Luke Robinson, better known by his online alias Omega Luke, has been entertaining the masses inside the ring as a wrestler and playing Football Manager on YouTube.
If you are one of the many who enjoy following your favourite streamer’s Football Manager saves, the chances are that you will have come across the Omega Luke Gaming channel on YouTube. With 160,000 subscribers at the time of writing, Luke has realised a dream of becoming a full-time streamer.
He isn’t alone, either, as he is often joined by his father Ian, or Omega Dad, who has been able to reduce his hours through working with his son.
“My main goal is to retire my dad,” Luke told Fen Regis Trophies. “He is already semi-retired, working two days a week, to come and work with me.
“If I can be the reason he is able to stop going to his actual job as a thank you for working two, three jobs when I was a kid to make sure my sister and I had a roof over our head, that would be the ultimate goal.”
Becoming a Content Creator
The Football Manager series has been a staple for thousands of armchair coaches around the world for over two decades, previously under the guise of Championship Manager. Luke has been a fan of the game from a young age, growing up in Plymouth, and dedicated hours upon hours to his saves.
It should come as no surprise that when he began creating online gaming content, Football Manager would be his core focus.
“It was actually a bit of a mistake,” Luke said. “I used to watch a lot of content creators…I always thought that I would love to do this.
“I would say to my wife I’d love to do this…she would come home and I would still be watching it. She said, ‘Why don’t you try?’
“I thought you had to buy an expensive capture card. I never had a lot of equipment, I just used to play it on my laptop…it wasn’t until I did a wrestling podcast when I had people asking me to do videos, that I worked out how to do it through a little bit of research.”
Luke added: “I just happened to have Football Manager on my laptop when I loaded up my video recording software and then, all of a sudden, I could see the game on my screen recording.
“I realised how easy it is to record Football Manager and that was a game changer.
“I started up a new channel where I was just going to play Football Manager and, within one or two months, I was being asked to do videos on FM Scout, which had 35,000 subscribers at the time.”
Omega Dad
Regular viewers of Omega Luke will be familiar with his father, Ian, on the channel. The father and son became an online duo when Luke asked his dad to feature in an episode centred around a Football Manager save on Tottenham Hotspur.
“My dad is a massive Spurs fan,” Luke explained. “About four years ago, there was a lot of talk before Harry Kane left…I have always enjoyed conversations about football with my dad.
“Content creators for other games, such as NMA or Madden NFL, would do rebuilds – which is where they take a team for five seasons, and I decided to do one on Spurs.
“I asked my dad if he wanted to be in it as he watched the videos anyway…he was a little bit apprehensive about it to begin with.
“He was nervous, and if you watch the first video he was in, you can tell he was. It’s night and day compared to where he is now.”
Knowing the risks that come with social media, Luke was hesitant about his dad reading comments left on the video, but a wave of positive feedback led to Ian becoming a mainstay of the channel.
“I said he might get some backlash in the comments,” Luke said. “He read the comments and, fortunately, they were all positive and asked for him to come back.
“Off of that, I asked if he wanted to do another one and he has been a mainstay of the channel ever since. He is arguably the reason why people watch now!
“I never would have been anywhere near as successful if it wasn’t for my dad.”
Reaping the Rewards
Luke’s passion and dedication for producing quality content are clear, as is his desire to make life better for those around him. Well on his way to “retiring” his dad, he says one of his proudest achievements was being able to hand his father a plaque from YouTube for his channel reaching 100,000 subscribers.
“I’ve had two years in a row where I have had the most views in the world with Football Manager, which I can’t believe that has happened.
“I am just happy as long as this is a way of me paying the bills and living life comfortably.
“A million subscribers seems a long way away at this point, but then 100,000 subscribers seemed like that when I first started…you just never know with this.
“Getting a plaque for 100,000 subscribers has probably been the best thing, but to be able to give it to my dad with the proudest moment, which is the reason why I did it while we recorded on a video last year.”
You can subscribe to Omega Luke Gaming on YouTube here, where Luke, alongside his dad, posts regular Football Manager content and challenges.
By Aaron Gratton
