8 Video Games That Blew Up Thanks To YOU
3. Five Nights At Freddy's
Years before most of the games on this list were even a thought, we had Five Nights at Freddy's, one of the first horror games to become a breakout hit thanks to streamers.
Let's Plays posted to YouTube by megastar streamers like Markiplier, Jacksepticeye, and PewDiePie caused Five Nights at Freddy's to become the most-uploaded video game on YouTube by 2015, just a year after its release.
By this point the game was enough of a commercial success that creator Scott Cawthon got to work on a sequel and, ultimately, a wider media empire consisting of novels and a recent Hollywood movie adaptation.
Cawthon foresaw the horror streamer boom and industriously capitalised on it, delivering a game ripe for reaction video content while also creating a deep - if confusing - web of lore which has fascinated the series' millions of fans ever since.
While horror games traditionally held no appeal for the squeamish, that folks could watch their favourite streamers freak out over Five Nights at Freddy's on YouTube proved to be a wildly radical way to grow the brand even with people who have little interest in playing for themselves.