlfriend aleni pat then uploaded a video titled minecraft bed was with the lenny and ex-wife jen in may 2020. today i am with two people i am with jen and i am with eleni hey guys this video resulted in a massive comparison of pat's new girlfriend lenny to jen the hate was so strong that pat uploaded a video titled please stop addressing the comments i'm kind of making a video that i was not expecting um to make today but after the last video guys i put up minecraft bed wars with eleni and ex-wife jen versus me and i had no idea it was gonna cause so much controversy like so much this video was then uploaded by another video titled this is not okay explaining that oleni had been getting hate and death threats surrounding the video with her and jen eleni's getting a lot of messages and stuff on like instagram and like death threats you guys that's ridiculous it's a minecraft video yeah there shouldn't be any um threats going on at all then following these videos with jen talking about how she doesn't mind a lenny etc i just wanted to say to stop being mean to lenny stop being so hateful there's already so much hate going on in the world right now and it's just not needed and you guys should stop it seems as though recently the channel's just been filled with controversy and they're feeding it by making so many videos giving the trolls attention i understand why they're trying to make videos to stop the comparison between jen and lenny but asking an audience of 17 million on the internet to be nice very rarely works the controversy has been far from beneficial for popular mmos only gaining 48 million views in february 2020. a view count that hadn't been seen on the channel since february 2014 six years previously now of course 48 million views is still a monstrous number comparative to almost any other youtuber on the platform however comparative to his peak of 315 million views in july 2017 48 million is quite a drop then more recently after barely uploading any videos over the last month pat uploaded a video titled what is going on where he explained why he hasn't been uploading as much stating gen moving and illness as the main perpetrators you're probably wondering what is going on right there hasn't been a video on the channel well even like one or two in like the last like couple weeks and you're probably like oh my god his pat died i'm not dead pretty sure see myself like um i'm alive here pat gained 46 million views in july 2020 with only six uploads his lowest view month since the beginning of the downfall the saddest part about this video to me is the comments messy's world said he's falling apart bro i can tell is he okay i'm actually concerned he seems like he's spiraling into insanity but maybe that's just me had even pinned a comment on the video saying things are fine a seemingly sarcastic thing indicating that he might be going through hell right now if pat is going through some stuff i hope he can pull himself out of it he's certainly in a rough spot given everything that's been going on now that we've covered the story i want to present four theories for the downfall of popular mmos in order from least significant to most significant so we can draw a proper conclusion as to what it is that caused pat's drop in views firstly the theory that popular mmos drop in views is owed to fewer uploads now i think this theory is almost a given a drop in uploads is almost certainly going to equate to a drop in views if you upload three videos in a month compared to 30 you'll almost certainly be getting fewer views however this metric is so difficult to measure given that there are so many different inputs relating to how fewer videos can lead to fewer views but as a very low resolution and provable theory the drop in uploads between july 2019 and the present day has certainly played a part in the overall drop in views for popular mmos my second theory for the downfall is a drop in video quality possibly spanning from the breaker it was explained in the start of the breakup video that they were dreading making the video for a couple of months we're making a video today that we've been dreading making for actually a really long time now very long time so we've actually waited um months months so that we can at least laugh about it possible now this is significant because the drop in views seem to begin over the few months prior to them uploading the video announcing their breakup which potentially links the break up to the downfall of the channel and since they were still uploading the same amount of videos when the views started to decline a plausible theory might be that the video quality dropped as a result of stress from the impending breakup but this is easily discountable considering the videos that pat and jen produce were just kind of playing and having a good time with minimal editing most of the views came from the creativity of the video ideas and not so much the quality of the videos but then on the other hand you might say that their creativity took a bit of a hit from the chaos of the breakup their lives possibly just became about getting a video out rather than putting time into thinking of new and creative ideas and if they were going through a breakup it's likely that there might have been a lot of fighting and unhealthy discussions over the end of the relationship instead of solid time invested into actually thinking up new ideas but this is extraordinarily hard to measure considering creativity is subjective and can't be quantified what might seem good to some might seem worse to others the third and only actually quantifiable theory in this list is a drop in minecraft's popularity the decline of popular mmo's views began in july 2018 which looking at the graph was pretty much the least popular point in minecraft's history a possible indicator for a drop in views but at the same time this theory is totally discountable considering that between 2014 and 2017 minecraft's popularity dropped approximately 75 however popular mmos retain the same view count over this time period which indicates that minecraft's popularity doesn't really correlate with the popularity of popular mmo's channel also if we blame the popularity of minecraft on the drop in views for popular mmos then the same theory would indicate that pat's views should have tripled in early to mid 2019 after this massive spike in the popularity of the game but this didn't really happen they went up a bit but not as much as the graph might suggest but again as a low resolution theory a drop in the popularity of minecraft is certainly going to play a part in popular mmo's dropping popularity if it's the main game he's covering the fourth final and probably most plausible theory for the downfall is a drop in interest following the split between pat and jen popular mmos wasn't just pat it wasn't just jen it was pat and jen and following their split they've removed the duality that made the channel so successful in the first place pat continually tries to ensure that nothing's changed so jen moved as you guys know um that doesn't change anything you don't know that i'm telling you right now that doesn't change anything we're still gonna be recording she's setting up her office and they still play together however the vibe is totally off i think everyone can tell that they're just doing it to keep the audience happy i read something the other week that seems totally appropriate here the trajectory is more important than the current circumstance i think the audience can subconsciously tell that the whole jen and pat playing together forever isn't really gonna work it works for now the current circumstance but how good can the trajectory possibly be if they're now divorced and doing their own thing they're both in their own relationships now and how long can they continue to be acquaintances before it totally messes up their private life and their own partners how long are they going to be playing together before eleni gets fed up with pat and his ex-wife spending so much time together i think the number one thing that caused the downfall was the fact that everyone can tell that this really isn't going to work forever i feel awful just for saying this but i think it needs to be said the future doesn't seem as promising as it did back in 2015 after pat and jen had recently married but thankfully pat is likely absolutely loaded with cash after pumping out an insane quantity of content over the last seven years so much so that it's extremely unlikely he'll ever have to work another day in his life if he doesn't want to so what does this mean for him it means he can do whatever he wants you know i really do enjoy what i do and it's not like i really need the money so i need to record a solid one it's just that i want to work i don't want to just sit at home and watch tv he can do minecraft he can do websites he can do any other entrepreneurial endeavor he's got the money problem solved extremely early in life so it's likely he'll do extraordinarily well in whatever he wishes to pursue and it's not like there's anyone who genuinely wants to see pat and the popular mmo's channel fail i think everyone wants to see it succeed so when pat gets his personal life sorted i think the goodwill of the channel can easily be picked back up but pat is obviously going through some stuff right now he needs a bit of space but hopefully he can pull himself out of it and get the channel back on the road that it was on back in the day

Channel: SunnyV2

Views: 4,583,751

Keywords: popularmmos, gamingwithjen, pat and jen, pat and eleni, popularmmos break up, popular mmos, stampylonghead, iballisticsquid, minecraft, where are they now?, cdusk, a brief history, documentary, gamerfrommars, stampylongnose, youtube documentary, where is, Biography, narration, video essay, twitch, youtube, entertainment, education, joon the king, fredrik knudsen, down the rabbit hole, no swearing, family friendly, sunnyv2, sunnyv2 downfall, downfall, demise, lets play

Id: U1JY_GIz9w0

Length: 25min 11sec (1511 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 20 2020