Forbes names Mark Fischbach as gaming’s top influencer

There are few words that define the changes to the games media landscape as strongly as ‘influencer’.

With games PR now more heavily skewed towards the loudest voices than ever, Forbes has listed what it believes are the Top 10 influencers in games – and Mark ‘Markiplier’ Fischbach is at the very top.

Markplier’s YouTube videos have racked up some 7bn+ views between them.

Forbes methodology is based on analytics from Traackr that looks as audience size, reach and resonance and data from Captiv8 that gauges earnings potential. Endorsements and other businesses were also taken into account.

These social media power players have managed to monetize not just existing platforms, like Instagram and YouTube, but in many cases emerging apps and sites like Musical.ly and Twitch," Forbes said.

They’re landing production deals based on their prowess on Vine, the now-defunct video app that forced users to be super creative, with only seconds to make an impact. In some cases, these folks can command seven figures per sponsored campaign."

Markplier beats the perhaps wore widely known PewDiePie to the top spot, with the Swede having to settle for second place.

In explaining the decision, Forbes quoted founder and CEO of Influential Ryan Detert as saying: He took a massive hit," referring to PewDiePie’s recent controversies. You can see trends. If [an influencer] has said slurs in the past, they will likely say slurs again in the future."

Here’s the gaming Top 10:

1. Mark ‘Markplier’ Fischbach
2. Felix ‘PewDiePie’ Kjellberg
3. Evan ‘VanossGaming’ Fong
4. Sonja ‘Omgitsfirefoxx’ Reid
5. Lia ‘SSSniperWolf’ Wolf
6. Sean ‘Jacksepticeye’ McLoughlin
7. Daniel ‘DanDTM’ Middleton
8. Tom ‘TheSyndicateProject’ Cassell
9. Adam ‘SkyDoesMinecraft’ Dahlberg
10. Mari ‘AtomicMarui’ Takahashi

Cassell was one of names embroiled in last year’s CSGO Lotto controversy.