James Rolfe / James D. Rolfe / Angry Video Game Nerd (AVGN) / Rex Viper and Cinemassacre / Screenwave - Now with not much grieving about a 41-year old man still making videos on YouTube. We're the balls on the dick.

Which videos do you like the most from Cinemassacre?

  • Angry Video Game Nerd

    Votes: 1,812 63.5%

  • You Know Whats Bullshit

    Votes: 143 5.0%

  • James and Mike Mondays

    Votes: 96 3.4%

  • Board James

    Votes: 443 15.5%

  • Monster Madness

    Votes: 270 9.5%

  • James' movie reviews

    Votes: 90 3.2%
  • Total voters
    2,854
Yeah, it's even worse trying to watch it a second time. James sounds so uninspired, like he's just reading lines.

To contrast, here's my personal favorite episode: Atari Sports

It's a pretty cozy episode. No gimmicks, nobody in a costume, not even any cheesy effects. It's just him talking about the games and making fun of how people go wild about sports. But he makes the episode work by himself, with simply just good line delivery and a few well-performed jokes. It also took the place of a Christmas episode that year, since it came out in mid-December, when football season is really heating up.

The AVGN really seems to be at his best when it's as minimal as possible. Not that I wanna fault the guy for trying new things to try and keep the series fresh, but there's a good reason why the Angry Nintendo Nerd, one of many of his various videos he's shot throughout his life, really took off. The more he gets away from the core of that, the worse his shit gets, like how The Angry Video Game Nerd Movie was the worst movie I've ever seen. Low-budget schlock tends to be a lot of fun because you can get a sense that the filmmakers are having fun making the thing, they're having to improvise with whatever they have available, and they're not beholden to test audiences or the MPAA, so, anything could happen. When James tries to emulate that, it just doesn't work. The AVGN on his own works because it feels like you're hanging out with a friend, drinking beers and riffing on classic games, but when a guy in a Bugs Bunny suit kicks down the door and James dresses up in a bunch of Nintendo accessories, that kinda just fractures that illusion and takes me out of the experience.

So, we're probably due one last AVGN for 2019, and unless the Christmas episode is good, I'd say the highlight of the year was Chex Quest.

Aladdin Deck Enhancer wasn't bad, either. It was a pretty weak year, especially compared to last year.
 
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Pissmaster General said:
Yeah, it's even worse trying to watch it a second time. James sounds so uninspired, like he's just reading lines.

To contrast, here's my personal favorite episode: Atari Sports

It's a pretty cozy episode. No gimmicks, nobody in a costume, not even any cheesy effects. It's just him talking about the games and making fun of how people go wild about sports. But he makes the episode work by himself, with simply just good line delivery and a few well-performed jokes. It also took the place of a Christmas episode that year, since it came out in mid-December, when football season is really heating up.

The AVGN really seems to be at his best when it's as minimal as possible. Not that I wanna fault the guy for trying new things to try and keep the series fresh, but there's a good reason why the Angry Nintendo Nerd, one of many of his various videos he's shot throughout his life, really took off. The more he gets away from the core of that, the worse his shit gets, like how The Angry Video Game Nerd Movie was the worst movie I've ever seen. Low-budget schlock tends to be a lot of fun because you can get a sense that the filmmakers are having fun making the thing, they're having to improvise with whatever they have available, and they're not beholden to test audiences or the MPAA, so, anything could happen. When James tries to emulate that, it just doesn't work. The AVGN on his own works because it feels like you're hanging out with a friend, drinking beers and riffing on classic games, but when a guy in a Bugs Bunny suit kicks down the door and James dresses up in a bunch of Nintendo accessories, that kinda just fractures that illusion and takes me out of the experience.

So, we're probably due one last AVGN for 2019, and unless the Christmas episode is good, I'd say the highlight of the year was Chex Quest. Aladdin Deck Enhancer wasn't bad, either. It was a pretty weak year, especially compared to last year.
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This is my favorite AVGN video actually. Love his rant about football and John Madden. I'm going to watch it again thank you.
 
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Saw the Immortal vid.

Points for trying something a little different, but I feel like it would have been better if it was spoken with a poetic rhyme, sort of like Poe's "The Raven" or even like Lewis Carroll's "Jaberwocky". Not easy to do, sure, but he sounded like he was trying to speak poetically and in rhyme and then just didn't.

It is amazing to me that his sets and costumes look significantly better than NCs though.
 
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Never knew about the screenwave takeover but it all makes sense. I legitimately thought those guys who showed up on the new format were some of James' friends, because the guys gotta have friends right? Their lack of chemistry adds up now. Mark my words, screenwave is going to run this into the ground. The fact that the long hair dude can't resist keeping his face off 4chan is a horrible sign. They also think the "loudly argue about movies" format is good. This is James' entire career and he's just letting it go, for what? He's burned out? He wants more time with his family? It's his job though. Most dads are out there working 8+ hour days I don't see why him doing the same is asking too much. Contrast that with the RLM guys. Outside Jack we don't know if any of them have kids, but they still spend whatever time needed to make quality content, families be damned. Put out quality over quantity like he'd been doing. But nope, he'd rather let it go to shit and sell out.
 
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The new Monster Madness format, if they had any sense, could have been on the level of RLM re:views if they bothered to put work into it (research, prep, discuss it beforehand), but they churned so many out that they just don't feel polished. I don't want it to replace the old mini-documentary MM format, but it could at least be done well.
 
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These new thick outline mugging thumbnails blow ass chunks. It makes to very apparent who is just in it for algorithm stroking and who isn't. Allison Pregler does the same shit in her thumbnails and they are exactly the same now. Thick outline, bold colors, mugging face. Every single time. Once a channel starts that desperate shit it's hard not to disengage because you know their content comes second to e-fame dreams and ad bux.
 
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The thumb is objectively kind of good (if generic) design, it ticks a lot of the boxes for what get thumbnails noticed outside of people who already recognise your brand. I sympathise with the constant struggle to gain new audience on Youtube (the way it currently works compartmentalises you hard to your existing audience and basically starves you in a dwindling income until you quit), I tolerate the ads for abusive mobile games too, but it doesn't excuse shit content.
 
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He has 3 million subs though, who is left to attract? RLM isn't doing any of that nonsense with a third the subs even on their back catalog to try and scrape new ad bucks off old content. Their old eps just exist and people rewatch it when they want to. For James' vids they removed the old to new playlist, removed episode numbers, and replaced old thumbs with new "best practices". So the goal is obviously for the algo bots to pick up old episodes and serve them to new viewers without them knowing they are 7 years old. But here's the thing. Doesn't the algo bot already penalize old content based on upload date? I don't typically get served a ton of old stuff unless I've deep dived that channel before. And who knows when the algo will stop favoring this loud and click baity style of thumbnail. Are they going to change them all again when something new inevitably comes along? I'm just not a fan of chasing algo stuff over doing what you love/what has been working all along. I can't imagine these changes bringing in a ton of new money to be worth the effort and it comes off as desperate.
 
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Man vs persistent rat said:
The new Monster Madness format, if they had any sense, could have been on the level of RLM re:views if they bothered to put work into it (research, prep, discuss it beforehand), but they churned so many out that they just don't feel polished. I don't want it to replace the old mini-documentary MM format, but it could at least be done well.
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I used to look forward to MM so much back in middle/high school. There was nothing like walking through the falling leaves to get home and turning on a new video every day for a month.
 
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RLM are heavily insulated by their Patreon, they can basically Metokur it and not care about popularity (unless it starts to decline - then we'll see some changes), it allows them to be ridiculously picky with ad placements too.

I think a lot of James' subs are dying accounts that only watched AVGN. He got a small bump when he began going heavy into film stuff this year, but the incline went back to the same rate. It's hard to gauge the overall audience for film content because any channel doing other stuff can cover films and get good views for it, someone like Angry Joe can completely transition despite offering nothing of value and be rewarded for it somehow. I think that indicates that a lot of viewers don't know better than what they currently consume. I used to watch a lot of Chris Stuckman for new film reviews until I found better (I don't dislike his takes, he's just vanilla) - but those finds were largely through forums, the recommendations were shoving shit like Collider and Jenny Nicholson at me.

I'm definitely only watching Rental Reviews because I followed his channel originally for AVGN, and partly because even though it doesn't do the format justice, there's still no alternative that I'm aware of for desperate RLM people. Due to that I think he already has that captive market and it is somewhat limited, so I don't really blame whatever he tries to draw in new eyeballs, but he could definitely find a happy medium between the new thumbnail style and the old gravestone Monster Madness style, maybe a less heavy template than the old one, with room for cut outs from the artwork, and his emoting head a little less awkwardly large, Minecraft video-style. I'd recommend no 'wacky' heavily tilted logos and fonts either, unless it's consistently on one corner.

What he is missing is a way to draw in guaranteed big views with a film video like he can with an AVGN. I still think AVGN must bait a lot of people into the film stuff. RLM know they can release a Plinkett review, or a BOTW and hit 1m every now and again, which by appearing high on trending I think should give you favour in YT's recommendations. Rental Reviews is stuck in a place where it's constantly doing okay, and they haven't worked out how to excite the audience further, I think because RR is such a lobotomy that you neither feel very high or low about it and that may have become a very easy formula for them to churn out. I hope they won't be rewarded with slowly rising views from sticking to a stagnant execution. They need at least one noticably different occasional RR format (the versus battles ain't it) or a secondary series of film-related content that is popular enough to guarantee high views when they do it, so that they can justify putting more work into those special episodes. I am :optimistic: that this could be a higher-effort series such as the old documentaries that you take the time/reward hit on (as with AVGN) just to get those higher amount of views, then you have your everyday earning regular videos in between, and you try to cross-populate them with views.
 
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Cinemassacre is the business through which James makes his living and supports his family. I'm not going to fault him for working the youtube algorithm, because that's exactly what any professional youtuber should do. There are some legitimate complaints you could levy about the changes he's made, but complaining about James' thumbnail design is so petty as to be laughable.


KrewlKween said:
removed episode numbers
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There may also be practical considerations involved. For example, there's a very short character limit for youtube titles when watching videos on the PS4. Clickbait youtubers take advantage of this by having long video titles where you have to click on the thumbnail to see the full title (Tim Pool does this for every video), but when you're someone like James and you're not trying to trick people into watching your video, you wanna make sure people know what the video's about in the 25-30 characters they give you.
 
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