MrBeast subscriber count, gaming channel and Beast Games

MrBeast is Jimmy Donaldson, a North Carolina creator who runs the most-subscribed channel on YouTube. He passed T-Series for the top spot in June 2024 and crossed 400 million subscribers in mid-2025. I’ve broken down how he got there, what his Beast Gaming channel does differently, and what Beast Games on Prime Video looks like after its first season and lawsuit.

MrBeast quick facts

Here’s the short version before the detail. Treat anything tied to a count as a snapshot. His numbers move daily.

Fact	Detail
Full name	James Stephen “Jimmy” Donaldson
Born	May 7, 1998, Wichita, Kansas
Raised	Greenville, North Carolina
First upload	2012, as “MrBeast6000”
Breakout video	Counting to 100,000 (2017)
Became No. 1 on YouTube	June 2024, passing T-Series
Main channels	MrBeast, MrBeast 2, Beast Reacts, MrBeast Gaming, Beast Philanthropy
TV	Beast Games, Prime Video, premiered December 19, 2024
Companies	Beast Industries (Feastables, MrBeast Burger, Viewstats and more)
Partner	Thea Booysen (engaged, announced January 2025)

How many subscribers does MrBeast have?

The main MrBeast channel has more than 400 million subscribers. He crossed that line in mid-2025, about eleven months after hitting 300 million in July 2024. No individual creator or brand channel on YouTube has a bigger audience.

The total across his whole network is much higher. MrBeast 2, Beast Reacts, MrBeast Gaming and Beast Philanthropy each carry tens of millions of their own. He also runs dubbed versions of the main channel in languages including Spanish, Portuguese, French and Russian. Some of those localized channels are large enough to rank among the biggest on the platform in their own right.

I’d rather give you a method than a stale number, because any figure I print will be wrong within a week.

One thing trips people up. Since September 2019, YouTube shows subscriber counts publicly in abbreviated form above 1,000 subscribers, rounded to three significant figures. So “412M” on the channel page could mean anything from 412,000,000 up to just under 413 million. Only the channel owner sees the exact number in YouTube Studio. Third-party live counters estimate the gap using the API and growth rate, which is why two trackers rarely agree to the last digit.

The milestones that matter

• November 2022: passed PewDiePie to become the most-subscribed individual creator.
• June 2024: overtook T-Series, the Indian music label, for the No. 1 channel overall.
• July 2024: first channel to reach 300 million.
• Mid-2025: crossed 400 million.

The T-Series race says a lot about his growth curve. T-Series had held the top spot since 2019 after a long, public battle with PewDiePie. MrBeast closed that gap in roughly five years, and he did it by posting long, expensive videos at a slower cadence than most channels his size.

Early life and family

Donaldson was born in Wichita, Kansas, and grew up in Greenville, North Carolina. His mother, Sue Parisher, served in the U.S. Army, and he has an older brother, CJ, who has appeared in videos and runs his own channel.

He attended Greenville Christian Academy and graduated in 2016. He enrolled at East Carolina University and dropped out quickly to do YouTube full time. In interviews he’s described that period as mostly obsessive study: watching other uploads, talking with small creators every day about what made people click and stay.

He has also spoken openly about having Crohn’s disease, which he was diagnosed with as a teenager. It affected his school years and his weight, and he’s mentioned it in videos and interviews rather than hiding it.

How the MrBeast channel was built

The early uploads under “MrBeast6000” were what most 13-year-olds made in 2012: Minecraft and Call of Duty gameplay, commentary, and videos estimating how much other YouTubers earned. None of it took off.

The turn came in January 2017 with a video of him counting to 100,000. It took around 40 hours and was cut down for upload. The concept was ridiculous on purpose, and it worked. Follow-ups pushed the same idea: do something nobody else would bother doing, at a scale nobody else could afford, and make the premise readable from the thumbnail alone.

Then came the money. Once brand deals paid out, he started giving it away on camera to strangers, Twitch streamers, waiters and friends. The ad revenue from those giveaways funded bigger giveaways. That loop, reinvesting nearly everything back into production, is still how the channel runs.

The format today

A modern MrBeast video usually follows one of a few templates:

• Survival and last-to-leave challenges. Contestants compete over days for a large cash prize. “Last to leave the circle” became a whole subgenre.
• Extreme-cost premises. Recreating a show or setting at full scale, like the “$456,000 Squid Game in Real Life!” video from November 2021, still one of his most-watched uploads.
• Spend-time-in challenges. Him or the crew stuck somewhere for 7, 50 or 100 days.
• Philanthropy hooks. Paying for surgeries, building wells, giving away houses. Many of these now live on Beast Philanthropy.

The crew

The on-camera regulars changed a lot as the channel grew. Chandler Hallow, Karl Jacobs and Nolan Hansen are the core friends most viewers recognize, along with cameraman Tareq Salameh. Chris Tyson, a long-time cast member, left in 2024 (more on that below). The friend dynamic matters: viewers come for the prize, but they stay for the bits between the crew, and that’s the same chemistry Beast Gaming leans on.

What a leaked onboarding document showed

In September 2024, a 36-page internal onboarding guide for MrBeast Productions circulated publicly. Outlets including Business Insider and The Verge reported on it. Treat this as a document reported by reputable outlets rather than an official public statement. According to that coverage, it told new staff that the goal is the most-watched videos on YouTube, that the click-through rate, average view duration and average view percentage are the metrics to obsess over, and that the thumbnail and title must match what happens in the first minute. It also described a culture that expected long hours and high pressure, which fed into later reporting about the production environment.

Beast Gaming: the MrBeast Gaming channel

MrBeast Gaming is the channel people mean when they search “beast gaming.” It carries the old @MrBeast6000 handle, a nod to his original 2012 channel name, and it posts gaming challenge videos with the same crew and the same cash-prize structure as the main channel.

It launched around 2020 and grew fast. Its subscriber count sits in the tens of millions, which would make it a top-tier gaming channel even without the main channel’s halo.

What it actually posts

The core format is simple: put the crew or invited creators in a game, add rules that create drama, and pay the winner real money. Typical videos include:

• Minecraft challenges. Building contests, survival rules, hunts, and modded scenarios. Minecraft has been the backbone of the channel.
• Among Us and social deduction games during their peak, where the friend chemistry carries more weight than the game itself.
• Fortnite and battle-royale variants, often custom rules or Creative maps.
• Real-life versions of game concepts, which blur the line with the main channel.

How it differs from the main channel

I watch both, and the split is clear. The main channel sells spectacle and budget. Beast Gaming sells personality and banter. Edits are faster, the stakes are smaller in dollar terms, and the crew talks over each other the way you would in a Discord voice call with friends. If you prefer creator-driven gaming channels built around one personality, our piece on Dino gaming covers a very different model of the same idea.

For a player, the useful takeaway is that Beast Gaming barely cares about skill. The winning plays in its videos come from rule exploits, alliances and deliberate chaos, rarely from mechanics. It’s entertainment, not a place to learn ranked fundamentals.

MrBeast games: apps, Fortnite and playable stunts

Searches for “mrbeast games” land on three different things, so here’s how I’d sort them.

1. Beast Games, the TV show. The Prime Video competition series. Covered in the next section.

2. Games he’s released or put his name on. The best-known is Finger on the App, a 2020 mobile game built with the art collective MSCHF: keep your finger on the screen, last one standing wins. The first round ran for well over two days before the final players split the prize. A sequel followed with a bigger pot. He’s also shown up inside existing games. Fortnite added a MrBeast Icon Series outfit, alongside a Creative challenge map tied to his brand.

3. Fan-made and unofficial games. Roblox and similar platforms are full of “MrBeast” experiences. Most are unofficial. They use his name for clicks, and many push in-game purchases or fake giveaway promises.

My blunt advice: anything promising MrBeast money for installing an app, completing offers or entering a code is a scam. His real prize games are announced on his own verified channels. If you play browser games and want legitimate free picks instead, our lists of Scratch games and freeware games are a safer place to start.

Beast Games on Prime Video

Beast Games is a reality competition series from MrBeast and Amazon MGM Studios. Amazon announced it in March 2024, and the first season premiered on Prime Video on December 19, 2024.

Season 1: format and result

Season 1 started with 1,000 contestants competing for a $5 million grand prize, billed as the largest single cash prize in TV history. Filming took place in Las Vegas in July 2024 and then on a purpose-built set in Toronto.

The structure mirrored his YouTube survival videos:

• Mass eliminations early, cutting 1,000 players down fast.
• Temptation offers, where players could take guaranteed cash to leave or keep competing.
• Side prizes along the way, including cars and, in one of the more talked-about moments, a private island.
• Team challenges that later broke into individual games.

Episodes rolled out weekly, ending with a finale in February 2025. Jeffrey Allen, Player 831, won the season, taking home a prize that had been doubled to $10 million.

Amazon said Beast Games reached 50 million viewers in its first 25 days and called it the biggest unscripted launch on Prime Video. That’s the company’s own figure, so read it as marketing, but it lines up with the renewal that followed. Critics were much cooler. Reviews often called the editing frantic and the contestants hard to follow, while audiences who came from YouTube mostly got what they expected.

The lawsuit and production complaints

The show’s reputation took damage before a single episode aired.

In July 2024, contestants at the Las Vegas filming at Allegiant Stadium described poor conditions on social media and to reporters. The complaints included long waits, injuries, and trouble getting food and medication. Rolling Stone and other outlets reported on the accounts.

In September 2024, five anonymous contestants filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court against MrBeast Productions, Amazon and others. The proposed class action alleged unpaid or underpaid work, unsafe conditions and a production culture that allowed sexual harassment of female contestants. MrBeast’s company and Amazon denied wrongdoing. Since these are allegations in a lawsuit and the plaintiffs filed anonymously, I’d treat the claims as contested until a court resolves them.

There was also a separate dispute over a hiring decision. Reporting flagged that a crew member with a past legal issue had worked on set, and the production said it removed that person. Combined with the lawsuit, it set a rough tone for launch week.

Beast Games season 2

Amazon renewed Beast Games for a second season, with casting for season 2 opening in early 2025 while season 1 was still airing. That timing tells you how Amazon read the early numbers.

Here’s what I’d consider solid versus not:

• Confirmed by Amazon and MrBeast: season 2 exists and went through open casting.
• Reported, but subject to change: filming location details and format tweaks. Some outlets reported on where the second season would be shot; production plans like that shift, so I’d wait for Amazon’s own announcement.
• Unverified: prize amounts circulating on social media for season 2. Fan accounts and update pages post numbers that later turn out wrong. Treat them as rumors until Prime Video confirms.

For the current premiere date and episode schedule, check the Beast Games page on Prime Video or the official Prime Video social accounts. I’m not going to guess a date.

Business ventures: MrBeast Burger, Feastables and more

His companies now sit under Beast Industries, which hired Jeff Housenbold as CEO in 2024. Bloomberg and other outlets reported the company raising money at a valuation around $5 billion in early 2025. That’s a reported deal figure, not an audited one.

MrBeast Burger

MrBeast Burger launched in December 2020 as a “virtual brand” with Virtual Dining Concepts. Existing restaurants cooked the menu and sold it through delivery apps. It scaled to hundreds of kitchens almost overnight, which was impressive for marketing and a nightmare for quality control.

In 2023, Donaldson sued Virtual Dining Concepts, saying the inconsistent food was damaging his reputation and that he’d been pushed into a bad deal. The company countersued. A physical MrBeast Burger location opened at American Dream mall in New Jersey in 2022, separate from the delivery model. The episode is a clear case study in how fast a creator brand can outrun its supply chain.

Feastables

Feastables launched in January 2022 with chocolate bars, and it’s the business that worked. The bars moved into major U.S. retailers including Walmart and Target, and the product line expanded into cookies and other snacks. He’s said Feastables generates far more revenue than his YouTube ad income, which matches his habit of using videos as advertising for products he owns.

Lunchly

In September 2024, he launched Lunchly with Logan Paul and KSI, the duo behind Prime Hydration. It was pitched as a better-for-you take on Lunchables. Food creators criticized the nutrition claims, and reports of mold in some packs in December 2024 led to a wave of negative coverage. The founders responded publicly. It’s a newer brand, so I’d watch how it handles quality before calling it a success or failure.

Viewstats and other projects

Viewstats is the analytics platform his team built for tracking channel growth, video performance and thumbnail testing. It’s the most interesting product for creators, because it packages the exact metrics his team says it lives by. Beast Industries has also launched toys and licensing deals, and Beast Philanthropy runs as its own nonprofit arm.

Philanthropy

Charity is baked into the brand, and it’s also where he gets the most criticism.

• Team Trees (2019): co-led with Mark Rober, it raised more than $20 million to plant over 20 million trees through the Arbor Day Foundation.
• Team Seas (2021): the follow-up with Rober raised more than $30 million to remove 30 million pounds of trash from oceans, rivers and beaches.
• 1,000 blind people (January 2023): he paid for cataract surgeries for 1,000 people.
• 100 wells (2023): a video funding wells in several African countries.
• Beast Philanthropy: a separate channel whose ad revenue funds food banks and other projects.

The criticism splits two ways. Some argue that filming charity turns people’s hardship into content. Others say the cataract and wells videos highlighted gaps that governments should fill. My take is simpler: the money and results are real and documented, and the format exists because it gets views that fund the next project. You can find that uncomfortable and still acknowledge the outcomes.

Controversies beyond Beast Games

A channel this size attracts scrutiny, and 2024 was the heaviest year.

Ava Kris Tyson. In July 2024, allegations surfaced online about Tyson’s past conduct, including inappropriate messages to a minor years earlier. Tyson left the channel and stepped away from social media. Donaldson said he’d cut ties and brought in an outside firm to investigate how his company handled things. These were allegations made online, not criminal charges.

Former collaborator claims. Around the same time, a former collaborator posted a long video accusing Donaldson of misleading viewers about giveaways and contests. Donaldson’s team disputed key claims. Viewers should weigh this as one creator’s account against the company’s response.

Workplace culture. The onboarding document, the Beast Games lawsuit and reports from former staff all pointed to intense working conditions. He’s acknowledged that his standards are demanding.

Lottery and giveaway transparency. Viewers have long questioned whether random giveaways are truly random. This criticism resurfaces whenever a contest result looks convenient.

Personal life: Thea Booysen and health

Donaldson is engaged to Thea Booysen, a South African content creator and streamer. They’d dated since around 2022 and announced the engagement in January 2025; he proposed on Christmas Day 2024. Booysen has her own gaming and streaming presence, and she’s appeared in a few MrBeast uploads.

He still lives and films mostly in and around Greenville, North Carolina, where his studios sit. He’s kept his private life quieter than his videos suggest, beyond occasional posts about the relationship and his Crohn’s disease. He’s talked about the condition affecting his diet and energy during long shoots.

MrBeast net worth

There isn’t a reliable single number, and I’d be suspicious of any site that gives you one to the dollar. Estimates have swung widely because most of his wealth is equity in Beast Industries, a private company. Reported fundraising valuations suggest that stake is worth a lot on paper.

What he says publicly is consistent: he spends nearly everything on the next video and has very little cash relative to his fame. Production budgets for main-channel uploads run into the millions per video by his own account. Forbes has ranked him at or near the top of its Top Creators list for earnings. Treat net worth claims on fan pages as guesses.

MrBeast scams in Discord, DMs and ads

This is the part I care most about, since a lot of our readers run or moderate gaming servers. His name is the single most abused creator brand in scam campaigns.

In October 2023, a deepfake video of MrBeast promoting $2 iPhones circulated as a TikTok ad. He called it out publicly. The same playbook shows up in Discord servers:

• Fake giveaway DMs. “You’ve been selected for a MrBeast giveaway, click to claim.” These link to phishing pages that steal Discord tokens or payment details.
• Fake Nitro or Beast Games codes. A bot or compromised account posts “free Nitro from MrBeast” in a channel. Clicking it hands over your account.
• Impersonation servers. Servers named after MrBeast or Beast Gaming that ask you to verify through an outside site, then hijack your account.
• Crypto and “investment” pitches. MrBeast has no official giveaway token. Anything claiming otherwise is fraud.

If you run a server, set up AutoMod rules that block messages with “MrBeast giveaway,” “free nitro” and common phishing link patterns. Restrict the Mention @everyone permission and Manage Webhooks to trusted roles, because compromised accounts with those powers do the most damage. Our guide to Discord bots for gaming covers moderation bots that catch these links before members click them. For younger members, remember Discord’s minimum age is 13 in most countries, and creator-fan servers skew young, so they get targeted hardest.

What creators can take from the MrBeast model

I’ll keep this practical, because the lessons are easy to misread as “spend more money.”

1. Retention decides everything. His own documents emphasize average view duration and the first minute. You can test that with zero budget by studying your audience retention graph in YouTube Studio and cutting anything before the hook.

2. The thumbnail and title are the premise. If you can’t explain the video in a thumbnail, the concept needs work. Plan the packaging before you film.

3. Reinvest early. Donaldson’s early growth came from pouring every brand-deal dollar back into the next upload. For a small creator, that means upgrading what viewers notice: audio first, then lighting, then camera.

4. Chemistry beats production on gaming content. Beast Gaming works because the crew is funny together, which is why it can post simpler edits than the main channel.

If you’re starting out in gaming, you don’t need a studio. A sensible streaming setup with good audio, a capable gaming PC and OBS Studio configured properly will take you a long way. Spend your energy on the hook, not on gear you won’t notice for another year.

FAQ

How many subscribers does MrBeast have?

The main MrBeast channel passed 400 million subscribers in mid-2025, making it the most-subscribed channel on YouTube. The public count is rounded to three significant figures, so check his channel page or a live tracker for the current figure.

What is Beast Gaming?

Beast Gaming is MrBeast Gaming, his gaming channel under the @MrBeast6000 handle. It posts Minecraft, Fortnite and other game challenges with his crew and cash prizes for winners.

Is Beast Games season 2 confirmed?

Yes. Amazon renewed Beast Games for a second season and opened casting in early 2025. Check Prime Video’s official channels for the premiere date rather than fan accounts.

Who won Beast Games season 1?

Jeffrey Allen, Player 831, won the first season, which started with 1,000 contestants competing for a $5 million grand prize that was later doubled to $10 million. The finale aired in February 2025.

What was the Beast Games lawsuit about?

In September 2024, five anonymous contestants sued MrBeast Productions and Amazon, alleging unpaid work, unsafe conditions and harassment during filming. The companies denied the claims, and the allegations remain contested.

Does MrBeast give away money on Discord?

No. MrBeast does not run giveaways through Discord DMs, random servers or crypto tokens. Treat any message like that as a scam and report it.

Who is MrBeast engaged to?

He’s engaged to Thea Booysen, a South African content creator. He proposed on Christmas Day 2024, and they announced it in January 2025.