#screenwave

#JakeReviewsItch

Angry Video Game Nerd I&II Deluxe

by Retroware

A review in two parts.

See Part I for The Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures.

For The Angry Video Game Nerd II: Assimilation and The Angry Video Game Nerd In Tower of Torment, read on.

You may remember around 11 days ago, I got booted off my Youtube Network. You can read about that in more detail here. The short is that I got kicked out of Fullscreen Entertainment (my Youtube Network, or “MCN”) out of the blue one day and based on what I knew I had done recently, I figured it was because I ran a stream of a bunch of random PC games, including some which triggered a large number of Content IDs on the automatically-generated stream archive (the games included Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3, Crazy Taxi, and a Star Wars tech demo, so there was lots of licensed music). I was given no ability to appeal and there was no discussion, I was just quietly swept out the door and left to fend for myself.

Since then, a few people have contacted me to suggest they were also let go from Fullscreen around the same time, suggesting it was part of a larger move by the network to get rid of a lot of people. Maker Studios did something like this last year, where they let go tens of thousands of Youtube partners in an effort to focus on a smaller core of high-value people with subscriber totals in the millions.

The truth, as it turns out, is somewhere in the middle. But first:

In that previous post, I mentioned my Youtube monetization dropped by more than 2/3rds after Fullscreen terminated my contract -- that was true. However, within a couple days, everything bounced back, so what I’ve heard may in fact also be true: you might not need an MCN in order to make money on Youtube, and regular Google Adsense will work just fine. That being said, the instant it became clear Fullscreen did not want to continue a conversation with me, I immediately applied for Screenwave Media, where I was accepted. They are now my MCN as of day before yesterday. They seem like a much better fit for me than Fullscreen was. Fullscreen was very... I don’t know what word I’m searching for, but I’ll say Fullscreen was very high school. Very preppy. Lots of young, beautiful people with expensive clothes and finely moussed hair. But in that waxy, kinda-fake way that as you get older really creeps you out. That is Fullscreen. (Fullscreen is also the home of Shane Dawson, who was, at least to me, the most annoying man in the early days of Youtube)

Screenwave, on the other hand, seems a lot more like “my people.” If you check out their Twitter account, it’s a lot less shirtless heart throbs and cute girls running talk shows and more... guys like Somecallmejohnny or Super Best Friends Play or Vinny from Vinesauce. People I like, people I connect with, people I’d feel more comfortable around than, say... the Dobre Brothers, whoever the heck those guys are. I think that Screenwave is going to treat me right.

Or that’s the hope, anyway.

As it turns out, Polygon offers a clearer picture as to why I was let go from Fullscreen, and the short answer is that Youtube kind of forced them to. I was apparently one of more than a hundred people dropped from their network that day, all of which were axed because Youtube has implemented a new system to notify MCNs if their partners are considered “at risk” for potential future policy violations. You read that right: Youtube is now apparently profiling channels and seems to be making estimates on whether or not a user is likely to break the rules at some point down the line.

And using this information, they are apparently threatening to punish MCNs for willingly housing these at-risk users. What this means is that, I’d assume, Youtube considers me a “risk” for future policy violations, which spooked Fullscreen hard enough that they severed my contract.

Me. The guy who doesn’t even swear in most of his videos. The guy who tries to properly age gate his videos when the content is too extreme (like the GTA5 clips I had in my GOTY video a few years ago). The guy who has gone out of his way to provide subtitles for other users videos.

I’m an “at risk” user. My Youtube channel was barely even effected by the “Unsuitable For Advertisers” Adpocalypse! But I’m still apparently too hot to handle!

So that’s where we are. It’s possible that I’m still correct -- that the Tony Hawk/Crazy Taxi/Star Wars stream I did two weeks ago pinged so many different Content IDs that it tripped a “High Risk” algorithm at Youtube, which caused Fullscreen to drop me like a sack of hammers. That certainly sounds like something Youtube would do. 

Master Reboot review by Screenwave.