With over 15 million subscribers on his YouTube channel (and more than five billion views), Lachlan Power might be an Australian gaming sensation, but that’s not all. Now a gamer-turned-founder, he’s behind PWR – a global gaming organisation that creates gaming content and immersive experiences for fans.
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It’s the eve of a major stunt when Lachlan Power sits down with Forbes Australia to discuss his gaming career. Tomorrow, he will trap himself in a room (kitted out with a portable toilet) for as long as it takes to get a certain ranking in the online video game Fortnite. For this professional gamer, it’s work, but it’s also a way to play video games all day and call it work.
“It’s the whole dream,” Power says. “Of course, there’s a lot of pre- and post-production, but it was all about trying to make playing games work. All I really try to do is make it fun for me.”
Born in Brisbane, Power has 15.3 million subscribers across his YouTube channel, which he launched in 2013, and more than 5 billion views across his 4,122 videos. (But across all channels, including PWR, MoreLachlan and LachlanPlayz, he’s got more than 8.3 billion lifetime views). He was the first Australian gaming YouTuber to reach one million and then 10 million subscribers, but has about 30 million subscribers across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, X and Twitch.
Known primarily for his Fortnite streams, Power got into competitive gaming while in his first year of an IT degree.
“I was seeing YouTubers play Call of Duty, and in their commentary, they’d talk about how they were monetising their videos. Just hearing that, I thought, ‘This is insane.’ In my first year of university, I just started to upload Minecraft videos, and some of them reached a few 100, then 1000 views. From there, it snowballed. 2,000 turned to 5,000, turned to 25,000. Then I started making enough money to say, ‘Hey mum, maybe I can do this full-time’. The rest is history.”
Mum stayed on his case about returning to university for some time. But, once Power began earning a decent income (he’s estimated to earn millions annually from his YouTube ad revenue, brand deals and merchandise, as well as his organisation PWR), she changed her tuned: “It was hard for them [Power’s parents] to get their head around it at first, but they’ve been very supportive of the career choice I’ve made.”
After falling out of love with Minecraft, Power switched to solely creating content around Fortnite in 2017, in what he says was his biggest career move yet. (According to eSports Earnings, Power’s made about $70,000 from 10 Fortnite tournaments alone). But it wasn’t just about pivoting to a new gaming style, Power says he saw its potential for increased viewership.
“The way I describe it to other YouTubers is: You’re out in the water trying to get the next wave, and where you position yourself for that next wave tells a lot about how you can ride it. It’s about trying to spot the wave as quickly as possible, and putting yourself in the best position for the wave – or the trend, in other words.” Still, he says, enjoyment comes first: “If I don’t find the game fun, or the trend fun, I can’t force it.”
That authenticity is what his audience connects with and what he says keeps him grounded even after 12 years online. “When I first started, I was uploading daily, every single day, for years. I became part of people’s habits,” he says. “But if I’m not having fun, it shows. The audience knows.” (This is why he says his Fortnite-in-a-trapped-room stunt should be a success).
The element of ‘realness’ in Power’s content is something he attributes to 27-year-old American YouTube king MrBeast (real name James Donaldson), who earned an estimated US$85 million as Forbes’ Top Creator in 2025.
“From a numbers perspective, he is number one. I’ve been fortunate to collaborate on a few videos of his, and he’s joined us for a PWR video as well when he was here in Australia.” He’s also close with fellow Australian creator Lannan Eacott (better known as LazarBeam), who Power says helped him adjust to a more quality-driven content style.
“He’ll review my videos, I’ll review his. It’s a cool creative partnership.”
PWR is Power’s gaming organisation that he launched in 2020 while he was living and working out of Osaka, Japan. At the time, he’d seen a few organisations come out of Europe and the US, and saw they had a competition aspect to them but lacked a content division. This would be his point of difference. “For me, it was about creating something bigger than myself – a community,” he says.
PWR became an organisation with competitive players in gaming leagues like Rocket League and Fortnite, but it also has an 8-strong content team that creates content like gameplay highlights, tips and tricks and entertaining commentary. It also partners with brands like Red Bull
(and previously NVIDIA, Netflix and Coca-Cola) to create content that engages with thegaming audience.
Since 2022, Power’s team says PWR’s view growth year-on-year is over 100%: 90 million in 2022; 220 million in 2023; 480 million in 2024; and already 430 million as of October 2025.
It’s all part of Power’s long-play. Over the next 12 months, Power plans to expand the team and evolve PWR’s creative arm, even as he considers pulling back from daily uploads. “Running PWR and doing my own videos… It’s tough. I’ve got another year or two of consistent uploads before taking it a bit more chill to focus on PWR,” he says.
Still, gaming remains his passion. “At the end of the day, I just want to make content I’m proud of,” he says.
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