Current Events > AVGN has really gone downhill

(+) Yeah! (+)

His last video where he played his daughters' Mario Maker levels was good but now that James and Mike Mondays is over that is the only good video series left on the channel.

The AVGN series has been bad recently and the last one about the Shrek GBC game was especially terrible. Half of that video isn't even related to the game.

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If you read the credits you'll see he's not writing the scripts or even playing the games anymore.

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__aCEr__ posted...

If you read the credits you'll see he's not writing the scripts or even playing the games anymore.

He rarely even played the games at all. He hasn't been into games since college, and even in the 00s, Mike was usually the one playing and capturing the footage.

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Its been downhill for years.

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It went downhill about two years into his YouTube run after he went through all of Seanbabys material and had to start writing his own, proving how much of an unfunny hack he really is.

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I legit feel bad for him.

The reality is that he's someone with more fame than actual monetary success, and the ship sailed before he could profit from it.

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I wonder what all these YouTube dudes are going to do when they get old. AVGN is 40 and that's already an embarrassing age to be doing the kind of shit that was less lame when you were in your early 20s. They kind of paint themselves into a corner without having developed real-world skills, although most of them change what kind of videos they make, or supposedly make millions anyway so they'd be set if they ever needed to quit. He certainly has barely evolved, and I can't imagine he has a boatload of money saved up since he seems miserable doing AVGN

He has little control over it anymore, he sold out to Amazon and now just reads the lines given to him. He's probably obligated to do so many. You can tell he knows it's a soulless husk as much as we do.
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DarkRoast posted...

I legit feel bad for him.

The reality is that he's someone with more fame than actual monetary success, and the ship sailed before he could profit from it.

I wouldn't feel bad for him, he got himself where he is. His goal was to be a legit filmmaker, which, almost inevitably, ended up in a spectacular failure outside of his hardcore dedicated fanbase which will eagerly gobble down anything he spoonfeeds them. He's likely raked in a good amount of money off his YT channel in views which for years has operated off nostalgia of his mid-late 2000's era vids.

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I can't believe he's still just doing a bunch of swearing, poop jokes, bad special effects and unnecessary character appearances. Those were like all of the things that I hated about it even in the beginning but it used to have an inexplicable charm that made it enjoyable

CoorsLight posted...

I can't believe he's still just doing a bunch of swearing, poop jokes, bad special effects and unnecessary character appearances. Those were like all of the things that I hated about it even in the beginning but it used to have an inexplicable charm that made it enjoyable

Lol I feel the same way. But a strange amount of YouTube has this kind of thing, I imagine it must be a feature for some people.

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Well yeah

I love James Rolfe but his run (as it was) is over

He's played all the games he a childhood connection too.

Mike and Bootsy are gone.

He doesn't enjoy games as an adult and currently his episodes aren't scripted by him. He's just doing a job for money rather than a passion project.

He's a cool guy but even the biggest superfan knows the entire show isn't what it used to be.

Hell his Megaman review literally brought this up in AVGN itself. How the series is stale and dead but good to bring back every once in a while.

And if you go back a few years and look at Board James, you could see the passion was all in that.

I mean christ just look at this:



That's James Rolfe's own literal chart detailing the continuity of Board James....

Nothing in AVGN has any thought behind it

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AVGN was always completely shit
it was just that he got into the lame ass 'grr games suck from my childhood as an adult' before youtube was shitting on ten dozen of these a day.

He stopped caring. Says he has no time to do things. He just leaves everything to the Screenwave guys and he shoots video in his fake nerd set he set up in his garage and shoots footage for several vids to send to the SW guys to edit.

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I always thought he was just a lazy/bad comedy writer, but after seeing some of his videos talking about movies/shows he likes, he seems like the kind of person who thinks that slapstick and diarrhea are genuinely as funny as it gets. So I'm sure that will never leave the show. Not that I really watch anymore anyway but I like to check it out once in a while to see what a trainwreck it is

I wonder how much of this topic is genuine truth and how much of it just buys into the propaganda Redditors have been spreading about him
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One_Day_Remains posted...

I wonder how much of this topic is genuine truth and how much of it just buys into the propaganda Redditors have been spreading about him

You don't need "Reddit propaganda" just watch the videos

https://youtu.be/Q3iEn5rzMnw?t=1299

That was 5 years ago, when the critics were still overwhelmingly saying "AVGN sucks now."

There is no AVGN video where he gets as legit mad as he got in the Dick Tracey one. Theres just nothing left in the nostalgia tank.

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This topic has serious armchair psychologist/smelly redditor syndrome going on lol jesus

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Zero_Destroyer posted...

This topic has serious armchair psychologist/smelly redditor syndrome going on lol jesus

My point exactly

Really most people don't know shit about how "invested" James is in gaming and his own product. They just read what some other random dude says and take it as gospel.
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One_Day_Remains posted...

Really most people don't know shit about how "invested" James is in gaming and his own product. They just read what some other random dude says and take it as gospel.

I have never used reddit.

I'm going solely off his videos, where has been open about the fact he's made a video about every game he wanted too/grew up with about a decade ago and has no interest in modern gaming. He likes movies.

Second to his own words,you can just tell by the quality and content of the videos he outputs that there is no passion or effort in them compared to the ones he cared about. Both AVGN and Board James.

And if you want more objective examples of change:

Mike and Bootsy are gone. Kyle is AWOL. And there are now celebrity guests, crossovers and sponsorships inside the videos. It's a commercial product rather than a passion project

Just screaming "Reddit!" at this is silly.

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The mildly agitated video game nerd

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Zero_Destroyer posted...

This topic has serious armchair psychologist/smelly redditor syndrome going on lol jesus

Cinemassacre and James has always been fairly reticent in how they handle decisions about the company with the fans. If someone leaves or new staff is added, it's either faintly touched on or not mentioned at all.

As a result, almost every development with the company amounts to the equivalent of fan theories that are based on assumptions. There's a weirdly large community of this behavior now, and it ranges from trivial to downright toxic and misogynistic.

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Lol. Imagine personally attacking someone over a youtube character. Christ.. some of you are amazing

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Zero_Destroyer posted...

This topic has serious armchair psychologist/smelly redditor syndrome going on lol jesus

Theres literally a sub reddit dedicated to this shit. The fanbase is atrocious and i take it some of them posts here.

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people are really mad about this but i dont get it

just dont watch his stuff.

give the man a break. he has kids, hes got a wife, hes got a life outside youtube. he isn't beholden to you or anyone. if he wants to side line his stuff, while giving other people the great opportunity to write and produce youtube videos, he can. if you dont want to watch, then dont!

i think his videos are still entertaining, so i watch. but what i wont do is make topics like this

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TheBlueMonk_ posted...

people are really mad about this but i dont get it

just dont watch his stuff.

give the man a break. he has kids, hes got a wife, hes got a life outside youtube. he isn't beholden to you or anyone. if he wants to side line his stuff, while giving other people the great opportunity to write and produce youtube videos, he can. if you dont want to watch, then dont!

i think his videos are still entertaining, so i watch. but what i wont do is make topics like this

Gotta remember that 90 percent of the people here are miserable. Theyre looking for stuff to hate

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I remember when he was Angry Nintendo Nerd and actually funny

But as someone else said, the whole "screaming like a toddler while using words that would make a sailor blush" was cute back in the 00s, but now game reviews are a dime a dozen and you gotta be more nuanced than that when it comes to both humor and making legit criticisms

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I like that the hostility in this topic has solely come from people screaming and wildly insulting others on this site for their alleged hostility that has not been demonstratated at all and is apparently only evidenced on another website.

That's multiple levels of hypocrisy and a complete lack of self-awareness

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AVGN at least kept in his own lane and never crossed that line of being so annoying that you wish a piano dropped on his skull.

Look at Nostalgia Critic and his crew or other Internet examples of these e-celebs becoming utter marks for themselves and turning into lolcows. I think people became upset when they learned James was a normal guy and isn't some phony streamer personality you see everywhere today that say "poggers" and "pepega" like it's common speech among people in reality.

Don't know why people are blaming reddit and such. It's obvious he stopped caring. It's obvious the SW guys are writing the scripts. You think James knows anything about some of the games that he's done on the show in recent years? It's obvious the set is different because all that's shown is him on the couch. There's no shots of him walking around the nerd room any more.

And criticizing him doesn't mean one hates him or is obsessed with trashing him or is toxic.

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TheBlueMonk_ posted...

people are really mad about this but i dont get it

just dont watch his stuff.

give the man a break. he has kids, hes got a wife, hes got a life outside youtube. he isn't beholden to you or anyone. if he wants to side line his stuff, while giving other people the great opportunity to write and produce youtube videos, he can. if you dont want to watch, then dont!

i think his videos are still entertaining, so i watch. but what i wont do is make topics like this

This is how I've seen it. If he's not writing and directing anymore, that doesn't mean he's a failure or is being financially held against his will like Britney Spears (that's an actual widely-accepted theory).

The guy's married with two kids, and has the same gig with less work. Probably makes even more money now due to Cinemassacre being owned by Screenwave. He's doing fine.

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UnfairRepresent posted...

I like that the hostility in this topic has solely come from people screaming and wildly insulting others on this site for their alleged hostility that has not been demonstratated at all and is apparently only evidenced on another website.

That's multiple levels of hypocrisy and a complete lack of self-awareness

"People don't like what I like? Stop being so hostile! (while pointing out legit issues)"

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Unfair really is a walking caricature. Whenever anyone picks apart his posts they're "screaming"
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TheCurseX2 posted...

Look at Nostalgia Critic and his crew or other Internet examples of these e-celebs becoming utter marks for themselves and turning into lolcows. I think people became upset when they learned James was a normal guy and isn't some phony streamer personality you see everywhere today that say "poggers" and "pepega" like it's common speech among people in reality.

It was hilarious when the Internet decided to hate him for a while when he said he wasn't going to see the female Ghostbusters

And then got mad that he didn't respond to the hate

Then Pat and Mike came out and said "Yeah, James doesn't really get/use the Internet. He didn't even know everyone was mad at him."

James is such a fucking bro.

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I dunno.

I like and respect James. Not easy to be consistent in anything for 15+ years.

The problem here is that his AVGN fame was kind of a fluke. James is a movie first games second kind of guy. He made the first avgn video when he was in a shitty mood because how stressful his job was at the time. A lot of people related to him and his frustration because old games back then were ruthless af, like the first episode with Castlevania: Simon's Quest. The problem now is that he kind of played all the games that mattered to him in his childhood and now he has to "act" angry when you can tell he's just phony it in.

You can tell his passion is in movies just by watching some of his review videos on them. He's a lot more knowledgeable about them and gives really cool insights. He's especially a fan of monster movies, b-level movies, and practical effects. He has great appreciation for them, but sadly those videos aren't what is bringing in the dough for him.

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YourLovelyTina posted...

"People don't like what I like? Stop being so hostile! (while pointing out legit issues)"

Da fuck are you on about?

I haven't regged on anyone for liking anything and the people screaminng about hostility aren't "pointing out issues"

One_Day_Remains posted...

the propaganda Redditors have been spreading about him
s serious armchair psychologist/smelly redditor syndrome going on lol jesus
Really most people don't know shit about how "invested" James is in gaming and his own product. They just read what some other random dude says and take it as gospel.

Stallion_Prime posted...

Lol. Imagine personally attacking someone over a youtube character. Christ.. some of you are amazing
Theres literally a sub reddit dedicated to this shit. The fanbase is atrocious and i take it some of them posts here.
Gotta remember that 90 percent of the people here are miserable. Theyre looking for stuff to hate

The only people who made "valid points" were the people talking about the decline video quality and the reasons why.

The hostility was purely from people whining about reddit and shadows of phantom AVGN haters who don't exist.

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This dude is having a hilarious meltdown. Keep going
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UnfairRepresent posted...

It was hilarious when the Internet decided to hate him for a while when he said he wasn't going to see the female Ghostbusters

And then got mad that he didn't respond to the hate

Then Pat and Mike came out and said "Yeah, James doesn't really get/use the Internet. He didn't even know everyone was mad at him."

James is such a fucking bro.

He handled that controversy in the best way possible even if it may have been inadvertent. Almost everyone else gets more involved, doubles down, and makes the whole thing worse.

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Prestoff posted...

The problem here is that his AVGN fame was kind of a fluke. James is a movie first games second kind of guy. He made the first avgn video when he was in a shitty mood because how stressful his job was at the time. A lot of people related to him and his frustration because old games back then were ruthless af, like the first episode with Castlevania: Simon's Quest. The problem now is that he kind of played all the games that mattered to him in his childhood and now he has to "act" angry when you can tell he's just phony it in.

You can tell his passion is in movies just by watching some of his review videos on them. He's a lot more knowledgeable about them and gives really cool insights. He's especially a fan of monster movies, b-level movies, and practical effects. He has great appreciation for them, but sadly those videos aren't what is bringing in the dough for him.

I wouldn't say it was a fluke. Keep in mind he got big on Youtube in 2006. James early AVGN episodes are a clear cut above of 99% of videos in terms of production quality, editing, scripting...etc. His background in film gave him a clear advantage early on. But yeah he's run the character to the ground. There is only so much you can do with 1 joke repeated ad nauseum.

UnfairRepresent posted...

It was hilarious when the Internet decided to hate him for a while when he said he wasn't going to see the female Ghostbusters

And then got mad that he didn't respond to the hate

Then Pat and Mike came out and said "Yeah, James doesn't really get/use the Internet. He didn't even know everyone was mad at him."

James is such a fucking bro.

Yeah, it was apparently due to it just being a remake, and had nothing to do with it being an all-female cast. He just REALLY wanted the original cast back and hates the generic naming convention of just leaving out numbers or subtitles.

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I don't really research the guy, but everytime I see him he looks super content and it makes all the speculation that he is miserable seem like projection.

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it's been downhill for like a decade. he straight up sucks at video games. just look at him playing mario maker. that's one of the few times he's actually legit playing a game. i'm sure most of us could have beat those levels way faster then he could. especially that one with the fire bars he kept wanting to quit on. right away i seen what he had to do but he just couldn't do it. it's not like it's a kaizo level or anything real hard. normal gamer could have beat it in a few tries. he did play back in james and mike mondays and mike was always carrying him through it. james sucked at pretty much every game.

I still like most of the AVGN videos he puts out. He has always had hit or miss episodes and has also pointed out that covid made it hard to do videos this year.

James and Mike Mondays were not good lol, because Mike is annoying and if I wanted to watch guys play video games theres other channels I can watch.

Yeah I dont get why he makes videos like the Shrek one. At least there theres probably tons of shitty Shrek games, so he doesnt have to make a skit with a weird Wickerman reference to pad out the video length. Maybe thats just him wanting to set up movie scenarios though.

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Angry internet forum nerds are really pissed off at the angry video game nerd.

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The last time he was super passionate about it was the film. There are still funny bits and he still makes me laugh but this is his day job now.

Remember the dude is actually a film student and I assume he would like to do other things. Probably direct and produce. Wonder if he gets that opportunity very often.

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Man, what a shithole of a topic. I swear some of the folks in here are exactly what his character is satirizing, lmao.

The quality has obviously gone down a bit over the years, with some folks leaving(I do think it sucks that Mike left), James having less of a hand in the writing of AVGN episodes and such, but it's still usually fairly solid with the occasional gems (Earthbound was fantastic). And anytime he's just talking about movies it's always interesting and entertaining.

I've noticed over the years the Cinemassacre has one of the worst fanbases for such a cool and chill dude behind the camera.

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AVGN hasn't been good for over 10 years

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It is clear he is has been phoning it in for a while. I don't blame him though. Sitting on couch making scripted jokes while probably only pretending to play a game for a few hours a week seems like a pretty sweet gig compared to most jobs.

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