IAmA Machinima YouTuber with 1m+ subs that makes gaming videos for a living (WoodysGamertag) AMAA

Why doesn't kyle want it to be known that he's FPS Russia?

Dude, what are you talking about? They sound totally different. ;)

Why don't you look me in the eyes when we make love, Woody?

Because your face is in the pillow.

Woody, thank you so much for putting my gameplay up yesterday. You gave me an opportunity that I never would've dreamed of.

As for a question: Do you still enjoy playing Call of Duty in a recreational sense? I would think that your passion for the game has dwindled after playing become your job rather than a hobby.

I usually enjoy it when I play. One tough aspect is being recognized and judged in every lobby. I'm often interviewed while I play with questions that I get every day. (fav gun, fav youtuber, how do I like BO2, etc.) I feel like a jerk if I don't answer and be cool about it but internally I'm sometimes suppressing frustration. It's extra bad if I'm doing poorly in the game while the questions roll in.

Also, everybody I play tries their hardest. Pub lobbies for me are almost like game battles. Everybody is using the PDW and doing their thing.

Fuck Kyle

Unsub Woody

Woody's a kitten killer

Wings kills kittens. I killed a squirrel. :)

How do you maintain that hairline?

lol

Wow Woody, I just wanted some legit hairline tips and you just blew me off. Unsubed.

Lately I've been using Axe Dark Temptations. I had written out this long reply where I was going for funny as I questioned if Dark Temptations was for white people but I feared it would sound racist.

I've actually put a lot of thought into this, most just ended up on the cutting room floor. :(

I was the guy a while back that tried to buy a post roll ad from you a while back, which incidentally got you in a lot of trouble from the folks at Yeousch. They lied about my story and tried to make it out like you were stealing money from a kid, which was not the case lol.

Just stopping in to apologize again, and say thanks for all the vids!

Not your fault man. That still comes up from time to time. Some people look at anybody doing well through this lens of hate.

Just yesterday I posted gameplay from a guy with almost no content on his channel. My twitter feed was filled with this crazy notion that helping somebody with no ability to help me back was part of an insane master plan for me to make more money than ever. My next two "dissecting the greats" will be well known guys and I'm sure they will complain that I only picked them because of a vast conspiracy to make the rich get richer.

Whatever, I try to stay focused on making videos. Hater's gonna hate. :)

Please dissect TBNRfrags!

He's actually on my list. Him and whiteboy.

I don't think dissecting whiteboy would be the best thing for your channel. He's not the most well-liked or respected youtuber.

I honestly don't think hes that good either. Dissecting the greats should be just that, the greats, not the popular.

I considered that. The thing is, the series can get stale if I just keep saying, "Look how he stands behind something while he shoots."

Taking a close look at somebody that uses C4, weird weapons, tomahawks, etc. might be a neat change of pace.

I'm curious, from the man who animates a few of the "best" moments from PKA.

For you, what has been your favourite moment in PKA history?

Hey Bongster!

Umm, my favorites are the longer stories. I told one recently where I hit a girl at 13 years old. Wings told this homo-erotic story of him getting held up at a movie theater and getting on his knees in the bathroom. Kyle's stories about his dad are awesome.

If I had to pick one, Kyle's dad kills dogs to get neighborly revenge.

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People ask me to distance myself from him sometimes but he was nice to me when I was nothing and that means a lot to me. Yeah, he says silly stuff from time to time but don't we all? If you speak into a mic often enough you'll eventually put your foot in your mouth. It's an occupational hazard.

Now when Joe Rogan goes off on a ref for being fat (he wasn't that fat) or some newscaster adds opinion to the news I tend to sympathize instead of criticize.

Edit: Yeah, we should have Taylor back again. He's a good guy.

Do you even lift?

Ugh, since that broken hand I can hardly lift a plate with food on it or a laptop computer. Generally, I prefer to play sports over going to the gym. I look forward to ice hockey or BJJ. I dread the treadmill or dumbbells.

Has anyone ever called you a niggerfaggot? If not, I would like the honor to be the first.

Niggerfaggot!

Yeah sure baby. You know you're my first. Those other haters and I were just friends.

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It's simple, of course we burn the truck.

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It's tough. The videos I love the most are the song parodies that I've done with TryHardNinja. (I write, make the video, choose the songs, he sings).

But they don't really represent my channel. I guess if there was one it would be the time I opened up about my suicide. That one has helped soooooo many people that I feel like if I did nothing else I'd still have done a good deal. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDnmYPFU7DU

Did your parents ever find out that you tried to kill yourself?

Yeah, a few months later we talked about it but it was sort of buried into a family denial until I talked about it on youtube.

DO you like keemstar? He seems like a huge dick

I know keemstar really well. I was actually in contact with him daily about 18 months ago as we considered starting a business together.

Man did I ever dodge a bullet there. He has loose ethics and is 100% out for himself at the expense of anybody and everybody. It's hard to be his friend. I gave up on it.

sounds like great qualities for a businessman??

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He got a big lump sum for his part in promoting fortresscraft, a minecraft clone that ran on the xbox. Now he's living large off of it. I know roughly how much he made. Enough to buy a nice home and car but far from enough to retire on.

What is your opinion of IZEDNECK ?

I saw his video blasting me. In short he said, "They had me on PKA a ton of times and it was great. Woody helped me when my father got cancer by getting his brother (a 2x cancer survivor) on the phone and telling my dad what to expect. But now woody doesn't click like on my videos or promote me so f*ck him."

He also blasted me for not answering him on skype. (I uninstalled it because I got ddos'd) At this point I feel back stabbed. I did nothing but help him and now that he's not sucking on the teet of a bigger youtuber he's pissed off. Fine, buy a t-shirt on your way out: http://woodysgamertag.spreadshirt.com/haters-make-me-famous-A11705785/customize/color/351

Never forget this classic moment in PKA history. Sorry you guys couldn't work it out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsJY4aubuag

Now it makes me sad. I get rid of skype and it turns into hate videos.

So Woody, how'd Kyle take to the video of you bleeding your heart out to him all bromantically?

lol, he called me and said that he valued my friendship too. :)

If there was one moment you had to pick to be your favorite moment from your YouTube career, what would it be?

One moment? There are a few that stand out.

I got 12k subs in a day once. That was cool.

I broke 1m subs while live streaming. That was like winning an oscar to me.

I was once on this dance contest/reality show type of thing and was treated like a star. (Drivers, makeup crew, multiple PAs making sure I had anything I needed)

But to be honest, if there was a single moment it was probably the guy we did the fund raiser for a month ago. His family was broke/hungry so we raised $6k for him. That's huge. That's the sort of stuff that makes me feel good about who I am.

Would you rather fuck one cow-sized bird or 100 bird-sized cows?

Why am I answering this?

You would think that something like a chicken would just be too small to have sex with right? But then during PKA Kyle had us watch this video and sure enough, it's easily done.

After a bit more thought and research I learned that a chicken lays an egg every day or two. An egg is a decent diameter. Are you following me?

So I guess if I was into that sort of thing I wouldn't need anything mythical at all. Just 100 birds and I'd be good to go.

What is the most rewarding thing that has come from your job as a youtuber?

It's gratifying to hear about the positive impact I've had on people's lives. Being a parent I understand how somehow your best advice can fall on deaf ears. I had a sub write to me who was having a tough time making friends. He explained that his parents told him to go out and make it happen all the time but he figured they were just stupid because all kids think that about their parents.

Well, I gave the same advice they did with a few more specifics. I suggested joining a club, going to a football game, etc. That night he got a girl's phone number, met a dozen new people, cheered on the home team, and had the best day of his life since he moved. (He came from another country and was suffering)

So many guys have written about how my vids helped with depression too. That sort of thing makes me feel better about myself. From a more selfish perspective, I like the flexibility of my schedule. I can go to lunch, drop in on my son's home schooling, etc.

Hey Woody, throughout your videos you've revealed the first names of your family (i.e. Jackie, Hope, and Colin), but I don't remember you ever mentioning your own first name. Is there a reason for this?

It's Matt but pretty much everybody in my life, with the exception of my parents, call me Woody.

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My mom watches (and clicks like) on every one but stops if the commentary is all about the game. My dad only watches when she brings one to his attention. "Look, Matt got a new puppy!"

My wife and kids don't watch them at all unless I sit them down and make them.

As for being proud of me, my father is. My father is a successful businessman (owns small accounting firm) and he feels like I saw an opportunity, worked super hard at it, and rose to near the top of my field. I wondered if I was just lucky and he said that as an accountant he's seen a ton of people presented with chances in life and only a few really turn it into something.

So yeah, he's happy.

Edit: Typo

Will you ever do Halo content for your channel? Keep up the good work, the CoD community really inspired a lot of Halo people to get on like us.

I have two issues with Halo.

1) I'm average at best with it. That game is dominated by guys that have been playing for a decade.

2) It's not cross platform. I hate to admit it but I do make videos with the hope that they'll be watched, a lot. If you cut out my PS3 subs and my PC subs I'm automatically alienating about 60% of my subscriber base.

Now, I like halo. I think it's a very well designed game and the lack of realism (not an insult) lets them build any map they want for awesome balance. In COD there is always a good and bad side. It's just that it's a smaller market than cross platform games like COD, BF3, and Far Cry have the potential to reach.

Do you still talk to Tmartn as much as you use to? I know you don't use Skype anymore but do you guys still play together or catch up every so often? Keep up the good work!

I wish I talked to him as much. Part of it is the time zone now that he's in CA. Partly it was the skype thing. Partly it's that he travels a lot because he's in love. :)

how do you feel when you can't reply to all your fans

Overwhelmingly most understand that there are 1m of them and only 1 of me. However, sometimes people get mad at me for not replying or somebody with 50 subs will put me on blast for it.

It's just impossible. It's not like I have a staff or anything. I'm just a guy on a wooden desk I made myself doing my thing.

You spent all that time making a desk instead of answering questions? What the fuck.

I actually laughed out loud at this.

I know life must be pretty awesome, working from home doing what you love for a job but is there anytime you've been like "JEEES, I am sick of this"?

For sure. It's not the gaming and making videos, it's the public relations part. Lately the drama alert stuff about me has been pretty inaccurate and it's hard suffer though all the nonsense associated with lies.

Now I just tweet my haters a t-shirt: http://woodysgamertag.spreadshirt.com/haters-make-me-famous-A11705785/customize/color/351

lol

What would be your all-star PKA line up?

Joe Rogan, Dan Savage, and Harley from Epic Meal Time. :)

A couple questions, Does anyone at your kid's school recognized you, or are you like some local celebrity? And do your kids ever talk about wanting to make youtube videos? If so, videos on gaming, like yours, or another type of youtube video? And would you support them?

I don't spend a lot of time in schools. lol But when I'm at events with young people yeah, I usually get a bunch of autograph requests. Even more so when I'm with my family. It's one thing to look like WoodysGamertag, it's another to spot the whole family.

My daughter wants to make YT vids. I'm cautious because of me. I don't want to open her up to the world of hate that I have to brush off on a daily basis. She wants to make music.

How many people a week show up at your house?

lol, not many. Maybe 2 a week if you consider that they often arrive in pairs. Most of the local pizza parlors are on to the pranksters now and only deliver if they prepay. That's fine by me. :)

Approximately how much do you make a year and also, 100 duck sized horses or 1 horse sized duck?

I make more now than I've ever made before.

If I'm unarmed the 100 duck sized horses seems like I'd be playing on easy mode. Give me the big duck. LET'S GO BITCH!!!

Hey woody long time subscriber! Can you play with the PS3 subs some love by live streaming with them?

-Sincerely a PS3 user.

Edit: Horrible grammar

It has to do with the HDCP encoding the PS3 puts on their HDMI connection. I've spent over $1k in equipment to solve this (several dead ends) but I should have it beat soon.

Have you ever snorted cocaine?

No

Why is F1st riding your dick so hard right now?

He's hated me for years. He has this crazy idea that my success has prevented him from having any. I talked it out with him once. I gave him tips on how to grow, etc. At the end he demanded a dual comm, shout out, etc. or he'd keep going. I told him if I did that everybody would blast me until I promoted them.

I honestly don't understand his motivation. I make videos about games or my thoughts and he makes them about me.

About a year ago I made the same request, and you thought it was a good idea, but never followed up on it. I guess I'll make it again.

Do you mind elaborating on your College/Post-Graduate work that led you to become a Senior Software Architect? I've been subscribed to you for a while, but I don't watch most of your videos because they don't really appeal to me, but since I'm also going into a similar field, I'd love some tips that would help me in Uni and land me a job quicker after I graduate. If not, no worries.

My story: I was going to be an accountant. I went to college for an accounting degree at night while working as a junior accountant during the day. It didn't take more than a month or two for me to realize that accounting and I were water and oil. It's not that I sucked, it's just that I was massively unhappy. I'd day dream about crashing my car on the way to work and how much time off it would get me.

So, I picked up a 2nd major, Management Information Science. With that I landed a series of jobs, each more technical than the last, as I transitioned from finance stuff to computer oriented stuff. At Cisco I was a full fledged programmer kind of insecure about having an MIS degree while everybody else had comp sci degrees. That led me to get my Engineering Masters with a comp sci focus.

Humbly, I was pretty good at my job. I literally went years without a bug in my code and I also helped other people with their projects by either coding or just making design decisions for them. I was promoted at a good rate until I landed at Sr. Software Architect.

The job is good but not filled with fun. Mostly you design things, make decisions, and defend them against a sea of people that want to look smarter than you. Sometimes this is easy, often times no solution is perfect and if it's cheap and easy they'll complain about expand ability. If it's hard and expensive they'll complain about timelines and cost.

While doing that on a daily basis youtube started to make more money than Cisco paid. Eventually I thought, "Alright, enough of this. I'm going to play video games instead."

It is pretty obvious that EA is paying you to play Battlefield because of the Battlefield 3 Premium link in the description, but sponsorship thing aside do you enjoy the game?

Edit: and this link http://www.examiner.com/article/ea-drops-support-of-warfighter-while-promoting-battlefield-3-through-youtube?cid=db_articles

To add to what I said here: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/15hwsv/iama_machinima_youtuber_with_1m_subs_that_makes/c7mnxeh

I intentionally didn't review the game because I was being paid. But since you asked, I actually do like it. Some aspects of it just feel epic, like that tripod mounted gun that kills vehicles or blowing away walls. If I had one downside it's that sometimes it takes too long to get where I'm going. The newer maps tend to address that.

Now a days do you think it is still possible for a minecraft/cod channel to break through, with the thousands, if not milliions of people with access to a capture card?

It's just like acting. Some will be break out stars, most will not.

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This is tough but I liked the original Left4Dead a ton. It might be that or I might just remember it even better than it is.

How does it honestly make you feel when trolls abuse your family online and what do they think about it?

To be honest, the family stuff doesn't bother me that much. I just feel like they are wrong and I'm a bit perplexed at it. If somebody called me the N-word it wouldn't hurt me. I'd think, "Huh? You must be a little confused."

It helps a lot that I'm pretty much the only person that sees it. When somebody suggests that Hope is into anal beads or something I can just block and remove and it's done with. No harm done.

On the rare occasion that she does see it, she's pretty good are compartmentalizing internet anons.

It seems like Hope loves to be on the camera, I remember when I was 13 and I would hate looking back at how I acted and seeing how immature I was. Are you worried you may catch Hope or Colin doing something they regret that they later cringe at?

Sometimes they call Hope a camera whore and it's unfair. When we first vlogged I had to coach my wife and daughter to get in frame and speak toward the mic. Now she does it and they give her a hard time.

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I've hardly been impacted. I had to get a new phone number and I'm fine. My wife on the other hand didn't feel safe in her home. We have an alarm system now and that's added to her peace of mind.

She worries more about the swat team than crazy fans or haters.

Edit: Wrong peace/piece

How long do you see YouTube being as popular as it is? At some point it has to end. Is that something thats already happening or is it a while off yet?

I think youtube will grow even more popular but the youtubers will always rotate in and out of popularity.

Right now there is probably some guy with a Canon 5d3 and a zombie costume ready to be discovered for the funniest stuff ever. When he hits it big, they might watch him instead of Epic Meal Time. (No disrespect to EMT). It's just the nature of the game. People rotate in and out, youtube grows like TV did from the 1950's to 2000.

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Machinima has identified the channels they are losing the most money on. I am on that list along with what's basically a "who's who" of big gaming channels. Sometime early next year they'll ask for a contract that pays me a lower CPM and I'll compare that to competitive offers.

That's basically it. Machinima has always been fair to me and if I go you won't see me burning bridges on the way out. The stuff I've seen tweeted about me getting some kind of super contract paid for by small channels getting a pay cut isn't even remotely true. Also, the stuff about Wings being left out in the cold isn't true either. Sometimes I wonder how this stuff gets invented.

How much YouTube monayyy do I have to pay you to have Chris Smoove on PKA again? Also big fan of your videos and painkiller already, so keep on doing what your doing! :)

lol, I think he'd do it. The challenge is that we never give him enough notice. It's all our fault, not his.

What graphics card is in your PC? I know it used to be a 7970 but I heard you switched to an Nvidia card.

He currently has a 680, it is better for the Adobe programs such as premiere, photoshop, and after effects

Nailed it. I was happy with the 7970 for gaming but for editing the 680 has honestly improved my quality of life. Render times dropped from 45 minutes to 7. Previews have gone from crappy quality and jumpy to looking like the final product.

If adobe starts supporting the ATI stuff better I'll have a decision to make but for today I'm an nvidia guy. (Not really loyal, just happy)

Hi woody long time fan, my question is how much work really goes into commentating full time? How many hours a day do you spend editing and thinking of topics? Thanks i really appreciate this

Making vids? 4 hours a day maybe. Getting games? 2 hours a day. Replying to comments, twitter, etc. whenever I'm awake.

I've done this for about 800 days in a row now.

What do you think about the NRA or whatever saying that violent video games are the reason of mass shootings?

They are obviously trying to point the attention toward something other than guns. In 20 years blaming video games will be as silly as blaming "that crazy rock and roll music".

How long have you known Wings and Kyle?

I met them online because of youtube. Maybe since 2009 or early 2010.

Favorite thing about BF3?

Nobody cares who I am. But you probably wanted an in-game answer. The community seems to play to win with a common goal. In COD they play for their spot on the leaderboard at the end or their stats in the barracks.

I read an article about you being paid to place BF3 gameplay on your channel. How true is this?

Partly true. I earned a higher CPM for BF3 content. That's it. I love this deal. I had been thinking about playing BF3 for ages. The reason I played Borderlands2 on PC was to develop keyboard and mouse skills for FPS games from the safety of shooting bots. BF3 fits perfectly on my channel, it was pure win.

There was other stuff that wasn't true. I turned down Need for Speed because it didn't fit what my subs want to see but he said I did it. I didn't do a paid BF3 review. The vids I did were a live comm, Mail Monday, and a story about my friend. I don't make money on sales. It was strictly a, "Hey Woody. You have full creative control. Just make a video using BF3 as a backdrop and we'll pay for views" kind of deal.

I think it's great. I wish I had the same sort of thing for Far Cry and Borderlands 2, also games that I think fit on my channel. I had been wanting to do more than just COD and this helped me keep expanding. The article was written with this, "OMG can you believe he sold out" kind of tone. The reality is closer to, "We'll pay you extra for what you already planned to do."

Will you ever make a RSK movie?

lmao, that's a funny idea. I'd love to make a skit about it.