TIME magazine has published its annual list of the world’s 100 most influential people, which includes shout outs to two very different people on the ‘gaming personality’ spectrum.
Yep, YouTube star PewDiePie and Oculus Rift creator Palmer Luckey have been singled out as pioneers who have shaped the world with their creations. Palmer Luckey? Fair enough. PewDiePie perhaps takes a little more justification.
To be fair, PewDiePie (real name Felix Kjellberg) has 43.4 million subscribers on YouTube – more than anyone else by a long chalk.
South Park co-creator Trey Parker supported PewDiePie in an essay for TIME.
I know it might seem weird, especially to those of us from an older generation, that people would spend so much time watching someone else play video games. But I choose to see it as the birth of a new art form. And I don’t think anyone should underestimate its most powerful artist.
Luckey meanwhile, was described as an “architect of new worlds” by director Ridley Scott. And that guy made Blade Runner, so you know he doesn’t fuck about.
Kjellberg and Luckey are the only people with a solid link to gaming who made Time‘s list this year. Minecraft creator Markus Persson managed it in 2013, while Nintendo guru Shigeru Miyamoto had a spot in 2007.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.