Take that, Tony Hawk

PewDiePie: hilarious and harmless, or scourge of the gaming community? Adored by his legions of subscribers and seemingly hated by everyone else, the Swedish YouTube star always seems to split opinion. But whatever your take on the gurning personality, it's impossible to deny his influence.

The success of the sensation's Skate 3 videos, in which he exploits the notoriously buggy nature of the game for comic effect, has actually led to publisher EA reprinting the 4-year-old game. The video series garnered over 12 million views on the first entry alone, and those kind of figures are hard to ignore – even for a company as big as EA.

The direct influence of PewDiePie, and possibly other popular YouTubers, has led to a 32 per cent increase in the skate-'em-up's sales since last year. And GAME, the UK retail chain, reported so much in-store demand that it actually requested a reprint.

EA, recognising the requests, happily obliged with a budget re-release in the PS3 Essentials range. Four whole years later, and after the release of next-gen consoles, it seems almost unbelievable. But if this unexpected spike of renewed interest continues, maybe the firm will even consider a sequel, which otherwise seemed dead in the water. Well done, PewDiePie – you did good this time.

[source vg247.com]