YouTube star PewDiePie has been videoed shouting a racial slur during one of his gaming livestreams.

While broadcasting online, the Swedish streamer – whose real name is Felix Kjellberg – said "n*****" as an insult in response to something that happened within the game.

Seconds later, he appeared to realise what he had said, apologising and claiming that "I don't mean that in a bad way".

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Some developers have already called the comments a step too far and asked that their peers stop supporting PewDiePie. The maker of the hugely popular Firewatch said that it would be filing a copyright request to take down Mr Kjellberg's streams of his game, and urged others to do the same.

"He's worse than a closeted racist: he's a propagator of despicable garbage that does real damage to the culture around this industry," wrote Sean Vanaman on Twitter. He said that he hoped he and other developers could "cut him off from the content that has made him a millionaire".

It is far from the first time that the YouTube star – who is the highest-earning and most popular person on the site – has been accused of racism. Earlier this year, he was accused of using Nazi and anti-Semitic imagery and slurs in his videos, including one that saw him pay people to hold up a sign reading "death to all Jews".

In the wake of the far-right rallies in Charlottesville and elsewhere last month, Mr Kjellberg said that he would be toning down that sort of humour in the future.

""I'm just a guy making jokes on the internet," he said immediately in the wake of the criticism of his Nazi comments. "Believe it or not, I want nothing to do with these people. I have no hate in my heart and I only have hate for hateful people.

"I remember back when everything happened in February, I was sort of like, 'I mean they're just jokes, there's not actual Nazis out there, what are you talking about?'"