licensedgames
Virtue Wing
"I'm Bartholomew Mashingspoon.'
Posts: 181 
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Post by licensedgames on Feb 27, 2020 0:15:51 GMT
I feel that a possible contributing factor as to why Classic Game Room declined in viewership was a lack of explanation for a lot of the inside jokes. Wind Squid, Edit Station 1, all of that. Even as a fan, a lot of this stuff felt like it was thought out and personally resonate to Mark, but was never really given an origin and explanation within the videos themselves. Were they characters? Did they have a story?
A new viewer would probably be confused and not particularly thrilled by a lot of these detours and references.
Compare this to another popular show for the same time, the angry video game nerd. Characters and in-jokes were clearly understandable and identifiable. James Rolfe is aware of what, say, the sh*t pickle is, but the audience knows what it is and what it means as well.
As silly as it sounds, I think that these in-jokes served to make the videos less newcomer friendly.
Is there validity to this thesis?
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Balder
Supreme Overlord
Trying to cut down the amount of movies I watch
Posts: 6,838
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Post by Balder on Feb 27, 2020 1:07:44 GMT
While I would say that it didn't help the show in any way tl reference these obscure characters, I do think the show had way bigger problems, some of which were related to this. Why did Mark ever change the channel name to Lord Karnage. I thought it was retarded back then, and I still think it was a big mistake. Still, review channels were going away from being sustainable. Nothing would have saved CGR, but Mark did accelerate the process.
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Post by winnersdontusedrugs on Feb 27, 2020 2:36:36 GMT
Yeah I see what you mean. I think if he dialed it back more he could've made it work. I agree with Balder that there were bigger problems though.
I always thought that he made a large budget for CGR considering how he could've pulled off the same thing with much less. An example would be the original CGR site, which had all sorts of features, playable games, etc.
I imagine there was a good amount of work put into it, but all it really needed to be was a forum. It got bogged down by the stuff that the fans didn't pay attention to.
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Spirit Bomb
Cartoon Pony Wrangler
#DeathToAmerica #DeathToTheAmericas #DeathToChristianity #DeathToFascism
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Post by Spirit Bomb on Feb 28, 2020 0:28:31 GMT
My theory: I first started regularly following CGR back in 2009, and as I've said before Mark was always infamous for the speed at which he put out content, at least compared to other game reviews. At his height he was posting at least one game review each day from what I remember, so the origin of a lot of running jokes/gags were rapidly obscured not long after they debuted in a particular review. One good example of this is the "burning people with monsters and cutting them in half" gag from his review of (coincidentally) Golden Axe Beast Rider.
This review doesn't even have 120k views, despite the fact that he carried that gag over into dozens of videos after this one. So yeah, I think that a lot of newcomers to CGR probably didn't get the jokes, although whether or not this was what motivated them move away from CGR is purely skepticism.
I personally like to think that his channel flopped when his viewers realized that he is a materialistic, alcoholic Trump voter, but most people aren't that politically motivated like I am.
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cobretti
Fire Shark Shinobi
Strong Arm Of The Law
Posts: 1,760
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Post by cobretti on Feb 28, 2020 11:13:17 GMT
He also for a while was working out of a giant warehouse and had a staff on hire when YouTube is usually a one man operation. Had he just kept running things out of the storage units then maybe his operation would have been sustainable.
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Balder
Supreme Overlord
Trying to cut down the amount of movies I watch
Posts: 6,838
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Post by Balder on Feb 28, 2020 13:01:44 GMT
He also for a while was working out of a giant warehouse and had a staff on hire when YouTube is usually a one man operation. Had he just kept running things out of the storage units then maybe his operation would have been sustainable. Agreed. It was a bold move to have a 6 man team for a review show. Still, running a review show isn't easy especially when he's reviewing more obscure stuff like pinball machines and Atari 2600 competitors. |
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Cervantes
Off-Brand Transformable Robot
A former Incompetent Evil Commander (XP: 2423)
Posts: 2,865
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Post by Cervantes on Feb 28, 2020 17:04:31 GMT
Another important thing: the other reviewers never got to the same level of success as Mark himself, so the side stuff like Undertow was probably not profitable (not commenting on quality itself, as I think Derek is a great reviewer, just the bad luck of not reaching the same number of viewers).
But I think the most damaging blows came from the problematic relationship with Youtube. Besides the obvious fight against videos being demonetized or taken down, taking the show out of Youtube twice must have had a negative impact on its growth, since the audience was always there. Mark had bet on the move to Vimeo and later Amazon being good to find new viewers, but that sadly never happened - Vimeo never got to grow as Youtube and Amazon kept messing up with CGR 2085's releases, especially by never being available to other countries besides the US (even though Mark had the added cost of subtitling the show). The international audience never had access to the most well-produced CGR episodes, unless it was through Kickstarter. So the worst thing happened: Mark had made a huge deal about leaving Youtube twice, and then came back both times.
I'll also agree on the constant changes to the name of the channel. It should've always been Classic Game Room.
But anyway: the show lasted for an impressive number of years and output a huge number of videos. I would love if Mark continued it, but I do understand if he just needed to move on to other projects.
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licensedgames
Virtue Wing
"I'm Bartholomew Mashingspoon.'
Posts: 181
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Post by licensedgames on Feb 28, 2020 21:40:50 GMT
Another theory: Do you think the rise in prices for retro games (though they have since come down significantly) contributed? The shows were largely donation based, and I wonder that as prices rose and collecting grew in popularity that people would be less likely to donate valuable (popular, likely to get more views for a video) games. Look at early Undertow, people were donating Zeldas, Final Fantasys, Game Boy player discs, stuff that even had value in 2011.
Come 2015, nearly everything Derek reviewed was a licensed GBA game that he was too old to appreciate the license for. (Now, I think that these made for some excellent videos, but they did not bring in the views that they used to.)
In addition, I would argue that the rise of streaming and Youtube in general contributed. I'm a little younger than most of you guys (20) and so I can offer the perspective of what young people who first got Youtube were like. We would search for things we were framiliar with, especially full episodes of cartoons. Now, we usually never found them, but we would find videos like Mark's Ben 10 Wii review that has MILLIONS of views - views that probably came mostly from kids of my generation who were looking for episdoes of that crummy cartoon.
Now, there is streaming. Kids don't have to settle for Youtube videos that are tangentily related to their favorite media, its right there at their fingertips.
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Balder
Supreme Overlord
Trying to cut down the amount of movies I watch
Posts: 6,838
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Post by Balder on Feb 28, 2020 21:55:32 GMT
Cervantes, wasn't it Dailymotion he moved to for a while? I remember when he did that very well, as I got very involved with the old forum just around then, and that was a huge factor to his fall. I mean it basically killed his channel and sent him spiraling down. With his Patreon campaign being mostly about complaining about Youtube, keeping the long cuts off YouTube and putting obnoxious watermarks on all of his videos definitely added fuel to the fire.
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dschult3
Off-Brand Transformable Robot
The true heir to the Monado.
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Post by dschult3 on Feb 28, 2020 22:54:23 GMT
Downfall? What downfall? We are the CGR crew right here!
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Cervantes
Off-Brand Transformable Robot
A former Incompetent Evil Commander (XP: 2423)
Posts: 2,865
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Post by Cervantes on Feb 29, 2020 0:50:45 GMT
Balder - Yep, Dailymotion, I mixed them up.
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Balder
Supreme Overlord
Trying to cut down the amount of movies I watch
Posts: 6,838
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Post by Balder on Feb 29, 2020 0:57:40 GMT
Downfall? What downfall? We are the CGR crew right here! Come for Mark, stay for the Pub. |
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stratogustav
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Post by stratogustav on Feb 29, 2020 22:25:43 GMT
I started watching Mark around 2011, but it felt like I was watching him since 2008 because I did went back, and watched many of the videos released before 2011.
I really loved his 2009 and 2010 content for example. Mark is the whole reason why I went back to gaming. Gaming wasn't even on my radar until I started watching Mark.
I guess I never had an issue with the jokes because I watched many of the old videos too, so at first they were foreign, but eventually I figured them out.
A lot of people used to blame Mark for raising the price on many classic games, and I'm pretty sure he featuring a game definitely had an impact. He was the gaming place in YouTube.
There are other channels that have an entire staff and building, but what helps those guys is exactly that, the having many people working taking care of social media and the webpage.
Mark definitely had the right approach, I feel the problem was to quit, going to the Dailymotion, that kind of stuff.
All of that came because of YouTube policies changing, and Mark wasn't expecting it, so it did affect him a lot, and that's I what I feel end up making him take all these different exits that slowly reduced his audience.
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dschult3
Off-Brand Transformable Robot
The true heir to the Monado.
Posts: 2,887
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Post by dschult3 on Feb 29, 2020 23:11:48 GMT
He also for a while was working out of a giant warehouse and had a staff on hire when YouTube is usually a one man operation. Had he just kept running things out of the storage units then maybe his operation would have been sustainable. Hey cobretti, I just clicked on your profile while reading this post, and it says that you haven't logged in since January 4th, 2016, yet here you are. How is that possible? Do you use an alternative app to get on the site?
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Bogard
Night Raider
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Post by Bogard on Feb 29, 2020 23:38:19 GMT
I started watching Mark around 2011, but it felt like I was watching him since 2008 because I did went back, and watched many of the videos released before 2011. I really loved his 2009 and 2010 content for example. Mark is the whole reason why I went back to gaming. Gaming wasn't even on my radar until I started watching Mark. I guess I never had an issue with the jokes because I watched many of the old videos too, so at first they were foreign, but eventually I figured them out. A lot of people used to blame Mark for raising the price on many classic games, and I'm pretty sure he featuring a game definitely had an impact. He was the gaming place in YouTube. There are other channels that have an entire staff and building, but what helps those guys is exactly that, the having many people working taking care of social media and the webpage. Mark definitely had the right approach, I feel the problem was to quit, going to the Dailymotion, that kind of stuff. All of that came because of YouTube policies changing, and Mark wasn't expecting it, so it did affect him a lot, and that's I what I feel end up making him take all these different exits that slowly reduced his audience. Yeah, I remember Musha used to go for around 30-50 bucks before Mark reviewed it. Now the average US game complete goes for nearly $500 and Japanese version for around $200. |
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