I enjoyed your documentary on my good friend Mark Bussler of CGR! I was one of Mark's biggest early contributors with dozens of my donated on classic games that Mark reviewed & his team at CGR Undertow also reviewed of my many PS1 & PS2 games! Later Mark created his CGR Garage where I donated a lot of expensive Danbury Mint die cast cars & other rare collectibles of cars. I painted a elaborate 1969 Red El Camino photorealistic acrylic painting that was on marine plywood & contour cut-out especially for Mark who proudly displayed it in the upper background of his new big warehouse where he had all his arcade machines all around him & he could drive his real 1970 Silver El Camino on to the set! Mark did a special un-boxing of my original Art El Camino on CGR, later he asked me if he could interview me & I was one of the first gaming personalities to be on his new interview series, mine was in 3 parts. You can see that El Camino un-boxing & my interview with Mark discussing Art & Video Games on my channel under Mark & Dean Playlist & they should be also still available on CGR YT channel. Thank you very much for showcasing Mark & CGR, you did his legacy justice my friend. Gabe reviewed some of my games along with Derrick & others, for a short time Gabe & I were on his podcast, Gabe's father was Mark's Lawyer who protected his interest on CGR. Mark sent me many gifts as well, T-shirts, his first CGR beer mug actually shown in his video about it & even some Atari 2600 games signed by Mark. I know many things good & bad that went down at CGR sadly as I saw the once great CGR slowly fizzle out. Anyway have a very Merry Christmas mate, I love your channel!
@@XenonXyanide I got somewhat disillusioned seeing what was happening to CGR like yourself & others who savored early CGR, it was the inspiration for my own little vlog channel & reviews. Mark's dad was the main source of financing for CGR, as he backed Mark on much of the endeavors & his father had a woman running it all like a structured business,, it was her that was the buffer between Mark & the public as well as the one hiring & firing the many reviewers. They only paid $20 for a finished & edited review which they would slap their brand on at the start & end of each video. I got a friend of mine Russell to review for Undertow, I was shocked how little they paid him. Mark simply lived in that world his dad manifested & when it all wasn't profitable any longer it was his dad that closed down their warehouse business offices. Mark sadly started getting political on Twitter & I pleaded with him not to do it as we loved CGR as escapism away from the drama of politics & life. It was at that point as the Patreon took over I went off all social media for good but kept my YT channel to stay in touch with friends. I sent Mark an email this morning as your video triggered so many memories I had with CGR, next to Mohammed from Quater I was their biggest contributor, it was a big part of my life then & Mark was a good old soul trapped in a modern age like myself, I miss him.
@@vinniecorleone62 Hmm, that probably explains the quality of the later reviews and the footage only displaying the first few levels/stages of a game. It's how Derek Buck states, the attitude was #content, content, content. Imagine being tasked with reviewing a 10+ hour game, then supplying narration/critique and then having some reviews to do the same day?... It's simply not possible. For $20 too, that's pretty horrendous. It took me a good week or so to write, narrate and edit my 'Blade II' review for my channel. What was your stance on the donated gaming items being potentially sold on? That warehouse set-up seen in the 2013 era onwards looked like it had a silly amount of software/hardware sent into the show. I assumed it was possibly a family figure financing some of this, as the original 'The Game Room' 1999 had Michael Bussler's name to it, but the internet in this rare instance didn't provide that factual information for this Retrospective. I didn't name his Dad as a financier for this reason, I did see a comment about him being a "trust-fund baby", but I wasn't going to include personal insults in the video. Likewise, I did consistently see comments from previous contributors stating the items they sent in were being sold on eBay. Exactly, I watched his reviews for the reviews and exposure to potentially obscure games that I didn't know about. Towards the end, it was goofy and all a self-indulgent spectacle as a front-end, money and politics behind the scenes. The Pat Contri interview really highlights this. As a viewer, we just would like to see what the show originally started out as, a Game Show that was originally presented by a passionate gamer. Not 60-second Tik-Tok mess, nor references to Truxton and the Vectrex.
@@XenonXyanide Even his Silver El Camino was bought by his dad written off as a business expense as Mark asked me to help him locate a good clean rust free El Camino. Suddenly they found one on their own without my involvement. I had given my old collection of favorite games from PS1 & PS2 to CGR, that woman who I never cared for sent me a email after I mailed them all in that she wanted them all for the new then CGR Undertow, I sheepishly agreed but felt bummed out that Mark didn't get to them initially. Derek was a jerk who reviewed a bunch of them & in every review said something demeaning about me as he didn't like my overly macho violent 3 "Duke Nukem" PS1 games nor my "Manhunt 1 & 2" PS2 games. Kevin liked me as did Gabe & always spoke nicely about me. Derek snapped at me on Facebook over my Libertarian views & soon unfriended me after insulting me in my comments. I mentioned it to Mark & he must have gone off on Derek as he had a much different attitude Suddenly after what happened. Later I mentioned my many games I wanted Mark to review & he did them justice especially my favorite PS2 game "Wolfenstein Return to Castle: Operation Resurrection" & many others. He told me just to email him directly after my frustration with the woman manager there & I did. I was friends with Amanda & Jen who where big in Undertow & the PC review show, both went on to game development after their schooling was finished. As far as donated items go I donated an obscure PS1 launch game "Return Fire" which it & all my retro game donated I later proceeded to buy back which has been costly as you can imagine. But "Return Fire" was rare & very expensive at $340 for a sealed new copy, so I was embarrassed but I asked Mark if I could just have the one game back which he instantly said of course & promptly mailed it back with a bunch of CGR stickers I still have. Later I got rumor of Mark or his company selling off all the hundreds of dollars of collectibles & games myself & obviously many others lovingly donated generously. I would have liked the courtesy of a call saying I could have them all back but I was just happy in the end to contribute as I got a kick out of Mark & others reviewing them. Later near the end I asked Mark on Twitter before going off all social media what became of the El Camino painting I spent over 70 hours painting for him, he replied back on Twitter with him in front of the camera with his hands up & a facial expression of "Gee, I don't know!" yet there above his head in his office by itself hanging on his wall proudly witch I greatly appreciated & let him know as I created it especially for him with a California license plate that said "LRD KRNG". Merry Christmas mate, I enjoyed chatting with you!
@@XenonXyanide Another fact about Undertow was that the reviewers only had to play the first 3 chapters of any game then render their opinions. Derek played the beginning of "Spec Ops The Line" & mentioned, "Here we go with yet another shooter with American soldiers shooting Muslims..." He obviously never played the iconic game I & many others love as it was about a lost American Commander & the mental torture his men went through pursuing him. That video got massive thumbs down & Derek never copped to it.
I'll never forget the day Mark went to E3 around 2011 and when he interviewed some SEGA staff about a new game they were launching he asked: ""When is this gonna be released for the 32X?" The look on the SEGA guys faces was priceless.
I used to watch Classic Game Room 10 years ago. I loved their videos from the late 2000s-Early 2010s. Mark's review of the Sega Genesis got me into playing Genesis again and I started to buy more Genesis games in the 2010s thanks to him.
I liked the 2008 - 2009 era. Mark gave in-depth reviews for new releases back then, when the typical UA-cam review was short and of low quality. He was much too focused on being edgy, quirky and showing off the large company premises on the later videos, losing sight of what made him popular in the first place.
He's too fixated on that time. He says he still wants to do that more than anything, but after listening to him, it's clear he doesn't want to do the leg work needed to build a channel. He just wants a job handed to him, which isn't how it works in 2023. Either attempt to build your own brand or move on.
CGR HD was probably the best era but I still enjoyed CGR even when Mark got overly quirky and leaned way too hard into his injokes. But I'm also probably grossly biased. *points to screenname* Mark's breakdown over Content ID was when things really started falling apart. Only diehards like me kept watching on DailyMotion, Ain't nobody wanna deal with a paywall to watch CGR, not even some dork like me who didn't get tired of the Truxton and Vectrex spam. He had a good thing going with Patreon funding the series, it's a shame he didn't just stick to that. I hope he's having fun... doing whatever he's doing now. I listen to that podcast when it pops up, it's nice just hearing him, haha.
I get Mark's frustration with UA-cam like their lack of communication, but we're all in the same boat. By being that guy who took no accountability for it's decline, his channel was destined to die out. The Patreon fiasco was the final nail in the coffin for me as well, it really said a lot about what he really thought of his fans. But it is interesting how much he has self-sabotaged his brand since then, ngl.
can you explain the patreon fiasco? i always used to watch this channel for what seems like almost 2 decades but don't know what happened to the channel or him.
@@fawkkyutuu8851 Sorry for the late reply, but Mark made a Patreon specifically to keep CGR on UA-cam and had several grand (at one point even 10k) in monthly donations to do that, but soon he jumped ship to Amazon anyway behind another paywall, while still taking donations. That's when the constant rebranding started too I think. He got greedy and delusional, basically. It's not like he ever needed to truly budget in order to make an episode to begin with, let's be honest..
This video is phenomenal. It's one of the few really long YT videos I've seen that justifies itself being an hour long. I really appreciate the side-by-side of the GT5 and GT6 videos, it's the exact reason I grew away from his content. I have every HD episode I could find up to about 2010 backed up. They've aged terrifically well. I've heard people say that CGR mostly got big from having the shiniest gear at the time, and that's partially true, but I don't know if that's all the secret sauce was made of. CGR was the reason I wanted to get into video editing as a little kid. One of my favorite CGR videos ever is the one where he reverse-engineers the original series' Omega Boost episode from the raw studio footage, and seeing his setup with the dual monitors and the gigantic library of Betacam tapes, it was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen at 8 years old. Beyond that, there's a certain relaxed nature to CGR HD that has made it age as well as it has. He even alludes to it in the Zaxton 2600 review, the first HD video; it's more relaxed, it's more laid back, it's not trying to grab your attention. The bit about not covering contemporary games isn't something I thought of, but it's a really good point. I had no interest in all those shiny new consoles as a kid, but I dutifully watched the PS3 and 360 videos and seeing them now makes me want to get into those consoles, again, having never owned them. That's what appeals to me about CGR to this day, even when a lot of channels people recommend as being similar don't. It's just a dumb celebration of games, all games, being fun. It's not about the warehouse or the car or the characters and "plotlines" and it's not about being journalistic, a deep dive into some game I really don't care about--it's just a stream of consciousness for a couple minutes about all the cool stuff in a game like you'd hear from any other random person. 2008 Mark wasn't a character. He was just a guy. At some point, he became a character, and that's not what ever appealed to me about him. I don't really have a point, but yeah. CGR was pretty important to me, and this video is a really good encapsulation of how someone can forget what they're good at. I hope Mark's off doing something that makes him happy. That interview with him towards the end sounds like the opposite of a happy person.
Ah fuck man. As a pretty insensitive pre-teen during CGR’s heyday, I always looked at Derek as like a “Lesser Mark”. This retrospective really moved some memories for me and made me realize how passionate Derek really was. I hope he gets another day in the sun.
I am so glad there is finally a documentary-style video on CGR. I loved this channel back in the day and it is a damn shame that it is gone. Thank you so much man!
Thanks buddy, glad you liked it. He's actually back on UA-cam but in more of a podcast variation, and of course, he's changed the name of his channel yet again 🤦
@@XenonXyanide I think I saw something about that on Reddit the other day. I need to give a listen to see if it's any good. That doesn't surprise me. It feels like he wants to move on from the CGR name and create a new brand that could grow and be as big as CGR once was. That is going to be next to impossible due to his unwillingness to adapt to the times. If it wasn't for his many poor business decisions and not refining CGR to capture the modern audience while also pleasing the classic audience at the same time, CGR would still be around and be even bigger than it was.
I pretty much agree with your assessment of CGR. I subscribed to CGR & CGR Undertow for many years and it got to a point where I was watching CGR Undertow rather than CGR. Derek was consistent with his critique where as Mark was going way off course compared to when he started. If he stayed consistent and didn't expand so much he would have had 10+ million subs easy. I think Mark thought CGR was bigger than what it was. It should have been No1 but people like Angry Joe and James Rolfe drove past Mark and left him for dead. Mark seemed really bitter in that Pat Contri interview. When Mark changed the channel to Lord Karnage he really lost me. I didn't know what that was about. WHY??? LOL.
If I recall correctly, he didn't change the channel name to "Lord Karnage" on purpose. It happened during the time when Google+ and UA-cam merged. A lot of channel names had changed to whatever they were on Google+, and Lord Karnage was just his name on Google+.
Really insightful and well put-together video! Personally, I really enjoyed all of the HD era CGR videos, despite how often Mark went off about Truxton and the Vectrex, and of course, his El Camino. I just saw it as him having fun / being passionate about those things, and I really enjoyed that. It is really sad to see the CGR franchise die out, considering it was a pretty large chunk of my childhood, exploring UA-cam, and I do hope Mark is doing well these days.
Appreciated that you reported it as is and didn't try to dunk on Mark at the end. I was a late subscriber (Mark III era?) and your assessment was spot on. The quality was enough to check out the back catalog but it became hit or miss after that. A shame really.
Thanks for the feedback 👍 I tried to not be biased/overly harsh and report the facts that I could find. Still getting to grips with my retrospectives so I really appreciate the comments. Thanks again 🍺
Funnily enough I never got tired of Mark's style of comedy - even the constant mentions of Truxton and the Vectrex - hell that's what got me to stick around in fact. It is sad to get a clearer-ish picture of what happened during the decline (we can only really guess at this point at what goes on in Mark's head apart from the Pat interview and his business moves but nothing beyond that). My guess is Mark did see that times were changing but instead of adapting, he lashed out. (i.e. cynical TikTok vids where he's doing his impression of a 12 year old on Adderall mocking CGR, and the strict Patreon/Amazon paywalls instead of using TikTok as 60 second snippets of the best parts of CGR and using Patreon more for community engagement rather than exclusively dumping all of the content on there) I can really only look at the bad business decisions in hindsight (the expansion for example is only weird in hindsight since it was a huge thing back then to establish a network like Normal Boots or Machinima: two examples of once huge partnerships/networks being the origins of a lot of huge UA-cam names today), since no content creator really knew how to adapt to the changes during that time and things only really stabilized a long while after, but it is still unfortunate that the show took the turns that it did. Even the people who worked with Mark don't seem to have ill will towards the guy, it just looks like the huge UA-cam copyright/algorithm shift was an unwanted trial by fire for every big content creator, and CGR was a casualty.
Thanks for this retrospective. I honestly forgotten about it until another post showed a game that seemed interesting (in how it even exists) and went to YT to see if there was a review done. CGR Undertow did it and it took me back... Maybe since I was a fan in its later stages (2012-2016 or so) I didnt notice some of the issues. I was watching the new stuff along with some of the older and it was a good time. I can understand Mark's bitterness towards YT, as it was pretty much the beginning of it being the big headed, and terrible platform that it is today for creators and viewers. However, its sad to see how he went from overly ambitious he was in the early days to being pretty jaded with the landscape and money hungry he was in the later days. Not only that, his content (for better or worse) gradually became weaker as time went on. I can empasize with him a bit, since everything that creaters now have to combat what YT is doing now was in its infancy when it first started, but again, I wished he looked himself in the mirror and found ways to improve the channel instead of what he did. Now its a shell of its former self named CGR Publishing. I do wish that Mark would return, but its clear that he's moved on. At the very least, I hope a sucessor could take his place to somehow recapture the glory days. At least we have the old stuff to fall back on.
Man, listening to Derek in that podcast talk about the end really made me emotional, because I felt his passion, and I adored his content. He felt like a friend you'd sit down to play a game with. It would have been less sad if it was something he wanted, but it was the opposite, and everyone lost. He's still one of the best reviewers ever on UA-cam and I still look up CGRundertow reviews every once in a while and really truly miss it. Nothing lasts forever, sadly. I think at least, Derek's content didn't jump the shark and his plethora of reviews is still available evergreen content for people to see if they missed it.
You say that Mark's show was the very first internet show about games, started in 1999. However, in 1998, a company called Pseudo started several different streaming video channels on Real Player, including a channel called "All Games Network" which had multiple shows about video games, including a daily (except weekends) news and interview show called "Game Time." All Games Network was created by Scot Rubin, who went on to co-found the TV network G4.
I'll have to look into that, thanks for the info! I did dig around and I couldn't see anything about there being another gaming show than The Game Room 👍
@@XenonXyanide I watched AGN back then and thought it was pretty cool. They did one style of segment I've never seen before or since -- a live comedic trivia game called "Thunk" with a cast of animated characters as the hosts who would interact with the live audience in chat. The art of the characters was extremely simple and they had very primitive and imprecise animation, but an interesting idea and the guys doing the voices of the characters were funny. There's at least one clip of it on UA-cam. Anyway, thank you for this video!
Oh my god, you should have seen the look on my face when you said CGR changed it's name to Lord Karnage (the beginning of the downfall) in 2013, almost a decade ago. Time flies, it does not feel like it was that long ago, wow. If only Derek would come back to UA-cam to do game content, that's all I want. Great video, btw.
Insanely disappointing to know. CGR was an og fave of mine. We even lived in the same area and I met him at PAPA twice, he was super nice and seemed like a good dude. Wouldn't have even known about PAPA if it weren't for Mark. Sucks man. Had no clue there was even any controversy about the channel until yesterday. I knew he renamed the channel a ton of times but I never knew what the deal was. Feels bad, man.
21:02 When you said Truxton, I instantly replied aloud with "and vectrex" in perfect sync with you. Those injokes were never even funny, just charming for a very brief period before that dead horse was beaten into paste for years on end... it was completely insufferable, but yet, it was a non-issue compared with the complete absence of everything that made CGR HD so beloved during those early couple of years. For me, it was never the critique, Mark never did much of that or spoke on technical topics. Rather, he was able to find something he liked in everything he played and focused on the positive aspects and things like games just being fun. In an era of edgy, "angry" reviewers, Mark was never angry and was finding joy in everything he played, and that was honestly really special. Those early years had a lot of heart. What a tragic wrong turn it took.
Thank you for putting in the time to researching this. I remember so much of Derek's skits, and how wholesome they still are to this day. I feel awful how much this affected him in the years since.
Classic Game Room. The channel that made interested in gaming, the channel that made me know about Truxton. The channel that inspired me to make my own channel and review. RIP CGR
It's really a shame. He's not wrong about alot when it comes to You Tube, but instead of adapting he got cocky and thought his stuff was good enough to put behind a pay wall and it wasn't. I got really worn out with all the comic book crap andthe short and awful who defeatz videos. I never joined the Patreon. The thing is, if you're going to put your content behind a pay wall you should do the content that you couldn't do on You Tube that people want to see. That was the whole point of crowd funding! He then should have done all the safe retro stuff on You Tube, but instead turned it into a constant plug for his stupid books and comics! I never even knew about the Tictok stuff. That stuff is super cringeworthy. Excellent video as always.
I've been following CGR since about 2010, so I have to say I appreciate someone finally making this kind of video since I've been waiting for this thing a while now. However I do hope you are open for some criticism because I do not feel that this video is completely fair - it feels a lot more like a "drama timeline" type of thing more than a retrospective, in fact I even felt most of the video has a negative tone, beginning as early as 15-20 minutes in. Of course many of the things I do agree with and a lot of things are undeniably true, like Gabe's rushed, nearly effortless reviews (Undertow was still cool though), and of course the constant rebranding and confused decisions like mixing history-related videos with gaming videos instead of splitting the content onto another channel. But there are things that weren't really covered fairly that need to be addressed. The merch promotion in CGR's videos were, from the beginning, nowhere near as bad as you make it out to be in the video, it only lasted a few seconds in each video and didn't become intrusive until 2018-19 when he started flooding the channel/patreon/his website with merch content. Before that, us fans didn't mind it even if some of it looked really weird. The next thing is the namechange to Lord Karnage, and if I remember this correctly, around this time google were forcefully integrating their shitty facebook-clone "google+" into UA-cam, merging the two. I could be wrong here but I believe they forced everyone on youtube to change their profile name, into a real, personal name with a first and last name. The original name was InecomCompany, one word. My username was just one word too but I was forced to change it as well. Anyway I don't think this change caused much harm. As for his opinions on youtube as a service and company, I honestly agree with nearly everything he said to Pat, even if he did sound bitter. CGR is only one of many channels that got fucked by youtube, and even if Mark did make mistakes himself, it's not just him. Think of all youtubers that are either struggling or have fallen completely just like CGR. There isn't much gaming content left to see honestly, at least when it comes to entertainment-oriented channels. Jontron and penguinz0 mostly dropped gaming and switched topics, LGR is mostly tech/computers now, cinemassacre seriously struggling, game grumps spamming compilations and filler material, Ahoy almost stopped, Life of Boris struggling too. UA-cam is a dying platform now really. Maybe not for informational videos, but for entertaining game videos it's almost dead. On the topic of information-style vs entertainment-styled videos, I got from this video that you seem to prefer the former. That's fine if you prefer informational stuff, I guess each to their own, but CGR was never really about serious journalism, in fact Mark has stated in interviews that it's mostly about fun as opposed to serious critique. This is where I feel your video isn't fair at all, when you start bashing Bussler's campy humor for seemingly no good reason at all. The truth is in fact that CGR was at its peak during this period, when Mark became more confident in what he was doing and really clearly enjoying himself and loving what he does. The frequent praising of Truxton and Vectrex is by no means "cringeworthy", in fact this was when CGR became an iconic gaming channel with an established fan following. Driving the El Camino into the Intergalactic Space Arcade was particularly classy, seeing that again nearly made my day honestly. In many ways this felt like a return to the crazier, early episodes from 1999, so when people talk shit about Mark for his humor I simply wonder, have they even seen the original 1999 show? The X-Men review in particular was no less crazy than 2014 Mark. Speaking of the original show, have you seen the 2007 DVD documentary on it? It was never mentioned in the video which is somewhat disappointing as well. The Best of CGR DVD was great too, but I assume these dvds are now hard to find(haven't checked). Anyway I think it is a mistake to only prefer the 2008-2009 period, as you are most likely missing the whole point of the show, which is entertainment first and journalism second. It's no different than AVGN or dunkey. I'd bet most fans would say CGR was great up until 2016/17 at least. After that it did go downhill, but even CGR 2085 was great at first but stagnated fairly quickly, probably because of the paywall which is not a good idea for a show like this I think. 2019 is when the show seriously suffered and Mark's madman-style humor packed into 1 minute videos was the only thing he was capable of producing, I guess. So it became a lot weirder and outright obnoxious after that. The renaming of the main channel didn't make any sense either and is arguably his biggest mistake. Apparently he is back now in a podcast-format, which sounds cool. It sounds fairly good actually so I hope it succeeds. Anyway man I appreciate all the research you did and all the effort you've made if nothing else. It just seems that drama is all the internet talks about these days. I want to be on the bright side: Classic Game Room is a youtube and internet legend that I wish people would give more recognition and credit, and I hope the legacy of Lord Karnage will live forever throughout the galaxy and the cosmos.
Really appreciate any type of constructive criticism, so no problem at all. I'm an old-school UA-cam user, but still getting to grips with content creation, thanks for watching. But, here's my take: With regard to the name changes, I think in terms of what other UA-camrs were experiencing at the same time; difficult (then) ToS changes by UA-cam, I really do believe Mark at CGR took an overly reactionary approach. Angry Joe, Kim Justice, Bit-Head 1000, Game Chasers, Larry Bundy JR, Rerez, Nitro Rad etc. Have been around for years and are still making videos on gaming, and their channels are bigger than ever. From what I can remember, they didn't change their channel names 6x times within 5x years, moved into a large warehouse, sell on donations, or create several gaming YT accounts, which are now dead, to host the same content that could be on 1x channel. Undoubtedly, they will be content creators, just like you mentioned that have declining returns in recent years for different reasons, but the point I was getting across in my video is adapting to the times. Bad 'business' decisions that were more self-inflicted than resolving the problems at hand. At 31:14 in my video, Mark says: "I haven't really changed it all that much, since it started, even though the internet has changed a lot around it... I'm not interested in adapting the show to the modern internet". I think that a very interesting take from Mark, because towards the rear end of Classic Game Room, the 'Infinity' era was a real mess and showed he was trying to cater towards the "modern internet". My point is, and citing the references to the Derek Buck interview, he wanted to run CGR into a business, and the decisions he made were clearly performed by somebody who didn't have some structured roadmap for CGR needed to be on UA-cam. The key point here, is what CGR needed to be going forward on YT, not expanding to a large corporate entity. As a previous subscriber, and viewer to CGR, I believe the tone I was conveying was appropriate. As 2011 era onwards did have a declining quality in regard to content and engagement with his own viewership. Go back and look at any of the previous videos on 'Classic Game Room', 'Undertow', 'Overboard' etc. It's very rare, if at all, to see any of the CGR team engage with people directly in the comments or take on construction criticism. Yes, I do agree with that Mark has been more about how much fun a game is rather than it being an informational critique on a said game. But, I address this at the start of the video during 2:03. The issue is the persona of Mark Bussler is being taken more centrefold than the 'Classic Game Room' entity in the later years, of course, in my opinion. It still didn't stop Mark from highlighting that he's providing a 'journalistic review' at the start of his videos, later changing it to the "cure for the corporate review", which is ironic because he tried turning CGR into a corporate entity. I used to watch his videos to see what was initially a decent mix of information and gameplay footage. The 2009 video review for 'Damnation' is a great example. Purely because he's playing a shit game, but he's doing his best to show it has some redeeming features, level design, co-op and the world setting. This review structure seems to have been thrown out of the window with the 'business' era of CGR. The review of 'Wipeout - Omega Collection' is a good example. He's being more goofy and referencing 'Truxton', twice, in that review, rather than spending those 6 minutes going into what makes the game great... I think Mark forgets that for some viewers, like myself, why we watched his content; for the original CGR mix of information and gameplay, not *just* for Mark Bussler. That's not to take away from any comedic elements from Mark, but highlighting the same joke in more or less each video; 'Vectrex', 'Truxton', just me bores off to death and disengages me from watching any further content. As for the merch spamming, it was sometimes at the start and the end of each video in the later years. He ironically changed up his own formula without realizing it, blaming the majority of the issues at UA-cam. The platform isn't perfect, as he clearly mentions in the Pat Contri interview, but why keep coming back to UA-cam then? He's done Daily Motion, Amazon, Pateron, Tik-Tok, Instagram exclusively... And he keeps coming back to the platform he hates? Mark Bussler doesn't have any sort of direction or business acumen when it comes to running Classic Game Room when it was a *business*. It looks like CGR Publishing is doing well? Good on him if it is, but as a viewer, the whole CGR saga is a mess. To ask a viewer to provide money for a book on how to run a 'How to Make a Video-game Review Show that Doesn't Suck' is laughable. As is for paywalled content, it was ultimately not worthwhile in my opinion, as the past has shown, which is why the negative tone in my retrospective is very relevant. The 2007 DVD was unfortunately not available to me but from what I understand, it's more of a collection of what's already on UA-cam? We'll see if the podcast lasts, he doesn't have the best track record of sustaining content on his channel. The first few of the videos has some strong engagement, but that's soon died off to low views once the subscribers realized he's' not doing game reviews again. Maybe he'll do them again? Who knows. But for somebody that hates UA-cam, he can't stay away from it, and the legacy of CGR is relatively still nostalgic for some people, possibly he'll come back stronger than ever? We'll see. Some people in the comments of his videos some a little positive that he's back and good on them, but I remain slightly pessimistic. Overall, I tried to be as balanced as possible towards the entire 'Classic Game Room' entity, as it's obviously inspired many others content creators out there, which may have gone on to be larger than CGR ever was. As a previous subscriber, it is more of a feeling of disappointment towards CGR than anger, which is why I ended my video the way it did; it imploded under crap management, but I Mark hoping he's doing all the best.
@@XenonXyanide Cool thanks for the reply. Like I said it is true that informative gaming channels still do well on YT and there are still tons of videos worth watching. But I still can't help but feel that the golden age is far gone and the biggest channels are either dead or struggling. The channels you listed produce respectable material and I do watch their type of content from time to time at least(your channel seems ok too). However most channels like that are fairly small, so it's like we're being pushed underground in a way when you think about it, and most of them seem to be on the more relaxed, informative side, some of them seem to have more quantity than quality which is fine but my point was that this is practically all we have now. As much as I like the 8-bit guy and nostalgia nerd etc, it's very hard to find some real balls-to-the-wall entertainment like early AVGN, Jontron and of course CGR, nowadays. I find this content is disappearing and creating a hollow space in youtube. And I think youtube(google) has a lot of blame in this, I think most would agree. But of course it is also very possible that Mark became unusually aggressive and went way too far, I am certainly not ruling that out. It's also possible that he had some very real difficulties adapting his methods to the newer times, because I can't deny he does appear very frustrated and confused sometimes, but to what extent I don't know. Your perceived decline in CGR quality in 2011 felt to me like the complete opposite really, and from what I've seen the fans appear to agree, at least that is how it felt back then. What I experienced was that in 2012-2013, CGR became more popular than ever and really started to rival all other big gaming channels. CGR was huge in that time, one of the biggest in all of youtube, from my perspective. The CGR Empire was at its peak in terms of employees, and you had CGRUndertow to complement the main channel even if it was hit-or-miss at times. As for the interaction with fans, I do know that both Mark and Undertow had a few livestreams back in 2014(I think), where they actually interacted with fans in the chat, in fact I even received a response from Derek and his colleague(Brandon I think was his name?) which was really cool at the time. I do know Mark responded to chat comments too but it's been a while since I watched the streams. The fans were really dedicated in this period which is evident in how both CGR and CGRUndertow DVDs got successfully backed on Kickstarter. When it comes to the change of humor and general style, you can think of it like this: just because it's different doesn't mean it's bad. Because really it's two sides of the same coin. And if it's not your style that is fine, but for me, even if it's just Mark rambling about 80's TV shows and flamethrowers over some game footage and almost going completely off-topic, I still love the hell out of it just because it's him, you know? Back then I thought Mark Bussler could make literally anything interesting, the footage can be any dull modern AAA overhyped crap game but Mark still makes it cool. That was his strength. But sure I also understand that multiple sides of a franchise have their respective strengths and weaknesses. Because of this, some people hate Resident Evil 4, for example, because it wasn't the same thing from earlier they liked from the franchise. I tend to really like campy and bizarre gaming videos even if it means sacrificing most of the game discussion. Look at early Game Grumps as an example. Jon and Arin are practically fighting each other and going batshit crazy, screaming and nearly destroying the microphone, and many times going almost completely off-topic for several minutes. I find this type of stuff hilarious, but if it's not your thing, as I said, to each their own, do your own thing. I just felt that calling even 2013 CGR humor cringeworthy was just a few steps too far. I understand the negative tone if it is an in-depth drama analysis, but since the title said Retrospective i expected it to be mostly positive since that is what I associate with that word. Not that it should be completely uncritical of course. Perhaps the only problem then is the video title, or is it just me? Retrospectives tend to usually be more positive in tone, if I am not mistaken. The 2007 DVD is a collection of 1999-2000 episodes but wrapped around the whole thing is a story presented as a documentary, chronicling the rise and fall of the original show and narrated by Bussler. In-between each episode is a lot of info and details on how the whole thing happened and how it got canceled. It's pretty much a full-fledged documentary with all the best moments from the show, so I would recommend it to anybody who could manage to find a copy of it if possible. In fact it's one of the best things CGR did without a doubt. The 2015(I think?) Best of Classic Game Room is very similar, and that one too is some of the best CGR material if you ask me. It contains the most memorable episodes from 2008 up until that point and again with a story to piece everything together, and even some exclusive DVD-only stuff like a Half-Life 1 review. As for the future of Classic Game Room and Mark, I do have some kind of skepticism, naturally, given everything that has happened. But I guess you never know. Who could tell, I guess anything can happen. So I'm not pessimistic or hyped for anything, but I just hope we get something, and the podcast at least seems somewhat cool.
Classic case of Stockholm syndrome. Lets be honest about it and cut through the BS. Mark was always a grifter from the very beginning and he holds his fans (including long time fans such as yourself) with utter contempt and spite. His content from the beginning was nothing but gimmicky, clickbait trash with so called "reviews" for games that mostly consisted of him showing the box and making some lame joke, as well as about 3 minutes of game play with little to no information about the game whatsoever. You say his content was purely about "entertainment" I personally think you are just nostalgia blind in that case as objectively speaking there was nothing entertaining about his videos. As for Undertow, that channel was nothing but mass produced garbage (Derek as good as admitted so) taking views away from actual, real game reviewers who make proper reviews with genuine information and good production values. Playing the tutorial and maybe the first level for about half an hour, then slapping together a 3 minute "review" should not be titled a "review" at all. More like "first impressions" or something like that. Not only that but their reviews were not only garbage, but they were flat out misleading at times filled with false representations of games that the reviewers had clearly not played much of. The way Mark treats his long time fans, completely ignoring them and keeping them in suspense with garbage content and long hiatuses is flat out pathetic and spiteful.
It's super painful what the CGR empire evolved into. Mark already had something great, and changed the formula way too much to where it was a mess in the end.
@@XenonXyanide Its because his mass produced, cheap content was no longer making him tons of money. So he tried to hide it all behind a paywall and screwed over his entire audience. The guy was always a money oriented grifter and he just had the advantage of being around before the rest. There is honestly nothing his content has to offer other than nostalgia.
An amazing look into 1 of my favorite channels undertow was amazing Mark was amazing sad to see it all die because of 1 man's ambitions but it happens all to often
Nice video 👍 to me mark Derek ray and the rest team of classic game room did great job and they left great legacy and content behind and inspire many people and gave happy time to many people long live cgr!!!❤❤❤
So, in the end Mark got greedy, refused to adapt, made very poor decisions on how to take his company and is now bitter and blames everyone but himself for it. Sad. He use to be my favorite UA-cam channel. Sad to see that it was only about the money for Mark. When it becomes just about the money, the passion dissipates, the content becomes less, and you get what has become of Mark's channel. I hope that one day he has a redemption arc for the company, that would be awesome. His sense of humor and personality really clicked with me. Oh and he's changed the name of his channel AGAIN since the uploading of this video to CGR Publishing. This video needs way more views. This is a great mini documentary on what use to be the amazing Classic Game Room channel!
I remember watching CGR as a kid and throughout my teenage years. Back when I was a kid going into my teens, there were only a few UA-camrs I actively watched at the time, all of which were relatively small or niche, Mark and the rest of CGR being one of them. I remember always finding his and Derek's reviews entertaining even if I was never going to play the game being reviewed. I remember always going to CGR if there was ever a game I was interested in playing, old or new, because their reviews were always helpful and insightful. Maybe because I was younger I overlooked it or didn't care, but I never had a problem with the different approach he had in later years and I remember being disappointed a few years ago when he put his show behind a paywall and it eventually ended. Part of me will always like to see Mark make a return one day, but only time will tell.
I remember watching CGR when I was still in middle school, I’m in my mid 20s now and while I’m sad that it ended, the reality is the quality started to drop and I lost interest. All things must come to an end, even the things we care about.
I first discovered CGR when trying to find a review/hd footage of Thunder Force VI back in 08' and Mark was the only one that had an upload on YT at the time. I immediately got hooked and looked forward to the next review but around 2013/14 the content started to get more repetitive and showed signs of desperation. One thing I never understood is how Mark refused to have a co-host, especially with Derrick because they both have great chemistry.
29:00 i used to watch CGR a lot, but over time it get stale, yet i kept ocasionally checking his videos, but you are correct this moment pretty much killed my interest, i officially moved on after, and didn't even knew what happened to him before this video. One of big issue for me in CGR was that they really had a lot of monetary and quantity value, but no real value for me as creators. I never sat at work and thinked to myself "I wish to watch a new episode of CGR" it was more like a background noise. They existed. While people like AVGN, Spoony, The Completionist, gave me excitment and glee when they upload. CGR was just there.
It looks like after an initial return to the older style review uploads, he's resorted back to spamming music uploads, drawings and podcasts. CGR isn't by means back. His review of Operation Wolf only currently has 8k views, which is pretty poor considering he's got 400k subs.
Apologies about that. You have to bare in mind that I'm a UK citizen and we never got G4TV over here (as far as I know). I primarily was informed of CGR via UA-cam back in 2007.
Great video. Sadly, Mark sounds like a grumpy old man who just doesn't understand the current trends. UA-cam is very much alive and well and so many gaming channels are still growing and evolving and putting out great content... even older ones such as GameSack and MLiG... not at all just "kids eating Tide Pods." It does suck that one of the people who got me into retro game collecting now sounds more like a bitter old neighbor who wants the kids to get off his lawn.
Trends are rarely worth understanding or following. If you do your own thing and do it well, the "current trend" can easily go fuck itself. However, Mark just made a mess.
I'm still subscribed to CGR. I never minded the merchandise at least it was original and creative. All these other channels are trying to sell you some crappy headphones or some scam. And as far as the jokes every gamer has that one favorite game and system. I always thought the Undertow guy was kind of a jerk and not much fun. I hope it comes back some day. No one does game reviews the same way most retro game reviewers are boring as dirt.
@@XenonXyanide From what I understand, Andy himself never really had an interest in games, and that was all Violet's jam in the Bad Influence days. I may be absolutely wrong about that. It is a real shame though, guy had a great screen personality.
Your comment hasn't aged well. His most recent uploads are all podcasts and spam music uploads, with paltry views. The last 'review' he did was 3 months ago, 'Operation Wolf'... Which only got 8k views at the time of this comment. With 400k subs under his belt, that's pretty poor, and shows the majority of his audience has moved on. I wish Mark all the best, but this isn't a resurgence of CGR by any means.
Hes posting reviews again which is nice to see. I love Mark's content but expecting people to payfor long form content video reviews was seriously misguided. If he had label them documentaries and made the content more in that format perhaps it would have done better. Gods knows I evour guys like PatmanQC's content.
It's great to see him back. I just hope the format is consistent as I used to enjoy his earlier videos. When it comes down to it, Mark is in charge of his own channel, and we'll see how he gets on. It's a real shame all of the rubbish that happened prior on his channel has probably stagnated a lot of potential growth. I do feel the majority of people/fans have moved on.
@@mogensschmidt2498 Well, it didn't last... It's now May 2024 and he's gone back to spamming podcasts, drawings and music uploads. Which isn't surprising as his last 'review' only got 8k views... 3x months ago with an audience base of 400k subs.
So he was getting enough views to employee at least a dozen people but he needs the viewers to pay to watch? Well at least hes consistent, he has just brought back cgr another time, after asking for money on Kickstarter of course.
Had so much love for this channel, but in the end, I could see how greed was seeping in. Shame. Basically, retro stuff could never compete with current stuff view wise.
I mean..the show was called "CLASSIC GAME Room", so him reviewing classic/retro games is to be expected. If he reviewed more modern/current games or even the more famous ones at the time, what makes him stand out over the THOUSANDS of others doing the same? That, and his reviews will either be considered a parrot of other reviewers, or he will be condemned for not sharing the same views as other reviewers; in this sense, he cant really share his own actual opinion.
how did he afford all this stuff? if the show wasn't profitable for many years how did he manage to have a garage (or whatever) that could fit a car countless arcade machines, offices and whatever else. i liked cgr and don't really care if he moved on or different ways he tried to monetize considering how long he did it for and derek seemed to appreciate him as well.. and he'd certainly have a better idea about mark and the show than any of us.
Considering that much of the deterioration came from his decisions, I’d say it was fair. It was evident that many of his reviews were losing coherence with what his growing audience were wanting at a general level. The several rebrands, transition to Patreon prioritization, obnoxious self-promotion, reviews lacking substance, even the shoving of his non-interesting creations weakened the channel’s ability to maintain any steam. I do not think he is a terrible person for not being able to handle it all. But I will say he definitely can’t wish to stay in his old ways and still maintain growth. Many have moved on, the same strategies will not work the same as 15 years ago, and the people he wished to pull in are not going towards his poor quality videos. Retro Gaming has become simultaneously consolidated and diverse in what can be presented. Heck, I recently subscribed to one that recounts the progression of the NES and Master System on a year by year basis, which uses the games to frame what was out there at the time.
@@arciks11 Jeremy Parish. His series "NES Works" covers a multitude of games that were released in a given time frame. For instance, he considered "Wonderboy/Adventure Island" as a more fitting rival to Super Mario Bros than Alex Kidd due to multiple factors, including it’s relative proximity to when the game was released, who made it, and how it played.
At the start the channel was incredible because it had actual production values. The videos looked and sounded good and the sense of humour was more to my taste than shouty AVGN. Some of the expansions he made were good like CGR Pinball, and well executed, but didn't get any views. Mark definitely fumbled everything badly but the model was new. They executed on volume but not in quality. For every Linus Tech Tips there were 10 other channels went this way. We've seen for a long time creators getting frustrated with the lack of control you have building a business on social media. Ideally you'd build an audience and take it with you on your own terms. But unless you've been able to export the email address of every follower (ala LinkedIn) it's difficult leave these existing platforms and not lose 99% of your people. In the end I disliked the way things went but I got a lot of enjoyment out while it was good. I can understand how making the same kind of content for 10+ years would get unpleasant I certainly wouldn't enjoy that.
I was a fan of CGR in the early days, I especially loved the ones with Mark and Dave circa 1999-2000. As it became the classic CGR, I started to watch less and less. Mostly because I felt that 'a little Mark' went a long way. I was never really a fan of his ramblings that had zero to do with the games and his Truxton tangents were simply irritating. As far as him selling off donated games, I can't say I blame him that much. No one said he had to own them forever and I have to think space became an issue.
@@XenonXyanideI'm with you on this one. Cgr might be back, and maybe he will do it for a while, but his heart obviously isn't in it and hasn't been for some time now. He wanted to move on and it didn't work for him and so he came back to try and make a steady paycheck. But I doubt he will ever get any sizeable audience back compared to what he left behind.
Mark has some valid criticisms of youtube. Just looked up Ben-10 cgr Wii (one of CGRs most popular videos) and found a repost of this FROM 10 YEARS AGO that had been flagged but not removed- ua-cam.com/video/vI7DqlikM2w/v-deo.html UA-cam should have algorithms to automatically flag and remove these. Kind of unfair for cgr to get flak about copyright infringement in their reviews but when it comes to other people ripping cgr off nothing happens?
That is pretty shitty. Stealing other's content shouldn't be allowed. However, the majority of the criticism towards the overall direction, and quality control of CGR must be pointed at Mark. 2x Video review re-uploads by a separate channel in 2011, are by no means the downfall of CGR, in the late 2010's.
Classic Game Room not keeping up with new launches around 2015/16 stagnated the channel to a halt, that's when i stopped engaging with the channel, unsubbed in 2016/17 looks like CGR committed the same mistake as Nostalgia Critic did by not evolving with youtube (except for frequent uploads), not surprising that they hit a wall
Look I love Christmas but his obsession with vectrex was something I could never understand I hated when he would say it’s better than other systems because objectively that’s not true other than it being better than the Atari 5200 lmao maybe even the 2600 but I would never play a vectrex now that just seems like torture and I’m sure I’ll have people that would disagree but that’s cool you can like a turd nothing wrong with that 😂
I enjoyed your documentary on my good friend Mark Bussler of CGR! I was one of Mark's biggest early contributors with dozens of my donated on classic games that Mark reviewed & his team at CGR Undertow also reviewed of my many PS1 & PS2 games! Later Mark created his CGR Garage where I donated a lot of expensive Danbury Mint die cast cars & other rare collectibles of cars. I painted a elaborate 1969 Red El Camino photorealistic acrylic painting that was on marine plywood & contour cut-out especially for Mark who proudly displayed it in the upper background of his new big warehouse where he had all his arcade machines all around him & he could drive his real 1970 Silver El Camino on to the set! Mark did a special un-boxing of my original Art El Camino on CGR, later he asked me if he could interview me & I was one of the first gaming personalities to be on his new interview series, mine was in 3 parts. You can see that El Camino un-boxing & my interview with Mark discussing Art & Video Games on my channel under Mark & Dean Playlist & they should be also still available on CGR YT channel. Thank you very much for showcasing Mark & CGR, you did his legacy justice my friend. Gabe reviewed some of my games along with Derrick & others, for a short time Gabe & I were on his podcast, Gabe's father was Mark's Lawyer who protected his interest on CGR. Mark sent me many gifts as well, T-shirts, his first CGR beer mug actually shown in his video about it & even some Atari 2600 games signed by Mark. I know many things good & bad that went down at CGR sadly as I saw the once great CGR slowly fizzle out. Anyway have a very Merry Christmas mate, I love your channel!
That's an incredible insight. Really appreciate you giving some more information on CGR, as always thank you for the feedback! Have a great Xmas 🎄🍺
@@XenonXyanide I got somewhat disillusioned seeing what was happening to CGR like yourself & others who savored early CGR, it was the inspiration for my own little vlog channel & reviews. Mark's dad was the main source of financing for CGR, as he backed Mark on much of the endeavors & his father had a woman running it all like a structured business,, it was her that was the buffer between Mark & the public as well as the one hiring & firing the many reviewers. They only paid $20 for a finished & edited review which they would slap their brand on at the start & end of each video. I got a friend of mine Russell to review for Undertow, I was shocked how little they paid him. Mark simply lived in that world his dad manifested & when it all wasn't profitable any longer it was his dad that closed down their warehouse business offices. Mark sadly started getting political on Twitter & I pleaded with him not to do it as we loved CGR as escapism away from the drama of politics & life. It was at that point as the Patreon took over I went off all social media for good but kept my YT channel to stay in touch with friends. I sent Mark an email this morning as your video triggered so many memories I had with CGR, next to Mohammed from Quater I was their biggest contributor, it was a big part of my life then & Mark was a good old soul trapped in a modern age like myself, I miss him.
@@vinniecorleone62 Hmm, that probably explains the quality of the later reviews and the footage only displaying the first few levels/stages of a game. It's how Derek Buck states, the attitude was #content, content, content. Imagine being tasked with reviewing a 10+ hour game, then supplying narration/critique and then having some reviews to do the same day?... It's simply not possible. For $20 too, that's pretty horrendous. It took me a good week or so to write, narrate and edit my 'Blade II' review for my channel.
What was your stance on the donated gaming items being potentially sold on? That warehouse set-up seen in the 2013 era onwards looked like it had a silly amount of software/hardware sent into the show.
I assumed it was possibly a family figure financing some of this, as the original 'The Game Room' 1999 had Michael Bussler's name to it, but the internet in this rare instance didn't provide that factual information for this Retrospective. I didn't name his Dad as a financier for this reason, I did see a comment about him being a "trust-fund baby", but I wasn't going to include personal insults in the video. Likewise, I did consistently see comments from previous contributors stating the items they sent in were being sold on eBay.
Exactly, I watched his reviews for the reviews and exposure to potentially obscure games that I didn't know about. Towards the end, it was goofy and all a self-indulgent spectacle as a front-end, money and politics behind the scenes. The Pat Contri interview really highlights this. As a viewer, we just would like to see what the show originally started out as, a Game Show that was originally presented by a passionate gamer. Not 60-second Tik-Tok mess, nor references to Truxton and the Vectrex.
@@XenonXyanide Even his Silver El Camino was bought by his dad written off as a business expense as Mark asked me to help him locate a good clean rust free El Camino. Suddenly they found one on their own without my involvement. I had given my old collection of favorite games from PS1 & PS2 to CGR, that woman who I never cared for sent me a email after I mailed them all in that she wanted them all for the new then CGR Undertow, I sheepishly agreed but felt bummed out that Mark didn't get to them initially. Derek was a jerk who reviewed a bunch of them & in every review said something demeaning about me as he didn't like my overly macho violent 3 "Duke Nukem" PS1 games nor my "Manhunt 1 & 2" PS2 games. Kevin liked me as did Gabe & always spoke nicely about me. Derek snapped at me on Facebook over my Libertarian views & soon unfriended me after insulting me in my comments. I mentioned it to Mark & he must have gone off on Derek as he had a much different attitude Suddenly after what happened. Later I mentioned my many games I wanted Mark to review & he did them justice especially my favorite PS2 game "Wolfenstein Return to Castle: Operation Resurrection" & many others. He told me just to email him directly after my frustration with the woman manager there & I did. I was friends with Amanda & Jen who where big in Undertow & the PC review show, both went on to game development after their schooling was finished.
As far as donated items go I donated an obscure PS1 launch game "Return Fire" which it & all my retro game donated I later proceeded to buy back which has been costly as you can imagine. But "Return Fire" was rare & very expensive at $340 for a sealed new copy, so I was embarrassed but I asked Mark if I could just have the one game back which he instantly said of course & promptly mailed it back with a bunch of CGR stickers I still have. Later I got rumor of Mark or his company selling off all the hundreds of dollars of collectibles & games myself & obviously many others lovingly donated generously. I would have liked the courtesy of a call saying I could have them all back but I was just happy in the end to contribute as I got a kick out of Mark & others reviewing them. Later near the end I asked Mark on Twitter before going off all social media what became of the El Camino painting I spent over 70 hours painting for him, he replied back on Twitter with him in front of the camera with his hands up & a facial expression of "Gee, I don't know!" yet there above his head in his office by itself hanging on his wall proudly witch I greatly appreciated & let him know as I created it especially for him with a California license plate that said "LRD KRNG".
Merry Christmas mate, I enjoyed chatting with you!
@@XenonXyanide Another fact about Undertow was that the reviewers only had to play the first 3 chapters of any game then render their opinions. Derek played the beginning of "Spec Ops The Line" & mentioned, "Here we go with yet another shooter with American soldiers shooting Muslims..."
He obviously never played the iconic game I & many others love as it was about a lost American Commander & the mental torture his men went through pursuing him. That video got massive thumbs down & Derek never copped to it.
I miss CGR 💔
From time to time I visit the old videos for a bit of nostalgia.
I know I'm not the only one.
I was never a fan of his, but recently came across his early 2000's SEGA reviews and was impressed.
I always go back to his channel to reminisce about the good times.
dude I miss the saturdays just binge watching his channel
Same
Dude CLASSIC GAME ROOM IS BACK! no joke. Hit em up like and subscribe!
I'll never forget the day Mark went to E3 around 2011 and when he interviewed some SEGA staff about a new game they were launching he asked: ""When is this gonna be released for the 32X?" The look on the SEGA guys faces was priceless.
CGR was basically all I knew of UA-cam game reviews for years, it's so surreal seeing the rise and fall summed up succinctly in 50 minutes.
I used to watch Classic Game Room 10 years ago. I loved their videos from the late 2000s-Early 2010s. Mark's review of the Sega Genesis got me into playing Genesis again and I started to buy more Genesis games in the 2010s thanks to him.
I liked the 2008 - 2009 era. Mark gave in-depth reviews for new releases back then, when the typical UA-cam review was short and of low quality. He was much too focused on being edgy, quirky and showing off the large company premises on the later videos, losing sight of what made him popular in the first place.
Let's all give love to Derek Buck. 🙏 Who pretty much went through the worst of times after he lost his CGR job. Hope you're doing OK buddy!
Too bad he's a worthless commie liberal
He deserves it man. I was so sad watching that guy after cgr ended
He's too fixated on that time. He says he still wants to do that more than anything, but after listening to him, it's clear he doesn't want to do the leg work needed to build a channel. He just wants a job handed to him, which isn't how it works in 2023. Either attempt to build your own brand or move on.
Guy is an effeminate pussy and a charisma vacuum
@@DrBeef216 I 100% agree with everything you said.
CGR HD was probably the best era but I still enjoyed CGR even when Mark got overly quirky and leaned way too hard into his injokes. But I'm also probably grossly biased. *points to screenname*
Mark's breakdown over Content ID was when things really started falling apart. Only diehards like me kept watching on DailyMotion, Ain't nobody wanna deal with a paywall to watch CGR, not even some dork like me who didn't get tired of the Truxton and Vectrex spam. He had a good thing going with Patreon funding the series, it's a shame he didn't just stick to that.
I hope he's having fun... doing whatever he's doing now. I listen to that podcast when it pops up, it's nice just hearing him, haha.
I get Mark's frustration with UA-cam like their lack of communication, but we're all in the same boat. By being that guy who took no accountability for it's decline, his channel was destined to die out. The Patreon fiasco was the final nail in the coffin for me as well, it really said a lot about what he really thought of his fans.
But it is interesting how much he has self-sabotaged his brand since then, ngl.
can you explain the patreon fiasco? i always used to watch this channel for what seems like almost 2 decades but don't know what happened to the channel or him.
@@fawkkyutuu8851 Sorry for the late reply, but Mark made a Patreon specifically to keep CGR on UA-cam and had several grand (at one point even 10k) in monthly donations to do that, but soon he jumped ship to Amazon anyway behind another paywall, while still taking donations. That's when the constant rebranding started too I think.
He got greedy and delusional, basically. It's not like he ever needed to truly budget in order to make an episode to begin with, let's be honest..
@@JaseAnimates He could had still rode on that 10k a month if he didnt went loony...
I am an unapologetic Truxton and VexTrex enthusiast. Miss you, Mark, Derek and the CGR crew.
This video is phenomenal. It's one of the few really long YT videos I've seen that justifies itself being an hour long. I really appreciate the side-by-side of the GT5 and GT6 videos, it's the exact reason I grew away from his content. I have every HD episode I could find up to about 2010 backed up. They've aged terrifically well. I've heard people say that CGR mostly got big from having the shiniest gear at the time, and that's partially true, but I don't know if that's all the secret sauce was made of.
CGR was the reason I wanted to get into video editing as a little kid. One of my favorite CGR videos ever is the one where he reverse-engineers the original series' Omega Boost episode from the raw studio footage, and seeing his setup with the dual monitors and the gigantic library of Betacam tapes, it was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen at 8 years old. Beyond that, there's a certain relaxed nature to CGR HD that has made it age as well as it has. He even alludes to it in the Zaxton 2600 review, the first HD video; it's more relaxed, it's more laid back, it's not trying to grab your attention.
The bit about not covering contemporary games isn't something I thought of, but it's a really good point. I had no interest in all those shiny new consoles as a kid, but I dutifully watched the PS3 and 360 videos and seeing them now makes me want to get into those consoles, again, having never owned them. That's what appeals to me about CGR to this day, even when a lot of channels people recommend as being similar don't. It's just a dumb celebration of games, all games, being fun. It's not about the warehouse or the car or the characters and "plotlines" and it's not about being journalistic, a deep dive into some game I really don't care about--it's just a stream of consciousness for a couple minutes about all the cool stuff in a game like you'd hear from any other random person.
2008 Mark wasn't a character. He was just a guy. At some point, he became a character, and that's not what ever appealed to me about him. I don't really have a point, but yeah. CGR was pretty important to me, and this video is a really good encapsulation of how someone can forget what they're good at. I hope Mark's off doing something that makes him happy. That interview with him towards the end sounds like the opposite of a happy person.
Nobody did reviews like Mark. Always looks forward to a new episode.
Ah fuck man. As a pretty insensitive pre-teen during CGR’s heyday, I always looked at Derek as like a “Lesser Mark”. This retrospective really moved some memories for me and made me realize how passionate Derek really was. I hope he gets another day in the sun.
I am so glad there is finally a documentary-style video on CGR. I loved this channel back in the day and it is a damn shame that it is gone. Thank you so much man!
Thanks buddy, glad you liked it. He's actually back on UA-cam but in more of a podcast variation, and of course, he's changed the name of his channel yet again 🤦
@@XenonXyanide I think I saw something about that on Reddit the other day. I need to give a listen to see if it's any good. That doesn't surprise me. It feels like he wants to move on from the CGR name and create a new brand that could grow and be as big as CGR once was. That is going to be next to impossible due to his unwillingness to adapt to the times. If it wasn't for his many poor business decisions and not refining CGR to capture the modern audience while also pleasing the classic audience at the same time, CGR would still be around and be even bigger than it was.
I pretty much agree with your assessment of CGR. I subscribed to CGR & CGR Undertow for many years and it got to a point where I was watching CGR Undertow rather than CGR. Derek was consistent with his critique where as Mark was going way off course compared to when he started. If he stayed consistent and didn't expand so much he would have had 10+ million subs easy. I think Mark thought CGR was bigger than what it was. It should have been No1 but people like Angry Joe and James Rolfe drove past Mark and left him for dead. Mark seemed really bitter in that Pat Contri interview. When Mark changed the channel to Lord Karnage he really lost me. I didn't know what that was about. WHY??? LOL.
Eh, i liked both.
Have a link to that interview?
@@RubMySweatyThighs Type in "Pat the NES punk Mark". It's the 1st video at the top of the screen.
All links are in the description 👍
If I recall correctly, he didn't change the channel name to "Lord Karnage" on purpose. It happened during the time when Google+ and UA-cam merged. A lot of channel names had changed to whatever they were on Google+, and Lord Karnage was just his name on Google+.
Really insightful and well put-together video! Personally, I really enjoyed all of the HD era CGR videos, despite how often Mark went off about Truxton and the Vectrex, and of course, his El Camino. I just saw it as him having fun / being passionate about those things, and I really enjoyed that. It is really sad to see the CGR franchise die out, considering it was a pretty large chunk of my childhood, exploring UA-cam, and I do hope Mark is doing well these days.
You deserve more credit for this video
Appreciated that you reported it as is and didn't try to dunk on Mark at the end.
I was a late subscriber (Mark III era?) and your assessment was spot on. The quality was enough to check out the back catalog but it became hit or miss after that. A shame really.
Thanks for the feedback 👍 I tried to not be biased/overly harsh and report the facts that I could find. Still getting to grips with my retrospectives so I really appreciate the comments. Thanks again 🍺
holly shit, talk about an underrated documentary, Ive been watching for years and this is one of your best vidoes!
Funnily enough I never got tired of Mark's style of comedy - even the constant mentions of Truxton and the Vectrex - hell that's what got me to stick around in fact. It is sad to get a clearer-ish picture of what happened during the decline (we can only really guess at this point at what goes on in Mark's head apart from the Pat interview and his business moves but nothing beyond that). My guess is Mark did see that times were changing but instead of adapting, he lashed out. (i.e. cynical TikTok vids where he's doing his impression of a 12 year old on Adderall mocking CGR, and the strict Patreon/Amazon paywalls instead of using TikTok as 60 second snippets of the best parts of CGR and using Patreon more for community engagement rather than exclusively dumping all of the content on there) I can really only look at the bad business decisions in hindsight (the expansion for example is only weird in hindsight since it was a huge thing back then to establish a network like Normal Boots or Machinima: two examples of once huge partnerships/networks being the origins of a lot of huge UA-cam names today), since no content creator really knew how to adapt to the changes during that time and things only really stabilized a long while after, but it is still unfortunate that the show took the turns that it did. Even the people who worked with Mark don't seem to have ill will towards the guy, it just looks like the huge UA-cam copyright/algorithm shift was an unwanted trial by fire for every big content creator, and CGR was a casualty.
Thanks for this retrospective. I honestly forgotten about it until another post showed a game that seemed interesting (in how it even exists) and went to YT to see if there was a review done. CGR Undertow did it and it took me back...
Maybe since I was a fan in its later stages (2012-2016 or so) I didnt notice some of the issues. I was watching the new stuff along with some of the older and it was a good time.
I can understand Mark's bitterness towards YT, as it was pretty much the beginning of it being the big headed, and terrible platform that it is today for creators and viewers. However, its sad to see how he went from overly ambitious he was in the early days to being pretty jaded with the landscape and money hungry he was in the later days. Not only that, his content (for better or worse) gradually became weaker as time went on.
I can empasize with him a bit, since everything that creaters now have to combat what YT is doing now was in its infancy when it first started, but again, I wished he looked himself in the mirror and found ways to improve the channel instead of what he did. Now its a shell of its former self named CGR Publishing.
I do wish that Mark would return, but its clear that he's moved on. At the very least, I hope a sucessor could take his place to somehow recapture the glory days. At least we have the old stuff to fall back on.
Man, listening to Derek in that podcast talk about the end really made me emotional, because I felt his passion, and I adored his content. He felt like a friend you'd sit down to play a game with. It would have been less sad if it was something he wanted, but it was the opposite, and everyone lost. He's still one of the best reviewers ever on UA-cam and I still look up CGRundertow reviews every once in a while and really truly miss it. Nothing lasts forever, sadly. I think at least, Derek's content didn't jump the shark and his plethora of reviews is still available evergreen content for people to see if they missed it.
You say that Mark's show was the very first internet show about games, started in 1999. However, in 1998, a company called Pseudo started several different streaming video channels on Real Player, including a channel called "All Games Network" which had multiple shows about video games, including a daily (except weekends) news and interview show called "Game Time." All Games Network was created by Scot Rubin, who went on to co-found the TV network G4.
I'll have to look into that, thanks for the info! I did dig around and I couldn't see anything about there being another gaming show than The Game Room 👍
@@XenonXyanide I watched AGN back then and thought it was pretty cool. They did one style of segment I've never seen before or since -- a live comedic trivia game called "Thunk" with a cast of animated characters as the hosts who would interact with the live audience in chat. The art of the characters was extremely simple and they had very primitive and imprecise animation, but an interesting idea and the guys doing the voices of the characters were funny. There's at least one clip of it on UA-cam. Anyway, thank you for this video!
Oh my god, you should have seen the look on my face when you said CGR changed it's name to Lord Karnage (the beginning of the downfall) in 2013, almost a decade ago. Time flies, it does not feel like it was that long ago, wow. If only Derek would come back to UA-cam to do game content, that's all I want. Great video, btw.
Insanely disappointing to know.
CGR was an og fave of mine.
We even lived in the same area and I met him at PAPA twice, he was super nice and seemed like a good dude. Wouldn't have even known about PAPA if it weren't for Mark.
Sucks man. Had no clue there was even any controversy about the channel until yesterday.
I knew he renamed the channel a ton of times but I never knew what the deal was.
Feels bad, man.
21:02 When you said Truxton, I instantly replied aloud with "and vectrex" in perfect sync with you. Those injokes were never even funny, just charming for a very brief period before that dead horse was beaten into paste for years on end... it was completely insufferable, but yet, it was a non-issue compared with the complete absence of everything that made CGR HD so beloved during those early couple of years. For me, it was never the critique, Mark never did much of that or spoke on technical topics. Rather, he was able to find something he liked in everything he played and focused on the positive aspects and things like games just being fun. In an era of edgy, "angry" reviewers, Mark was never angry and was finding joy in everything he played, and that was honestly really special. Those early years had a lot of heart. What a tragic wrong turn it took.
this deserves way more views. thanks for this
the fall of all the OG video game youtubers has been a sight to behold.
Thanx for this video! I followed CGR from rise to fall and it was a sad fall
Your channel is very UNDER RATED, i also miss the classic CLASSIC GAMEROOM
Thank you for this video, I can tell it took a lot of work with all the sources you were able to find and play.
I beg to differ. The 2010s were the peak of CGR and CGRU. It wasn't until the Mark 3 episodes is when things got bad.
We actually got Derek on for an interview recently. Feel free to check it out if you're curious how he's doing now days. :)
I prefer retro games over current stuff. Everyone covers current stuff.
Just a friendly reminder that at one point, Mark made 10.000$ monthly on his Patreon, fuck knows what he did with all this money though.
Thank you for putting in the time to researching this. I remember so much of Derek's skits, and how wholesome they still are to this day. I feel awful how much this affected him in the years since.
Classic Game Room. The channel that made interested in gaming, the channel that made me know about Truxton. The channel that inspired me to make my own channel and review. RIP CGR
It's really a shame. He's not wrong about alot when it comes to You Tube, but instead of adapting he got cocky and thought his stuff was good enough to put behind a pay wall and it wasn't. I got really worn out with all the comic book crap andthe short and awful who defeatz videos. I never joined the Patreon. The thing is, if you're going to put your content behind a pay wall you should do the content that you couldn't do on You Tube that people want to see. That was the whole point of crowd funding! He then should have done all the safe retro stuff on You Tube, but instead turned it into a constant plug for his stupid books and comics! I never even knew about the Tictok stuff. That stuff is super cringeworthy. Excellent video as always.
I'm going to come back and watch this full retrospective, but I am in awe of the research so far. Some excellent organization at play.
Pat hasn't reviewed games in for goddang ever.
CGR channels will be always the epitome of retro gaming content.
I've been following CGR since about 2010, so I have to say I appreciate someone finally making this kind of video since I've been waiting for this thing a while now. However I do hope you are open for some criticism because I do not feel that this video is completely fair - it feels a lot more like a "drama timeline" type of thing more than a retrospective, in fact I even felt most of the video has a negative tone, beginning as early as 15-20 minutes in. Of course many of the things I do agree with and a lot of things are undeniably true, like Gabe's rushed, nearly effortless reviews (Undertow was still cool though), and of course the constant rebranding and confused decisions like mixing history-related videos with gaming videos instead of splitting the content onto another channel.
But there are things that weren't really covered fairly that need to be addressed. The merch promotion in CGR's videos were, from the beginning, nowhere near as bad as you make it out to be in the video, it only lasted a few seconds in each video and didn't become intrusive until 2018-19 when he started flooding the channel/patreon/his website with merch content. Before that, us fans didn't mind it even if some of it looked really weird. The next thing is the namechange to Lord Karnage, and if I remember this correctly, around this time google were forcefully integrating their shitty facebook-clone "google+" into UA-cam, merging the two. I could be wrong here but I believe they forced everyone on youtube to change their profile name, into a real, personal name with a first and last name. The original name was InecomCompany, one word. My username was just one word too but I was forced to change it as well. Anyway I don't think this change caused much harm. As for his opinions on youtube as a service and company, I honestly agree with nearly everything he said to Pat, even if he did sound bitter. CGR is only one of many channels that got fucked by youtube, and even if Mark did make mistakes himself, it's not just him. Think of all youtubers that are either struggling or have fallen completely just like CGR. There isn't much gaming content left to see honestly, at least when it comes to entertainment-oriented channels. Jontron and penguinz0 mostly dropped gaming and switched topics, LGR is mostly tech/computers now, cinemassacre seriously struggling, game grumps spamming compilations and filler material, Ahoy almost stopped, Life of Boris struggling too. UA-cam is a dying platform now really. Maybe not for informational videos, but for entertaining game videos it's almost dead.
On the topic of information-style vs entertainment-styled videos, I got from this video that you seem to prefer the former. That's fine if you prefer informational stuff, I guess each to their own, but CGR was never really about serious journalism, in fact Mark has stated in interviews that it's mostly about fun as opposed to serious critique. This is where I feel your video isn't fair at all, when you start bashing Bussler's campy humor for seemingly no good reason at all. The truth is in fact that CGR was at its peak during this period, when Mark became more confident in what he was doing and really clearly enjoying himself and loving what he does. The frequent praising of Truxton and Vectrex is by no means "cringeworthy", in fact this was when CGR became an iconic gaming channel with an established fan following. Driving the El Camino into the Intergalactic Space Arcade was particularly classy, seeing that again nearly made my day honestly. In many ways this felt like a return to the crazier, early episodes from 1999, so when people talk shit about Mark for his humor I simply wonder, have they even seen the original 1999 show? The X-Men review in particular was no less crazy than 2014 Mark. Speaking of the original show, have you seen the 2007 DVD documentary on it? It was never mentioned in the video which is somewhat disappointing as well. The Best of CGR DVD was great too, but I assume these dvds are now hard to find(haven't checked). Anyway I think it is a mistake to only prefer the 2008-2009 period, as you are most likely missing the whole point of the show, which is entertainment first and journalism second. It's no different than AVGN or dunkey. I'd bet most fans would say CGR was great up until 2016/17 at least. After that it did go downhill, but even CGR 2085 was great at first but stagnated fairly quickly, probably because of the paywall which is not a good idea for a show like this I think. 2019 is when the show seriously suffered and Mark's madman-style humor packed into 1 minute videos was the only thing he was capable of producing, I guess. So it became a lot weirder and outright obnoxious after that. The renaming of the main channel didn't make any sense either and is arguably his biggest mistake.
Apparently he is back now in a podcast-format, which sounds cool. It sounds fairly good actually so I hope it succeeds. Anyway man I appreciate all the research you did and all the effort you've made if nothing else. It just seems that drama is all the internet talks about these days. I want to be on the bright side: Classic Game Room is a youtube and internet legend that I wish people would give more recognition and credit, and I hope the legacy of Lord Karnage will live forever throughout the galaxy and the cosmos.
Really appreciate any type of constructive criticism, so no problem at all. I'm an old-school UA-cam user, but still getting to grips with content creation, thanks for watching. But, here's my take:
With regard to the name changes, I think in terms of what other UA-camrs were experiencing at the same time; difficult (then) ToS changes by UA-cam, I really do believe Mark at CGR took an overly reactionary approach. Angry Joe, Kim Justice, Bit-Head 1000, Game Chasers, Larry Bundy JR, Rerez, Nitro Rad etc. Have been around for years and are still making videos on gaming, and their channels are bigger than ever. From what I can remember, they didn't change their channel names 6x times within 5x years, moved into a large warehouse, sell on donations, or create several gaming YT accounts, which are now dead, to host the same content that could be on 1x channel.
Undoubtedly, they will be content creators, just like you mentioned that have declining returns in recent years for different reasons, but the point I was getting across in my video is adapting to the times. Bad 'business' decisions that were more self-inflicted than resolving the problems at hand.
At 31:14 in my video, Mark says:
"I haven't really changed it all that much, since it started, even though the internet has changed a lot around it... I'm not interested in adapting the show to the modern internet".
I think that a very interesting take from Mark, because towards the rear end of Classic Game Room, the 'Infinity' era was a real mess and showed he was trying to cater towards the "modern internet". My point is, and citing the references to the Derek Buck interview, he wanted to run CGR into a business, and the decisions he made were clearly performed by somebody who didn't have some structured roadmap for CGR needed to be on UA-cam. The key point here, is what CGR needed to be going forward on YT, not expanding to a large corporate entity.
As a previous subscriber, and viewer to CGR, I believe the tone I was conveying was appropriate. As 2011 era onwards did have a declining quality in regard to content and engagement with his own viewership. Go back and look at any of the previous videos on 'Classic Game Room', 'Undertow', 'Overboard' etc. It's very rare, if at all, to see any of the CGR team engage with people directly in the comments or take on construction criticism.
Yes, I do agree with that Mark has been more about how much fun a game is rather than it being an informational critique on a said game. But, I address this at the start of the video during 2:03. The issue is the persona of Mark Bussler is being taken more centrefold than the 'Classic Game Room' entity in the later years, of course, in my opinion. It still didn't stop Mark from highlighting that he's providing a 'journalistic review' at the start of his videos, later changing it to the "cure for the corporate review", which is ironic because he tried turning CGR into a corporate entity.
I used to watch his videos to see what was initially a decent mix of information and gameplay footage. The 2009 video review for 'Damnation' is a great example. Purely because he's playing a shit game, but he's doing his best to show it has some redeeming features, level design, co-op and the world setting. This review structure seems to have been thrown out of the window with the 'business' era of CGR. The review of 'Wipeout - Omega Collection' is a good example. He's being more goofy and referencing 'Truxton', twice, in that review, rather than spending those 6 minutes going into what makes the game great... I think Mark forgets that for some viewers, like myself, why we watched his content; for the original CGR mix of information and gameplay, not *just* for Mark Bussler. That's not to take away from any comedic elements from Mark, but highlighting the same joke in more or less each video; 'Vectrex', 'Truxton', just me bores off to death and disengages me from watching any further content.
As for the merch spamming, it was sometimes at the start and the end of each video in the later years.
He ironically changed up his own formula without realizing it, blaming the majority of the issues at UA-cam. The platform isn't perfect, as he clearly mentions in the Pat Contri interview, but why keep coming back to UA-cam then? He's done Daily Motion, Amazon, Pateron, Tik-Tok, Instagram exclusively... And he keeps coming back to the platform he hates?
Mark Bussler doesn't have any sort of direction or business acumen when it comes to running Classic Game Room when it was a *business*. It looks like CGR Publishing is doing well? Good on him if it is, but as a viewer, the whole CGR saga is a mess.
To ask a viewer to provide money for a book on how to run a 'How to Make a Video-game Review Show that Doesn't Suck' is laughable. As is for paywalled content, it was ultimately not worthwhile in my opinion, as the past has shown, which is why the negative tone in my retrospective is very relevant.
The 2007 DVD was unfortunately not available to me but from what I understand, it's more of a collection of what's already on UA-cam?
We'll see if the podcast lasts, he doesn't have the best track record of sustaining content on his channel. The first few of the videos has some strong engagement, but that's soon died off to low views once the subscribers realized he's' not doing game reviews again. Maybe he'll do them again? Who knows. But for somebody that hates UA-cam, he can't stay away from it, and the legacy of CGR is relatively still nostalgic for some people, possibly he'll come back stronger than ever? We'll see. Some people in the comments of his videos some a little positive that he's back and good on them, but I remain slightly pessimistic.
Overall, I tried to be as balanced as possible towards the entire 'Classic Game Room' entity, as it's obviously inspired many others content creators out there, which may have gone on to be larger than CGR ever was. As a previous subscriber, it is more of a feeling of disappointment towards CGR than anger, which is why I ended my video the way it did; it imploded under crap management, but I Mark hoping he's doing all the best.
@@XenonXyanide Cool thanks for the reply. Like I said it is true that informative gaming channels still do well on YT and there are still tons of videos worth watching. But I still can't help but feel that the golden age is far gone and the biggest channels are either dead or struggling. The channels you listed produce respectable material and I do watch their type of content from time to time at least(your channel seems ok too). However most channels like that are fairly small, so it's like we're being pushed underground in a way when you think about it, and most of them seem to be on the more relaxed, informative side, some of them seem to have more quantity than quality which is fine but my point was that this is practically all we have now. As much as I like the 8-bit guy and nostalgia nerd etc, it's very hard to find some real balls-to-the-wall entertainment like early AVGN, Jontron and of course CGR, nowadays. I find this content is disappearing and creating a hollow space in youtube. And I think youtube(google) has a lot of blame in this, I think most would agree. But of course it is also very possible that Mark became unusually aggressive and went way too far, I am certainly not ruling that out. It's also possible that he had some very real difficulties adapting his methods to the newer times, because I can't deny he does appear very frustrated and confused sometimes, but to what extent I don't know.
Your perceived decline in CGR quality in 2011 felt to me like the complete opposite really, and from what I've seen the fans appear to agree, at least that is how it felt back then. What I experienced was that in 2012-2013, CGR became more popular than ever and really started to rival all other big gaming channels. CGR was huge in that time, one of the biggest in all of youtube, from my perspective. The CGR Empire was at its peak in terms of employees, and you had CGRUndertow to complement the main channel even if it was hit-or-miss at times. As for the interaction with fans, I do know that both Mark and Undertow had a few livestreams back in 2014(I think), where they actually interacted with fans in the chat, in fact I even received a response from Derek and his colleague(Brandon I think was his name?) which was really cool at the time. I do know Mark responded to chat comments too but it's been a while since I watched the streams. The fans were really dedicated in this period which is evident in how both CGR and CGRUndertow DVDs got successfully backed on Kickstarter. When it comes to the change of humor and general style, you can think of it like this: just because it's different doesn't mean it's bad. Because really it's two sides of the same coin. And if it's not your style that is fine, but for me, even if it's just Mark rambling about 80's TV shows and flamethrowers over some game footage and almost going completely off-topic, I still love the hell out of it just because it's him, you know? Back then I thought Mark Bussler could make literally anything interesting, the footage can be any dull modern AAA overhyped crap game but Mark still makes it cool. That was his strength. But sure I also understand that multiple sides of a franchise have their respective strengths and weaknesses. Because of this, some people hate Resident Evil 4, for example, because it wasn't the same thing from earlier they liked from the franchise. I tend to really like campy and bizarre gaming videos even if it means sacrificing most of the game discussion. Look at early Game Grumps as an example. Jon and Arin are practically fighting each other and going batshit crazy, screaming and nearly destroying the microphone, and many times going almost completely off-topic for several minutes. I find this type of stuff hilarious, but if it's not your thing, as I said, to each their own, do your own thing. I just felt that calling even 2013 CGR humor cringeworthy was just a few steps too far.
I understand the negative tone if it is an in-depth drama analysis, but since the title said Retrospective i expected it to be mostly positive since that is what I associate with that word. Not that it should be completely uncritical of course. Perhaps the only problem then is the video title, or is it just me? Retrospectives tend to usually be more positive in tone, if I am not mistaken.
The 2007 DVD is a collection of 1999-2000 episodes but wrapped around the whole thing is a story presented as a documentary, chronicling the rise and fall of the original show and narrated by Bussler. In-between each episode is a lot of info and details on how the whole thing happened and how it got canceled. It's pretty much a full-fledged documentary with all the best moments from the show, so I would recommend it to anybody who could manage to find a copy of it if possible. In fact it's one of the best things CGR did without a doubt. The 2015(I think?) Best of Classic Game Room is very similar, and that one too is some of the best CGR material if you ask me. It contains the most memorable episodes from 2008 up until that point and again with a story to piece everything together, and even some exclusive DVD-only stuff like a Half-Life 1 review.
As for the future of Classic Game Room and Mark, I do have some kind of skepticism, naturally, given everything that has happened. But I guess you never know. Who could tell, I guess anything can happen. So I'm not pessimistic or hyped for anything, but I just hope we get something, and the podcast at least seems somewhat cool.
Classic case of Stockholm syndrome. Lets be honest about it and cut through the BS. Mark was always a grifter from the very beginning and he holds his fans (including long time fans such as yourself) with utter contempt and spite. His content from the beginning was nothing but gimmicky, clickbait trash with so called "reviews" for games that mostly consisted of him showing the box and making some lame joke, as well as about 3 minutes of game play with little to no information about the game whatsoever. You say his content was purely about "entertainment" I personally think you are just nostalgia blind in that case as objectively speaking there was nothing entertaining about his videos. As for Undertow, that channel was nothing but mass produced garbage (Derek as good as admitted so) taking views away from actual, real game reviewers who make proper reviews with genuine information and good production values. Playing the tutorial and maybe the first level for about half an hour, then slapping together a 3 minute "review" should not be titled a "review" at all. More like "first impressions" or something like that. Not only that but their reviews were not only garbage, but they were flat out misleading at times filled with false representations of games that the reviewers had clearly not played much of. The way Mark treats his long time fans, completely ignoring them and keeping them in suspense with garbage content and long hiatuses is flat out pathetic and spiteful.
Great video. It's hard to watch what CGR morphed into over the years. I hope Mark is doing well though.
It's super painful what the CGR empire evolved into. Mark already had something great, and changed the formula way too much to where it was a mess in the end.
@@XenonXyanide Its because his mass produced, cheap content was no longer making him tons of money. So he tried to hide it all behind a paywall and screwed over his entire audience. The guy was always a money oriented grifter and he just had the advantage of being around before the rest. There is honestly nothing his content has to offer other than nostalgia.
An amazing look into 1 of my favorite channels undertow was amazing Mark was amazing sad to see it all die because of 1 man's ambitions but it happens all to often
i love this guy reviewing old games than most today's newest games while sipping a cup or munching a popcorn on youtube
Well done! Thanks for making this!!
Nice video 👍 to me mark Derek ray and the rest team of classic game room did great job and they left great legacy and content behind and inspire many people and gave happy time to many people long live cgr!!!❤❤❤
Good video, sometimes its better to let go then to hold on and thats absolutely the case with cgr
So, in the end Mark got greedy, refused to adapt, made very poor decisions on how to take his company and is now bitter and blames everyone but himself for it.
Sad. He use to be my favorite UA-cam channel. Sad to see that it was only about the money for Mark. When it becomes just about the money, the passion dissipates, the content becomes less, and you get what has become of Mark's channel.
I hope that one day he has a redemption arc for the company, that would be awesome. His sense of humor and personality really clicked with me.
Oh and he's changed the name of his channel AGAIN since the uploading of this video to CGR Publishing.
This video needs way more views. This is a great mini documentary on what use to be the amazing Classic Game Room channel!
Great video! CGR was one of the frst channels I started following on UA-cam. It's a real shame about it's fate...
Same here, it's really sad what became of the channel. Thank you for watching and for the kind feedback 👍🍺
I remember watching CGR as a kid and throughout my teenage years. Back when I was a kid going into my teens, there were only a few UA-camrs I actively watched at the time, all of which were relatively small or niche, Mark and the rest of CGR being one of them. I remember always finding his and Derek's reviews entertaining even if I was never going to play the game being reviewed. I remember always going to CGR if there was ever a game I was interested in playing, old or new, because their reviews were always helpful and insightful. Maybe because I was younger I overlooked it or didn't care, but I never had a problem with the different approach he had in later years and I remember being disappointed a few years ago when he put his show behind a paywall and it eventually ended. Part of me will always like to see Mark make a return one day, but only time will tell.
I watched cgr videos when I was a child, it was cool learning about old video games. Then years later I couldn’t find it because he changed the name
We'll put together
Thanks for the video my friend. I always enjoy these types of retrospectives.
Now Mark is asking for people to give him $85,000 on kickstarter to make a season 2 of CGR 2085 lol
That's an interesting development 🤔
This has to be a fucking joke lmfao.
@@DieHardjagged Not at all.
He's already cancelled it and now plans to do a kickstarter just to press blurays of 2085 season 1.
Mark gonna Mark
I remember watching CGR when I was still in middle school, I’m in my mid 20s now and while I’m sad that it ended, the reality is the quality started to drop and I lost interest. All things must come to an end, even the things we care about.
Mark reminds me of my friends who still try to make music like korn and crazy town.
He's too much stuck in the past and his ego sadly : (
CGR ahhhh the best show ever , all hail Lord Carnage 👍🏼
I first discovered CGR when trying to find a review/hd footage of Thunder Force VI back in 08' and Mark was the only one that had an upload on YT at the time. I immediately got hooked and looked forward to the next review but around 2013/14 the content started to get more repetitive and showed signs of desperation. One thing I never understood is how Mark refused to have a co-host, especially with Derrick because they both have great chemistry.
29:00 i used to watch CGR a lot, but over time it get stale, yet i kept ocasionally checking his videos, but you are correct this moment pretty much killed my interest, i officially moved on after, and didn't even knew what happened to him before this video.
One of big issue for me in CGR was that they really had a lot of monetary and quantity value, but no real value for me as creators. I never sat at work and thinked to myself "I wish to watch a new episode of CGR" it was more like a background noise. They existed. While people like AVGN, Spoony, The Completionist, gave me excitment and glee when they upload. CGR was just there.
he came back
It looks like after an initial return to the older style review uploads, he's resorted back to spamming music uploads, drawings and podcasts. CGR isn't by means back. His review of Operation Wolf only currently has 8k views, which is pretty poor considering he's got 400k subs.
everyone that know how awesome nsf high stake soundtrack is, deserve a like
No mention of the show being on G4TV? That’s how I was introduced.
Apologies about that. You have to bare in mind that I'm a UK citizen and we never got G4TV over here (as far as I know). I primarily was informed of CGR via UA-cam back in 2007.
I'm love they intro.
Great video. Sadly, Mark sounds like a grumpy old man who just doesn't understand the current trends. UA-cam is very much alive and well and so many gaming channels are still growing and evolving and putting out great content... even older ones such as GameSack and MLiG... not at all just "kids eating Tide Pods." It does suck that one of the people who got me into retro game collecting now sounds more like a bitter old neighbor who wants the kids to get off his lawn.
Trends are rarely worth understanding or following. If you do your own thing and do it well, the "current trend" can easily go fuck itself. However, Mark just made a mess.
I'm still subscribed to CGR. I never minded the merchandise at least it was original and creative. All these other channels are trying to sell you some crappy headphones or some scam. And as far as the jokes every gamer has that one favorite game and system. I always thought the Undertow guy was kind of a jerk and not much fun. I hope it comes back some day. No one does game reviews the same way most retro game reviewers are boring as dirt.
Great video mate
Thanks matey, really appreciate the support 👍🍺
It's kinda funny that 2007 Mark looks a bit like Andy Crane.
I can't unsee that now 😅 Shame Andy Crane doesn't create video game content. He's a radio presenter now.
@@XenonXyanide From what I understand, Andy himself never really had an interest in games, and that was all Violet's jam in the Bad Influence days. I may be absolutely wrong about that. It is a real shame though, guy had a great screen personality.
Boy this aged well. Marks back.
Your comment hasn't aged well. His most recent uploads are all podcasts and spam music uploads, with paltry views. The last 'review' he did was 3 months ago, 'Operation Wolf'... Which only got 8k views at the time of this comment. With 400k subs under his belt, that's pretty poor, and shows the majority of his audience has moved on. I wish Mark all the best, but this isn't a resurgence of CGR by any means.
@@XenonXyanide it does take time to do bulk content. odds are we'll hopefully see more over the summer.
Hes posting reviews again which is nice to see. I love Mark's content but expecting people to payfor long form content video reviews was seriously misguided. If he had label them documentaries and made the content more in that format perhaps it would have done better. Gods knows I evour guys like PatmanQC's content.
It's great to see him back. I just hope the format is consistent as I used to enjoy his earlier videos. When it comes down to it, Mark is in charge of his own channel, and we'll see how he gets on. It's a real shame all of the rubbish that happened prior on his channel has probably stagnated a lot of potential growth. I do feel the majority of people/fans have moved on.
mark is back with classic game room look it up
Yeaa, I've already been told about that. I'm still not giving my hopes up though. It'll be interesting to see what format he goes for.
@@XenonXyanide he is a youst cursing star wars loving jar jar hating doughback
@@mogensschmidt2498 Well, it didn't last... It's now May 2024 and he's gone back to spamming podcasts, drawings and music uploads. Which isn't surprising as his last 'review' only got 8k views... 3x months ago with an audience base of 400k subs.
mark is fine as long as he tones down the star wars love and jar jar hate and acselly respecct his fans openion
So he was getting enough views to employee at least a dozen people but he needs the viewers to pay to watch? Well at least hes consistent, he has just brought back cgr another time, after asking for money on Kickstarter of course.
Exactly. That's probably one of his most 'consistent' traits, lol. After selling viewer donations on ebay.
underrated
Had so much love for this channel, but in the end, I could see how greed was seeping in. Shame. Basically, retro stuff could never compete with current stuff view wise.
Mark is The Reason I Started Doing Videos❤
Awsome review.
I mean..the show was called "CLASSIC GAME Room", so him reviewing classic/retro games is to be expected. If he reviewed more modern/current games or even the more famous ones at the time, what makes him stand out over the THOUSANDS of others doing the same? That, and his reviews will either be considered a parrot of other reviewers, or he will be condemned for not sharing the same views as other reviewers; in this sense, he cant really share his own actual opinion.
General Lotz turned out well
He did a handful of reviews for Undertow
how did he afford all this stuff?
if the show wasn't profitable for many years how did he manage to have a garage (or whatever) that could fit a car countless arcade machines, offices and whatever else.
i liked cgr and don't really care if he moved on or different ways he tried to monetize considering how long he did it for and derek seemed to appreciate him as well.. and he'd certainly have a better idea about mark and the show than any of us.
oh yea i forgot they had that.. kinda too hot for this sort of content chick. wonder what she is up to now
He consistently got like 10.000$ a month on Patreon at some point, who the fuck knows what he did with all this money tho.
I wish people were at a point where they could just remember CGR fondly instead of bashing Mark Bussler
Considering that much of the deterioration came from his decisions, I’d say it was fair.
It was evident that many of his reviews were losing coherence with what his growing audience were wanting at a general level.
The several rebrands, transition to Patreon prioritization, obnoxious self-promotion, reviews lacking substance, even the shoving of his non-interesting creations weakened the channel’s ability to maintain any steam.
I do not think he is a terrible person for not being able to handle it all. But I will say he definitely can’t wish to stay in his old ways and still maintain growth. Many have moved on, the same strategies will not work the same as 15 years ago, and the people he wished to pull in are not going towards his poor quality videos.
Retro Gaming has become simultaneously consolidated and diverse in what can be presented. Heck, I recently subscribed to one that recounts the progression of the NES and Master System on a year by year basis, which uses the games to frame what was out there at the time.
@@MatthewCobalt That channel you mentioned at the end. What's the name of it?
@@arciks11 Jeremy Parish. His series "NES Works" covers a multitude of games that were released in a given time frame.
For instance, he considered "Wonderboy/Adventure Island" as a more fitting rival to Super Mario Bros than Alex Kidd due to multiple factors, including it’s relative proximity to when the game was released, who made it, and how it played.
2 more subscribers left for 1k 🥳🎉
Just reached it! 🎄🍺
@@XenonXyanide 😍🎉🥳🥳🥳
Congratulations ❤️❤️❤️
@@XenonXyanide hope to see more zeros on the right soon 😇
At the start the channel was incredible because it had actual production values. The videos looked and sounded good and the sense of humour was more to my taste than shouty AVGN. Some of the expansions he made were good like CGR Pinball, and well executed, but didn't get any views. Mark definitely fumbled everything badly but the model was new. They executed on volume but not in quality. For every Linus Tech Tips there were 10 other channels went this way.
We've seen for a long time creators getting frustrated with the lack of control you have building a business on social media. Ideally you'd build an audience and take it with you on your own terms. But unless you've been able to export the email address of every follower (ala LinkedIn) it's difficult leave these existing platforms and not lose 99% of your people. In the end I disliked the way things went but I got a lot of enjoyment out while it was good. I can understand how making the same kind of content for 10+ years would get unpleasant I certainly wouldn't enjoy that.
I was a fan of CGR in the early days, I especially loved the ones with Mark and Dave circa 1999-2000. As it became the classic CGR, I started to watch less and less. Mostly because I felt that 'a little Mark' went a long way. I was never really a fan of his ramblings that had zero to do with the games and his Truxton tangents were simply irritating. As far as him selling off donated games, I can't say I blame him that much. No one said he had to own them forever and I have to think space became an issue.
Well.. this aged well. CGR is returning in 2024.. 😅
We'll see. Forgive me for being pessimistic, his channel hasn't been consistent for the past 10x years.
@@XenonXyanideI'm with you on this one. Cgr might be back, and maybe he will do it for a while, but his heart obviously isn't in it and hasn't been for some time now. He wanted to move on and it didn't work for him and so he came back to try and make a steady paycheck. But I doubt he will ever get any sizeable audience back compared to what he left behind.
37:41 I believe I did the same at the same time
Mark has some valid criticisms of youtube. Just looked up Ben-10 cgr Wii (one of CGRs most popular videos) and found a repost of this FROM 10 YEARS AGO that had been flagged but not removed-
ua-cam.com/video/vI7DqlikM2w/v-deo.html
UA-cam should have algorithms to automatically flag and remove these. Kind of unfair for cgr to get flak about copyright infringement in their reviews but when it comes to other people ripping cgr off nothing happens?
That is pretty shitty. Stealing other's content shouldn't be allowed. However, the majority of the criticism towards the overall direction, and quality control of CGR must be pointed at Mark. 2x Video review re-uploads by a separate channel in 2011, are by no means the downfall of CGR, in the late 2010's.
I didn't know mark used to be seth rogen
Stop trying to make Truxton happen, it's not going to happen!
Classic Game Room not keeping up with new launches around 2015/16 stagnated the channel to a halt, that's when i stopped engaging with the channel, unsubbed in 2016/17
looks like CGR committed the same mistake as Nostalgia Critic did by not evolving with youtube (except for frequent uploads), not surprising that they hit a wall
Look I love Christmas but his obsession with vectrex was something I could never understand I hated when he would say it’s better than other systems because objectively that’s not true other than it being better than the Atari 5200 lmao maybe even the 2600 but I would never play a vectrex now that just seems like torture and I’m sure I’ll have people that would disagree but that’s cool you can like a turd nothing wrong with that 😂
I think it's fine to show only earlier levels in a review.
Really enjoyed it until the cartoony stuff came in