A little worried about Mark again

But aren't his game reviews still being posted on Youtube? I could've sworn I saw a bunch of uploads the last time I visited his channel.

I think you misunderstood what I meant. What I meant was that he uses Patreon and has some exclusive content there (like the podcast), and people don't like that.

But I'm wondering, have they always been that bad? I seem to remember they not being this bad.

Back in 2007 they weren't this cancerous.

I also remember they not being this bad until a few years ago. Before the Wind Squid Pub existed, I clearly remember thinking that CGR's videos had some of the best youtube communities around them, with most comments being supportive or even informative. You can still see those comments when you look for older videos. The community was so good that it was the main interaction Mark had with his audience for a long time, at least until he went to Vimeo and retooled the CGR website, creating the pub.

But I think the change is not on CGR, it's just the result of changes on Youtube itself. We are only now seeing the results of all the policy changes and the promotion of the lower-denominator channels: who looks for video game reviews on Youtube nowadays is not the same kind of people from four, five years ago, before all those "camera at a screaming teenager's face" became the standard. While the older audience didn't "leave" Youtube, it found other ways to share comments/opinions, like on forums (hey mates!), Twitter, Patreon comments (as most of the highly elaborate shows are on Patreon nowadays) or Twitch streamings. I remember I used to comment on CGR videos on Youtube, but haven't done so ever since we have this pub, and I guess this is also true for most of you.

We can also take into account that some people did get pissed off at CGR while Mark was testing waters with the Patreon model, especially when the free videos became only teasers for the full ones (this was only for two weeks or so, but had a huge backlash) and when he experimented with lower quality content like WhoDefeatz and unboxing videos. None of this justifies the vile comments, though, especially since Mark has been steadily outputting quality reviews for several months by now with no WhoDefeatz videos in sight.

It's become a parody of itself, but the thing is, when you parody something for long enough, you eventually become that thing. Now it's just a wasteland of arguments and memes.

I think it's the decline in Patreon backers. He also stated that he lost 10 backers last time he uploaded a review, which he was really bummed out about.