PewDiePie, owner of the world's biggest YouTube channel, has responded to critics of the financial success he now enjoys.

The 25-year-old Swedish Let's Player - real name Felix Kjellberg - earned over US$7m last year through video monetisation.

The revelation sparked surprise and anger amongst the gaming community, to which PewDiePie responded with a new video, addressing his critics directly.

"To see so many people being upset about this whole thing, it's just sad. It's such a waste," he said.

"It seems like the whole world cares more about how much money I make than I do myself. We did raise $1m for charity and very few articles picked up on that, but here it is, everywhere, how much money I make."

Kjellberg says he hasn't been changed by his newfound wealth. "I'm very happy that I don't have to worry about paying rent [...] but other than that, it doesn't change much," he said.

After reading out some of his favourite comments on the subject, Kjellberg concluded, "I don't think there's any good reason why anyone should care. And on top of that I guess there's no good reason why I should care either. So we're just going to end it there."

PewDiePie's videos have accumulated a combined nine billion views, and his channel has more subscribers than One Direction and Taylor Swift.