Daedoseogwan (Na Dong-hyun) — Turning Gaming Entertainment Into a Business
Na Dong-hyun, who had worked as a planner, began game broadcasting under the name Daedoseogwan. This article traces how he expanded his activities into YouTube advertising, brand collaborations, a content company and publishing.
A Game Broadcaster Who Disclosed His Income
On October 16, 2019, appearing on MBC's Radio Star, Daedoseogwan Na Dong-hyun said that his 2018 annual income was KRW2,400,000,000. In 2017 it was about KRW1,700,000,000, and he explained that in 2019, through July, it had already surpassed KRW2,000,000,000. Known for game broadcasting, he was at the time expanding his activities into corporate advertising and broadcast appearances.
From Company Planner to Solo Broadcaster
His starting point was a part-time job at an internet education company. His work was recognized and he became a full-time employee, after which he built a career at Etoos and SK Communications. When applying to Etoos, he included in his cover letter a proposal for how the company's website could be improved. Having joined without a university degree, he took on work conceiving new businesses and services and gained planning experience.
The reason he left his job and chose solo broadcasting was that he wanted to work under his own name. When he started broadcasting in 2010, the fact that he could take on the challenge with a computer and a microphone was also appealing. In the early days he got through several months without income by using his severance pay, and he recalled once getting by for three days on rice gruel made from a handful of rice.
Game-Based Variety Entertainment
The name Daedoseogwan came from the strategy game Civilization V. He adopted as his nickname the name of a building he had wanted to construct in the game, and later added the meaning of conveying the world's knowledge in an easy and fun way. On his broadcasts, he layered his own stories onto games. For games without a story, he added settings and dialogue on the spot, and in games with narrative he personally performed the voices of multiple characters. His own description was 'entertainment using games.' He said that even people who did not know games well enjoyed watching his broadcasts.
He also set standards early on for how he would run his broadcasts. The aim was to make broadcasts that amused viewers while refraining from profanity and sexualized expression. In a 2019 Yonhap News Agency interview, he explained that he anticipated a future in which the large advertising market would enter personal broadcasting and that he wanted to establish a broadcast culture suited to it. He had a business plan to show that he could broadcast in a respectable manner and still earn sufficient income.
A Video Archive and a New Home for Livestreams
Videos accumulated on YouTube brought in advertising income. At the time of a 2015 Kyunghyang Shinmun interview, the channel had 1,100,000 subscribers and 400,000,000 cumulative views, and monthly income from YouTube advertising was presented as KRW20,000,000 to KRW30,000,000. Separate income also came from AfreecaTV and from advertisements he produced himself.
In October 2016, after a conflict with AfreecaTV over the transmission of advertisements, he moved his live broadcasts to YouTube Live. By then his YouTube channel had already gathered about 1,200,000 subscribers. In an IT Donga interview shortly after the move, he said that daily subscriber growth had jumped from about 500 to about 10,000, and that simultaneous live viewers had at times exceeded 20,000. The fan base built by watching his videos responded during live broadcasts as well.
Corporate Advertising and Paid-Viewing Revenue
Collaborations with companies also became an important source of income. He said he carried out brand collaborations through DIA TV and cited cosmetics brand Its Skin and McDonald's as specific examples. He explained that even when many advertising offers came in, at the time he took on only two major advertisements per month.
The organizations commissioning advertisements also expanded to public institutions. In a 2018 Chosun Ilbo interview, he said that at the request of the National Assembly's special committee on constitutional amendment he introduced a site for participation in the constitutional amendment, and that he promoted the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family's youth crisis helpline. The approach was to produce the message as content tailored to his own broadcast.
In a July 2018 ZDNet Korea interview, he disclosed income earned from platforms in more detail. He said he earned KRW50,000,000 a month from YouTube advertising alone, and stated that revenue from YouTube Red, then a paid service, also exceeded KRW10,000,000. Income sources had grown through the combination of advertisements attached to videos, revenue shares from paid viewing, and separate collaborations with companies.
Sharing Planning with a Content Company
The content company he founded, Uncle Daedo, grew alongside him. In a 2018 interview he said it was being run with a hired professional manager, and in a February 2019 Yonhap News Agency interview it was described as having 12 staff. At the time, he spoke of plans to try outdoor broadcasting and a character business based on his name.
Even as his activities increased, his broadcast schedule remained tight. At the time of a 2019 interview, he had been doing live broadcasts six days a week for several years. He treated broadcasting like time to wrap up the day and chat with friends, and said he was learning music composition and production so he could make the music for his videos himself.
The production principles he explained to younger colleagues were concrete. Decide who the video is for, keep the same topic and concept, and upload at least two videos a week. In an interview with ZDNet Korea, he cited an art introduction channel for people in their 20s and 30s as an example and said to first decide in what order to present the artwork's price and the story behind it within a short video. Once the structure is set, he explained, one can keep making the next videos while changing the artworks.
His 2018 book, The God of YouTube, brought together this experience in planning and production. On YTN Radio he said he had written the book in accessible terms so parents could understand one-person media and talk with their children. His idea was that parents and children planning and shooting videos together on weekends could develop planning skills and a sense of achievement.
Disclosing his income also served the purpose of changing perceptions of the profession. In a 2015 interview he explained that he speaks honestly about income because he hopes one-person creators will become established as a socially recognized profession. In his experience, after he disclosed his income, people's views changed and more people showed interest in the work he did.