By surpassing one billion views, Captain Sparklez (real name Jordan Maron) has become only the fifth solo gamer to reach ten digits (the other four: PewDiePie, SkyDoesMinecraft, UberHaxorNova, and Toby Games). The 21 year old California native is best known for his Minecraft-constructed music videos, which regularly score tens of millions of views, but he is a prolific YouTube gamer with more than a thousand videos to his credit. We spoke to Maron about his YouTube success.

Tubefilter: How does it feel to know that your videos have been viewed more than one billion times?

Captain Sparklez: It’s a bit surreal, starting out three years ago I can’t say I’d ever have imagined reaching such a huge number of people. The gaming scene on YouTube has simply exploded in popularity over the past couple years, and I’m honored to occupy at least a small niche within that community. I’ll continue to do what I’m doing, try to keep improving, and hope the best is yet to come.

TF: When did you first discover Minecraft, and what do you think makes it so great?

CS: I think the fact that Minecraft is so open ended is what has allowed it to appeal to such a wide audience. There is no single way to play and there is such a huge amount of community generated content available to try out. Someone can choose to play single player with the intent of defeating the ender dragon, jump on a server with friends and play multiplayer mini games, or switch to creative mode and build whatever they can imagine; the variety is virtually limitless and part of why I’ve continued to play since August 2010.

TF: When making Let’s Play videos, are you consciously focusing on making particularly interesting commentary or are you just playing the game and letting the commentary come naturally?

CS: I wing it, more or less, and simply react to whatever situation presents itself. I think planning my conversation ahead would result in forced-sounding commentary that wouldn’t be as appealing. I don’t consider myself too witty on the fly, but whatever the case, I guess at least a few people out there are content watching me just as I am.