Gronkh
Gronkh in 2013
Personal information
Born
Erik Range

(1977-04-10) 10 April 1977
Braunschweig, Germany
NationalityGerman
Websitegronkh.de
YouTube information
Also known asGronkh, Gregor Onkh, Das E
Channel
Years active2010–present
Genre(s)Let's Play, comedy, vlog
Subscribers4.950.000[1]
Total views3.793.033.897[1]
NetworkStudio 71 (ProSiebenSat.1 Media)
100,000 subscribers2010
1,000,000 subscribers2013
Last updated: 23 October 2023

Erik Range, better known as Gronkh (born 10 April 1977), is a German YouTube personality, computer games developer, computer and video game journalist, musician and entrepreneur. Range marketed games through the company PlayMassive GmbH, which runs a computer games website, but stepped back on 1 January 2018. Gronkh is the most popular representative of the Let's Play genre in Germany and the fourth biggest YouTuber in Germany.

Life and work

Erik Range was born to a German father and a Russian mother in Braunschweig in 1977. He first gained recognition in the computer games industry as the guide for Bard characters that featured in the online role playing game Meridian 59. This is where he first used the gamer-tag "Gronkh", which he still uses today. Range said his pseudonym is a portmanteau of the name "Gregor Onkh". He has been managing partner and co-founder of PlayMassive GmbH since 2009.[2] Fellow co-founder of the company is Valentin Matthias Rahmel, whose online pseudonym is Sarazar. Rahmel collaborates with Range on YouTube.[3]

Since 2010, Range has regularly published Let's Play videos, in which he talks about his progress in various games. He published his first video on 1 April 2010; a test recording for the online game Allods Online. Since then, he has become one of the most popular German-speaking providers of these formats. His YouTube channel has had over 4 million subscribers and over 1.7 billion video views,[4] and is one of the most successful channels on the website. He is one of the first commercial German creators and providers of related videos. Range's work is supported by game manufacturers that want to promote for their own products through cooperation. The game developers of Daedalic Entertainment reported an increase in sales of Edna & Harvey: The Breakout after the game was promoted on Range's channel.[5] Since early 2012, Gronkh was registered as a trademark to PlayMassive GmbH at the German Patent and Trademark Office.[6]

Range has been in a relationship with Tatjana Werth (alias Pandorya) since December 2012.

In 2018 Range left the PlayMassive GmbH and took the Gronkh trademark with him.[7] He founded his own company Gods of Gaming GmbH. Some gamers formerly employed by the PlayMassive GmbH followed him and are now employed by his new company.

Range personally holds a German broadcasting license for GronkhTV and Gronkh broadcasting 'stations', although he considers the license to be useless. In 2017 Range was one of several high-profile YouTubers / live streamers who were targeted by a German authority (the Landesanstalt für Medien NRW[8]) that their online-activities require a broadcasting license. He is of the opinion that his activities don't require such an expensive license. But to avoid a long and costly legal struggle he applied for a broadcasting license in October 2017 and was granted one in January 2018.[9] He was criticised for giving in to the demands instead of fighting them in court, setting a bad example. Some of the other targeted YouTubers / live streamers instead avoided the demands by emigrating from Germany or by stopping their activities.

Internet presence

Range operates the website Gronkh.de and Gronkh.tv. In 2021 Range launched Gronkh.tv where he uploads his past Twitch Streams. This is a result of NetzDG blocking a lot of German streams in Twitch's stream-archive, including Range's. Gronkh.tv is free to watch for everyone and even has no ads on it. On the website Range has uploaded recent streams as well as old ones with the goal to have every stream Range ever streamed uploaded to it. However, Gronkh.de is not active and as of 2021 redirects to Gronkh.tv.

While working with Rahmel, Range also operated a real-life channel called Die Superhomies, which was about the two men's travels. As of 2015, the channel has gathered around 440,000 subscribers since 2006,[10] but hasn't been updated for years.

Range's best-known series is his Let's Play Minecraft series, which he started 19 October 2010 and ended on 25 January 2014. He published 10- to 20-minute episodes and received around 1,000,000 views per video. As of 2015, there are 1,278 parts of this series.[11] Episode #1000 was supposed to be released on 15 April 2013, but instead, episode #999.1, and subsequently the episodes #999.2 – #999.999 were released, which is why the last episode is numbered #1,251. From 18 May 2012 until 28 November 2014, the online video portal MyVideo had featured a live stream, in which Sarazar and Gronkh played new games together or interacted with viewers.[12] The live stream regularly reached over 65,000 spectators. On 1 March 2013, Range worked with other representatives of Let's Play to organize MyVideo live streams featuring "Last Man Standing" videos, in which Range played computer games with his team against PietSmiet's Hard Reset for about eight hours. The live stream had more than a million viewers.[13][14]

In 2014 Range started to stream on the streaming platform Twitch, with more than a million followers and more than 71 million channel views in 2019. He was ranked worldwide no. 90 in followers and no. 137 in viewers on Twitch in 2019.

From mid-April 2014 to summer 2016, a 24-hour stream of the Let's Play videos and other commentators of Gronkh.de were shown. As of 3 March 2018, Range is the fourth most subscribed YouTube channel in Germany with more than 4,750,000 subscribers, the most subscribed channel in Germany is the football channel freekickerz with more than 6,209,000 subscribers.[15]

Range is a co-founder and co-host of the live stream charity event Friendly Fire, held since 2015 once a year before Christmas. The event has earned multiple awards. In 2018 up to 100,000 viewers watched its 12 hour live stream on Twitch.

References

  1. 1 2 "About Gronkh". YouTube.
  2. ↑ Inscription of the Play Massive GmbH at a company register, Cologne, HR-NR.: HERB 5190 (AG Köln)
  3. ↑ "Computerspielemuseum -". www.computerspielemuseum.de. 15 November 2019.
  4. ↑ YouTube-Channel of Gronkh, Retrieved 11 January 2015
  5. ↑ "Entertainment: Hinweise auf dritten Teil der Edna-Reihe und indirekte Ankündigung von Deponia 2". GIGA.de. 26 January 2012. Retrieved 1 September 2013.
  6. ↑ Inscription at the German Patent and Trademark Office (Nr. 302012002717). Retrieved 29 August 2012
  7. ↑ Inscription at the German Patent and Trademark Office (Nr. 3020180114942). Retrieved 4 October 2019
  8. ↑ "Landesanstalt für Medien NRW". www.medienanstalt-nrw.de.
  9. ↑ "Ergebnisse 233. Sitzung der KEK". Kommission zur Ermittlung der Konzentration im Medienbereich. 9 January 2018. Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  10. ↑ Die Superhomies at YouTube, Retrieved 14 June 2015
  11. ↑ List of the Let's-Play-Minecraft episodes at gronkh.de Archived 30 August 2013 at the Wayback Machine, Retrieved 14 June 2015.
  12. ↑ "Let’s Play Together – Live-Game-Show von Gronkh und Sarazar" at MyVideo. Retrieved 14 June 2015.
  13. ↑ Last Man Standing – 8 Stunden Event-Livestream Archived 8 September 2013 at the Wayback Machine at MyVideo, Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  14. ↑ Report from 4 March 2013 at taff on YouTube, Retrieved 9 March 2013.
  15. ↑ "Top 250 YouTubers Channels in Germany - Socialblade YouTube Stats | YouTube Statistics". socialblade.com.
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