Gronkh

Many young and even older people circulating somewhere on the Internet, the name “Gronkh” is quite familiar. All others will ask themselves now, who or what is this “Gronkh”? What does he do and how would you know him ? To this and some other questions around the life and action of the present acquaintance I will clear up in the following.

Today’s web video producer Gronkh, or with his real name Erik Range, is regarded in the German YouTube community as an original and sometimes even as YouTube Germany’s grandpa. This assumption probably corresponds on the one hand to his age and on the other hand to his permanent and already long-lasting presence on the web video platform. The YouTuber, who is already 41 years old, was born on April 10, 1977 in Braunschweig. Range has remained true to his genre, which is clearly in the realm of gaming, ever since. The affinity for gaming was already evident in the first “public” acts on his part. Even in his childhood, like most kids these days, he was interested in video games. As a result, Eric Range founded his first Internet agency called “Range-IT” in 1996 at the age of only 23. With this agency he wanted to offer web design as well as some programming for private as well as business customers. Furthermore, together with other people within another company, he published German-language video games in the period from 2000 to 2004. Within this time he also got his nickname “Gronkh” which described him as a game developer at that time. In 2006, more precisely on March 12, 2006, he probably recognized the existing potential in the Internet platform YouTube and founded a channel with the name “Gronkh” without further ado. However, he left it unattended and inactive for a few years for the time being.

In 2007 he founded the so-called “PlayMassive GmbH” together with his friend Valentin Rahmel, who should be better known to most people as “Sarazar” in the field of web video. This company runs a number of websites on the subject of computer and video games and also finances projects which are intended to serve the development and design of new video games.

In 2010, more precisely on 01 April 2010, the time had come and Erik Range aka Gronkh published his first video on YouTube. There, too, it quickly became clear which target group he wanted to address. Since that day, the now 41 year old publishes daily videos, which are mostly all Lets Plays of video or computer games. Gronkh quickly achieved a high profile with his channel and so success was not far away. However he gained an enormous push primarily based on his unique Lets Plays of the sandbox video game Minecraft. He also showed strong perseverance with this project, posting Minecraft videos on a daily basis. In total, he published over 1200 videos of this Minecraft project alone in which he built his own little “world”.

Gronkh is also known for his regular livestreams, for which he has now even applied for and received a broadcasting license. In addition to his own livestreams he also organizes charity streaming events where the entire financial proceeds are donated to a good cause.

If you take a look at the channel of Gronkh today, you will quickly notice a very large number of subscribers. With around 4,800,000, he is probably one of the best known YouTubers in Germany and has also earned a lot of respect due to his long-lasting presence.