OfficialNerdCubed

Hardcastle got to notoriety after creating a scripted, story-based webcomic within Minecraft. On March 20, 2011, he launched his YouTube channel. Hardcastle began with a series of hilarious vlogs before posting his first let’s play.

“Edgar Wright Accepts his 2010 Nerd³ Awards” is the oldest video on his channel, with 154k views as of August 2024. The video shows the filmmaker Edgar Wright accepting his award given by Hardcastle.

His debut let’s play series, Nerd3’s Minecraft Buildy Thing, aired from August 27 to August 22, 2011. Hardcastle posted his first Nerd3 Plays video on January 7, 2012, after making videos for a few independent games. Machinima sponsored him to develop the series 13 Ways To Die in 2012.

In 2020, Hardcastle co-wrote and co-starred in the film Ashens and the Polybius Heist with his longtime colleague Stuart Ashen. Hardcastle also has a minor writing credit for the film, having added two jokes when Ashen delivered him the script.

Books

In 2017, Hardcastle started writing his first book, Fuck Yeah, Video Games: The Life & Extra Lives of a Professional Nerd. On June 4, 2018, he began crowdfunding the book on the website Unbound. The book achieved 100% of its goal on the first day and it is the most successful crowdfunded book in the United Kingdom and has raised 1903% of its initial goal.

The book’s prologue was written by Double Fine creator and game director Tim Schafer, and YouTuber Stuart Ashen contributed a chapter. The book was a Sunday Times bestseller when it was launched on September 19, 2019.

On September 26, 2019, crowdfunding for Hardcastle’s second book, The Paradox Paradox, which he describes as “a bit Star Trek, a bit Doctor Who, and a bit fucked up”, began. Within 20 minutes, the book had reached its funding target.

According to Net Worth Spot, Hardcastle has an estimated net worth of $213.59 thousand as of August 2024. The OfficialNerdCubed channel receives 889.94 thousand views each month and approximately 29.66 thousand views per day. YouTube channels make between $3 and $7 per thousand video views on average.

Net Worth Spot has also reported that the OfficialNerdCubed YouTube channel produces $3.56 thousand in ad revenue per month and $53.4 thousand per year. Hardcastle might earn up to $96.11 thousand per year on the high end. YouTubers rarely have a single source of revenue. Successful YouTubers have sponsors as well, and they can earn extra money by promoting their own items.

Hardcastle is married to Rebecca Maughan, an illustrator who worked on Fuck Yeah, Video Games. Hardcastle's father, Steve "Dad³" Hardcastle, with whom he has frequently collaborated, launched a YouTube channel in 2013 with over 300,000 members and 23 million total views. He attended the University of Leicester to study astrophysics but left out after the first year.

Hardcastle is an active social media user and has an impressive following but his following is not as massive as his following on YouTube. On Twitch, he has a following of 230K and streams various games such as Fortnite, Saints Row, Minecraft, Re-Volt and more. On Twitter, he has a following of 186.9K and gets several likes and retweets.

Hardcastle posts videos weekly on his channel. His videos usually receive several thousand views, with some videos coming close to a hundred thousand views. The content on his channel is focused on gaming content where he and his friends talk about various aspects of games, give different awards to video games and sometimes upload gameplay videos.

With over 3.4 million views, this is his most watched video. In the video, he plays Just Cause 3 and compiles random moments of the gameplay.

With over 3.47 million views, this is his second-most watched video. He plays and reviews London 2012.

With over 3.1 million views, this is his third-most watched video. He plays and reviews Bully.

With over 3.1 million views, this is his fourth-most watched video. He plays Pain in the video as part of his ongoing walkthrough series of the game.

1. Hardcastle received a Golden Joystick Award nomination for "online personality of the year" in 2015.
2. Hardcastle's YouTube account was deactivated in September 2019 since he was not widely recognised outside of the network.