“YouTube opened so many doors for us so we can’t diminish its power and it’s still unrivalled in some ways,” Vik explained. “But working with Netflix is a cool opportunity for us to reach a new audience.
“We’re at a ceiling with YouTube – we bring in 20 million UK viewers each month and now we’re thinking about how to connect with different people.”
Aside from Vik and KSI, the other Sidemen are Miniminter, Zerkaa, TBJZL, Behzinga and W2S.
Vik said the group, who are aged between 27 and 32, had some reservations about bringing their work to a new platform because “we’ve never done it before and we’re all very particular about the way we work”.
“We also move at a really fast pace – sometimes we shoot on Wednesday and by Sunday we will have uploaded a two-hour video. So we wanted to make sure Netflix were happy with the fast turnarounds and us being very dynamic.”
But the seven members vote on everything and were unanimous in the decision to move their reality show to Netflix, he said.
The group will serve as executive producers and have “full control to make the new season bigger and better than the last”.
They aren’t the only online stars to take their own big-money game show to a conventional streaming platform instead of putting it on YouTube.
MrBeast, the world’s most popular YouTuber, will launch Beast Games on Amazon Prime Video on 19 December, although that show has been at the centre of controversy.