Ben Tester does PR and marketing for Wales Interactive, the developer responsible for games like Soul Axiom (pictured). According to a recent Reddit post, he emailed a popular YouTuber to offer them a free code for one of the developer's games and got a reply that made his "jaw drop", asking for thousands of dollars in return for coverage of the game.
Apparently, the YouTuber, who has "a few million subscribers", asked for either $17,600 in exchange for two to three "talking points," or $22,000 for the addition of a description link. Tester, as well as stating that he didn't agree to pay up, stresses that the YouTuber didn't offer positive promotion of the game.
It's worth checking out the post and comments for more stories from devs, e.g. one claiming that a YouTuber asked for 5% of gross profit for six months, and from YouTubers who say they've accepted money to cover games.
