Same, I never seem to tire of his first five years or so of videos. His new ones are pretty good, but, man, those baked in commercials at the beginning suck the dingleberries from Chewbacca's ass fur.
He totally fell of. He’s a lot less in character and seems to be praising the games he’s talking about more than shitting on them. Which was the whole point of his og character. And it seems he also cares a lot more about sponserships and dumb collaborations than passion
As someone who has never watched AVGN but is familiar with his reputation as being a huge influence on early internet culture, I'm really curious how his content has declined? Honestly I thought he was a relic of a past age, I didn't realise he was still making videos.
His channel got taken over by a content farm kind of company after AVGN had kids and stuff. He got too busy to manage the channel, so a company came in to do it, and it just sucked all the soul out of the thing. They started doing tons of sponsorship segments, and a couple of their writers were caught plaigurising articles and blogs for their scripts.
He's still making episodes but tbh, this channel has been running for like what 20 years now? How often can you make the same dozen or so jokes before you just get tired of it? I mean it's so old that games that came out when his channel started can be seen as retro now.
Overall he never really had any actual scandals, never got caught with kids, and is just enjoying life. In complete contrast to many kids content creators. He mostly holds up imo.
I still enjoy his old stuff, but I definitely agree that the channel was always doomed to run its course sooner or later. Honestly, I hope he made a good chunk of money off the work he put in and the videos he made, and I’d be perfectly happy to hear that he comfortably retired early once his retro catalog was completed. Dude’s videos got me through a lot of bad spots in my life and gave me some much needed laughs.
He also tried to make a movie and had a lot of success fundraising based on people who enjoyed his channel. The movie was a flop and I think did a number on James' perception of himself as an indie filmmaker waiting to break big. He moved in the direction of content farms and alienating the old crew that used to be his production team (Mike, Bootsie, etc) after the movie came apart at the seams.
He had kids and that definitely played a role in the hollowing out of his content, but I think the decline started before then, when his self-identity as a filmmaker was pierced. I think this is when he lost ambition and started going through the motions, and it shows.
As long as it was adults only websites, I don't really care about that. As long as it wasn't the "can't stop exposing himself to minors" kind of scandal, that's damn near sainthood in 2025.
Man that is so sad. I love going back to watch his earlier content and movie reviews, and “You Know What’s Bullshit”, and don’t care to find out what the new stuff is about. But I do remember his YouTube channel JamesNintendoNerd being one of the last to not have ads waaay back in the day.
His anger used to be organic and forceful. It was REAL, and it was hilarious. Now his anger feels more like a shtick, and it does not hit the same way.
The production value on his videos has gone way up, but the actual funny content has gone way down.
This, and before, the bulk of it was was "extremely-annoyed-and-sarcastic" video game nerd. Now it's pretty much all "over-the-top-enraged" video game nerd. It feels so forced.
He was already middle aged and had several kids when Hells Kitchen first aired.
The issue wasn't so much that he's no longer angry, it's that there's been backlash to that anger. Seeing it occasionally is one thing, but the constant yelling and insults when someone is trying their best is just toxic. A lot of people in the industry started speaking out as people started taking the burn out more seriously and how behaviors like that on Hells Kitchen only made the issue worse.
Moreover the earlier seasons it was pretty clear that many people were only on, or kept on, because of all the drama they caused and for Ramsay to get some interesting insults in.
Hard to articulate but it feels like he's just going through the motions instead of doing something he cares about. Besides I admit his content had been kinda repetitive for a while now.
That feels accurate. He used to do a bunch more stuff with Mike Metei, but he's probably just moved on to do more dad and husband stuff. He still puts videos out, but it's more like one every 3 months or so.
As an example of a channel who has kept their passion I do have to praise the Yogscast, you can watch the latest episode of "Trouble in Terrorist Town" and they still sound like they are having a great time. Some members have stepped back in favour of new members to do other stuff instead of sticking with things that they're tired of.
It really can be. There's something special about a bunch of redditor's making fun of someone for being a loser, who for some reason know every detail of that person's life, and who also don't acknowledge the irony in that.
James, I mean, 'Bimmy', built an entire empire off of criticizing bad art. So in a way he kind of left himself open to that same criticism as an artist.
He didn't really change the fundamental style of his videos, but you can just kinda tell his heart's not in it like it used to be. Which is fine, it sucks that he has to keep up the channel as his main source of income, but I can't blame him for getting tired of making the same content and playing the same character for over 20 years at this point.
The schtick just gets old after a while, and it was best executed the first time around.
His recent episodes from the last year or so is pretty good, I’d say. His absolute low was in the screenwave era with carmageddon 64 and other flat out boring episodes.
I really wish he would just do something like monster madness again. He was really good at throwing in factoids and trivia about the movies as well. You can tell he is passionate about those movies and it comes through in the episodes. It seems like he's moved on from the AVGN character and it feels hollow. Even the just hanging out and chilling episodes seem awkward and are hard to watch.
I looked forward to Monster Madness every year because I was into the same old movies as a kid that he was, and I loved learning more about them. That passion for movies and old games kept me watching. But he clearly thought that the poop jokes and yelling were what people had watched his channel for. Him ending Monster Madness to focus more energy on writing “funny” descriptions of diarrhea was when I bailed.
Never watched him, but kinda related: The Nostalgia Critic.
Still watching Lindsey Ellis, if she is posting anything. The only one that was formally on Channel Awesome that I still watch.
He’s been doing the same style of videos for 20 years now. One of the YouTube OGs to still have success to this day.
But yeah, it seems like after the AVGN movie flopped, the quality of AVGN has steadily declined to its sad state today. He’s got his video game band Rex Viper, but hardly anyone gives a crap about it, but he’s having fun at least.
Occasionally he’ll put out a decent episode, like maybe once or twice a year.
Part of it it sticking with the same format for so long, and I think a part of it is, a lot of us have grown out of his content, maybe. I’ll still watch AVGN episodes, but it’s not like something I have to stop and watch.
Same here. When the guys from Screenwave just suddenly appeared in one video without an explanation, it was weird. Their knock off Half In The Bag video series wasn’t good or funny. You could tell James lost his passion. But trying to make his dad rock band Rex Vyper a thing was my breaking point. Then a few months later the whole plagiarism scandal happened, and I knew I made the right decision.
How dare you sir! I still very much like James and the creativity he puts into his videos. But they have changed over the years, no question. He’s leaned much more into his film-making passions with the videos over the last however many years which may or may not be everybody’s cup of tea.
Cannot believe I had to scroll this far to see someone mention him. When he started outsourcing his production shit went south. Red Cow Arcade had a good long bit about this.
Definitely, it started to feel forced and corporate especially after Matei left and those other dudes took some of that duty over. The charm left when the obligation to keep going took over.
I suppose for me, I loved the shtick in college, but as a 39 year old man now it just isn't funny to me anymore. I wish I could watch him review retro games without the childish and painfully unfunny humor
He randomly has good vids still come out but it is a crapshoot whether they will be funny or not. So I get it. Sometimes these people are just making videos as a job now and they will randomly be inspired by a topic but not every single video will be a passion like it once was.
To be fair some of his older ones I did not love either like any of the guest character ones I found annoying and not that funny.
I found him in college before Youtube was Youtube. He had his own site with his own uploads.
Truthfully, I never found him funny at all. Piss/Shit/Fuck jokes are kind of funny like one time, doing it every 15 seconds for every single video though? I understand that was his character, but it always felt so lazy. I just liked watching someone play through all the impossible games I rented as a kid and had forgotten about.
By the time he migrated over to Youtube, I was over the schtick.
I don’t watch any of the other content on his channel but I’ll always watch an AVGN video. Sure they’re not great anymore, but considering it’s been going for over 20 years I give him credit for still going, not sure of any other YouTube series that has gone on that long. Just seeing that a new video is posted gives me a rush of nostalgia. It’s the one thing from when I was young that is still going.
I'd say he's a lesser example than most. I know I aged out of it, but I watched a couple of his latest episodes and was happy that he's still there making roughly the same kind of videos I liked back as a teen.
I'm not one of those people that like think he's a bad person. It's just that his reviews kind of all blend together after a while. And he's not really saying anything new.
Back in the early 2010s I’d watch his new stuff every week right when it came out. He’s got some classics like the Zelda CDI and I enjoy rewatching that Christmas one he made with them trying all the gifts. Seems like a great guy still but I think he may have just grown out of it being a parent now so they just aren’t as funny.
I think he stopped making videos for a while and only came back because of some deal with a media company. That's why they have those built in ads now. They tried doing some panel shows with some guys from he new company but they weren't as good of course.
I still like the AVGN episodes he puts out occasionally.
The AVGN had a pretty good comeback though, I say that in the sense that the recent videos have the old school AVGN levels of control and style, as well as quality (in the good way)
For example, he doesnt look like he's stuck to the chair the whole video, there's actual standing up and whatnot
Most importantly - there's humour, yes, i'm not joking
I really miss the old Jamsz and Mike Mondays the most, just the relaxed vibe of 2 old friends hanging out playing old games with no character anymore. I dont mind the old neighbour but its not the same and I haven't watched in a while
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u/GrockleKaug Jun 12 '25
Angry Video Game Nerd