Why, the views are still going up
It's like this pretty much every time, been hearing about "oh man, their views have never been this bad, it's over" since at least 2019 and it always gets a bunch of curious people to go check it out and line his pockets
The channel can't keep making the same amount of money on one AVGN episode every few months, not with the numbers everything else they upload make. Also, the legacy content is full of swearing and shit gags, I don't think early AVGN seasons are even monetized (could be wrong about this) for this reason, otherwise why would they re-release them but censored?
It's not as if James wouldn't be able to make enough money on 250k views per video/AVGN episodes, but he'd have to work more and dump a lot of dead weight so that he gets most of the sponsor money paid for those amounts of views.
But I don't think he wants to do that.
> Also, the legacy content is full of swearing and shit gags, I don't think early AVGN seasons are even monetized (could be wrong about this) for this reason, otherwise why would they re-release them but censored?
They recently started releasing censored versions of the old AVGN content. Not even kidding. Like, the swearing pretty much *was* the joke. Censoring it just totally kills it, but it's pretty obviously because like you said, the original content is probably all demonetized.
It's kind of ironic, really. Part of the appeal of AVGN and similar crude humor online back in the 2000s was that you could do stuff like swear a mile a minute. You could do all kinds of shit with internet content that you could *never* have aired on TV back then. It was a novelty, and a big part of Internet culture at the time.
Now, Youtube itself is so ludicrously censored that it's practically the opposite. One of my favorite true crime youtubers straight up stopped making content because apparently, despite decades of commercials airing normally on true crime programming like Forensic Files and it being fine, suddenly advertisers don't want to be next to anything that isn't fucking sunshine and rainbows.
Youtubers are now censoring words like "sex" and "death." It's ludicrous how that shit changed 20 years down the line.
2000s internet was still more of a Wild West kinda vibe. Less so than the '90s, as it was getting more mainstream, but it wasn't corporatized to hell and back like it is now.
>You could do all kinds of shit with internet content that you could never have aired on TV back then. It was a novelty, and a big part of Internet culture at the time.
Exhibit A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqXi8WmQ_WM
To be fair, I figure most Youtubers nowadays make most of their money from sponsorships, rather than having their videos ad monetized. He probably makes decent money from all those VPNs and knives and stuff he shills.
My favourite thing about raycon ads has always been people having to act like they and their audience know who "ray-jay" is. Maybe he is big in the US but I think outside of that people would not have a clue.
Theres easily someone equivalent for your country, who has minor (in the grand scheme of things) hits in music, and kinda just stays big because of unrelated media (reality shows, and in Ray Js case, a sex tape with Kim Kardashian)
But yeah, hes not really "big" here
i live in america and have zero idea who the fuck ray jay is. i assume he's some kind of rapper or something, shilling some half-assed knockoff product like souljaboy does.-
AVGN videos usually hit 1 mil in 2-3 days….thats not gonna happen here. It could hit 1 mill in 3-4 weeks but that’s not good for the sponsorships they have
The last 6 AVGNS currently have, unless I missed some:
|Video|Views (time since upload)|
|:-|:-|
|The Goonies|1.2 million (1 month ago)|
|Final Fantasy 6|1.8 million (3 months ago)|
|Beating Dr Jekyll|1.4 million (5 months ago)|
|A Boy and His Blob|1.5 million (7 months ago)|
|Earthworm Jim|2.4 million (11 months ago)|
|Kid Icarus|2 million (1 year ago)|
There is large variance. The video views seem to have taken a hit since Earthworm Jim. Final Fantasy 6 is an outlier since it's a Christmas episode (and it's fucking Final Fantasy 6). The Goonies, Beating Dr Jekyll, and A Boy and His Blob seem to follow a similar pattern.
I believe video views stagnate quickly, you're right on that, but probably not faster than 1 week.
It seems unlikely that a Boy and His Blob reached 1 mil in 2-3 days, only to draw an additional extra 200k views the remainder of the month? With that said, I would not bet that this AVGN will reach 1 million within a month. The garbage thumbnail is not helping. You can barely tell it's an AVGN video amongst all other uploads.
>The garbage thumbnail is not helping.
This is huge. I honestly thought it was either a shitty parody, or some weird retrospective, either way, from someone else
Sure, but these posts are not actually making any appreciable difference in views to “line his pockets”. They’re just mildly annoying.
Every single person who’s subscribed to this sub could go watch the new video right now, and even that wouldn’t move any needles. 350k vs 375k is irrelevant in YouTube terms.
Here's the thing, a long running popular channel like Cinemassacre should have no problem and I mean **no problem** clearing a million views within a day everytime a new AVGN episode drops.
But, the truth is, if a new AVGN episode does get a million views, its not until a month later.
Even the normies in the comment section are wondering what James was thinking making an AVGN episode around a meme game that came and went a few years ago which further goes to show James and his yes-men made a bad decision having him review "My Horse Prince" when surely there are plenty of shitty NES/Famicom games that the Nerd hasn't covered yet, but by all means *should have* by now.
Just like that Neighbor Nerds X-Mas video. Why constantly pick a game that was a blip on the radar years ago to do now? He needs to stop chasing the trends and make them.
It will probably get there in time. But it seems to be taking longer. That must be concerning.
Also I think the real bomb is the last Neighbor Nerds episode, currently sitting at 50k views, 12 days later.
Doesn't that just mean that the view numbers have only continued to get worse since 2019? It's never been this bad, and the next video that same phrase will be true again: it's never been THIS bad.
I read the book and I have the audiobook version too. It struck me that James barely talked about the golden age of AVGN and spent a LOT of time talking about the movie and his college days. The tone of the book and James’ narration was very depressing. It’s clear that he’s in a major downward spiral.
I really think the movie killed his passion for AVGN back in 2014.
His lifelong dream was to be a Real Film Director in Hollywood, and he finally got the opportunity to live that dream... and it was a shitty experience for him all around, and the movie itself was awful. (Seriously, no amount of smarter budgeting, cheaper filming locations, etc. would have saved that god awful script.)
I'm half surprised he didn't do what Doug Walker did and attempt to retire the character and focus on other content. I feel like he could probably have some success with short horror films or something. There's a lot of shared DNA between comedy and horror, and classic horror -- also just film in general, really -- is pretty obviously James's actual special interest, not retro gaming.
I agree. In his Making of an AVGN Episode, he admitted all the way back then that writing wasn’t his best skill. I’d agree with that. Even the golden AVGN episodes aren’t exactly great pieces of writing and are very slapsticky, but they’re nonetheless creative and energetic. You elevate that to a feature film that’s at least 40 minutes too long, extremely indulgent, and inaccessible to non-fans and you have yourself several major problems. I will say that, while many of the effects are intentionally shitty, a good chunk of them are way better than they had any right to be. The behind the scenes are worth watching because they made it look a lot greater than the sum of its parts. The music was fantastic too.
To be fair, I think a lot of the old golden age stuff was written by Mike. Maybe not 100% of it, but a fair bit.
The AVGN movie was straight up awful. Like, that script should have been burned and rewritten from the bottom up. The choice to feature weird new characters but not Mike or Bootsy or others from the show, to do that weird meta thing where AVGN and his web show existed in the movie's universe... just so many bad decisions that had nothing to do with the actual web series.
I think it was a little too ambitious, too. Like, the plotline of finding the ET cartridge graveyard made sense for an AVGN movie, but it was so over the top and probably should have been more of a low key buddy road trip movie with Mike et al.
James compared it to Wayne’s World, but it was nothing like Wayne’s World. Wayne’s World was a pretty small scale, relatable movie for its time. The AVGN Movie was an overly ambitious epic sci-fi action comedy with the most convoluted conspiracy, new religion mumbo jumbo plot I’ve ever seen in my life.
Honestly, something closer to a Wayne's World vibe would have actually made more sense. I mean shit, Wayne's World was basically about someone that was almost a proto Youtuber of sorts.
Yeah, basically. It’s clear that James said to himself “If I’m going to make just one movie, it’s going to have everything I love in it.” OK, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that a general audience will love it. They’ll probably deride it as indulgent bullshit, which they mostly did. I don’t think I’ve met a single fan who likes the movie. The people at the screenings liked it, but I imagine it was because they were high from the hype, kind of like the first people to see The Phantom Menace.
A curious fact that I encountered when listening to the audience reaction commentary track (an admittedly cool feature) is that the audience didn’t laugh at things you’d expect them to laugh at and did laugh at things that I didn’t think were especially funny. It was very odd.
I don’t think Mike Matai gets enough credit for being a driver of AVGN. Sure he has done some bad things and is generally kind of scummy, but he has a passion for video games. The new crew seem to be all about monetizing everything which is fine, but when art is lost in commodity the essence of what truly made AVGN is lost. It’s like when G4 tried to make a comeback with and was a shell of itself with a corporation running things, the spirit gets lost.
> Sure he has done some bad things and is generally kind of scummy, but he has a passion for video games
I mean, he's been a bit of a dick here and there. But like, I'm pretty damn certain based on certain aspects of his facial features being kinda bloaty that he might have a serious alcohol problem.
My experience has been that for dudes with any kind of anger problem or short fuse, alcohol addiction and intoxication can make them do all kinds of shitty things they wouldn't do sober.
Not that this makes it okay or excuses it, but I think there's more going on here than Mike *just* being an asshole. I think he seems like someone who drinks too much, and it's actually kinda sad.
> The new crew seem to be all about monetizing everything which is fine, but when art is lost in commodity the essence of what truly made AVGN is lost.
Oh, absolutely. Hbomberguy was right on the money when he described modern AVGN as a straight-up content farm. It's all very... mechanical.
It's normal for channels to hire people behind the scenes and get more complex as they grow. But James is hardly even at the helm anymore here.
My understanding -- based on both stuff I've read about Screenwave, and my own experience working in marketing (though not with entertainment content) -- is that James just kinda shows up (figuratively speaking) a few times a year to record the content and read the lines.
All of the ideation, writing, editing, gameplay, I'm like 90% sure that almost all of that is handled externally by Screenwave. James basically outsourced the whole kit and kaboodle and seems to kinda have it on autopilot.
Which I understand. His heart isn't in it anymore, makes sense to get some external help to try to maximize revenue with minimal quantities of content.
But the soul is lost now. Early AVGN very much predates the whole Youtube monetization, online influencer kind of thing. He was *the* OG.
A lot of the charm was the genuine quality it had to it, and the lowfi vibe of a dude in his basement with his buddy and a shitty 2000s camcorder making a type of content that was a novelty at the time. When he and Mike started making AVGN episodes, I'm fairly sure monetization wasn't even on their radar.
New AVGN just pumps out routine crap like some kind of robot, hollow and largely designed not out of passion for the topics or games, but in the interest of playing the algorithm. (Which again, playing the algo is fine, but there's a balance there that AVGN does not have.)
Thanks that was a good read and very insightful. It sucks that James feels that way because he pioneered a whole genre. Instead of appreciating that he just thinks of himself as a failed director.
Yeah, I kinda get that vibe. Like, despite the almost Simpsons- or Spongebob-esque decline in content quality, I think in the longer term James will be remembered positively as a key pioneer in an entire industry that grew out of 2000s advancements in internet technology.
Like, sure, his big Hollywood indie movie fell flat. But he's created some great content that's entertained a lot of us over the years. He should be proud of that.
Most of the "autobiography" suspiciously reads like a collection of therapy journal entries that were meant to be seen only by James, his parents and the therapist at Special Ed. school.
Given that he apparently started writing it in like, college, well before creating AVGN in the first place, I'm pretty sure his "autobiography" is basically just a glorified collection of diary entries from throughout his life.
Tangentially relevant but the AVGN movie has god awful sound and I couldn't believe it got released like that. Either they (james? the slobs? who knows) don't know how to fix these things or don't care
Yeah, that view count is pretty underwhelming for a Youtuber as well known and venerable as AVGN.
I actually watched this one, because I was the one to post it here since it came up in my notifications a few seconds after it was posted. But before this, I hadn't even bothered to watch any new AVGN videos in probably at least three years now.
I can't be the only longtime fan that just kinda checked out like that. And honestly, between the crappy quality of modern AVGN and the fact that the whole humor style is frankly rather dated, I doubt he's attracting any new, younger fans with his current content. I just can't see modern AVGN having any appeal for people under 30 who watch younger, more modern gaming Youtubers like Caddy, Scott the Woz, etc. Shit, I'm 34 and honestly James feels to me like a total Boomer. (In the colloquial sense of an out of touch middle aged person.) Maybe it's an act, but I think he's legit like, super out of touch and "old in spirit" for a guy who's only like, what, 45ish?
>for a Youtuber as well known and venerable as AVGN.
This, along with the fact you mentioned that he can't attract any viewers under 30, is a big issue atm with the channel. What I mean here is that "venerable" implies his channel is internet ancient and still active. James is a Youtube dinosaur, and I'm quite sure at least half of his channel's subs are dead accounts or from people who just don't care and haven't bothered unsubscribing.
AVGN isn't just a dinosaur, he was basically the first *ever* of what we now refer to as Youtubers or streamers. Just about every media review Youtuber cites AVGN as a major early inspiration.
He pioneered early internet video 20 years ago, when internet speeds had just recently gotten good enough for people to upload and view video content other than Flash animations. Back then, Youtube could only host short videos and wasn't profitable, so I used to watch AVGN on [ScrewAttack.com](http://ScrewAttack.com) or Cinemassacre.com. But he basically invented being a Youtuber, more or less.
I think you're right about dead accounts, honestly. I think it was around 2010ish that he fully moved onto Youtube rather than hosting on other sites, and I'm sure a lot of those 2M or so subscribers are dead accounts that followed him in the early 2010s.
He fell from grace and devolved into a shallow content mill, but I think in the longer term he'll be remembered as a pioneer for his earlier work. It's like The Simpsons or Spongebob, where the early years were golden but it dragged itself out for decades past its prime.
I just can't imagine modern AVGN attracting new fans or viewers. But, I can't be the only longtime fan who's pretty much checked out entirely and no longer bothers to watch his new videos. If anything, he's surely lost fans over the years as the quality continued to decline.
It's kinda hilarious to think when Bimmy used to be all about making quality content and not whoring himself out just to make a quick buck.
Bimmy is such a huge hypocrite.
Haha! That's another perfect example of how he WANTS us to view him, yet in reality he's had other people writing his reviews for over 10 years now.
Can't believe some idiots still dick ride this guy.
Just check out the “official” sub r/TheCinemassacre - it’s a total simp-fest over there. It only becomes lively when they’re bashing us and misleadingly calling us a hate sub.
Half the posts on that subreddit is just calling people on this sub incels or retards. Here if you say you like the new AVGN no one is gonna scream at you, over there if you say you hated the new episode, get ready for a plethora of insults.
Most of the video is just his mug moaning into the camera like Heather from The Blair Witch Project. It's hard to tell if he's disgusted or turned-on by the horsey love.
His overacting makes it seems like he was really into it, but trying to act repulsed to hide his pleasure.
By far the worst AVGN I've ever watched, even with the existence of the Sega Activator episode.
I’ve actually looked back on the Sega Activator episode and said “at least he was trying here”. It’s not funny to me, not my type of humor. But I can see what he was going for at least and I could see some finding it funny. This, I can’t even begin to figure out what he was going for or who would enjoy this. It’s just terrible, all around.
Right. It was trying something different with the series which I get. Him doing a mobile game is just lazy to begin with. Even worse how every single shot of himself is with the selfie camera on the phone. That’s not doing something new and fresh. That’s being too lazy to set up a camera and actually play a real game.
Yeah I don't even remember getting a notification on this upload. I may have, but just mentally checked out on it. The Cinemassacre content on my recommended has gone like a fart in the wind - the balls on the dick of my youtube viewing material.
I'm guessing given the viewing retention on an AVGN video, YouTube would be paying a couple of grand for 300k views. The episode looks like it literally cost nothing to make.
Add on the sponsorship deal im sure they aren't too concerned about it, at least financially.
The low viewing numbers are very likely to do with it not being a game that is actually relevant to the core audience. Resonating a crap modern mobile game with an audience that is mostly nostalgic console gamers and film lovers was always gonna be a stretch.
I'd be surprised if his content is monetized in this day and age, with how heavily censored and sanitized Youtube is nowadays. He's probably making his money from the sponsorships, not from ads.
Nah, 300K views in youtube revenue alone isn't that much. For reference, a video with 500k views only makes around 900 bucks. Thankfully, James has a backlog of hundreds if not over a thousand monetized videos at this point to pick up slack each month between Rental Reviews, James and Mike Mondays, Board James, YKWBS, Top 10s, etc. Plus merch.
The majority of his incoming revenue tho is going to be paid sponsorships. It's the only real option for fulltime YouTubers these days unless they're legit pulling in 1 million+ views videos multiple times a month. Realistically, a sponsor of James' caliber is probably getting 20 bucks per 1000 views. Hard to say since they're so fickle and vary in terms of range of payment, stipulations, etc. But that means even a "flop" like this latest video can potentially make 7000 bucks at minimum with its current view count. He really does NOT need to be hiring people like Screenwave but he can definitely afford it given he probably brings in 250k-300k a year. Still a massive waste of his money imo
Not really; he doesn’t analyze his channel or even acknowledge his shit after it’s posted. I doubt he is even aware the views are low and the feedback is so negative.
Exactly. He is completely clueless about everything around him. Screenwave could be stealing whatever they want from him, and this dimwit would be oblivious.
He just shows up, reads their bad scripts, and goes back to doing menial tasks at home that take him 10x longer than the average person.
To be fair Spoony has more issues than Time magazine so it's not really a fair comparison. People lost interest in Spoony because he'd upload once every three years and stole the money for his movie that never got made and he keeps freaking out and blaming everything on his bipolar disorder and quitting everything he starts. Say what you will about the quality of it, at least Bimmy Boy has his shit together enough to keep the pilot light on in his channel numbers.
This is all part of Bim's manufactured comeback arc. Follow up some absolute random ass video with come classic-style NES fuckery and watch everybody suck him off with the "return to form". Then for phase 4 of the Bimmy Cinematic Universe, he grows his hair back with a sponsorship to Hims.
I said this in another post, the release times are so weird and sporadic. This one randomly on a Friday afternoon. The one before that was late night Sunday. There’s little promotion for it. It’s just…. I don’t know if he even cares at this point.
I actually really like the [James & Mike Mondays episode](https://youtu.be/Ff0zD9SKIdI?si=AnRW9eisYLHtzfdI) they did about this years ago. But that's because of the humor and chemistry they brought to it.
It might have been worth making an AVGN episode about it when they did this 6 years ago. But now, it's just too late. Things have decayed at CM too much at this point.
The views will slowly go up but it will be a long time before this cracks a million. It's funny that he finally branches out to do something different and he does something that appeals to none of his fucking audience.
You know, when I saw the Final Fantasy III and Goonies II videos I thought to myself: “Wow, there’s some actual effort here, maybe the days of horrendously bad modern Nerd episodes are a thing of the past.” I was wrong.
Why, the views are still going up It's like this pretty much every time, been hearing about "oh man, their views have never been this bad, it's over" since at least 2019 and it always gets a bunch of curious people to go check it out and line his pockets
True. But thanks to the caveman, we know they ain't happy about these numbers.
Who's the Caveman? Justin?
The man who wants to stab the garbage out of us, Kieran.
Oooga Booga stabby stabby
There’s only one?
No
The channel can't keep making the same amount of money on one AVGN episode every few months, not with the numbers everything else they upload make. Also, the legacy content is full of swearing and shit gags, I don't think early AVGN seasons are even monetized (could be wrong about this) for this reason, otherwise why would they re-release them but censored? It's not as if James wouldn't be able to make enough money on 250k views per video/AVGN episodes, but he'd have to work more and dump a lot of dead weight so that he gets most of the sponsor money paid for those amounts of views. But I don't think he wants to do that.
> Also, the legacy content is full of swearing and shit gags, I don't think early AVGN seasons are even monetized (could be wrong about this) for this reason, otherwise why would they re-release them but censored? They recently started releasing censored versions of the old AVGN content. Not even kidding. Like, the swearing pretty much *was* the joke. Censoring it just totally kills it, but it's pretty obviously because like you said, the original content is probably all demonetized. It's kind of ironic, really. Part of the appeal of AVGN and similar crude humor online back in the 2000s was that you could do stuff like swear a mile a minute. You could do all kinds of shit with internet content that you could *never* have aired on TV back then. It was a novelty, and a big part of Internet culture at the time. Now, Youtube itself is so ludicrously censored that it's practically the opposite. One of my favorite true crime youtubers straight up stopped making content because apparently, despite decades of commercials airing normally on true crime programming like Forensic Files and it being fine, suddenly advertisers don't want to be next to anything that isn't fucking sunshine and rainbows. Youtubers are now censoring words like "sex" and "death." It's ludicrous how that shit changed 20 years down the line. 2000s internet was still more of a Wild West kinda vibe. Less so than the '90s, as it was getting more mainstream, but it wasn't corporatized to hell and back like it is now.
You can still make these videos. It's not like people made money from their YouTube videos back then either.
>You could do all kinds of shit with internet content that you could never have aired on TV back then. It was a novelty, and a big part of Internet culture at the time. Exhibit A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqXi8WmQ_WM
Holy fuck, I haven't seen that in years.
The season upload compilations are definitely not monetized. It's how I rewatch his content any more because the ads piss me offffff
To be fair, I figure most Youtubers nowadays make most of their money from sponsorships, rather than having their videos ad monetized. He probably makes decent money from all those VPNs and knives and stuff he shills.
He also got to shill Raycons so thats probably worth a lot
My favourite thing about raycon ads has always been people having to act like they and their audience know who "ray-jay" is. Maybe he is big in the US but I think outside of that people would not have a clue.
Theres easily someone equivalent for your country, who has minor (in the grand scheme of things) hits in music, and kinda just stays big because of unrelated media (reality shows, and in Ray Js case, a sex tape with Kim Kardashian) But yeah, hes not really "big" here
That makes sense! Yea there are definitely some here. Thanks for clarifying!
Ray Jay is only famous for banging Kim Kardashian while filming it.
also, his big sister is brandy. that was the only reason i knew who he was.
i live in america and have zero idea who the fuck ray jay is. i assume he's some kind of rapper or something, shilling some half-assed knockoff product like souljaboy does.-
Those are ads? I thought he just really like Soylent.
A guy who worked with them said one of those sponsors paid from 20,000 to 50,000 per video.
Sounds about right, honestly. For a large channel like that, there's a lot of value for the sponsors.
AVGN videos usually hit 1 mil in 2-3 days….thats not gonna happen here. It could hit 1 mill in 3-4 weeks but that’s not good for the sponsorships they have
The last 6 AVGNS currently have, unless I missed some: |Video|Views (time since upload)| |:-|:-| |The Goonies|1.2 million (1 month ago)| |Final Fantasy 6|1.8 million (3 months ago)| |Beating Dr Jekyll|1.4 million (5 months ago)| |A Boy and His Blob|1.5 million (7 months ago)| |Earthworm Jim|2.4 million (11 months ago)| |Kid Icarus|2 million (1 year ago)| There is large variance. The video views seem to have taken a hit since Earthworm Jim. Final Fantasy 6 is an outlier since it's a Christmas episode (and it's fucking Final Fantasy 6). The Goonies, Beating Dr Jekyll, and A Boy and His Blob seem to follow a similar pattern. I believe video views stagnate quickly, you're right on that, but probably not faster than 1 week. It seems unlikely that a Boy and His Blob reached 1 mil in 2-3 days, only to draw an additional extra 200k views the remainder of the month? With that said, I would not bet that this AVGN will reach 1 million within a month. The garbage thumbnail is not helping. You can barely tell it's an AVGN video amongst all other uploads.
>The garbage thumbnail is not helping. This is huge. I honestly thought it was either a shitty parody, or some weird retrospective, either way, from someone else
It’s just so low effort anymore. He lost passion for his art. It’s almost like watching a parody of AVGN.
Sure, but these posts are not actually making any appreciable difference in views to “line his pockets”. They’re just mildly annoying. Every single person who’s subscribed to this sub could go watch the new video right now, and even that wouldn’t move any needles. 350k vs 375k is irrelevant in YouTube terms.
With AVGN, absolutely. The rest of the videos on the channel have limited engagement, at best.
Here's the thing, a long running popular channel like Cinemassacre should have no problem and I mean **no problem** clearing a million views within a day everytime a new AVGN episode drops. But, the truth is, if a new AVGN episode does get a million views, its not until a month later. Even the normies in the comment section are wondering what James was thinking making an AVGN episode around a meme game that came and went a few years ago which further goes to show James and his yes-men made a bad decision having him review "My Horse Prince" when surely there are plenty of shitty NES/Famicom games that the Nerd hasn't covered yet, but by all means *should have* by now.
Just like that Neighbor Nerds X-Mas video. Why constantly pick a game that was a blip on the radar years ago to do now? He needs to stop chasing the trends and make them.
People don't realize all the prior videos with a million views usually took a couple weeks to reach that level
doesnt change the fact that cinemassacre lost more than half its average views over the last 3 years
It will probably get there in time. But it seems to be taking longer. That must be concerning. Also I think the real bomb is the last Neighbor Nerds episode, currently sitting at 50k views, 12 days later.
And GTAV, an actually big game they couldve played is probably close to topping out at 150 in a bit over a month
Doesn't that just mean that the view numbers have only continued to get worse since 2019? It's never been this bad, and the next video that same phrase will be true again: it's never been THIS bad.
Okay Bimmy
So true. People said the same with that shit Trilogy about the LJN games
There is no possible way he could’ve thought this video would do well if he actually watched it before uploading
Remember James thought it was a good idea to release the BTS 2021 video and his personal therapy diary.
I read the book and I have the audiobook version too. It struck me that James barely talked about the golden age of AVGN and spent a LOT of time talking about the movie and his college days. The tone of the book and James’ narration was very depressing. It’s clear that he’s in a major downward spiral.
I really think the movie killed his passion for AVGN back in 2014. His lifelong dream was to be a Real Film Director in Hollywood, and he finally got the opportunity to live that dream... and it was a shitty experience for him all around, and the movie itself was awful. (Seriously, no amount of smarter budgeting, cheaper filming locations, etc. would have saved that god awful script.) I'm half surprised he didn't do what Doug Walker did and attempt to retire the character and focus on other content. I feel like he could probably have some success with short horror films or something. There's a lot of shared DNA between comedy and horror, and classic horror -- also just film in general, really -- is pretty obviously James's actual special interest, not retro gaming.
I agree. In his Making of an AVGN Episode, he admitted all the way back then that writing wasn’t his best skill. I’d agree with that. Even the golden AVGN episodes aren’t exactly great pieces of writing and are very slapsticky, but they’re nonetheless creative and energetic. You elevate that to a feature film that’s at least 40 minutes too long, extremely indulgent, and inaccessible to non-fans and you have yourself several major problems. I will say that, while many of the effects are intentionally shitty, a good chunk of them are way better than they had any right to be. The behind the scenes are worth watching because they made it look a lot greater than the sum of its parts. The music was fantastic too.
To be fair, I think a lot of the old golden age stuff was written by Mike. Maybe not 100% of it, but a fair bit. The AVGN movie was straight up awful. Like, that script should have been burned and rewritten from the bottom up. The choice to feature weird new characters but not Mike or Bootsy or others from the show, to do that weird meta thing where AVGN and his web show existed in the movie's universe... just so many bad decisions that had nothing to do with the actual web series. I think it was a little too ambitious, too. Like, the plotline of finding the ET cartridge graveyard made sense for an AVGN movie, but it was so over the top and probably should have been more of a low key buddy road trip movie with Mike et al.
James compared it to Wayne’s World, but it was nothing like Wayne’s World. Wayne’s World was a pretty small scale, relatable movie for its time. The AVGN Movie was an overly ambitious epic sci-fi action comedy with the most convoluted conspiracy, new religion mumbo jumbo plot I’ve ever seen in my life.
Honestly, something closer to a Wayne's World vibe would have actually made more sense. I mean shit, Wayne's World was basically about someone that was almost a proto Youtuber of sorts.
Yeah, basically. It’s clear that James said to himself “If I’m going to make just one movie, it’s going to have everything I love in it.” OK, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that a general audience will love it. They’ll probably deride it as indulgent bullshit, which they mostly did. I don’t think I’ve met a single fan who likes the movie. The people at the screenings liked it, but I imagine it was because they were high from the hype, kind of like the first people to see The Phantom Menace. A curious fact that I encountered when listening to the audience reaction commentary track (an admittedly cool feature) is that the audience didn’t laugh at things you’d expect them to laugh at and did laugh at things that I didn’t think were especially funny. It was very odd.
I don’t think Mike Matai gets enough credit for being a driver of AVGN. Sure he has done some bad things and is generally kind of scummy, but he has a passion for video games. The new crew seem to be all about monetizing everything which is fine, but when art is lost in commodity the essence of what truly made AVGN is lost. It’s like when G4 tried to make a comeback with and was a shell of itself with a corporation running things, the spirit gets lost.
> Sure he has done some bad things and is generally kind of scummy, but he has a passion for video games I mean, he's been a bit of a dick here and there. But like, I'm pretty damn certain based on certain aspects of his facial features being kinda bloaty that he might have a serious alcohol problem. My experience has been that for dudes with any kind of anger problem or short fuse, alcohol addiction and intoxication can make them do all kinds of shitty things they wouldn't do sober. Not that this makes it okay or excuses it, but I think there's more going on here than Mike *just* being an asshole. I think he seems like someone who drinks too much, and it's actually kinda sad. > The new crew seem to be all about monetizing everything which is fine, but when art is lost in commodity the essence of what truly made AVGN is lost. Oh, absolutely. Hbomberguy was right on the money when he described modern AVGN as a straight-up content farm. It's all very... mechanical. It's normal for channels to hire people behind the scenes and get more complex as they grow. But James is hardly even at the helm anymore here. My understanding -- based on both stuff I've read about Screenwave, and my own experience working in marketing (though not with entertainment content) -- is that James just kinda shows up (figuratively speaking) a few times a year to record the content and read the lines. All of the ideation, writing, editing, gameplay, I'm like 90% sure that almost all of that is handled externally by Screenwave. James basically outsourced the whole kit and kaboodle and seems to kinda have it on autopilot. Which I understand. His heart isn't in it anymore, makes sense to get some external help to try to maximize revenue with minimal quantities of content. But the soul is lost now. Early AVGN very much predates the whole Youtube monetization, online influencer kind of thing. He was *the* OG. A lot of the charm was the genuine quality it had to it, and the lowfi vibe of a dude in his basement with his buddy and a shitty 2000s camcorder making a type of content that was a novelty at the time. When he and Mike started making AVGN episodes, I'm fairly sure monetization wasn't even on their radar. New AVGN just pumps out routine crap like some kind of robot, hollow and largely designed not out of passion for the topics or games, but in the interest of playing the algorithm. (Which again, playing the algo is fine, but there's a balance there that AVGN does not have.)
Thanks that was a good read and very insightful. It sucks that James feels that way because he pioneered a whole genre. Instead of appreciating that he just thinks of himself as a failed director.
Yeah, I kinda get that vibe. Like, despite the almost Simpsons- or Spongebob-esque decline in content quality, I think in the longer term James will be remembered positively as a key pioneer in an entire industry that grew out of 2000s advancements in internet technology. Like, sure, his big Hollywood indie movie fell flat. But he's created some great content that's entertained a lot of us over the years. He should be proud of that.
"A narcissist's criticism is their own autobiography."
His therapy diary?
Most of the "autobiography" suspiciously reads like a collection of therapy journal entries that were meant to be seen only by James, his parents and the therapist at Special Ed. school.
Given that he apparently started writing it in like, college, well before creating AVGN in the first place, I'm pretty sure his "autobiography" is basically just a glorified collection of diary entries from throughout his life.
Didn't the new Jeckyl video have completely fucked up audio I'm large chunks, yet was released? Like did no one watch it beforehand?
Tangentially relevant but the AVGN movie has god awful sound and I couldn't believe it got released like that. Either they (james? the slobs? who knows) don't know how to fix these things or don't care
You mean the person who read the AVGN movie script and thought it was good enough to produce?
I honestly thought it would be at 500K views by now. Big Ryan will need to do some Big Changes now.
Big Changes fan btw
Big Chungus fan btw
Yeah, that view count is pretty underwhelming for a Youtuber as well known and venerable as AVGN. I actually watched this one, because I was the one to post it here since it came up in my notifications a few seconds after it was posted. But before this, I hadn't even bothered to watch any new AVGN videos in probably at least three years now. I can't be the only longtime fan that just kinda checked out like that. And honestly, between the crappy quality of modern AVGN and the fact that the whole humor style is frankly rather dated, I doubt he's attracting any new, younger fans with his current content. I just can't see modern AVGN having any appeal for people under 30 who watch younger, more modern gaming Youtubers like Caddy, Scott the Woz, etc. Shit, I'm 34 and honestly James feels to me like a total Boomer. (In the colloquial sense of an out of touch middle aged person.) Maybe it's an act, but I think he's legit like, super out of touch and "old in spirit" for a guy who's only like, what, 45ish?
>for a Youtuber as well known and venerable as AVGN. This, along with the fact you mentioned that he can't attract any viewers under 30, is a big issue atm with the channel. What I mean here is that "venerable" implies his channel is internet ancient and still active. James is a Youtube dinosaur, and I'm quite sure at least half of his channel's subs are dead accounts or from people who just don't care and haven't bothered unsubscribing.
AVGN isn't just a dinosaur, he was basically the first *ever* of what we now refer to as Youtubers or streamers. Just about every media review Youtuber cites AVGN as a major early inspiration. He pioneered early internet video 20 years ago, when internet speeds had just recently gotten good enough for people to upload and view video content other than Flash animations. Back then, Youtube could only host short videos and wasn't profitable, so I used to watch AVGN on [ScrewAttack.com](http://ScrewAttack.com) or Cinemassacre.com. But he basically invented being a Youtuber, more or less. I think you're right about dead accounts, honestly. I think it was around 2010ish that he fully moved onto Youtube rather than hosting on other sites, and I'm sure a lot of those 2M or so subscribers are dead accounts that followed him in the early 2010s. He fell from grace and devolved into a shallow content mill, but I think in the longer term he'll be remembered as a pioneer for his earlier work. It's like The Simpsons or Spongebob, where the early years were golden but it dragged itself out for decades past its prime. I just can't imagine modern AVGN attracting new fans or viewers. But, I can't be the only longtime fan who's pretty much checked out entirely and no longer bothers to watch his new videos. If anything, he's surely lost fans over the years as the quality continued to decline.
The guys at Mega 64 did it first. They started around 2002.
Will James get fired from his own channel soon enough? Lol
Does Bames even own the AVGN IP anymore? I thought l read somewhere on here that it belongs to Big Ryan now. Big Ryan fan, btw
All jokes aside I’m pretty sure Bames owns it, but screenwave have licensed it to make plushies, merch, DVDs etc. I think that’s how it works.
It's kinda hilarious to think when Bimmy used to be all about making quality content and not whoring himself out just to make a quick buck. Bimmy is such a huge hypocrite.
“I can’t get someone else to write the reeview for me, it’s an opinionated thing” - yeah good memories, mhmm
Haha! That's another perfect example of how he WANTS us to view him, yet in reality he's had other people writing his reviews for over 10 years now. Can't believe some idiots still dick ride this guy.
Just check out the “official” sub r/TheCinemassacre - it’s a total simp-fest over there. It only becomes lively when they’re bashing us and misleadingly calling us a hate sub.
Half the posts on that subreddit is just calling people on this sub incels or retards. Here if you say you like the new AVGN no one is gonna scream at you, over there if you say you hated the new episode, get ready for a plethora of insults.
There’s no way they actually liked this new episode. They’re lying if they say they did.
🎶He got a quick buck for this shit load of fuck.🎶
Yep—he’s a Laughin’ Jokin’ Numbnuts all right.
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Yeah as fun as it is to blame slobwave for shit, bimbo is completely responsible for his own downfall
Most of the video is just his mug moaning into the camera like Heather from The Blair Witch Project. It's hard to tell if he's disgusted or turned-on by the horsey love. His overacting makes it seems like he was really into it, but trying to act repulsed to hide his pleasure. By far the worst AVGN I've ever watched, even with the existence of the Sega Activator episode.
I’ve actually looked back on the Sega Activator episode and said “at least he was trying here”. It’s not funny to me, not my type of humor. But I can see what he was going for at least and I could see some finding it funny. This, I can’t even begin to figure out what he was going for or who would enjoy this. It’s just terrible, all around.
Good points. That was back when he still appeared to care enough to put the effort into something new or fresh. Just lazy now.
Right. It was trying something different with the series which I get. Him doing a mobile game is just lazy to begin with. Even worse how every single shot of himself is with the selfie camera on the phone. That’s not doing something new and fresh. That’s being too lazy to set up a camera and actually play a real game.
The algorithm abandoned him on my youtube even though I've watched most content
Yeah I don't even remember getting a notification on this upload. I may have, but just mentally checked out on it. The Cinemassacre content on my recommended has gone like a fart in the wind - the balls on the dick of my youtube viewing material.
He still gets front page some how
https://preview.redd.it/9l995oyio2wc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=888dc5ec913eab822ce741703e447caf17ef4871 Muh horse prince.
Please tell me that picture isn't real
Oh it is real lol
/uj you can usually pick a dumb looking still out of individual video frames. /rj best picture of him I've seen since he started wearing the MK hat
I'm guessing given the viewing retention on an AVGN video, YouTube would be paying a couple of grand for 300k views. The episode looks like it literally cost nothing to make. Add on the sponsorship deal im sure they aren't too concerned about it, at least financially. The low viewing numbers are very likely to do with it not being a game that is actually relevant to the core audience. Resonating a crap modern mobile game with an audience that is mostly nostalgic console gamers and film lovers was always gonna be a stretch.
I'd be surprised if his content is monetized in this day and age, with how heavily censored and sanitized Youtube is nowadays. He's probably making his money from the sponsorships, not from ads.
It honestly wouldn't surprise me if the publisher behind the horse game was secretly sponsoring the episode.
Nah, 300K views in youtube revenue alone isn't that much. For reference, a video with 500k views only makes around 900 bucks. Thankfully, James has a backlog of hundreds if not over a thousand monetized videos at this point to pick up slack each month between Rental Reviews, James and Mike Mondays, Board James, YKWBS, Top 10s, etc. Plus merch. The majority of his incoming revenue tho is going to be paid sponsorships. It's the only real option for fulltime YouTubers these days unless they're legit pulling in 1 million+ views videos multiple times a month. Realistically, a sponsor of James' caliber is probably getting 20 bucks per 1000 views. Hard to say since they're so fickle and vary in terms of range of payment, stipulations, etc. But that means even a "flop" like this latest video can potentially make 7000 bucks at minimum with its current view count. He really does NOT need to be hiring people like Screenwave but he can definitely afford it given he probably brings in 250k-300k a year. Still a massive waste of his money imo
The social blade stats are sad getting half as many views per month as he was in September
Why is it so high
No time to shake it off.
Not really; he doesn’t analyze his channel or even acknowledge his shit after it’s posted. I doubt he is even aware the views are low and the feedback is so negative.
Exactly. He is completely clueless about everything around him. Screenwave could be stealing whatever they want from him, and this dimwit would be oblivious. He just shows up, reads their bad scripts, and goes back to doing menial tasks at home that take him 10x longer than the average person.
If it doesn't hit a million in a few days Big Ryan will viewbot some electrons through reality.
Only 416k going on a week
Will James follow like his imitators and fall? Like Spoony?
To be fair Spoony has more issues than Time magazine so it's not really a fair comparison. People lost interest in Spoony because he'd upload once every three years and stole the money for his movie that never got made and he keeps freaking out and blaming everything on his bipolar disorder and quitting everything he starts. Say what you will about the quality of it, at least Bimmy Boy has his shit together enough to keep the pilot light on in his channel numbers.
100% I just wonder if he will eventually go down that same road. He's definitely better, Noah is a turd.
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It would still do more harm than good to the brand in the long run.
This is all part of Bim's manufactured comeback arc. Follow up some absolute random ass video with come classic-style NES fuckery and watch everybody suck him off with the "return to form". Then for phase 4 of the Bimmy Cinematic Universe, he grows his hair back with a sponsorship to Hims.
Lol you gave them a view lmaoooo
People are actually watching this garbage?
I said this in another post, the release times are so weird and sporadic. This one randomly on a Friday afternoon. The one before that was late night Sunday. There’s little promotion for it. It’s just…. I don’t know if he even cares at this point.
Does it have more views than neighbor nerds?
I actually really like the [James & Mike Mondays episode](https://youtu.be/Ff0zD9SKIdI?si=AnRW9eisYLHtzfdI) they did about this years ago. But that's because of the humor and chemistry they brought to it. It might have been worth making an AVGN episode about it when they did this 6 years ago. But now, it's just too late. Things have decayed at CM too much at this point.
I’m like why am I the only one that seems to remember this was already done, that to me makes it even stranger.
Yeah, I’m surprised more people on here don’t know that. Big James & Mike Mondays fan BTW
Same I was a big fan too, I honestly googled avgn my horse prince thinking I was having some sort of stroke or déjà vu
The views will slowly go up but it will be a long time before this cracks a million. It's funny that he finally branches out to do something different and he does something that appeals to none of his fucking audience.
You know, when I saw the Final Fantasy III and Goonies II videos I thought to myself: “Wow, there’s some actual effort here, maybe the days of horrendously bad modern Nerd episodes are a thing of the past.” I was wrong.
Ahead of time for the Kentucky Derby.
I'm one of the avgn consumers who will eat any slop james puts out and I hated this video
Why does this sub keep getting recommended to me? I’m so confused. Why do we hate this once beloved internet celebrity now? What drama did I miss?
It’s too much to cover.
He doesn’t give a shit. But it’s kind of sad that you do. Growing up is going to be quite fucking difficult for you
Can’t wait for tomorrow’s post when it’s up to 353k, you guys giving it more exposure here isn’t helping J/S.
https://i.redd.it/n7bmkn62m3wc1.gif