Head to Head: YouTube Sims

Vlogger: Go Viral

The ever addictive clicker genre strikes again. Pick a popular genre of video and tap the screen to progress through recording. You gain views to use as currency and spend them on increasing views per second or per video. Once you get started each video takes 1 hour to complete or less if you're tapping. There's a colourful cutesy style and you can even watch the videos you create, with upgrades actually showing up in your room and in-video. A recent update added avatar customisation and a merch store run by a pug which gives you more things to unlock. It's an enjoyable clicker although there's quite of lot of fullscreen popup adds, and some optional ones but at least those do offer nice boosts.

PewDiePie's Tuber Simulator

A surprising lack of root vegetables, this one takes the typical mobile sim formula, buying upgrades and coming back a few hours later to pick up resources/income. You can expand and customise your room using the views you gain. It's a slow start but with a tonne of upgrades, plenty of unlockables and a pug based minigame there's plenty to do. I want to like the game, but if you already have an urge to slap PewDiePie then this game isn't going to help that, for better or worse, his influence is clear right down to the preset video titles, oh and his tutorial voice over; both making it a great one for fans.

YouTuber's Life

There's now an ios version of this but it's no mobile game, still under steam early access the game had an early spike in popularity thanks to a raft of YouTuber's trying it out. You create a character even including some personality traits and then set about recording, editing an uploading your videos. Right now you can only run a gaming channel but there's more being added and they seem set to change up the gameplay quite significantly.

The gaming channel has you uploading let's plays, previews and walkthroughs while attending announcement events and conventions. You have a much wider experience with this one, making sure you stay fed and rested, paying bills on time and managing relationships The Sims-style. It's as much about attending the events and managing your friends and/or collaborators as it is uploading trending videos. Actually making the videos can get a bit old but just like The Sims there's always that sense that if you played just a few minutes longer you'll achieve something, whether it's making a new friend, paying that months rent or finally buying that games console you've had your eye on.





The popularity of YouTube games ties in to the "YouTubers as Celebrities" theme that I've touched on elsewhere. I'm pretty tied on these games, Go Viral is addictive and easy to pick up while YouTuber's Life is a full fledged tycoon meets The Sims style game. PewDiePie has a decent enough game but not being a fan of his and the game having a rather the slow start, I just didn't take to it like the others. Which one would you choose?