German YouTube network Mediakraft closes – The “villains” from the Simon Unge case

The German influencer network Mediakraft will close. The network was best known in 2014, when the German YouTuber Simon Unge publicly raised the mood against the network: He wanted to get out of his contract. LeFloid was gone before that.

This is Mediakraft:

  • Mediakraft was founded in 2011 and was one of the largest German multi-channel networks in 2014. At the time it had around 150 employees. In 2014, Mediakraft had the then popular German YouTube stars such as LeFloid and Simon Unge under contract.
  • In 2014, the network hit the headlines because of conflicts with these big stars. First Leflod left, later the conflict with Unge attracted a lot of attention. He felt so uncomfortable in the network that he went public to get out of the network.
  • In 2017 the company was taken over by MMO publisher Gamigo. Mediakraft will now close at the end of 2021 and lay off the employees. Media power and the “influencer business” are not as scalable as other parts of the company, according to Gamigo.

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“I will not be treated like a shit heap”

That was the big conflict with Unge at the time: In 2014, the then 24-year-old German YouTuber Simon Unge published a 12-minute video in which he said: He was making a momentous decision (via chip.de).

In the video, he announced that he would be separating from Mediakraft. He accused them of wanting to drive him into personal bankruptcy, that they were not interested in his creative ideas, but that they would hinder him in his work.

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He said he felt “treated like shit” and didn’t want to take it any longer. He stopped his channels “unplayed” and “unfilmed”.

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In a conversation with SpiegelTV, Unge summed up his anger about Mediakraft at the time

Mediakraft rejected the allegations at the time. The company said that they had decided to work with clear contractual rules. But Unge did not adhere to these rules and thus damaged the entire network.

One now hopes for a quick and amicable ending (via stern.de).

It was a major scandal in 2014 that made it into mainstream media. YouTube was compared to the music industry, influencers to musicians, networks to record labels.

This is how Mediakraft announces its end.

Mediakraft not profitable enough for MMO publisher Gamigo

Why is Mediakraft closing now? The annual report from Gamigo, which Mediakraft bought in 2017, shows that the decision was made on August 27 to give up the company’s entire influencer division. Because that is only growing in the single-digit percentage range – other parts of the business would scale significantly better.

It is said the company was able to reach a termination agreement with all of its employees. The deal will expire at the end of 2021.

Mediakraft’s breakup affects around 10% of the group’s global workforce, it said.

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The case “Unge vs. Mediakraft” even made it into the topics of the day in 2014.

Today Simon Unge is in a completely different position than 7 years ago. We recently reported on MeinMMO that he started a successful podcast:

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Reference-mein-mmo.de