"Zero Punctuation" and "Dev Diary" by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw - The only thing worth watching on The Escapist

[don't not shoot the Press]

JFC, that Faggot Jack Packard actually cried to RLM about views on second wind. It gets brought up in the first couple of minutes. Jay then points out that other than a couple of age restrictions and copyright claims they normally get it hasn't really affected them and making videos about it is stupid(as they make a video about it).
https://youtube.com/watch?v=q5-b7v6EIzc
Thanks AIDS Moby, now you've got RLM making videos even they admit they shouldn't be posting.

It feels like I'm in a parallel reality. Restrictive mode is literally for schools I remember YouTubers getting annoyed about it a decade ago. This is their jobs and yet I'm seeing multiple youtubers complain about this mode that has zero effect on how majority of the people on YouTube use the site. Do these guys really want their reviews to be shown in elementary schools? I cannot fathom how so many youtubers are clueless about this.

All you would have to do is look it up and find this, and yet multiple of them didn't do that and have immediately complained about something that is turned off by default. It's so stupid.

 

[p1138]

It feels like I'm in a parallel reality. Restrictive mode is literally for schools I remember YouTubers getting annoyed about it a decade ago. This is their jobs and yet I'm seeing multiple youtubers complain about this mode that has zero effect on how majority of the people on YouTube use the site. Do these guys really want their reviews to be shown in elementary schools? I cannot fathom how so many youtubers are clueless about this.
View attachment 7884043
All you would have to do is look it up and find this, and yet multiple of them didn't do that and have immediately complained about something that is turned off by default. It's so stupid.

The new complaint is that youtube is turning restricted mode on randomly for some users, even though it's a browser specific setting rather than account specific one. Hence why there's so many youtube channels sperging out about it and telling people to turn it off.

Of course no one has managed to actually show any evidence of this occurring. Might like the old "oh, youtube unsubscribed me from your channel" shit that people have been claiming for years, which again has never been proven and was likely people fat-fingering shit on their phone before they added the popup asking if you want notifications or to unsubscribe(and that may still be people fat-fingering the unsub option). The conspiracy theory is that it has something to do with the UK age restriction bullshit which wouldn't allow you to toggle it if youtube decided you're a child and didn't prove otherwise if the AI running youtube flagged your account as a minor.

At the same time wtf are you doing on youtube has has convinced the AI that you're a child in the first place?

 

[Oilspill Battery]

JFC, that Faggot Jack Packard actually cried to RLM about views on second wind. It gets brought up in the first couple of minutes. Jay then points out that other than a couple of age restrictions and copyright claims they normally get it hasn't really affected them and making videos about it is stupid(as they make a video about it).
https://youtube.com/watch?v=q5-b7v6EIzc
Thanks AIDS Moby, now you've got RLM making videos even they admit they shouldn't be posting.

Second Wind management are fucking retarded because they somehow still haven't realized that if you have a channel where 80% of the videos get no views, then youtube is not going to promote that channel because it gets filed into the zombie category.

Yatzee isn't pulling the other shows up, they're dragging him down. Nobody gives a shit about some faggot pseudo intellectuals writing speudo reviews getting paid 50k a year to get 1k views per video. Objectively speaking, this is a zombie channel. They have 500k subscribers and the only videos that crack over 100k views are yatzees, which is like 20% of the channel's overall content.

I remember earlier in the thread being mentioned that second wind still isn't profitable and they're still using the warchest to fund it. No shit. Yatzee is basically fundung every other talentless retard's personal hobby. He doesn't care because I assume he can't be fucked to be his own manager (same reason he never left the escapist), but the channel's manager is well on the way to somehow milking the golden goose dry in a way that even the escapist didn't manage to for 10 years.

On a sidenote, yatzee himself isn't completely blameless, since he never really learned the rule of "Don't shit where you eat" and started dropping hot takes on politics like trump, jk rowling, ukraine and a bunch of other shit in his videos even during his time at the escapist which doubtlessly pissed a lot of people off and drove away viewers.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Do these guys really want their reviews to be shown in elementary schools?

Yes. Children are a great way to inflate watch statistics since they have very poor taste and will recommend those videos to their friends. I don't know why Second Wind would care considering they are as edgy as a 2010 Doug Walker video.

Of course no one has managed to actually show any evidence of this occurring.

I think they can show it through going incognito, which is a poor test. If it did happen it's probably for actual children. It's not a case of some complicated mathematics, just using the time and date of watching the videos is good enough to know the age with high level of certainty, even more once you factor content.

 

[The tired cat]

He doesn't care because I assume he can't be fucked to be his own manager (same reason he never left the escapist), but the channel's manager is well on the way to somehow milking the golden goose dry in a way that even the escapist didn't manage to for 10 years.

Yahtzee is a guy, to whom being independant means doing extra work and he hates that shit. He just wants to be in his own little world, playing video games and writing books or making games.

 

[Oilspill Battery]

Yahtzee is a guy, to whom being independant means doing extra work and he hates that shit. He just wants to be in his own little world, playing video games and writing books or making games.

I don't blame him actually I'd do the same if I was him. Making slightly less pay for astronomically less work and stress is a good bargain.

 

[p1138]

Yahtzee is a guy, to whom being independant means doing extra work and he hates that shit. He just wants to be in his own little world, playing video games and writing books or making games.

I don't blame him actually I'd do the same if I was him. Making slightly less pay for astronomically less work and stress is a good bargain.

Which is why he could get someone other than Nick Calandra to run the business. Managers exist, but Nick wants to keep the shit as some weird collective paying people who accomplish nothing. He'd be making more pay without having to deal with the bottom feeders and still paying someone to just manage the business side of things.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

I think what has happened is that Second Wind actually pointed out an actual trend in the algorithm... but stupidly attached it to the restricted mode thing, rather than what was actually happening.

It looks like it was changed to promote smaller channels at the expense of established channels. The 'attention economy' basically describes the idea that, for a lot of people, they're gonna only look at the app for so long a day, and only watch so many videos: so if you aren't recommended, they don't watch.

Up until this point, the size of incumbent channels has given them an edge to necessarily push out competitors in this regard -- and so many channels, having built their financials on a capricious company that has no legal obligation to them, are bawling and freaking out because they can't maintain their debt payments if other people get a fair shake at the table in the way they did a decade ago.

 

[Samuel Fuller]

I think what has happened is that Second Wind actually pointed out an actual trend in the algorithm... but stupidly attached it to the restricted mode thing, rather than what was actually happening.

It looks like it was changed to promote smaller channels at the expense of established channels. The 'attention economy' basically describes the idea that, for a lot of people, they're gonna only look at the app for so long a day, and only watch so many videos: so if you aren't recommended, they don't watch.

Up until this point, the size of incumbent channels has given them an edge to necessarily push out competitors in this regard -- and so many channels, having built their financials on a capricious company that has no legal obligation to them, are bawling and freaking out because they can't maintain their debt payments if other people get a fair shake at the table in the way they did a decade ago.

Putting all your eggs in one basket is dumb. Putting all your eggs in someone else's basket is suicidally stupid.

 

[Cryogonal2]

started dropping hot takes on politics

I wouldn't say "started," but I would say "ramped up the frequency in which he drops hot political takes" which he probably felt he had a lot more freedom to now that he doesn't have any higher ups at the Escapist breathing down his neck about it

 

[Xarpho's Return]

what utter nonsense. How do people believe this?
Restrictive mode is literally just for schools I don't know why he brought it up.

One of my normies friends (who is also a Patreon supporter of SW, coincidentally) said RLM also saw its views plummet to something 20k on new videos from over 100k like new videos like it used to.

I believe it is a real issue but it doesn't affect SW nearly as much as Yahtzee believes.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I don't blame him actually I'd do the same if I was him. Making slightly less pay for astronomically less work and stress is a good bargain.

I would at least try to improve the games I make rather than get stuck doing the same ugly art style.

It looks like it was changed to promote smaller channels at the expense of established channels. The 'attention economy' basically describes the idea that, for a lot of people, they're gonna only look at the app for so long a day, and only watch so many videos: so if you aren't recommended, they don't watch.

I thought about it, but no Youtuber would ever admit it since it essentially ruins the illusion of the big channels being fair to the smaller ones.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

I thought about it, but no Youtuber would ever admit it since it essentially ruins the illusion of the big channels being fair to the smaller ones.

This is why I think Second Wind broke something through with the whole 'restricted' shit even though that doesn't really appear to be the issue. They provided a convenient scapegoat. It became an excuse for something that all of these channels have suggested has been happening through August, which also coincides with the final month of Q3. Many orgs also set their FY to end in around this time-frame as well, so it could work double-duty so far as providing excuses for poor performance.

It becomes a way for them to 'rebuke' against YouTube and obfuscate that the issue was related more to them not getting the algorithm's limelight all the time, rather than that it was false-positiving manchildren as under-18s... who then for some reason wouldn't just verify their age. Yes, we're not stupid enough to fall for that; but normies would just tug out the credit-card.

I've seen a lot of places suddenly begging, even ones I would have argued as 'respectable.' I don't know if we've exactly seen it before, but we've seen glimmers of it: there's a YouTube bubble at play here. These guys have loaded up on unsustainable debt.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Putting all your eggs in one basket is dumb. Putting all your eggs in someone else's basket is suicidally stupid.

The real problem is that there's no agreement that YouTube has to give a service with its content providers. If you rent a space in a shopping center, you pay rent for the space but the rent also covers marketing (you get your sign on the road, or in a directory). If you put up your game on Steam, they take a cut on your sales but does a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of hosting and marketing (by "marketing" it's mostly being accessible, not advertising). All of these are backed up with a basic contract that can be challenged in a court.

On the other hand, YouTube provides no guarantees that they'll play fair. Small channels will simply be screwed over, while big channels can also get fucked if the algorithm chooses. No one knows exactly how the system prioritizes videos, it's not by quantity--there are spergs who will put out dozens of videos but get no visibility, but slop will often get prioritized as well.

Most of this problem stems from the centralized Internet, I'm not sure how many of these big channels even have a website that's not just a glorified list of videos...if you were really that popular fans will follow you where you go. This seems to be the idea behind Second Wind, if they were really that popular, the algorithm mess-up would be of no consequence if they're popular enough.

I thought about it, but no Youtuber would ever admit it since it essentially ruins the illusion of the big channels being fair to the smaller ones.

Plus most of these types happily gobble up the "tax the rich" propaganda. Yet now their views are essentially being taxed. They may even complain "why are my views being given away to channels that are inferior" without realizing the irony.

 

[BasementDweller]

Meanwhile Gamurs gave up on TheEscapist YT channel and are posting gambling promoting trash. Will be funny if it 404 in few days. Start backing up Yahtzee's videos.

 

[Oilspill Battery]

You know what would be really funny? Is if a bunch of the existing subscribers used that discount code to retain their subscription at a 20% cut, just screwing them even further. Lets say 1/4 of their subscribers did this, losing 20% of basically $10k, their revenue would just take another $2,000 hit for basically no reason.

Also, only a 12 hour fundraising stream? They've got a bunch of people on their channel they could swap in and out over the course of a 24 hour period and do an actual subathon like any other channel tends to do? Sure can't do the gift subs on patreon but it's still a possibility. Of course maybe they know that's a terrible idea considering they've been streaming for over an hour now and still only have 300 viewers.

That settles it, they have to bring out the big guns: Do another "Woke and Gay" marathon stream, that's sure to draw the crowds in and generate tons of goodwill, people love woke and gay stuff!

Second Wind management is legit so incompetent they decided to burn down their rep without even getting blackrock money as a consolation prize, they literally did it for free and are now wondering why their shitty site is failing.

 

[don't not shoot the Press]

This is why I think Second Wind broke something through with the whole 'restricted' shit even though that doesn't really appear to be the issue. They provided a convenient scapegoat. It became an excuse for something that all of these channels have suggested has been happening through August, which also coincides with the final month of Q3. Many orgs also set their FY to end in around this time-frame as well, so it could work double-duty so far as providing excuses for poor performance.

This feature was introduced in 2010. I swear to god a decade ago(2015 or 16?) Youtubers were complaining about it. it's like after a decade everyone has discovered it again and once again blamed it for all of their problems. It's like Groundhog Day.

 

[Penne Dreadful]

I wouldn't say "started," but I would say "ramped up the frequency in which he drops hot political takes" which he probably felt he had a lot more freedom to now that he doesn't have any higher ups at the Escapist breathing down his neck about it

It still mostly strikes me as just being a matter of him moving to America and American audiences thus having enough knowledge about his political takes to have them jar. He spent years whining about Tony Abbott at the Escapist (and, to be fair, also to the Labour governments that preceded his, which weren't much friendlier to video games).

 

[The tired cat]

Hey guys! Wanna see Yahtzee complain about another franchise he hates? No? Well to bad! You're getting it! Because he still thinks he's cool for complaining about MGS, like with Sonic.

 

[p1138]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=s4jUOeU1v78Hey guys! Wanna see Yahtzee complain about another franchise he hates? No? Well to bad! You're getting it! Because he still thinks he's cool for complaining about MGS, like with Sonic.

Well, he at least admits just remastering the game rather than turning it into some new pile of shit was the correct move, and there's some QOL changes...

But then makes some joke about having some otacon mpreg fanfic after playing 1, 2, and 4 but not playing 3 for some reason only watching a playthrough of it, and then complains about the plot and female characters having tits.

Then complains that the remake doesn't "add anything" to the original... well no fucking shit? People wanted a remake, not a different thing. Same deal with the KOTOR remake and the studio immediately hiring writers, and then getting fired and replaced with another studio. Or all of the hype dying down for the final fantasy 7 dumpster fire. Apparently now Yahtzee doesn't understand what customers want, and is confused when publishers actually provide it.

At least he didn't complain about camo being blackface.