The reason why AVGN isn't what he used to be (in my opinion)

Agreed! His sketches are even worse than typical sitcom jokes. He's only entertaining when he is genuinely criticizing the games we grew up playing.

I remember when he made the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and fans were pissed off with the skits. Unfortunately he kept persisting with them like the Nostalgia Critic does with them even though he was conscious of them being hated. Bug Bunny was kind of the final straw so to speak because James invested so many hours into it but nobody wanted it.

I agree with the OP. James isn't the AVGN anymore. He is much more tame and relaxed which I actually dont mind. I would rather James just made reviews with a tamer AVGN than forcing the AVGN. I don't think James has had fun with the AVGN in a long time.

2007 ended with a few not so great reviews like Bug Bunny, Festers Quest, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween and Rambo but it wasnt a disaster. Unfortunately the mediocrity continued in 2008 with Double Vision, CDI Virtual Boy. I remember 1 review - I think Halloween, where he said "admittedly there isnt much to say". Its like he was out of ideas . The ratio of good to bad or mediocre reviews was maybe 1 in 6.

Anyway, now we are in 2015 and it looks like AVGN's popularity is near dead. I think James has only got himself to blame TBH. His reviews have been too infrequent and he made his movie script way too complicated. If he had just done a generic horror film which is his passion, he could have just set it in a mall like Evil Dead and the film would be done in a couple of months.

"He obviously didn't intend for it to be a long lasting series, he only did it because of demand and it generated income for him. So on that note, there's only so much he can do with that character.
"

That's probably true.

Your comment made me realize that what possibly happened was that Rolfe got himself too 'locked in' with the character, that he was afraid to break the mold, once it had become popular.

When, in reality, I think the audiences would have watched _ANY_ good game videos that he had made. They didn't have to be 'AVGN'. But because he became popular through AVGN, he was afraid to NOT be AVGN, when making game videos.

So because of this fear of losing the audience, he stuck with making only AVGN-videos about games - only sometimes daring to make something a bit different. Instead of "Video games with Rolfe", it became "AVGN episodes", with curse words, drinking the same beer, using the same gimmicks, same clothes, and basically doing the same schtick until it got really stale and repetitive.

And then he tried to 'refresh' things by bringing theatric gimmicks and annoying, unnecessary characters into the show, and that's when it started to stink a bit - although the video game parts were still ace.

What if he had never continued the 'AVGN only'-path, but instead, produced all kinds of computer and video game videos, review or not, and had a more wide variety of things to say, instead of limiting himself to just using bad games and cursing? (Which he has, by the way, tried to do later in some ways anyway, so it's not like he WANTED to limit himself to 'anger' and 'bad games' - just look at his Mortal Kombat video - that's not AVGN, and it's not a 'bad game', but it's still a good video, though it could be better in some ways - and how about his Castlevania 'review'?)

I think he'd be an even bigger success.

And what if he never made that movie... in some parallel timeline, there are some REALLY satisfied Rolfe audiences, too bad that we have to live in this one.

Where are the silvery DeLoreans, when you need 'em..?

The sad thing is HE HAS THE TALENT and SKILLS to make completely AWESOME videos(the word 'awesome' used to be a sophisticated thing to say, before 'surfer dudes' started using it, I think)... and indeed already has - but wasted basically 8 years of that talent and those skills to produce this movie instead.

And now he has a 'family', and who knows what other obligations and things, probably less energy, and more 'mature' mindset, and probably less interested in video games anyway, and of course his 'horror fascination' and all that, so the odds of awesome computer and video game videos coming from his direction are not looking promising.

"I actually feel sorry for James concerning the Nerd. He obviously wants to get rid of it. It started out as this fun little character he was doing for fun, but then the Nerd got popular and now he's shackled to it."

Well, it's his choice, whether to believe in the fear and to be shackled, or break the shackles and create a new video game character. Does he DARE do it - that's the only question.

Would it be popular? If the videos are good, it's pretty much guaranteed. Why did the AVGN episodes become popular? Because THEY WERE GOOD. That was the only reason in the beginning.

Good videos always find viewers. Just make the videos good, and they will come. It's just up to him, whether he dares to put risk everything and do it, or whether he will go the trusted, taken path, and do the usual stuff and somehow try to keep it interesting (I am not all that impressed by the Beetlejuice video - he has now resorted to 'naming the game faults' (he already did that in one previous episode, where it actually worked), and that feels artificial and forced - but of course it's easy to critisize, and I don't mind it all that much, at least he's still making AVGN episodes, and I am sure that after a few, he'll get back the knack, and find the balance again. I mean, how long was it between AVGN episodes? It's easy to get a little rusty).

It's not that he's shackled, it's that he chooses to keep wearing those shackles. Whether he actually IS shackled, is his choice.

Wow... we don't have the same view of the character i guess. I loved his recent reviews, and i love the skits, i feel this is what make AVGN so cool....

Im starting to wonder if you people where always just real fans or you jumped on the bandwagon that AVGN was the new "cool thing"

The latest episode was extremely funny and i loved watching the nerd grow up as a character over the years.

When it comes to the movie, i liked it, there is flaws but the good overdoes the bad to me, i have to rewatch it since i saw it on theater a while ago, but i had fun. Sure it was delayed so much and so much hyped that maybe some people felt it came out "flat" but oh well...

But then now people start to attack the series.. cmon. Skits are what made the nerd awesome. You seem to forget about the power glove, the nightmare on elm street review, or friday the 13th... I really prefer the episodes with skits or something to feel very AVGN

Alice is the worst character of all time, she need to die in the last movie. Chris/Jill are RE !!!