The "Nintendo Power" song by Kyle Justin was fire. That song and the original AVGN theme were far better than anything Rex Viper did. I'm sad that guy got left behind.

My take: I believe the movie was his downfall. I think he probably suffered from a mental breakdown (not joking) because as a long time fan, I noticed it instantly after his movie tanked and I suspect that he got scared to make another movie and feels a certain type of way about his “nerd” character. He’s having an identity crisis

I legit think James rolfe is depressed. The way he always says he never has time for anything. Depressed people usually don't want to do anything and find anything to be a chore. That's why they think of ending their lives because they feel like what's the point.

I stood up for James but he seems miserable and lazy these days.

The movie didn't break the channel, it broke James. He was hoping the movie was going to open doors into Hollywood but it never happened.

The worst thing about all this is, if James just came out and said he needed a break and took a few months off, all his fans would support and encourage it if it meant he would come back on his own. But unfortunately, an idea like that requires time. Which we all know we know, he doesn’t have.

I’ve been noticing the drop in quality of AVGN episodes the last 5-6 years as well. I thought maybe I was crazy for thinking that since the comments didn’t seem to mention it. Guess I wasn’t.

The peak AVGN years were 2006-2010 for me for various reasons. KZfaq was still a new thing, and the idea of an angry game reviewer was a fresh and funny concept. 80’s nostalgia itself seemed like a new thing at the time too (I was born in ‘81 and throughout the 90’s I kept hearing how the eighties were awful. It wasn’t until the mid-2000’s that I saw people celebrating the eighties), and James hit that nostalgia wave at just the right time. Plus the scrappiness of those early (non-HD) videos added to the charm of the whole thing. Those days will never come again, but that’s ok, they don’t have to. While I think AVGN should probably have been retired a few years back, I don’t begrudge James for continuing with it. There’s still an audience for it, and no-one is being forced to watch them. Hell, every so often I find myself enjoying one of the newer episodes, and he’s made so much content over the years (AVGN, Board James, YKWB, Monster Madness etc.) that I can’t really fault him. I even enjoyed the early Rental Reviews for capturing that ‘Friday night at the video store’ vibe (though after a year or so I think even that concept had worn thin, so didn’t miss it when it got cancelled). The fact is, his priorities changed now that he’s in his forties and married with children, and things simply won’t be the same as they used to be. His sensibilities have changed, the climate has changed, the audience has changed (and that’s ok), but some people are quick to judge and hand out condemnation because it doesn’t align with how they think he should make content and run his channel.

The Earthbound episode is still good, in spite of Screenwave's stink emanating from the video. It has some of the cringey SW humor and stuff like elderly James trying to rasp out curse words, but it also feels like a genuine video, and it was cool to see James play something he actually enjoyed.

Cinemassacre right now is the strangest amalgamation of "This is a franchise mudafuka!" and "Yo it's James your homebrew video maker doing it all just for fun still stuck in 2007!"

It's weird how blind the fanboys are of James. He's not some mastermind of film making and technology. He self mythologizes all the time is my biggest issue. I mean he even said he started his autobiography in his 20s. He should stick to games and things he actually played or cared about. He shouldn't worry about hammering out videos fast either. Plenty of gamers KZfaqrs take months to make a video.

You’d think someone would take their “day job” more seriously if it’s fun and keeps the lights on.

I stopped watching AVGN after Mike left. He was actually a huge part of their production and writing. They cancelled him over some stupid shit.

The saddest thing is Bimmy doesn't caring even about writing his own material for horror movies

What most people don’t ever talk about is his kids are sick and the youngest almost died so that going on, on top of the pressure of the movie and whatever else is going on in his life had changed. It’s called getting older and just life in general. But fuck Justin regardless 😅

Here I am, commenting on another video of yours RE AVGN. I would like more of this content, and the people in these comment sections getting angry prove that there is some traction (and it's funny). I'm not gonna tell you how to do your job, but punching up is very entertaining and I would tune in for more of that.

He never mentally came back from that movie failure, Then the kids arrived , April seems like she cracks the whip..... At this point its a job and not a passion.

It wasn't just the movie but that was the main contribution. James was gone entirely too long with just Mike to run the ship and when he finally did come back it was too late and the internet has moved on and didn't care anymore.

I know you mainly do music stuff but this video was very well done, man. Hopefully you'll do some more of this in the future!

The Pepsi Man episode is one of my least favorite episodes so that checks out

1:43 that fucking stomp will never not make me laugh lmao. How the mighty have fallen...

Really great work on these videos! Love watching each one. My personal belief is that AVGN's classic era fell apart after that Cheetah Man II crowdfunding thing. Do you feel like you're part of the generation that was introduced to youtube and video content creation through AVGN?

Well,at the very least, he didn’t go completely ass over teacup insane like Noah Antwiler. You might fancy a trip down THAT rabbit hole as well.

Those Red Cow Entertainment videos are brilliant i'd recommend them to anyone interested in this stuff.

That entire fauxpology was disgusting. Deflecting blame when the responsibility lies with you is bad enough, but doing it with a half shitsmirk is just reprehensible.

Ryan has actually been part of Cinemassacre for a long time before Screenwave, he just didn't make many on-screen appearances in the old days. He operated their website since at least 2006.

Yo an introduction to Screenwave legit would have been nice. I never realized there was a formal intro video or anything!

Discovered you through the rex viper videos, but your music is fire. Are you gonna be touring any time soon?

These cinemassacre roasts are great. Please keep them coming!! Also it might be funny if you pulled out James marching guitar dance at one of your live shows

Selling himself to screenwave was probably the best thing he could do. You can argue quality went down. But it pays out for him.

i like some of Jame's content. mainly the ones where he talks directly about movies he loves or games. anything with the screenwave people is awful. i think it's pretty clear that he doesnt have time to continue with being a youtuber while raising a family (i know i wouldn't be able to with my family). I never watched the movie, and yes Rex is bad, but it's a joke band, i dont know what anyone else expected. Btw, you definitely care, at least enough to make content on it vs on something else. just an observation. P.S. now that you mention it, what *is* up with the hair... i'm new to your channel and i see the gradual devolution, lol. Keep on keeping on though, good luck w/ the channel. I sub'd

Frogs will jump out of water that gets too hot 🐸

Well summarised. 👏👏

Honestly, the only thing I hate ANYONE saying about James Rolfe when it comes to “criticism” is when people go after his kids. Calling them names, adding them as a contributor to the downfall of his channels, and even now calling them Crotch Goblins. I don’t care who you are, even if you don’t have kids, pretty damn sure you wouldn’t want someone calling your kids names or saying nasty things about them. Leave his kids out of it.

You started watching in 2013, you missed the golden years. I started watching him in 2007 and his best years were from 2007-2011.

Oh my goash Josh, a new Video😱😃🎉

I made it to the 3rd video. Kinda sad this is going to be the last video (wait you did some videos on nostalgic critic too? I will have to look those up). Sorta interested in some of the music videos so I'll go ahead and subscribe.

You played clips of the Sega accessories video and that brought me back that video was probably the last time I really enjoyed what I was watching from James which is sad because I used to wait with anticipation for every upload I mean I watched all of his videos and short films even the stuff from when he was like 10yrs old and enjoyed it too

Everything peaks

It's crazy - I had the EXACT same experience with the past 4 years or so of his videos - the last one I truly loved was the Polybius vid cuz it felt like James making a horror movie out of the love for the craft

Quickly scrolling through the channel's videos, I think Majora's Mask was his last great video. I agree that ever since he's had a couple of adequate ones, but nothing compared to his classic work. I also think some of the videos like the one featuring Scott The Woz were enjoyable, but that's mainly due to Scott and not the others.

You do an excellent job of breaking down this type of subject matter. I would like to see more vids like this on your channel.

The quality of the AVGN episodes defintely got lower but I still enjoy the new videos. It's not the most important thing in life, just some neat entertainment :)

Great video. I'm still a fan of The Nerd, but really haven't enjoyed his content in a long time. Can't knock the guy for his over exposure, and the internet is the cruelest place in the world! Anyway, great video. And side note...are you the guy that was doing the Unsolved Mysteries podcast a few years ago?! I was a fan!

That "coolest dude alive" edit killed me

I get it if you want to distance yourself from this type of thing and focus on your music but just like Red Cow Entertainment, i think you present an entertaining yet fair way of critiquing and breaking down the problems surrounding James and his channel. I find the whole situation intriguing and the memes can be pretty hilarious.

Love these vids

3 episodes yealy personaly edited by the man itself would be awesome

First of your videos I have seen. And I agree 💯. Plus I love your attitude!

What’s your music channel? I didn’t see the link on the vid or description. Thanks

I think you're completely right about him suffering burnout. I mean seriously he's gone on hiatus from his character multiple times. After 2011 it took forever for another episode to come out which was that 2012 episode of Schwarzenegger games for the nes. There were literally only three episodes of AVGN in that entire year. That was it. I absolutely can completely understand burnout. I made the stupid decision of starting a secondary channel when this channel I'm commenting from was never that big to begin with. I've started multiple secondary channels which I have since 2018 learned just get rid of them all and don't even bother with them anymore. Okay well I didn't actually get rid of them I instead just stopped uploading to them. Anyways on one of those secondary channels I tried to make high quality top tens videos and made it a series called top 10 Tuesdays and also try to upload other various videos as well and just doing the top 10 episodes every single week caused me so much burnout that I stopped making videos for months. I know it doesn't seem like much, but I put so much editing into each of these top 10 videos that I just didn't really have time for anything else. And while they did get a few thousand views that was it. That wasn't enough to make it worth my while if I'm just going to have to keep suffering burn out the whole time and when I asked for help with it well a friend of mine who I asked for help was incredibly unreliable and didn't even finish when I gave him plenty of time to do so. His heart was clearly not in the project at all. Unfortunately unlike James Rolfe who does have help, I've never had help or any good help at getting videos out there. I always had to do them by myself and burnout was just completely unavoidable. But even more frustrating was after 2 weeks I asked my friend what he has done for his new top 10 and he sent me a video where yeah he recorded his voice, but all he showed on the footage were still images which clearly showed that he must have just made that at the very last second when I brought it up to him again about how I need him to get that video done. He didn't even try. Completely by myself. The only contribution he made was his voice and an original song his dad produced near the end. Anyways I do understand the burnout issue. It was really hard to keep pressing on and I unfortunately couldn't do it. I hope someday that will change. I've kept my channel going by doing much more simpler stuff like reaction videos and some short edits that I can do in just a matter of hours instead of having to work on them for an entire week, but I want to get back into making top tens again and I want to be making movie reviews and video game reviews, but it just takes so much time to make them into quality videos and I'm having to do everything by myself so it's just near impossible to get them done. The excuse that James Rolfe always doesn't have time is very undermining of other people. He definitely does have time. There are people out there who have even more kids than him and they actually work regular full-time jobs so at least he has the excuse that well he's on KZfaq so he can in fact start working whenever he feels like it. Yes there will not always be time, but the fact is he can stop whenever he wants therefore he can start whenever he wants when he's not busy taking care of his family. He has a team of people that helps them with his videos which gives him a lot more time. I don't have that luxury and there are other KZfaq channels that are far more successful than mine and more successful than yours and I consider yours way better than mine, but there are ones that are even more successful that are almost doing everything by themself. What is the excuse?

1:58 that's very true and when you're surrounded by those types, any constructive criticism isn't taken seriously.

what do you think of Dave Gahan's new solo album Imposter

I think the Sega Menacer episode was AVGNs Principal and the Pauper moment

Damn at the 4 minute mark that was exactly what i was feeling too, kudos for putting words to that exact feeling

"Justin's face kept annoying me.." 😆

It’s laughable how he always says how he never has the time. Bitch please James has all the time in the world. Sure the projects take lots of time out of you but it’s HIS JOB. He works at home. Avarage person goes to work every day and yet they still have time for family life, friends and other passion projects / hobbies.

Im commenting so the algorithm :) another thing I didn't like is when James (with i think Mike writing) the sega genesis vs super nintendo and he allowed super nintendo add ons to compete in some categories but didn't allow the sega cd to be on segas side for the music category. This bothered me especially when he says he's a musician and talks like he knows it, he did not give the sega cd any mention during that music category

I will say this, I feel bad for James. I feel like the older he gets the more he wants to move on to other things that he really loves doing (directing horror movies and playing music), is trying and failing. I'm not knocking for it, but he does need to make better decisions.

Watching this made me feel like I was in high school.

As a Cinemassacre supporter, the comment at 4:31 gives me a good laugh "Then there's three other people who look like they raided James's kitchen and ate all his food."

If you saw James House, you would know where that Kickstarter money for the movie went, lol.

I agree with your takes but I find it low to insult his kids by calling them "crotch goblins" criticize an adult not children dude

Do you think James has inner psychological torment with the AVGN character he has created? A perfect blue type of situation? Would you like to spend a day with the “cinemassacre crew” minus James?

Outsourcing for better quality of life is his right, doesn’t bother me, I’m easily amused and still watch it from time to time like I always have. I’ve never noticed the editing tightness lol, but yeah, when somebody else is doing the work, it’s going to be different. Change is a constant, and extra tough in the obsessive fan industry.

So it begins…

We owe James for the many laughs he gave us before CERN berenstained him

I spy the self-titled Genesis album and Moby's Play...

It's very simple. James got married and has kids and doesn't have time anymore to sit around playing video games and getting angry at them. I think the perceived "drop in quality" is simply that he's an older man doing this now. He still has the same standards, but not the same appeal. Don't understand why people get mad at it. It's life.

You didn't put a link in the description to your music-only channel

I remember when Cinemassacre was doing these "Let's Play" videos with James and Mike, and James seemed so disinterested in games in general. Mike would be focused on the game they were playing, while James would be reminiscing on something completely unrelated. It struck me that James was kind of caught in this expectation to be a video game guy, but it's just not where his passion is. For him to outsource Monster Madness is not a good sign though, since that was really his core. Oh well, to paraphrase The Simpsons, he gave us free content for years. He kind of doesn't owe anyone.

"AVGN started getting shitty". That sounds like a pun because shit is James favorite thing.

1:49 "In that time you were the coolest people on Earth." They were the coolest, because literally nothing else was happening at that time.

Never apologise ,never explain

Much like many budding lolcows, and once popular KZfaqrs, he’s trapped and doesn’t see any other way to make a living. He needs to just rip the bandaid that is screenwave and just find a real job and walk away. He clearly hates the character and is completely burned out.

The DOWNFALL of dancing with ghosts

i think hes trying to emulate les claypool but he looks like pitfall harry

James wanted to turn it into a passive income content farm that involved the least involvement possible. I could actually sympathize if he had other major projects in production that demanded his time and attention. But what exactly is so time consuming that he can't seem to be bothered to work anymore?

I've been a fan from the beginning and I still enjoy everything on Cinnemassacre...except Rex Viper. I even fast forward on the pod cast when they talk about it. If you play music and gig frequently, you'll know.

I feel like many people irl keep telling James to get rid of screenwave however James is just too kind and doesn't listen.

Waiting for the Justin video, please? 😁

I believe you when you say you aren't trying to be Keemstar. It looks more like you're trying to be Billy Joe Armstrong.

To be fair, you would make a better Keemstar and content cop.

I had been noticing a gradual drop in quality since around 2014 but it didnt truly hit me until the Crash Dummies episode, he looked like he was wearing a bad toupe and it all felt so forced and stiff, and ever since i havent really had an interest in his Nerd vids, which breaks my heart because ive been watching him since the beginning and was super stoked for the movie, even had myself convinced it was good for a while

Whose talking about your hair?!?! 😠 lol

2:06 Same.

i just don’t have time to comment on this vid. i’ll just copy and paste somebody else’s comment here lol. btw i watched your mv the other day it’s freaking awesome !

I get a sneaking suspicion that James' wife wears the pants in the relationship. I think the reason he has "no time" is his wife has a infinitely long, honey do list for him everyday. So he never has time to pursue his passions. but that's just my opinion.

I think James should choose a successor to become the new AVGN.

I noticed avgn falling off with the Christmas episode where they just broke stuff....

A true jack skelengton situation

I am utterly bored of AVGN now. Back when AVGN was in its heyday, nobody could touch it. The golden days of 2006-2011, the days of 2012-2014 even. The franchise plateaued years ago. I used to enjoy the 2015-2019 stuff, but looking back now, they were really a disappointment for me compared to the golden age. The constant milking of the show and the presence of the Screenjackasses hasn't helped much either. See, when AVGN was king, so was Cinemassacre. There wasn't a website or KZfaq channel out there that could touch them in terms of quality. Now? Now there are plenty of other YT channels that are capable of putting out videos that are as good and even better in fact. Cinemassacre and AVGN lost their lustre a long time ago, so they are no longer the kings of online entertainment. For me, the AVGN franchise has been run into the ground.

This all reminds me of kitchen nightmares (hang on let me explain) but like a lot of the restaurants and James they both started very successful with plenty of people consuming what they had to offer . But like these restaurants they rely on the old days, there past successes refusing to work hard and resting on there laurels , head in the sand and need a Gordon Ramsay to come in and tell them the truth and not blow smoke up there arse

Agree he is burned out.🔥

The last good avgn was either Majora's mask or raid 2020. It was around the time he changed his shirt

"Popped out a few crotchgoblins" 🤣

I can't stand when a mega rich youtuber pulls the ''muh bills'' card...bro, you could retire 5 times over and not have to worrry a single day about your kids...not to mention the fort knox treasure trove of vintage stuff you have behind you there

Justin is what I think of when I think of the unpopular rich kid who buys his way into a club by buying them new stuff.

good job :).

Did you say: crotch goblins? Cringe 😬 😂😂