With 10.8 million subscribers, Vietnamese gamer Cris Phan is widely considered as one of the most famous and popular YouTube creator in Vietnam.Cris Devil Gamer is known for video’s often feature him playing popular games like PUBG, battlegrounds,Grand Theft Auto V, and Minecraft. He also create contents around the popular topics such as food and travel to broaden his audience reach.
It took Cris Phan a decade of consistent hard work and dedication to get where he is today. His earliest aim in creating YouTube video was just to compete with friends just for fun, As everyone was creating their own channels for entertainment purpose and upload videos just for fun.
Gaming industry is completely,a new Industry, so, Cris wanted to experience it.He started to wonder about how to shoot video and how to capture face and expressions.
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Cris Devil Gamer YouTube journey
Initially, there were only about 10views, mostly from friends. Afterwards, friends started sharing his videos with others in the university, saying, ‘Hey this guy makes fun videos, check him out. Even though he play games, he is really funny.
His viewership grew slowly, but organically as the videos started garnering more shares and were some times posted on websites sharing memes. It took about six month to get up to a thousand views and another one or two year to reach 10,000 views. But that time having 1,000 2,000 views was not bad.
“Then there were days when viewership would reach 13,000 to 14,000 which was fantastic but now, if a video doesn’t go a million views, it feels quite disappointing, Cris Phan said.”
How Cris Devil Gamer Overcome financial Challenges?
For every creator,there is a financial constraints, which continues to be a hurdle for content creators. Cris Phan said, “I worked for about one and half to two years before I earned money my first 2million VND Vietnamese money (SG110USD). At that time it was quite challenging, because I choose to enter to the gaming industry and buying copyrights for games to create YouTube videos was quite expensive.”
But Phan was not deterred and decided to stay the course. In time, his initial investment in gaming copyrights proved to be a savvy move when other sources of income began to materialise.
“After three to four years, other income streams like external advertisements and getting sponsored with free games emerged, which made it a bit easier,” he reflected.
Strategic shift in Content creation
The turning point on his content creation journey arrived with a strategic shift. Cris Phan wanted to play horror games differently by transferring himself into the character’s si that viewers could get immerse themselves in the video more deeply.This gives viewer’s a different experience over merely watching someone playing games. Cris Phan cited, he got inspiration from PewDiePie.
PewDiePie used to play horror games and he followed that style of Playing scarry games while making it humours. For others, horror games are just all about fear and creepy elements,but for his fans, he is very strange because he play horror games, making it interesting for them.
Over time Phan has also grown his team from a one person show where he handled everything from Content creation to content publishing with his own.Initial days,he had to do everything from A toZ such as scripting, shooting, post production, and media. Now a team is there to assist his work. Team including, editor, Manager,script writers. Though his team assist in some aspects,but main content creation is still done by Cris Phan.
Cris Phan became a content creator because, “I became a YouTube content creator, because I wanted to combine my two biggest passions; Gaming and Acting. As he said, YouTube is a platform, where he gets an opportunity to become an actor and content creator.”he said.
In fact, before he became a Youtuber,he studied directing, and acting at RMIT University, Vietnam, which has equipped him with the skillet as well as industry connections to branch out different aspects of entertainment.
“People learned about my background and how I grew up. They used to assume that I was probably very wealthy in the past,but it was entirely the opposite.” he said.
” Everything needs a proper introduction, body and conclusion. It can not be a parody that my fans do not understand as this might result in low views”.
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Looking to the future
Making YouTube videos is not easy and being a content creator is not easy. Some basic skills required, including knowing how to plan, how to script, how to set-up lights and camera angles and editing videos.If you just jump in and press record,you will not necessarily have the skillset to speak infront of the camera and such videos will surely lack quality.
Ultimately, Cris Phan said about his career, ” I don’t feel entirely successful yet, because there are still goals to strive for, especially making money to support the family and a child in the future”
Beyond, aspiring to earn enough money to travel travel around the world with his wife, he hopes to create vlogs that can double up as a diary of memories for his future child.
Finally, his goal is simple , “I think my biggest motivation is to ensure security for my family and be happier everyday. Because what I aim for is happiness,no matter how much money or success I accumulate,it all comes down to happiness.