Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
Growing up, many of us dreamed about playing video games for a living, not just any computerized or electronic games to play at our leisure. We dreamed of playing the most exciting new games and getting paid for it.
Well, one person in Maryland is making that dream a reality.
Brian Howard, 24, has become Maryland’s rising YouTube star. Years earlier, he started making videos of himself playing the guitar on YouTube channels. Now, he has a YouTube gaming channel and alter ego known as “Foxy Grandpa” that has grossed more than 82,000 subscribers and 8.4 million views.
“I’ve been into gaming for as long as I can remember,” Howard says. “[My family] had a Nintendo 64 growing up, then PlayStation, then I was convinced to get an Xbox 360 and that’s where I started to get into Call of Duty.”
For those of you who may not know, the Call of Duty video game series has sold more than 284 million copies worldwide since it started back in 2004, making it one of the most popular game series in history. This gave Howard a gigantic audience to appeal to with his videos. However, a lot of gamers also are turning to YouTube to make a living.
Howard says that the channel name “Foxy Grandpa” came from an unfortunate circumstance. When the Xbox 360 debuted, Microsoft sold a webcam that could be hooked up with a USB through the console. This device enables users to see friends while playing arcade games purchased through the XBOX store. One day, Howard and two of his friends decided to play a fun game of UNO. Online, there can only be a maximum of four players. With Howard and his friends, one spot was open for a random player to join.
“So, at the time, my gamer tag was ‘catonqb,’” Howard explains. “And this guy who joined had the gamer tag ‘Foxy Grandpa.’ Well, he turned his camera on, and he exposed himself to all of us, scarring us for life. We left the game immediately, but we couldn’t help but burst out laughing because of what he did mixed with his gamer tag. And when I created the channel, the name just took.”
So, what does “Foxy Grandpa” create for his YouTube page? Daily, Howard posts videos that show him playing Call of Duty Black Ops 4 and Call of Duty Modern Warfare Remastered. Gameplay will usually be filled with whacky incidents, other gamers banter between one another, and the occasional rage. Here is a clip from his latest video to give you the idea. (Skip to 6:24)
Howard notes that YouTube hasn’t always been this way. He says YouTube used to be just “people filming themselves doing stuff in their living rooms.” Now, it’s become such a glamorous career path for many millennials in the gaming community that it’s hard to distinguish your work from the competition.
The Business Insider magazine said that the top 10 YouTube gamers of 2017 earned more than $11 million combined. But this year, only two years later, the most popular gamer in the community, ‘Ninja,’ made headlines after it was revealed that he earns more than $500,000 every live stream on Twitch’s platform.
Sounds glamorous, right? Well, not all that glitters is gold. Howard says when he first began on YouTube his idea was to play guitar hero, but it ended up failing. In 2013, he gave up video games for nine months. As those torturous days slowly passed, Howard says he decided to come back in a different way.
“I found out about Twitch,” Howard explains. “And I started streaming myself playing Halo on there. Then a few years later, I created a new YouTube channel and bought all this equipment. That’s when I made the switch from Halo to Call of Duty.”
He adds, “A game called ‘Modern Warfare: Remastered’ came out, which was a remodeled version of the original Call of Duty: Modern Warfare game, and that’s when things really picked up for my videos.”
Howard accepts his newfound fame but remembers his earlier days at Catonsville High School, where he played quarterback first for the junior varsity team and then the varsity football team. He even attended Calvert Hall’s quarterback camp to improve his skills. The result of all this work was that Howard realized he lacked passion for football, a startling revelation that came mid-way through his senior year.
A gutsy move for Howard was when he started to focus more on work and school. But, he says something deep down was still bugging him.
“I feel like I’ve always been into making videos,” Howard says. “I always use to make videos for the football team when I played varsity and JV. I’d edit videos, put them on YouTube, and stuff like that. But I’ve always been into editing videos and learning about how people captured their video gameplay footage and how they made it look so good… I was just fascinated by it.”
The process of editing videos is not easy, Howard says, adding that the worst part are the time-consuming hours it takes. For many gamers, editing videos can range from hours to months, depending on the length of the video and the content. Graphics, gameplay footage, edits, and audio production are just a few of the details that YouTube gamers, such as Howard, must focus on to provide the best content possible for their fans.
Howard is finetuning his skills at Towson University, where he is majoring in Audio Production with the expectation of graduating with a bachelor’s degree in the spring of 2020. Meanwhile, this Mid-Atlantic gamer sensation has put the university on the map.
The most popular video on Howard’s YouTube channel is “This is Black Ops 2 in 2019…”, which was released in January and has almost reached two million views and 40,000 likes. Howard also has been signed to Karnage Clan, which is a gaming clan that currently has more than 677,000 subscribers on YouTube and almost 100 million views as well.
But most recently, Howard says he became officially sponsored by GFUEL Energy, a drink that is highly popular in the gaming community. Within his first week of sponsorship, GFUEL made more than $9,000, from his code “FOXY.” That means that Howard’s code was used 231 times in that one week. These numbers were so amazing that another gamer with more than one million subscribers dropped a 30 percent off code at the same time. Howard still outsold him.
“My rep told me that he has moved about 40k in products in two weeks,” Howard says. “All that was 25 percent of his lifetime sales. I expected maybe 20 [sales] or so.”
Foxy Grandpa seems to be on his way. With a possible release of a clothing line coming this year, or sometime next year, he says there is no limit to how much further his career will take him. He’s trying to reach 100,000 subscribers while patiently waiting for an invitation to the next unveiling of the new Call of Duty game.