| “ | Let's Plays with heart | ” |
―Gronkh | ||
Erik Range (born April 10, 1977) known on YouTube as Gronkh is a German "Let's Player", TV presenter and Managing Partner of his co-founded enterprise PlayMassive Ltd. Range is one of the most famous video-gamer and "Let's Player" in the German-speaking part as well as Sarazar, PietSmiet and others. Besides his work doing playthroughs, he is also known for his vlogging on the Channel Superhomies , with his friend Sarazar, the website gaming show "Last Man Standing" (part one and two) with other YouTubers, which is presented by MyVideo.de, and the charity events Friendly Fire 1, Friendly Fire 2 and Friendly Fire 3.
Personal life
Erik was born in the Lower Saxony city Brunswick in Germany. He was first known in the games scene as Gronkh, when he was active as a Guide for minstrel characters for the online RPG Meridian 59. His nickname Gronkh, was explained jocularly by himself as a portmanteau of the fictional name Gregor Onkh. With his friend and associate Valentin Rahmel (alias Sarazar) from Cologne he founded the Playmassive Ltd, which contains a couple of websites about gaming news. Since 2010 Erik releases Let's Plays to many games, just like: Minecraft, DragonAge, GTA V and much more. One of his gameplays is really special as an example of the impacts of this platform. When he played the indie game Edna & Harvey: The Breakout / Edna bricht aus (german title), the developer Daedelic Entertainment, reported [1] about higher sales numbers after Erik's uploads. Erik Range is currently living in Cologne.
Minecraft Let's Play
The Minecraft Let's Play of Gronkh is the most famous and most successful Let's Play series of him, which is currently paused. It is one of his most clicked series (the first episode has 9,5 Million+) and one of the longest (19.10.2010 and over 1,100 episodes).
Let's Play Together
LPT on MyVideo.de
On May 18, 2012 the livestream and webshow "Let's Play Together" [2], started on MyVideo.de. During the show Gronkh and Sarazar are presenting and/or playing new games, talking about gaming news and doing activities together with the community. The livestream is shown usually every friday but sometimes there are little intervals where it is not shown or Gronkh or Sarazar are not on site. With regular over 100,000 views the livestream is pretty popular. On January 2014 both Range and Rahmel left their former producer company and got part in the studio71 network, which is again part of the german TV channel ProSieben.
LPT XXL
This Event was part of the GamesCom 2013 in Cologne, where Gronkh, Sgt. Rumpel and Sarazar, were playing games together with some chosen Fans, performing their single "Elektrotitte" [3] and entertaining the 4,000 appeared guests. As musical support the band Donots and the Group DieAlchimisten appeared. There was also a trailer shown for the Last Man Standing 2 [4] event.
Last Man Standing Events
On March 14, 2013 two teams competed against each other in an eight hour lasting livestream, that was watched by over 1 Million viewers. The both teams were: Team Let's Play Together (Gronk and Sarazar) and Team HardReset (PietSmiet). In each team were six competitors, who challenged each other in many games. It ended as a draw (3:3). On November 30, last year, the LMS 2 was again streamed live on MyVideo, again with Team LPT and Team HardReset.
Latest Let's Plays
- GTA V: Online [5]
This is one of the most durable Let's Plays at present, beside the Minecraft Let's Play. It started in October 2013 and every episode is released on alternate days. In this series he plays the Grand Theft Auto 5 game with the let's players: Sarazar, MafuyuX, TobinatorLP and later also with other smaller players. At the beginning they started explore the open world and earning money but now they often do challenges, which are asked by the community.
- Soth Park: Stick of Truth [6]
Gronkh often told that he is a big fan of the south park TV series, so it was clear he would start playing this game on March 4, 2014. Different than the Let's Play of PewDiePie, Range does not cut the video between the main parts of the game, so the viewers can see all of the leveling and the story.
Gronkh also played the other Fable parts and on December 29, 2013 he started the third part of FABLE, which is also one of his most durable Let's Plays.
- Altis Life [9]
Altis Life is a survival/criminal game, where the player is supposed to choose if he wants to be a policeman or a drugdealer. However the game is, just like another spin-off DayZ, based on the Arma 3 engine. Gronkh is playing that game, supported by MafuyuX, Sarazar and DieAlchimisten since February 2014. Since episode #003 the Let's Play was just recorded by the other three, because Gronkh had a toothache. With episode #009 the series had to be paused because of the project to start an own server.
- Banished [10]
This is a game that is part of Gronkh's special series "Let's Test", where he plays indie games, which could lead to an own big series. Banished is a strategy game, which can be compared to Age of Empires.
- RUST [11]
RUST is an survival game that Gronkh was playing since January 23, 2014 together with Sarazar, MafuyuX, Sgt. Rumpel, TobinatorLP and SlayMassive alias DieAlchimisten, but also had to be stopped because of an upcoming own server.
- Starbound [12]
Starbound is mostly a mix of RPG and Adventure and takes place in the space. Gronkh was playing this game with TobinatorLP since December 2013 and ended it with episode #106 on March 16, 2014.
Awards
- Webvideopreis 2012: Let's Play and EPIC (Webvideo of the Year); for the collaboration with the music and comedian group Y-Titty in videos like: "GTA Real Life".
- Webvideopreis-Jury Award: Let's Play; for the collaboration with the musician Rahmschnitzel in the music video "Kohle Metal". [13]
Trivia
- Gronkh and Sarazar got to know their friend and colleague Manuel, while he was helping out on the early beginning of the Let's Play Together Livestream. After a short time Manuel started his own Let's Play career as: Sgt. Rumpel.
- On his second YouTube channel Superhomies, he and Sarazar often do Let's Eats on their travels.
- The name Gronkh is patented and saved as a trademark.
- Gronkh, Sarazar and Sgt. Rumpel released a single called "Elektrotitte" (english: electronic boob) in 2013, it was created out of a "runninggang" at the LPT-Livestream.
Websites
Besides the Playmassive Ltd. website [14], there is also a GronkhDE network [15] a Gronkh-Wiki [16] and a aggregator for all content and activities relating to Gronkh [17].
This page was created by RonGaranti0 on March 23, 2014.