Daniel Hardcastle

Hardcastle rose to prominence through a scripted, story-based webcomic created within Minecraft.[5] After creating his YouTube channel on 20 March 2011,[1] Hardcastle initially uploaded a series of comedic vlogs before he uploaded his first let's play. His first let's play series, called Nerd³'s Minecraft Buildy Thing, ran from 27 August 2011 to 22 August 2012. After creating videos on a few indie games, Hardcastle uploaded his first Nerd³ Plays video on 7 January 2012. In 2012, Machinima sponsored him to create the series 13 Ways To Die.[6]

In 2015, Hardcastle was nominated for a Golden Joystick Award for "online personality of the year".[7] He has since amassed more than 2.5 million subscribers and 1.2 billion total views.[1] On Red Nose Day 2019, Harcastle raised over £16,000 for Comic Relief over the course of an 11 hour livesream.[8] In September 2019, Hardcastle's YouTube account was unverified for being not widely recognised outside the platform.[9]

In 2020, Hardcastle appeared in the film Ashens and the Polybius Heist alongside his longtime collaborator Stuart Ashen, who also co-wrote the film. [10]

Hardcastle began writing his first book, Fuck Yeah, Video Games: The Life & Extra Lives of a Professional Nerd, in 2017. On 4 June 2018, he started crowdfunding the book through the website Unbound. The book reached 100% of its target on the first day[11] and 1000% by 11 June. Reaching a total of 1903% of its initial goal, the book is the most successful crowdfunded book in the United Kingdom. The foreword of the book was written by Tim Schafer and a chapter was written by Stuart Ashen.[12][13] The book was released on 19 September 2019 and was a The Sunday Times best seller.[14]

On 26 September 2019, crowdfunding began for Hardcastle's second book, The Paradox Paradox, a science fiction novel which he described as "a bit Star Trek, a bit Doctor Who, and a bit fucked up."[15][16] The book achieved its funding goal within 20 minutes.[17]