Three Factors Which Helped ‘Video Game High School’ Reach 110 Million All-Time Views

Freddie Wong is arguably one of the biggest power players in online video. The creator and special effects wiz rose to prominence through his YouTube channel and production studio RocketJump. Wong is perhaps best known for all three seasons of his successfully-crowdfunded Video Game High School (VGHS), which, according to Google, has managed to rake in over 110 million global video views on YouTube alone.

Wong told Tubefilter he credits much of VGHS’s $1.9+ million fundraising success to the power of his fan base, which only increased in its numbers and appetite for RocketJump’s programming as time progressed. During the week of VGHS‘ Season 3 premiere, for instance, viewership was 400% higher than the viewership was during the premiere week of VGHS Season 1 roughly two years earlier.

It’s clear a creator doesn’t get over millions in contributions for crowdfunding campaigns, 110 million video views, and a 400% view increase from a complacent audience. So how did Wong manage to build up his rapport with fans to reach these astounding numbers? A recent Think with Google post seeks to answer this question.

Google believes one of the initial appeals of Wong’s RocketJump production shop and it’s regular release of high-quality online videos was the combination of video game nostalgia and live-action effects. Because that live-action and those special effects were so well done, YouTube viewers naturally gravitated to the channel on a regular basis. And when Wong produced visually stunning videos with elements that imitated components from popular video games, he drafted off of the success of those video games, too (as was the case with the channel’s “Real Life Portal Gun

Collaborations with some of Hollywood’s biggest names also helped raise awareness of the RocketJump channel. Wong worked with Jon Favreau on a spoof of the director’s Cowboys & Aliens film, and then teamed with Comedy Central’s comedy duo Key & Peele for the “Mexican Standoff” video. More recently, Wong collaborated with late-night host Jimmy Kimmel for a showdown based on who could tie a better tie knot. Each of these collaborations helped draw attention to RocketJump (and gave the Hollywood names involved some online video credibility).

Finally, while it seems a less important factor compared to the last two points, Google credits Wong’s YouTube smarts for growing his audience in highly effective ways. For example, Wong regularly and creatively weaved in YouTube’s end card tool at the end of many videos to encourage viewers to continue watching his content. Google notes that the end card at the end of the “Real Life Mario Kart!” video has a click-through rate ten times that of regular YouTube annotations.

These factors all added up to develop the raving RocketJump fan base, which was more than willing to donate its money to support Wong’s creations and hours of leisure to watch the final products. Any creator looking to develop an audience of similar size, loyalty, and enthusiasm to Wong’s RocketJump would do well to test these methods out on their own channels.