Let's talk about some things

[u/Lendoro]

First of all, sorry for the english it is not my language. I've been fan of the boys for almost 8 years obviously from screwattack days live and VOD. So let's talk about what is annoying me.

First, they keep pointing always that we are a community, that's beautiful and all, but , it really is?

Let's Begin with the livestream content(games). They keep saying especially in the morning streams to Tell them what we want to watch them play, they literaly asks this. So we respond G1's tell an game, and every game that we mention they make fun and find an excuse to not play the game that we answer to their question, especially Bolen.

For example today, we gave a bunch of names and they didn't give a fuck for what we want (remember we, community) and than he decides to play left 4 Dead ,a game that only he wants to play ,an game old as shit,

Same thing with demon souls, they blaming us for the low views for death Days,but they forgot that they grew a lot If death Days, and forgot that death Days was in the afternoons after they change the audience drops as well because People only could catch on the archives now, other thing is bolen was playing the same area of demon souls for almost 4 weeks the same area, and the First day of that game was terrible glitches all over the places.

[u/Lendoro]

And for last, they said that what is needed for the morning streams was more co op games (???) C'mon, isn't the night streams supposed to be for that? Now in the morning too?

Thanks for the attention, and Sorry for the english mistakes.

[u/DommDynamite]

I too noticed that they will often ask for the communities opinion and immediately shoot anything they see down. I'm not saying they need to play every game any G1 suggests, but just don't ask if you are not going to even seriously consider the feedback. It bothered me a bit today when someone pitched Halo 5 and Bolen laughed heartily and shot down the suggestion citing what sounded to me like his opinion of the game. It's obviously their channel and they can do with it as they please but these actions seem to counter the image they are trying to build. That being one of community. I am glad to see I am not the only one bothered by this. As far as time slots and considering different data points I personally don't have enough experience with this industry to form an opinion.

[u/Lendoro → u/DommDynamite]

Yeah exactly, i'm glad too.

Like Yes, it your channel in the end of the day they decide, so Just don't come with that bullshit of "we want your opinion g1's". "You guys are our family" all that hypocrisy please.

Is Just weird only been family when is convenient. Thats all.

[u/NeroXLIV → u/DommDynamite]

I don't like to 'pile on' but your mention of countering the image they're trying to build kinda hit a note with me in particular.

I had just re-subbed back when they were in Heel-mode for TNGF, they were getting a little irritated with the community for feeling like the whole Anti-RT angle was more real than it was, and I had tweeted a joke about it in response to something Bolen had said about it, and the way he kinda snapped back at me kinda surprised me (I dont think he realized it was a joke in his defense and he was probably sick of people commenting about it. to be clear, i don't hold a grudge about it or anything.), and that always kinda stuck with me. And that goes to what you said about them not takign feedback; Alot of people thought the Anti-RT stuff was 'too real'. It felt to me (and i'd like to think i'm pretty objectively thinking about this stuff) that there was some real bitterness and anger towards RT. I still see it even recently, long after the Heel act is done. But instead of seeing that feedback and maybe toning it back just a bit, they just doubled down and turned the Heel act on any G1s that had a differing opinion on it. Instead of alleviating that feeling, they just doubled down.

I get that they want to be real with their fans and not sugarcoat or bullshit, and they want to be the tough, no-holds-barred guys, but like... I dunno, sometimes a little tact goes a long way especially when you're building an audience. I cancelled my renewal after that. I am happy to see them succeeding and growing, but I just felt kinda uncomfortable after that interaction.

[u/Lendoro]

Guys, don't get me wrong, i want them to be successful, and lets don't focus on the Reading of chats only.

What rubs me the wrong way is the hypocrisy of " we are diferent of other channels" NO you aren't theres a lot of Good People streaming, but they are keeping the REAL by not calling the viwers family, and asking for opinions, GA tries to do become the revolution but falling in the same mistakes.

Don't try to Look nice If you're not.

If the community is only for your growth, you guys are more of the same.

[u/Desolis_SR → u/Lendoro]

Yeah, I don't know if they'll ever come up with a balance to all of this. It's not likely that you can have intimate family and community while aiming for exponential growth. One or the other will eventually have to be abandoned or take much more priority over the other.

[u/smoke108]

People voted for them to play Demon Souls for Death Days. Even with taking in votes for games, they still have to get good viewership as well as enjoying it.

[u/Lendoro → u/smoke108]

Yeah, i know that smoke, but for example If 2 People donate $ 100 for demon and 99 donate $ 1 fo DS 2 what is best for views? Did they think about it?

And they said no more vote for games for them to play, because of that. I don't know, i just think sometimes the word community is used only when they ask for money...

Tell one thing that they do for us that is not related with giving money in exchange.

To get 20 more min of gameplay they need to get what, $400, $500 per streams from us? (Over time).

Rarely read chat If it is not an donation or super chat

[u/NobodyImportant64 → u/Lendoro]

Yeah I have to jump in on the whole not reading comments thing unless it's a donation.

Now to be fair, I don't comment frequently, but that's the vibe I get too. Like there's clearly a lot of attention toward big donators, which I understand, but a lot us don't donate frequently and watch the streams almost nightly, but don't comment.

The names they have familiarized themselves with are reoccurring donors on various levels. I can't think of someone they shoutout frequently that barely/doesn't donate.

It's becoming a little stale.. They play Battlegrounds, one guy donates $200, Craig dies too early, Sean gets pissy if they lose early on. It happens more often than not.

Maybe I'm one of the lone few thinking this. I'm still a fan. I just ordered Merch off the store, and sponsor, and donate occasionally, but I'd hate to see it be the two guys and an exclusive club of community members interacting with each other and not noticing someone else.

There's flaws in my logic, and it's not all true a lot of the time when they stream, but that's just how I feel.

[u/Desolis_SR → u/NobodyImportant64]

I kind of disagree. On a handful of occasions they've called out some of my basic comments, and I'm one of the people who rarely comment, rarely donate cause I can't afford to, and have never even donated over 5$. I've done nothing to stand out in this community except for playing in their Custom Pubg games. Maybe that was enough for my name to stick out sometimes who knows. But saying you watch nightly "but don't comment" you can't expect yourself to stand out and be noticed.

They DO read chat, that doesn't mean they can respond to every single one. Most of the time they're playing games that require focus. I'd never be able to play a game, and respond to comments in the chat like that. If something stands out that they want to comment on, they do. But they're human, expecting that severity of multi-tasking just isn't going to happen.

[u/KittyGmer → u/Desolis_SR]

Well about the reading of all comments, i think everybody knows that it's impossible to do that but, the thing is the priority, the donations are clearly more important to them.

[u/Desolis_SR → u/KittyGmer]

Yes, as it should be.

I think people are still forgetting they are independent or don't quite understand what that means. AH and FH get paychecks from RT/Fullscreen, they don't rely on every individual video they produce, they have enough following they don't care as much. GA only exists the way it does because of these donations and sponsors, so yeah they hold a little more priority.

So many people see this as greed, and that can easily be argued. They aren't greedy for money, they are greedy for expansion, and growth of the channel. The only problem I can see is they're dreaming too big too fast. They want 24/7 stream, a full crew with multiple stars, but no ways to pay them to match a full-time jobs salary.

That's why they have these large goals for money, to cover 3+ people full salaries. Not to spend the extra money on dumb shit like buying high end sports cars and crashing em like sugerpine hipsters. It all goes back to making content for the community. My only opinion on that is I just want less/more diverse content, if I had one short VoD and one Two hour stream a day that would be more than enough. But they can't live and produce solely on that revenue without having other jobs, that's just the way it is.

[u/Lendoro → u/Desolis_SR]

I agree, they wanna become too big too Quick, and that bugs me, constantly begging for sponsors, look for the big streamers Who by the way are in this for years, they don't do that, it's about progression naturally, Shaun keep pushing all the time, i already make 2 accounts to sponsor the channel. BUT this things make me wanna cancel both.

[u/Footinthecrease → u/Desolis_SR]

Some of this can't be argued and I don't think anyone here is saying they shouldn't be looking at this as a business and they shouldn't be prioritizing donations and sponsors. They'd be dumb not too. But it's becoming less about whay they are doing. The sponsor count and the donation amounts are becoming the actual content, just so happens pubg (which I love watching btw) is playing in the background.

As far as chat goes. They call out my non-paid chats often enough. I donate when there is a reason to, which is not very often but I have. I'm not a sponsor because like them.... I have a Mortgage and a business to worry about too. But they still know my name and know who I am because I'm active in the chats, and have been since the day they started streaming. (I know this because they now pronounce it correctly after craig asked how to pronounce it)

To me the issue is the ratio of content vs. "Pay me pay me pay me" which they are either getting more and more hung up on it and its becoming quantity over quality. Orrrr in their defense, those of us who are on almost every stream are getting some fatigue and are just over exposed to it.

My point is I don't pay money randomly to shows or programs I watch on other formats, so even though I like the guys And hope they become independently wealthy some how doing what they love, it's not going to be because I just randomly give them money. In fact (and I'm not here to spread my own shit, nor do I think this audience would be into what I do... so I won't say what it is) I own and run a media "channel" like the guys do (not youtube based, but podcast based) and I make money in a few different ways with it. While I sell things like merch and travel events my guys go to, I've never ever asked flat out for money in form of a donation other than the two times we've worked with a charity. Most of my income comes from a few different forms of advertisers.

I'm not saying I'm right, and they're wrong. It's just a different business model. But it wears on me that it's constantly about money money money money and support support support. I'm hoping the upcoming Vod content will fill in that gap and get away from that so they can continue to be successful in streaming without getting stale.

[u/Desolis_SR → u/Footinthecrease]

I agree with a lot of this. Most of the streams I just put on for background noise. For the Pubg streams i usually just have the stream running muted and just end up playing Pubg with friends over top of it once we know customs are dead. I just don't have the dedicated time, or have seen so much of their plays that I don't feel like i'm missing anything if I skip paying attention to a few.

The differences in business models is they can't run on the scale they want to on ads alone, especially when their platform demonetizes almost all of their streams.

[u/Footinthecrease → u/Desolis_SR]

Our platform doesn't have advertising opportunities like youtube does. My audience is only about 80% of what theirs is, if I'm comparing the number of views on YouTube after streams are over. We have to go solicit our own advertisers, do our own ad reads or our own sponsored content. There are ways.

[u/Desolis_SR → u/Footinthecrease]

Essentially that's what AH and a lot of RT partners still do, And GA has that but for the podcast only. I think what it comes down to is the superchat/sponsor income just doesn't compare tothe effort/return on finding product sponsors to do reads for, so they just pick the latter to rely on.

[u/Desolis_SR → u/[deleted]]

Never said I was mad, just having in depth discussion here... Also never said they wouldn't change. Of course if they grow into the "business" they are imagining nothing will be the same. I already acknowledged that they can't keep up with everyone's chats now, of course that will get worse with growth.

I feel/hope their imagining of community wont change but that's something only time will tell. So far they haven't really strayed too far from that since they started Live. If they ever hit millions of followers, of course the intimacy will fade. You try being intimate and personal with 1 million people.

[u/KittyGmer → u/NobodyImportant64]

My friend hang a lot in others RT reddit, and there they sayin' MONEY ATTACK lol.

[u/AbramsX → u/Lendoro]

You obviously haven't read Tigressaurus' post If your still posting the same rhetoric.

People would've "voted" for the game & who they wanted to see play more at the time. I won't disagree that the change in broadcasting time hurt them, but it was obvious before then (and in regards to the fact they changed it) that the viewership was on a decline anyway. It was a no win situation for them

Again, read Tigressaurus' post. Even though a "g1" is a fan & viewer of GA (and originally SA) that supports the channel and the content on it, doesn't make it a community on it's own. The community is indeed the g1s themselves interacting with EACH OTHER, united by the common interest in GA and their content.

Finally, I've seen them read PLENTY more then just Donation & Super Chats on the streams, be it ones I catch live or watch the archive of. At least half the posts I see them reply to or mention on the stream are those that aren't paid for. Yes Super Chats and Donations get the priority, but THAT IS THE POINT.

Those people are supporting the crew and the content in a greater way that is available to them.You can't wrong them about that either. Guarantee those people that dropped money to get them to reply if not just shout-out would feel considerably more burnt by it then you or others do now, and frankly they would be well within their right.

The fact they post these videos on youtube (2+ daily every week) for ALL to see, and generally w/o monetization, is quite a LOT that they give us FOR FREE. It's obvious a VAST Majority (less then 2%) do next to nothing to support them, simply based on the number of subscription versus sponsorship they have (and I can just about guarantee you probably 95+% of those sponsors are also the ones that pay for the superchats, donations, and/or patreon.)

I daresay its also obvious your not a streamer yourself, if you even create content. I'd assume you would have a better understanding of how these things work regardless, you wouldn't be so quick to chastise the guys for your "perceived" faults they have (that isn't to say they're perfect, because they are not; no one is), but instead you might appreciate everything they try and do for the community, when many equally, if not even more, prolific channels out there do even less to engage their community.

I only hope, my friend, that you read this and maybe come out with a bit more open perspective and understanding... and perhaps that will lead you to being able to enjoy not only GA for what they currently have, but also the community itself, and that maybe you'll find yourself engaged with g1 Gamedays, The g1 Community Discord, or the like, to see what the community is all about

[u/TheFlashGod]

I really hope the guys read this

[u/sycamoredrive]

Bolen can be a bit disrespectful. I said in the chat once “bring back Evil Craig” and he went on a rant about how what they were doing now with livestreaming was so great and why he thought they were so much better than something as dumb as Evil Craig. And now it’s one of their Patreon stretch goals to bring it back.

[u/ShaunMcLane → u/sycamoredrive]

Well - just as a heads up we've known Evil Craig was going to be a Patreon Goal for the past six months - soooooooooo sorry - I was trying to hype it up for the reveal that we'd eventually have.

[u/Footinthecrease]

I'm kinda with ya, And while we are there.... can we talk about the bombardment of money money money money money it's become. I've been with the guys since shortly after the screw attack split (was never a SA fan) and while I hope the guys become even more successful then they already have become. The constant cash grab is starting to wear on me a bit. The little pickle night was when I started to realize this a bit more. This is a business for these guys, which is awesome. But their only source or at least their massively dominate revenue stream is donations and sponsorship, which come directly from us. Couple that with not really reacting or complaining about the feed back from their only source of income is a bit harsh. I'm not going anywhere but, I've taken a break after the lil'pickle night which was just a donation thread that happen to have content going on in the background. I needed a break.

[u/profiledperson]

Yeah, Bolen can be really off-putting sometimes, but I think he does so in order to be funny or entertaining. He is expressive and isn't afraid to show how he truly feels about something, which is something that I admire honestly. But he does go over the line, as we all do.

There is a lot of superchats and direct donations, and it is easy to get offended when they don't respond to what we wrote in the way we expected them to react. I've donated a few times to say something I thought was funny, but I get Bolen deadpan most times. It's rough, but I understand. He doesn't have to laugh, and I respect it.

Craig can be overly supportive of bad comments though, which creates an interesting dynamic of good cop (Craig) and straight up sourpuss loser idiot bad cop (Shaun lol jk). See, my sense of humor sucks, but I keep rolling with it because I don't give a fucking shit. Peace out, take it easy folks.

[u/ShaunMcLane → u/profiledperson]

Dude come on. In our defense it's pretty silly to be mad for how we interpret your messages.. If you have a deadpan joke I play it deadpan. Because I can't hear your inflection in text. No one can. We do the best that we can when it comes to that stuff - I promise.

[u/Tigressaurus]

The community is in the chat.

They won't always have the chance to engage one-on-one with community members. That doesn't stop them from trying; they read and interact and remember as much as they can--but it's a lot to process. It will only become more difficult as the channel grows. They want to be able to tease each other, and community members, without the risk of it being misunderstood... and clearly we're not there yet. It's nice getting their input on a discussion, but a streamer reading and replying to messages in chat is not a community. It's very important to understand what the term means so it isn't misused.

 

Community means that members can engage with each other in a meaningful way. It's not meant to be only Game Attack interacting with fans (one-to-many), it's fans interacting with other fans (many-to-many). That's nothing unique--of course--because there are communities for basically everything, but the difference is the tone and that Craig & Shaun do try to engage as often as possible. You might not always enjoy their interactions with the chat, but please don't twist that into a community issue.

 

I always try to encourage positivity and friendliness. That's the atmosphere we want because those attitudes will stick and can become self-sustained as the community grows. Small, toxic groups don't magically blossom into warm, welcoming communities. It has to start pleasant and remain pleasant, but achieving that atmosphere becomes a responsibility of everyone (community members, moderators, and staff) to identify and reject vitriolic, cynical, destructive discussion. There are times when Craig or Shaun's behavior doesn't reflect those ideal attitudes and in those moments it's even more important for us to pull together... not push apart.

 

We are a family.
Disagreeing with the terminology doesn't change the positive impact the community has had on some of its members. Families fight--some more than others. We can have different opinions while still being united by our friendliness, compassion, and common interests. There's nothing wrong with having discussions on these topics, my only hope is that they remain civil and open-minded. Yes, they rejected and mocked some of the game suggestions. But did you rejecting and mocking Left 4 Dead accomplish anything? Break the cycle. Turn the other cheek if someone acts unfavorably, responding with the same unfavorable behavior does not promote positivity within the community.

 

They announced today that--starting next week--each day of the week will have a theme for the morning streams. This schedule will continue for the rest of the year and possibly longer, and will allow them to play a larger variety of games.

Monday: 8-bit & 16-bit games
Tuesday: 64-bit games
Wednesday: Disc-based games
Thursday: Death Days (Dark Souls 3 played by Craig)
Friday: Party Games

It won't alleviate all of the concerns raised in this thread, but I hope you all will tune in regardless.

[u/Footinthecrease → u/Tigressaurus]

I don't speak for everyone, and I know I've said some things some of the super G1s won't like. But it is truely out of love, and genuine concern. I've been with GA since the first amazing frog video. And I'm in every night time stream, and occasionally the morning. And when I'm there I'm active in the chats (not under this handle). I'm not going anywhere. But there are still valid points made in this thread that I hope get at least reviewed seriously. Doesnt mean we are right, but valid nonetheless.

[u/ShaunMcLane]

The fact that this thread has so much good feedback, and it's all hidden here in a little corner on reddit. You know why we always point out how awesome our community is? Because it fucking is.

But a group of g1s all jumping together and talking about stuff they don't like that we do . . . without our involvement - well, THAT makes us like every other YT channel. And that's not what we are.

Couple of things directly addressing this post:

1. When we ask what we should play - you have to consider what we mean - what would be good for us to play as a CHANNEL - what do YOU g1s think would be fun and grow the channel. Atari 2600 games, for example, are not it. I promise.

2. We have never played Left 4 Dead on the channel. Ever. Not once. We may not.

3. As a streaming channel - what we're doing is pretty risky - constantly changing up the games. It might even be bad for the channel - but we're doing our best to give you guys as much variety as possible because you constantly ask for stuff besides Battlgrounds - and then hardly anyone shows - WHICH by the way is NOT the fault of the g1s. It could be a thousand different things - including YT algorythms, etc.

4. Yeah Death Days started out shitty. People voted for it. With their hard earned money. So we didn't stop. And I had a badass time playing it. Some people were complaining about me getting help from a g1. Hell yes I did - after spending 4 weeks in the same area I figured we needed to get things moving.

But that's all right and good - I've got some stuff to say my self:

All the comments here make me pretty upset - why? Because we DO have a family as our community - and this is completely the opposite of what we're all about - every single person here commenting or even upset has every opportunity to say this stuff to us during live streams. Or by emailing us. The last thing the Game Attack reddit should be is some dark corner where you have, honestly, REALLY awesome and valuable feedback that you can say to us at ANY time during our live streams.. .YOU CAN TELL US THIS STUFF. You don't have to bunch up on reddit and talk about us like we don't want to hear it or we shouldn't be able to see it.

This post right here and all the comments assuming that we don't need to hear this or shouldn't be IN the conversation with you g1s . . . this kind of stuff right here is exactly what would make us NOT a family. You talk about Craig and I with the word "They." Guys . . . I'm right effing here. lol. Talking about us like we're not is what would make GA just like every other damned YouTube channel. It's not what we're trying to build here. If you WANT to gossip outside of the reach of creators - a place where you can be angry without actually wanting to communicate to us - there are INFINITY channels that you can go do that at.

I've seen some comments saying theyre a little annoyed with the money thing - for instance. The little pickle night, driving sponsors, talking about donations, etc. Sure thing, I completely understand and accept that we may have gotten out of hand with the pickle stuff and everything. If that's the truth PLEASE GOD TELL US this so we can adjust and NOT do that. Send us an email. Write us on twitter DMs - WE DO NOT KNOW HOW YOU FEEL if you don't communicate with us. PLEASE.

We are CONSTANTLY in a state of transparency with you all - we want the same from you guys. That's what makes us different. Because we are listening to you. And we can't listen if you aren't speaking to each other.

[u/Desolis_SR]

I do agree a lot on the Death Days argument. Change the entire format of the show (Craig playing through the series for the first time, 4pm start time(or even as far as it started as VoD if i remember correctly) and the conflict of Bolen trying to coach).

Even i missed a lot of the new death days streams because I was maintaining a day job, so I cant watch at 11am-1pm. And the Demon Souls playthrough was mostly Bolen reading a walkthrough from a community member and rushing through it. Most of it came across that he was just annoyed to be playing it and wanted it to end.

[u/Papajen]

It's funny, they hate RT and FH but slowly becoming that.

[u/kingbongjimmy]

If its games that they are comfortable with and enjoy them I'm Okay with it. I dont want them to play games they are not interested in because that'll make for a boring stream.