 Well, it's the saga that never seems to end Game explain cannot catch a break now before I talk about the headline here, I want to make a statement and That statement is that I wish no ill will upon any of the current staff members at game explain which include I believe I'm gonna I'm gonna probably be forgetting to be a little bit Joey Chris Tom Tress I Think that's the four I can think of right now. There might be some others and obviously there's Andre himself I don't know these people. I don't know Andre either even though I've had some minor interactions with him over the years Especially when I was editor-in-chief of Zelda Informer. I also want to state that There's always a misunderstanding about the way this situation went down Because the way it went down with the independent contractors and the low pay and the overworking and all this jazz is industry standard in video game journalism to a degree but Game explain the YouTube channel and I want it to be out there and known right now YouTube is Effectively more profitable than traditional media websites. I ran traditional media websites for 20 years I ran advertising I from everything Google ads to legit big companies that were getting Nintendo ads on the website I am well aware of how traditional Websites work they make pennies on the thousand views pennies on YouTube I make anywhere from four to nine dollars per thousand views now There's caveats to this. This is not counting ad blocks Which by the way affect youtubers and websites, but imagine that you already only make 20 cents for every thousand views for a given ad and you get a million views But 700,000 of those views are behind ad blocks only 300,000 of those views you could do the math It ends up not being that much money now Imagine the same thing happens on YouTube where I get a million views on a YouTube video 700,000 of those views are Blocked with ad blockers, but the other 300,000 that do see the ads I'm getting four to eight bucks per thousand of those views do the math as you could see it is Significantly more profitable to be a youtuber. So well, I don't know game explains financial back-end and I don't really need to know because I am a youtuber and I used to run ads on traditional websites. I Know that game explain makes Significantly more money for their 10 to 15 sometimes 20 million plus views per month Then a website that gets the same amount of views in fact I know of websites like Nintendo life that get around that viewership that don't make on the low end 25,000 a month. They're lucky if they're pulling 5,000 That's how bad it can be with traditional websites That's why the IGNs of the world and others even though they have huge teams And they do pay full-time salaries and they offer health benefits and all that a company like IGN does anyways That's why you see a lot of turnover. You see a lot of overworking because hey They're not actually making that much revenue purely on ads and for IGN. It's a little different They're gonna have a little bit higher ad rates So for places like IGN and I think GameSpot they can actually get in contact with Ubisoft and Nintendo directly and they can get things like Direct payment ads which are going to be better than running the Google adsense But for a vast majority of places they are using ad services that pay nothing and even IGN when they get those things It's really nothing compared to the amount of people they're gonna view the ad like they might get you know A $10,000 contract to show off animal crossing or something but they're required to show it you know to 80 million people and when you break it down it ends up not being that much money Compared to the views whereas 80 million views on YouTube can be a hell of a lot more than $10,000 just putting some perspective on this now before I get into the bigger part of the story I Want to remind you we are giving away a Nintendo switch an Xbox Series X or a PlayStation 5 this month Details down in the description or in the pinned comment now What's happened now for GameXplain and poor Andre Seegers is The story is now being picked up by mainstream media Just take a look at this Here we go. Here's vice and I've been critical of vice now and then in the past especially when they had a video about how to build a PC and it was a Basically how not to build a PC and it wasn't a joke video This one's by Patrick Kleptic one of the better Journalists out there in the video game industry and he says former workers allege YouTube game explain was exploitative workplace vice games spoke to four Former game explain contributors who describe being several severely overworking underpaid. They also spoke to Andre Seegers So they did their journalistic integrity thing They went well beyond what I've done on my YouTube channel Literally spoken to these people now I can I can talk to you see now that I have actually spoken. This is publicly It's available on Twitter to Derek Bittner of goodbye games About getting him on a podcast episode actually so you look forward to him being a guest Although we are probably not going to be addressing any of this drama Talk about some games, you know, but It says Steve Bowling Saturday's desk crying so we get additional details about what happened with this final Fantasy 7 review Bowling had recently spent 48 hours not sleeping or showering every moment over that 48 hour period Have been spent playing the highly anticipated Final Fantasy 7 remake bowling at the time contributed to the popular news and analysis channel game explain And they had two days to publish a video for the games review embargo set by publisher Square Enix Well bowling played his wife brought him meals and took care of their four children while his wife slept bowling continued to play How long to beat suggests finishing Final Fantasy 7 remake takes at least 33 hours. That's just on average So when credit's rolled on Final Fantasy 7 remake bowling struggled to keep his composure I remember thinking to myself. He said, okay, you just need to stay awake until you finish this review One of the most reliable places for Nintendo related news and analysis is the popular YouTube channel game explain Which currently has 1.25 million. It actually is down. It was almost at 1.3 a new rumor game explain Has a video about it a new trailer game explain has an archive of it and a round table discussion about what they saw Few channels are faster than game explain But so far the channel has yet to publicly acknowledge or discuss recent comments made by the three former game explain contributors It's actually been five six seven of them at this point. However They know later that there isn't a response But we're gonna do this is at the time he was writing this a legend of workspace dominated by crunch and low pay All of them recently spoke with vise games about their time as part of game explain Insight into the behind-the-scenes workings of game explain came on a recent podcast Hosted by three former game explain contributors. All right We've talked about this in a prior video My comments were picked up by fans that shared in the channel subreddit, etc. etc YouTube channel uploading videos addressing the controversy which I was one of those channels I feel like shit says Paulson Ash Paulson to be specific here Who spoke with vise games this week when asked about their grievances becoming so public? I hate this. Of course they do Of course, they hate this It was one-off comments But I want to be honest here. I'm glad this happened Good vibe games is becoming massively successful right now Without this controversy, how many of you game explain fans or former game explain fans? What do you even know about them? What do you even know where they went? Now this could have been different a whole different world could have existed where Andre let them say goodbye and make a video on Game explain saying hey, we're all leaving to start up our own venture a good vibe games Come follow us there if you're interested and Maybe none of this becomes public the bad stuff they can put it as water under the bridge and Yeah, move on but Andre didn't let that happen Moving forward here Bolin told vise games that he managed to write a script for his review of Final Fantasy 7 remake But it was a jumble of nonsense that he called his worst work another member of game of game explain help turn it into something Coherent while that happened Bolin sat at the bottom of a cold shower So he was sitting at the in a cold shower on the floor The water poured over his face as he attempted to stay awake after leaving the shower Bolin sat down in his computer took the words as colleague had edited and started putting together a video review of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake when the review went live shortly thereafter in theory the culmination of Bolin's intense time and effort Square Enix flagged the video over confusion about whether it required an influencer disclosure That's right. The review didn't even go on on time. The video was taken down and it would not appear for another two days He rushed those 48 hours for nothing I broke down into tears at my desk said Bolin Just balling my eyes out because I had put so much energy into this and destroyed myself for it And I could have had two more days in bargos Which our agreements required to gain early access to a game are full of restrictions If you're lucky you have a week to play a game before release, but often it's a few days You know vise got their review code more than a week out of the bar go And if you know what here vice says this is what this is how they handle embargoes So vice games provides writers with additional time to take off when they work extra hours on a review and taking that time off as enforced by the editors So essentially What happens is you might bust your butt on a review and hit an embargo dig advice, but then they're like hey Thank you so much for that hard work. Here's some time off like you need to take this time off take it You know, it's probably paid time off. I would assume because if it's just time off where you're not paying That's not good So I'm assuming it's paid time off Kudos to vise games being like hey look We're still kind of working within those embargo dates and in some crazy hours around reviews But at least we're giving people time off after so they can kind of recollect themselves and spend some time with their Family much deserved time if to be honest It was this intense moment that bowling's wife finally turned to him and asked you're getting $500 for this Was this worth? $500 to you The answer was obvious if Steve was treated like a person instead of a machine and paid fairly for the amount of work He was expected to put out I would have fully supported him staying at game explain said bullying's wife on a reddit recently in response to a critical fan As far as him being a workaholic He also maintains and has since before game explain a corporate nine to five career Also helping raise four children. Trust me. He's extremely hard-working. I was very much. Oh, this is the worst quote Oh boy, get ready I was very much still in the mindset That andre was my friend And that by stepping up to the plate and putting myself through this I was showing my friend how much I cared about the success of the channel so This is gone un-talked about and we're going to stop here for a moment This is gone un-talked about because It's very touchy and very personal But Oftentimes in a work environment You know, you know because an andre's official statement. He called them true friends You create a bond and this bond can be built over a shared passion Which is what game explain was and when you have that shared passion You can become you know quote unquote friends The problem That happens when you cross, you know business and friendships is that sometimes you will put in extra work Because you consider yourself to be a friend and you wanted the show that you are as dedicated to the success Of whatever you're working on with your friend as your friend is You know, I had to actually stop eric for a moment For those who don't know eric more is a used to be part of the tunnel prime podcast He used to try to do extra work for me Without pay without me even asking him to because he's my friend And he wanted the show that he cared as much about nintendo prime success As I did and I stopped him I stopped him dead on his tracks and said don't Do this in this case. He wanted to review a game from the channel and I said no don't one The review on my channel small channels probably only get like a thousand views It's not gonna be worth the time and the effort you're gonna put into it to Even if I give you the money off the video, you know to make five bucks not worth the time And I appreciate your dedication, but it's on me to make this channel successful not on him who I'm not paying so I stepped back and I told him you need to stop I don't want you Using our friendship to push the success of my channel This is what happens when people Have this thing where they take advantage of perceived situations Andre Knowingly or not was using the camaraderie He built up with his co-workers with his peers with his true friends To get those friends to convince themselves that they are working so hard It's almost like a type of manipulation Get them get themselves convinced to work so hard on this to prove to andre That they care just as much as andre does when really andre does not care about them As much as they are trying to care about this channel It is a Not illegal, but very immoral um Almost unforced sort of manipulation When someone just allows that to fester within your team As I said, I stopped it with my best friend because I said no You are not gonna slave away just because you're my friend. I am not going to allow that to happen I know I can't compensate you the way you deserve for what you're trying to do moving on All right, this next bit goes into who andre andre seagr's is And he says he didn't tell boling to play without sleep, but he didn't stop him from doing it either Uh Vice games have spoken to four former game explain contributors who collectively painted a picture of a boss who frequently failed to pay on time Or adequately demanded workers be on call. We didn't talk about this before They were demanded to be on call at a moment's notice at all times of the day 24 hours a day And put such enormous mental and physical stress in their workers that several found themselves breaking down as a result In a statement of vice games seagr's did not address specific questions to be asked So they did ask specific questions of andre directly, but he responded more broadly This response It's gonna sound familiar I was quite upset to hear their experiences because I consider them true friends And I hate that they felt subjected in any way to unfair compensation or unrealistic deadlines. Yes folks This is the last paragraph of his tweet seagr's recently released the same statement on twitter Yeah, I just had to let that sink in for a moment The way the allegations came out was really an accident It was a tangent in a podcast of what games of the year wasn't a formal statement If it was pent up emotions spilling into the open, which is going to happen. So as much as ash, you know hates all the Negativity around it, I suppose I'm sure he hates all of you know that people are running to game explain his comments and just Blasting them. I'm sure that he feels especially for the staff Uh, it's also one of those it happened because The realities of what was going on really frustrated them and they had to let it out All right, I don't want this to be pause. I don't want to hurt game explain in the long run or him This is ash paulson. So he doesn't want to hurt the youtube channel or him in particular He's referring to andre I want seagr's to learn from it and I want the new staff to be treated better and more fairly of course i'm not Relishing this I want to put it all behind us At one point paulson have fallen on difficult personal times and asked to become a full-time contributor for extra money This stretch lasted eight months improved to be a disaster Even just those eight months amounted to one of the worst mental health crises of my life Said paulson. I mean I already suffer from depression and anxiety A lot of us do man hear you on that Which has nothing to do with game explain But those eight months I was in hell because I was in this constant push and pull between feeling guilty That I wasn't doing enough work even though I was doing a ton of work again This is one of those manipulative abuses of the friendship Where you're using your friendship in conjunction in a work environment to guilt people This actually happens a lot in the video game industry by the way where While the crunch might not be required at certain places You are guilted into thinking you need to be doing it And that's kind of sort of what happened at game explain That's not good. That's not good at all And andre isn't stupid At least I don't feel like he's stupid. He had to be aware of the guilt tripping that was going on Um, especially when he did a power point presentation to one of the employees showing Hey, you're not even making you know the amount of money. I pay you you're not even making it back covid It's like dude, you don't need to be guilt tripping people. Anyways um Two different former contributors said they went unpaid for nine months only receiving payment for their work I just specifically asking forward and feeling severely underpaid neither received back pay for the nine months of work After negotiating to finally get regularly paid and everyone vice game spoke to said it was regularly difficult to ensure timely payment That to me is one of the hugest issues Forget about how much you're paid Just trying to get the money you're supposed to be paid was hard Once you asked to be paid or enough time said paul said it starts getting really really awkward because you almost feel like you're begging Just to be paid on time. Imagine that you ask your boss for your paycheck and they say Paychecks have been delayed to tomorrow. All right, you go to tomorrow. Hey, where's my paycheck? Yeah One second doesn't get bad to you. You ask again the next day. Hey, uh paycheck a week goes by what the hell I hate to ask you again, but where's my paycheck? I mean That's the kind of environment that existed around andre at that time not saying that's the way he is now, but he was them Uh former contributor john cartwright now works at nintendo life Uh one of two who went unpaid for nearly a year told vice games He eventually made roughly 25 000 per year to write and publish videos all day Most days I would start work at 9 a.m. With a video request from sewers just as he was going to bed Uh said cartwright who was based in the uk but worked hours friendly to the u.s These requests sometimes didn't stop until midnight or the early hours of the morning if a nintendo direct aired I would sometimes find myself working up to 18 hours to cover its contents The workload was agonizing and it made me dread nintendo directs imagine These people that are so passionate about gaming and about nintendo dreading when a direct comes because they know The immense amount of work coming I can Understand this to a point because there's times I dread e3 because I go to e3 but It's a once a year thing for me like nintendo directs. I cover them But I don't sit there all day You know For 18 24, you know 48 hours You know beating my head against my keyboard Creating content around them, right? Um I it's gotta be stressful, man I just I know how bad e3 is for me and i'm sure e3 is even worse for game explain Uh, it's gotta be rough Um, so I guess good good thing there hasn't been really a real direct to the path I mean there was that nintendo very many but like a huge direct in the past year. I'm sure that's been a relief Um multiple contributors describe nintendo direct videos where the company often makes a bunch of unexpected notes In a rapid fire fashion as particularly brutal stretchers of work The numbers I've seen floating around in line just don't add up and I've always paid my independent contractors the rates We agreed upon in advance. This is the one thing andre seegers has said outside of Outside of his normal comments. So he said the numbers I've seen floating around It says talking about the one to two dollars per hour thing. I just don't add up And I have always paid my independent contractors the rates we agreed to in advance So he's admitting here That hey, we agreed to these rates ahead of time, which they did. Hello. That's what the contract is I don't owe them anything else Uh, and when he says, you know, the number I've seen floating around online just don't add up It's because when you're a contractor, there's no clock hours Okay, so when you know Steve puts in 48 hours of work into a review. Those aren't clocked hours andre. You're not tracking those hours You are probably not even fully aware of how many hours people are spending Because you don't you're not this shows a lack either He is aware and he's just You know trying to play devil's advocate or he's just Ignorant to the realities of what's going on, but then he doesn't seem ignorant because here's his next statement Crunch is a real issue in our intense industry and 100% committed to fair timely compensation Again pr speak he was he acknowledges crunch is real And that he's committed to fair timely compensation While previously stating I paid my independent contractors the rates we agreed upon Doesn't seem like you're compensating them for the extra work. I'm just throwing that out there It's unclear how much game we're playing makes per month. Okay, we've been over that before my minimum of 25,000 At least 300,000 a year You too algorithm stuff Boling for example is paid $550 a month regardless of how much work they did There were no set hours and were typically spilled into late into the night in the weekends 50 hours 100 hours 150 hours that all equated to $550 per month Derek bitner made a lot more obviously 60,000 game explain You know john made 1,250 a month. We talked about that So the atmosphere where was one where at any moment you could be pulled into work Messages phone calls and emails would show up at all hours Bitner would avoid going out to dinner worried he'd miss a piece of news Boling for example It was working a full time job talked about this before while contributing to game explain on the side And seekers would ask him to schedule lunch breaks So that he'd drive home and make a video for game explain during it I'm ashamed to say I did that Says steve guys Yeah, see this Andre knows the guy has a full-time job and is asking him to schedule his lunch breaks to Not even get a break from work to go home and do more work a guy. He's only paying $550 a month Yeah, forget lunch man. Go home and do some work for me Dude, if you want to think Andre didn't know what he was doing and didn't know how he was manipulating people and abusing the so-called friendships Come on There's nothing worse than telling someone who's working at their real-life job that actually pays the bills Who is a father of four who gets you know, maybe one hour long break a day Hey schedule that break around the time that I need you to make a video Dude You can't even go to work without worrying about game explain Pathetic It was often difficult for people to escape the game explain vortex too Bitner for example handled the channel streams for twitch and youtube Well, oh, yeah, and then talks about him wanting to do his own his own thing and then seagr's Made a confusing argument against him streaming on his own twitch. He said that if bitner was producing his own Content for himself It would prevent seagr's from ringing him on as a full-time employee of game game explain He dangled the prospect of more stable pay as a full-time employee in front of bitner Warning him that he were producing his own content. He'd be treated as a freelancer Basically said look you want to make your own content f you you can't work here as a full-time person um Yeah, that's bad curiously the extra money that but the money that bitner brought in from streams Yeah, yeah, all the money he brought in for streams was paid on youtube anyways from super chats was paid as an end of your bonus um And he had to keep track he had to keep the receipts of every single super chat Obviously, you know, you get minus 30 off of that YouTube's cut anyways a full-time offer was eventually made a bitner in the middle of a crisis as his wife And him were expecting a child and they're trying to buy a house at the same time And this is where andre went to bat for him and got him a Loan for a house while he was considering the contract and then he ultimately turned down the contract Um because it had let me see there was no pay increase Uh, no health benefits overtime compensation Uh would come in the form uh Overtime compensation would come in the form of vacation days and not increased pay. So while he would get vacation days He wouldn't get any increased pay from it. So they're not even really paid vacation days They're just hey, I'll allow you to have some vacation days Uh at your current salary But uh, you're not, you know, you're not going to get compensated with extra money for doing extra work Uh game explain would have control of republic appearances and morse like it couldn't be on podcast or anything It seemed very onerous and without much upside and he turned it down Um, obviously and then cedars spoke with the loan officer to help them get a Alone also bitter did note that there was one time that he had this is to andre's credit There was a unexpected health bill emergency and andre did fully pay that so Andre's not completely without a heart. I think that's I He is manipulative. He is abusive, but he's he has a heart somewhere in there I think he just got lost in the success of this channel Um, then we talk about talking about some other stuff Uh game explain is not a traditional publication. It's a youtube channel that serves as a hobby and over time We came to success Uh, so it was very cutthroat very competitive. So paul said if you're not first your last Rikki bobby uh that kind of thing and it's very clear that content was always king not us not our will be not our pay Ultimately, it's just sad this whole situation when game explain is sad Um, again, I there's moments in there where you could tell that andre Is a human and has a heart paying for derrick's health bill it there I don't think andre grew up Being this vindictive Being this manipulative. I think what happened is you came up at igm And you just learned a certain way of doing things and handling things And as the channel blew up he started handling things in that same way And he started to realize that when he let these people set their rates for their work Which you know, these are fans of game explain setting their rates Steve was a fan of game explain setting his rate. Of course, he said it. I don't know What's 550 bucks a month not even realizing what he's really signing up for $550 a month Um And andre knew the moment I had these guys locked into a contract I could guilt them and guilt them and guilt them some more into working insane hours without additional compensation And andre would reap more of the benefits. He took advantage of a situation he created Um, or allowed to be created by themselves and he used the justification. They set their prices They told me what they wanted to be paid He let basically knowingly let people set themselves up But it doesn't mean that he's always been a horrible person. He just Got wrapped up in success in my opinion of andre I think he just got wrapped up in the success of his channel and I can Raise my hand and say I've been guilty of some similar practices When zeldin former first got big I got wrapped up in the success of zeldin former It made like $10,000 one year which minuscule by the way got more views than game explain got last year by the way Just again more perspective. I got more views on zeldin former that year than game explain got All of last year and I may only made $10,000 Total and you know, I did a lot of work, right? I crunched like a mfr. I was doing 100 150 hour work weeks easily but I had other people on staff that were doing work as well And at the time I didn't compensate them for that work And I felt so guilty But I also didn't know what to do because here I am working 100 plus hour work weeks, you know barely making money I didn't know what to do at the time Eventually those people they get compensated eventually those people Were giving their cut and I later had to pay that entire $10,000 back into The website funds Which I did do it took me a couple years, but I did pay it all back the point is that Mistakes can be can happen when you become successful And I think Andre got caught up and then just formed really bad habits about using people I think once he lost everyone I'm hoping anyways that was a wake-up call Because remember you consider these people friends or at least pretended they were friends Maybe he was even hurt when they left and I'm thinking that he might have used that experience to hopefully treat the new employees better We hope because all the employees are defending him But those new employees would also still be under the guise of hey, they haven't really been there that long So they don't really know the long-term effect of what's happening around them is yet So we'll see We'll see I think game explain is going to recover But uh We'll see mainstream media is picking this up now and when mainstream media gets their hands on something like this That's when you know if you think the backlash is bad already This is nothing. All right folks I know I said I was done talking about game explain, but you know what I can't help but this story is just so fascinating to me I'll continue to cover it as there's maybe new information. I don't know if there will be there was some new information in this I just hope that at the end of the day everyone including Andre Comes out better for it. All right folks. I'll catch you guys in the next video