There’s been an influx of new platforms for gaming creators, with more creator hopefuls hoping to become the next big thing. There are also more platforms for creators to choose from. In this increasingly competitive and fragmented landscape, strengthening our position as the leading platform for gaming entertainment meant that we needed to authentically connect with gaming communities. Our audience is savvy, and we didn’t think a bunch of ads showing off some gaming creators would shift perception of YouTube as a platform that actually cares about them. So we pushed our teams to do something impactful for gaming creators, to engage our growing audience of creator hopefuls and future fans.

YouTube and Ali-A partnered up to create a one-of-a-kind talent show called uTure. Led by Ali-A, who took the journey from creator hopeful to megastar himself, we got 14 of the biggest names in gaming to set challenges, and judge 10 up and coming creators over a series of episodes, across 9 weeks. This would be both an incubator for co-creation between big creators and smaller ones, and a means of leveraging visibility as a shortcut for the new players to scale their fanbases. One lucky creator would get to join their heroes and become the next big name in gaming, as well as a cash prize of $100k to help them on their way. Viewers would also be able to engage with the challenges, help set tasks and participate in the voting, creating an instant community around the show, its participants and the judges.

YouTube is the original home of the gaming creator. But since its inception, a lot has changed. Creators can not only make money off the platform, they can have wildly successful careers too, to the extent that today’s kids are three times as likely to aspire to a career as a YouTuber than an astronaut (Lego, 2019). More aspiring creators mean more difficulties to gain the exposure necessary to grow subscribers and connect with communities. With the help of Ali-A, one of YouTube’s most successful creators, we saw an opportunity to get the biggest gaming YouTubers to amplify the creators still at the start of the journey, giving them a creator's most important asset - visibility. Creating a revolving door of successful gaming creators on the platform, showing as many people as possible that YouTube is the place to be to help put a spotlight on creativity and talent.

Rather than pay for our audience to watch ads, 8.25 million people chose to watch the show in its entirety. Over 11,000 shorts were submitted in the open application phase before uTure even started, with over 2000 shorts created by channels that had never created one before. The launch garnered 47 pieces of earned coverage in legacy media titles like Variety and NME with a combined reach of 307M. Over ⅔ of creators surveyed after watching Uture believed that YouTube cares about gaming. Contestants saw an average 851% increase in subscriber bases in a 90-day period after the show. Finally, contestants had an average 231% increase in video uploads after the show, showing us that partnering with gaming talent in this way provides the fuel that YouTube needs to maintain leadership in gaming entertainment - which is more content for our audiences to connect with.