>People figure that after the movie, he'd get back to higher quality AVGN. Maybe it's a bit higher quality after, but few people would say it was back to its previous quality.
>But James did soon after do Season 3 of Board James, and that was seemingly a big passion project for him. For some reason, it's a high concept horror series now, going off the ending of the Dream Phone episode, and while there are still board game reviews, it's really not about that at all anymore. Fans actually seem to like this. AVGN wasn't as good anymore, but it's because his attention was still elsewhere, and the other thing he was making was good.
>Mike and Bootsy were significant parts of this season, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes.
>To compliment the channel, Mike was now taking the lead on more filler content. James & Mike Mondays was successful, so he also did a bunch of Mike & Bootsy Lets Plays, for example.
>In one video about the technical setup for the website servers, they showed their tech guy on camera. His name is Ryan Schlott. He will be important later.
>In the comments of that video with Ryan, Ryan himself left a comment saying "Big Ryan fan, btw." This will also be important later.
>It soon became notable that Bootsy was really damn good at video games, and was able to beat incredibly difficult games. He did episodes of James & Mike Mondays where he actually beat Battletoads and Silver Surfer.
>he then did a series called "Bootsy Beats," where Bootsy does in-depth instructional videos on how to beat hard games. Despite seemingly good reception, it only got one series, where he shows you how to beat BattleToads, then never continued.
>In 2016, with the terrible Ghostbusters reboot coming out, Rolfe did a video called "Ghostbusters (2016). No review. I refuse."
>Some of the earliest and most notable AVGN episodes were about Ghostbusters games. He essentially did a three parter which equalled about an hour of runtime on old Ghostbusters games. Mike later did a video on "Ghostbusters Leftovers," where he did the few remaining games. Of course they also did other lesser videos about the 2009 Ghostbusters game, and reviewed the movies, and James has one video where he went around to various Ghostbusters filming locations.
>So of course people were asking Rolfe for his thoughts on the new movie. His thoughts were in this video, where he explained that it obviously isn't Ghostbusters, so therefore he had no interest in it, he did not want to waste his time or money on it, and thus would not be doing a review.
>SJWs went after him hard, including Patton Oswalt who, very hypocritically, made fun of James for being a nerd. Not only is being a nerd James Rolfe's whole deal, but it's also Patton Oswalt's whole deal.
>people then made fun of Patton Oswalt and said that he was just defensive over the movie because his wife had a cameo. This was a reference to how Patton Oswalt had recently killed his wife. (Look it up. He deliberately OD'd her to put her out of her misery over cancer or something.) Pat the NES Punk didn't realize it was a joke and thought his wife really had a cameo.
>But all the while, James Rolfe never responded. He ignored the SJWs attempting to cancel him, which was clearly the smart thing to do. Obviously it was a small minority of lunatics, and 99% of people agreed with him. Everyone thought James was smart and stoic. Later events would make people reconsider.
>Shortly after, Rolfe did an AVGN episode on the Mega Man series. The episode is about how the series has been done to death, but at the same time, he doesn't want it to go away forever. He wants it to just come back now and then, when the creators actually have a good idea for it. The metaphor about his own series is not subtle.
>some time after this, he did an episode where he got Gilbert Gottfried to guest star. Most people would say it was not a very well written or directed episode. Not a very funny script. But Gilbert Gottfried is funny and it's pretty cool they could get him.
>Over the years, Rolfe showed his awesome basement setup. His basement was his set for AVGN, with walls covered in shelves with thousands of games.
>But movies are his real passion, so in one room of his basement, he built his own replica video store. It wasn't exact, of course. Not too many video stores had wood panelling everywhere, but still, it was pretty cool and he was clearly proud of it.
>Soon after that Mega Man episode, he started a new series called Rental Reviews, where he and a few other people stand around and give off the cuff reviews of movies, in his basement video store. Yes, it it a blatant ripoff of RedLetterMedia's videos, though the other guys get mad if you bring it up.
>But who were the other guys? Mike? Bootsy? Kyle Justin? Maybe Kevin Flynn (though the fans didn't like him)?
>No, it was Ryan and three new guys, Justin Silverman, "Tony From HackTheMovies," (he made them call him that every time,) and Kieran.
>Fans were confused at first, wondering why there were these new guys and none of the old guys, except for Mike who would appear occasionally.
>then they realized that a new company was producing Cinemassacre's content. Rolfe was previously affiliated with Screwattack, but they were long gone. Now there was a new company, Screenwave Media. Screenwave Media was owned by Ryan Schlott.
>It turns out that Ryan's dad was rich and funded many failed business ventures. Now Ryan's newest venture was a media company, and he already had ties to Cinemassacre, so he got them on board.
>Justin, Tony, and Kieran were employees of Screenwave, not of Cinemassacre.
>This meant Ryan was effectively the boss of everybody, including James. This combined with his Youtube comment of "Big Ryan fan, btw" resulted in the fans giving him the nickname "Big Ryan."
>Since Ryan and the Screenwave employees were all big fat guys, they were also collectively called "The Screenslobs," or just "the slobs" for short.
>The slobs are all five to ten years younger than James and Mike, so there is no shared experience to discuss. A very big part of the channel is '80s nostalgia, which James and Mike (and Bootsy, and Kyle) shared. Whenever James would bring up his experience with seeing some '80s movie, the other guys would say stuff like "Yeah I was too young for that." At the same time, James was visibly bored with all of their stupid stories, which didn't match either the content or the style of the stories James and the other old guys would tell. James would just constantly go "yeah. Yeah. Mmmhmm." Clearly bored. Fans noticed and made fun of this.
>The show ended after two years, and Tony just took over the set and continued the show on his own channel but under a new name, with his friends instead of James, Justin, and Big Ryan.
>They would argue that they are not the boss of James, that actually James and Mike co-own Cinemassacre, and they just hire Screenwave to help out, but by this point it's becoming clear that things are changing very significantly.
>The style of writing and of editing is changing drastically, and fans are becoming convinced that James isn't doing either of these things. It was known that sometimes Mike and Bootsy edited as well, and Mike seemed to help with writing, but it doesn't feel like it did before, when it was just those three guys.
>There is a reddit board called "The Cinemassacre" that is the official run, and Mike is seemingly in charge, but he is apparently banning people who make fun of him, make fun of The Screenslobs, and question where Bootsy has been.
>in response, fans make a new board called "The Cinemassacre Truth," where you can speak the truth without getting banned by Mike.
>Meanwhile, one night Mike gets drunk and, deciding to put the rumors to rest, goes on the official reddit board and posts a picture of his dick next to a measuring tape. Turns out the rumors were true.