A "very popular YouTuber" demanded $22,000 for coverage of indie game Soul Axiom, says the game's PR officer.

Ben Tester, who also did environment art on the psychological sci-fi adventure title, revealed the story on Reddit this weekend.

Initially, Tester emailed the YouTuber, who has "a few million subscribers," offering them a free code to play the game on their channel.

The Let's-Player responded asking for "either $17,600 for 2-3 talking points or $22,000 for 2-3 talking points AND a description link."

No word was given on whether the coverage would be positive.

"Upon reading this my jaw dropped. Is this real?" wrote Tester.

Responding on Tester's Reddit thread, pioneering Let's-Player Slowbeef sympathised, "I don’t like this trend, and I want to do what I can to spread the word about it. Game developers shouldn’t be exploited like this and most every Let’s Player I’ve talked to about this agrees that it’s disgusting."

YouTubers are no strangers to ethical issues, including Let's-Playing games they have financial ties to, accepting copies of Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor in return for guaranteed positive coverage, and promoting the Xbox One without disclosing their advertising deal.

Soul Axiom is available now for PC, Mac, and Linux, with new-gen console versions on the way.