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Gronkh (* April 10, 1977 in Braunschweig, Germany) with civil name Erik Range is a German YouTuber, Twitch streamer, entertainer, presenter and video game journalist. He is also a dubbing artist, musician and game developer, who has been active since March 12, 2006. He gained special fame through his Let's Plays for the open-world game Minecraft, for which a total of 1,278 episodes with a total length of over 21,000 minutes were published between 2010 and 2014.
The name Gronkh comes from the time when he was a game developer at MDO Games GbR, where he also met his former friend Sarazar. Together they even hosted the MyVideo web show "Let's Play Together". The two also collaborated under the channel name Superhomies, where they uploaded vlogs about traveling together.
His streaming content consists mainly of indie games, tests & quizzes. Gronkh is on rank 17 of the most subscribed German YouTubers and inspires several hundred thousand spectators everyday. (as of 20.10.2020)
Info-Box (as of March 2021)
- Language: German
- Stage name: Gronkh
- Real name: Erik Range
- Age / Born Date: 43 / April 10, 1977
- Networks: Studio71
- YouTube subscribers: 4.9 million
- Twitch followers: 1.3 million
- Instagram subscribers: 935 thousand
- Twitter subscribers: 1.3 million
Platforms / Channels / Content
The content of his Main YouTube channel consists of various games such as Minecraft, Immortals, Fenyx, Rising, Tell Me Why, CREATiVERSE, Dragon Age, Sims, Risen, Bioshock, etc.
It also has a number of other channels, most of which are related to the games on the main channel. For example, GronkhOSTs, which contains original game music, GronkhTV, where you can find recorded streams, Best of Gronkh, which consists of highlights and compilations. Range also runs other YouTube channels, such as Gronkh Stuff (Let's Sing, Let's Read, Let's Talk, Tutorials and Unboxings) GronkhRPG (RGP Content), GronkhBlah (Story Time, Music & Tracks, Specials and Podcast), Gronkh Retro (Retro Content).
GRONKH streaming setup - What hardware does GRONKH use?
You always wanted to know which hardware or which streaming setup GRONKH uses? Then you've come to the right place! We'll tell you which hardware components (mouse, keyboard, monitor, PC, graphics card, etc.) the streamer GRONKH uses!
Life / Career
1977-1995
- Erik Range was born on April 10, 1977, in Braunschweig, Germany, the son of a German and a Russian woman. Together with his older brother he grew up in the western part of Braunschweig. Gronkh was already enthusiastic about computer games as a child. He went to the John-F.-Kennedy-Platz high school, after graduation he did his community service in a kindergarten. Later he completed a vocational baccalaureate at a commercial high school, after which he completed an apprenticeship as an IT specialist for application development.
1996-2008
- In 1996 the entertainer founded Range-IT, an internet agency active in web design and programming for private and business customers.
- In the year 2000 he built up the Publisher MDO Games GbR together with several colleagues. He got the name Gronkh as a game developer at this publisher, the German-speaking publisher Meridian 59, where he also met his former friend Sarazar.
- At the end of 2004 Range MDO Games left and is active again as an independent Web designer and programmer with Range-IT. At the same time he became assistant and managing partner for the project mmorpg-planet.de.
2009-2011
- In 2009 Range founded the internet agency "Meine Lieblings GmbH", but since November 2010 he is only a shareholder.
- Since 2010 Gronkh publishes daily Let's Plays on YouTube
2012-2018
- He has been in a relationship with Tatjana Werth/Pandorya since December 2012. From 2012 to 2014 Gronkh hosted the MyVideo web show "Let's Play Together" together with Sarazar. Only after Range submitted this webshow, he started streaming on Twitch every Friday, occasionally on Mondays.
- In 2013 he was a guest with Sarazar on the German TV show "TV total".
- In 2017, the State Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia demanded a broadcasting license from Range.
Since 2018
- On January 1, 2018 Gronkh retired from the management of PlayMassive GmbH.
- During this time Range applied for and received its required broadcasting license. This caused criticism at the State Media Authority because the channels of Gronkh are not classic TV stations. In a later video he explained that his content did not legally require a radio license, but he feared the legal costs in case of a lawsuit.
- On March 9, 2018 Range was a guest of Jan Böhmermann in the late night show "Neo Magazin Royale". This was repeated on May 16, 2019, where he appeared in the "Young Sheldon" parody "Young Böhmermann".
- Since March 2018, the entertainer has been running the podcast "Start & Select" together with Joachim Hesse (aka Onkel Jo). This podcast has been appearing irregularly since then.
- On June 1, 2018 Gronkh founded the Gods of Gaming GmbH, which is based in Cologne. His partner Tatjana Werth (aka Pandorya) and Tobias Fulk (TobinatorLP) are also represented there.
Greatest successes
- Gronkh won three prizes at the 2012 German Web Video Awards. An audience award in the categories "Web Video of the Year " and "Let's Play" for the video "GTA 5 - Real Life Grand Theft Auto". In this video Y-Titty reenacts scenes from the game, which Gronkh comments on as in a Let's Play. At that time the fifth part of the game did not exist yet. Gronkh and Rahmschnitzel together won the jury prize in the category "Let's Play" for the video Kohle Metal. This video is a metal version produced by Rahmschnitzel of a song Range sang in his Let's Play Minecraft series.
- In 2013 the entertainer received his golden Play Button. You will get this button automatically when you reach 1.000.000 subscribers on YouTube.
- In 2014 Sarazar and Gronkh were inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Computerspielemuseum Berlin as the most famous German Let's Players.
- In 2014 Range won the Web Video Award for the video "1000 Years Random Brainfakks" in the category "Let's Play". This video is the 1000th episode of his Let's Play Minecraft series, where he defeats the end dragon and destroys large parts of his world with an atomic bomb
- 2015 Gronkh was awarded the web video prize "Ehrenpreis national". He was not only awarded for his reach as a player, but also as "Germany's most successful YouTuber".
- In 2015, Gronkh was part of the Friendly Fire charity stream, which collected over 170,000€ in donations. Since then, Friendly Fire has become an annually recurring event.
- In 2016, Gronkh became the first German-language YouTuber with over 4 million subscribers.
- In 2018 Friendly Fire 4 raised a record amount of over 887.000€ for charity.
- At the Gamescom in 2020, it was voted "Best Streamer / Letsplayer" by the Gamescom audience at the Consumer Awards.
Assets / Income
- Estimated assets - 2 million Euro
- Income in 2020 - 700 thousand euros
- Average income per month on YouTube - 40 thousand euros
Exact income as well as about detailed assets of the streamer can only be assumed. It is clear that Gronkh belongs to those streamers or YouTubers who have managed to become a millionaire with their streams / videos. Thanks to his friendly nature and his entertainment factor, Gronkh has been able to accumulate an estimated fortune of around 2 million euros, and the trend is rising. His income in 2020 is estimated by various sources to be around 700,000€. The advertising revenues on YouTube will earn him about 40,000€ per month.
