Minecraft is a massive deal on YouTube

Minecraft leads the pack, but gaming in general is big business on YouTube.

Minecraft is the second most popular search on YouTube, following "music".

Since YouTube remains the second most-used search engine after Google, that's a pretty meaningful fact.

The info comes direct from parent company Google, and reveals that Let's Play personality Pewdiepie is the fifth most-searched term, following "movies" in third and "Beyonce" and "Drake" in equal fourth. Pewdiepie makes $4 million a year from YouTube, so it's not terribly surprising, is it?

The gist of the Google report is that gaming is a big deal; viewers spend more time on gaming content on YouTube than other classifications. Here's another interesting graphic, showing how often a gaming-related video is in YouTube's top ten trending content list:

There's a pretty amusing gender divide to take in, too: 70% of users who "engage" with gaming content - that is, liking, favouriting, commenting on or playlisting videos - identify as male. But users who identify as female tend to spend more time actually watching said content. There's some questions to be asked about whether some men's perception that women don't enjoy gaming is based on women's reluctance to dip into the seething cesspool that is Internet engagement.

Thanks, [a]list.