Meet the gaming prodigy from Gujarat with over 30M followers on YouTube
Ahmedabad-based Total Gaming is the first Indian gamer and gaming content creator to have crossed the 30 million mark on YouTube without ever revealing his face.
Creativity comes in all shapes and sizes – and in the case of anonymous gaming content creators, without a face too. A gamer and gaming content creator from Ahmedabad, whose identity remains unknown, started Total Gaming in 2018. He has amassed an enormous following for his gaming content without ever revealing his identity, even topping the list of YouTube India’s Top 10 Content Creators for 2021.
“I have few friends and would often feel lonely, so I started playing games. But I did not have many gaming buddies either, so I created the Total Gaming channel on YouTube to bring people with similar interests together. Live-streaming on YouTube was a way for me to interact with like-minded individuals. I started with only a few views per live session, but now a huge community joins in every time I go live. After reaching the milestone of eight million subscribers on YouTube, I became aware of my stature as one of the largest gamers in the country. It’s been amazing because I was only doing it for the love of playing and for entertainment,” explains the confident young man, who is in his 20s, in a chat with YSWeekender.
The idea
Total Gaming’s journey began in 2018 due to the gamer’s passion to play video games. After devouring hours of gaming videos made by renowned Indian gamers on YouTube, he became fascinated with gaming and slowly developed his passion over time.
He shares, “My phone has limited storage space, so I wasn’t able to play PUBG on my mobile. When I came across Free Fire, which I could easily play on my phone, I was so excited!” Thereafter, he relied on a strong internet connection at his workplace, which allowed him to play without hindrance after work.
Refusing to disclose his academic and professional background to maintain his privacy, he shares that he currently oversees his family business in addition to creating content. Even the team at Total Gaming, consisting of an editor and a translator, is unaware of his real identity.
He ascribes his tremendous success, despite his anonymity, to his clean content without the use of foul language. His audience consists largely of children at an impressionable age and he is mindful of the effects of his content on them. In fact, he has coined his own term ‘chimkandi’ to use when frustrated or excited, in place of cuss words.
“I believe in today’s world gaming content creators are superheroes for kids and young audiences. People enact or copy their actions. Therefore, all creators online have a responsibility to ‘influence correctly’. No amount of frustration can justify using cuss words or abusive language online,” he shares.
Though a youth icon, he also has a fan following among people over the age of 30, which makes the creation of wholesome content doubly important for him.
Challenges
He shares that creating content in the field of gaming requires a ton of effort, as one has to think of a storyline and stick with it. “At times, I have to capture the screen of the console first, then dub it for better sound quality. Further, the creation of gaming content relies heavily on in-depth knowledge of battleground games,” he adds.
His Free Fire gaming experience makes it easy for him to create content on Free Fire within a few hours. However, other games like Minecraft and GTA require seven to eight hours of shooting to create a video of 20 minutes. Even the slightest error requires a voiceover to be re-done to ensure the content on the screen matches what has been said. Plus, there is immense pressure to create content regularly and frequently, so people don’t lose interest if the storyline isn’t updated.
However, the biggest challenge is to keep audiences engaged without revealing their identity. It means investing tremendous time and energy to create unique content to keep people coming back for more.
He also faced a serious challenge when YouTube suspended his channel in the early days because of spammers.
“Back then, I had around three lakh subscribers. I didn’t know what to do. The channel was restored within 24 hours, but I couldn’t upload anything for a few days. As a result, my viewership dropped and it took me almost a month to recover,” he laments.
When asked about his competitors, he responds, “There are none! No one in India has reached 30 million in such a short period without revealing their face. There are real pro-gamers other than me, but I am unique in the fact that I only provide commentary on my own games and maintain my privacy by not making public appearances. I am the only gaming content creator whose popularity is based purely on my engaging content. However, I do enjoy watching Techno Gamerz and Desi Gamers.”
The growth
A recent report by the Boston Consulting Group and Sequoia India’s mobile gaming sector revealed that India has a $1.8 billion gaming market, which is growing rapidly with the advent of mobile-first games. More than 300 million people play mobile games in India, which has led to the overall growth of the gaming market at a CAGR of 38 percent in 2019-2020 and 37 percent in the previous fiscal.
Gaming has been growing faster than social media in India over the past few years, and these numbers are reflected in the immense popularity of Total Gaming.
Since starting Total Gaming in 2018, he has accumulated over 30 million subscribers on YouTube, and 3.1 million followers on Instagram. Extra time spent at home during the pandemic and the fact that children prefer gaming to cartoons these days, further spurred his growth.
Appreciative of the love received, he remembers his humble beginnings fondly, “In my initial days as a gamer, when I did my first live stream, three people joined me. Seeing those three people was the greatest reward of all!”
He recently dubbed an English game called Assassin’s Creed Valhalla into Hindi, which was widely embraced and appreciated by the public, and now plans to make concerted efforts to translate more games from English to Hindi.
“As an Indian gamer, I have noticed all the games we play are in English. This may make it difficult for some to follow the storyline, so I hope to make my content accessible to Hindi-speaking individuals. Most games outside India are available in multiple languages, while in India they are only available in English,” he shares.
The fact that it is an expensive proposition – each video’s dubbing costs around Rs 50-60,000 – does not deter him.
Other plans in the works include adding to his existing content repertoire, as well as expanding into making animation web series.